INT: EAST DULWICH ACADEMY—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 12:45 P.M.
EVIE is pacing in front of a set of double doors with covered windows. There’s a note tacked to the door showing a cartoon of a person falling off a pirate ship and the words Tick-tock! Latecomers walk the plank! A gray-haired man sits at the ticket desk, looking pointedly at his watch.
I peeled down the edge of the paper covering the window to peek inside the auditorium. The man at the desk cleared his throat. “Not yet,” he told me.
I’d got here at 12:31 p.m., but he’d insisted I wait until Peter Pan had finished singing “Spice Up Your Life” to the Darling children before heading to my seat.
The man tutted and I realized my phone was buzzing. Monty again. Of course NOB hadn’t spoken to him. What had I expected? Resigned, I checked the message.
It took me a moment to process it.
He’d sent me a picture of a freshly popped bottle of champagne, along with a rambling message.
NOB had sent Monty his idea—and the producers loved it.
I exhaled shakily as I read the message a few more times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. It was true. At last. I could relax.
Applause drifted through the doors. “Now?” I asked.
“You’re in the Baby block, seat D43,” the man called after me as I rushed inside. “Look for the pink carpet!”
The curtain had lowered for a set change, the glittering pirate ship on its surface shimmering as people moved unseen behind it.
“Excuse me, excuse me, so sorry, thanks so much.” I squeezed my way along the row until I got to the only spare seat.
It was next to Ben.
You’re here for Anette, I told myself firmly, sitting down.
The chairs were packed close together and the warmth from Ben’s body radiated all down my right side. I shifted in my seat.
“I didn’t think you were coming.” His words were clipped.
“I got held up,” I whispered back.
“Shhh!” a woman in front of us hissed.
The curtain lifted and a girl appeared onstage in her nightgown. I focused on her, determined to ignore Ben. “Oh my God. Is Justice Wendy?”
I should probably have been prepared for this possibility. Samantha had told me she and the other mums knew Ben from their kids’ school.
“Yes,” Ben said, something like amusement in his voice.
“Shhhh!” The same woman again. I gave her an apologetic smile.
Peter Pan appeared at the window.
“Is that Detty?” I exclaimed, sinking down into my chair.
“Shhhh!”
“Unfortunately.”
Why have I come? As if to remind me, Anette walked onto the stage.
Someone offstage ushered her farther forward and, slowly, she padded to the front, hands buried in the many layers of her skirt, Union Jack wings dazzling. My mother had worked her magic. I held my breath as a spotlight lit her, accompanied by a tinkling sound. Come on, Anette. You can do this!
Her dad leaned forward in his chair.
“What’s that, Tink?” Detty asked, for the second time.
When she still didn’t respond, Ben held his hand up high in the symbol for okay. I’d looked it up, curious, after I’d seen Anette use it in Gil’s. Anette spotted her dad first, then me. Her face relaxed.
Okay, she signed back, hand close to her chest. She pressed something on her bodice and her blue skirts lit up with the tiny star-shaped fairy lights my mum had threaded through the layers. There was a collective ahhh from the audience.
My breath caught when I saw the gloves I’d asked my mum to make. They were covered in silver crystals that flashed when Anette moved her hands. She started to sign, slowly at first, then picking up speed.
Finally, she smiled.
Ben was sitting so close that when he turned to me, I could see his brown eyes had warm amber tones in them, like whiskey held up to the light.
“Now everyone can see her shine,” I said.
When the curtain fell for the interval, Ben and I sat in silence.
“I’m going to assume,” I said eventually, “that Anette does not like Justice.”
“Well, she didn’t stop at ‘silly ass,’” Ben agreed.
I hadn’t needed to be able to read sign language to figure out that Anette wasn’t exactly sticking to the script. It was perfectly clear in the way that Ben had gone from watching his daughter with a fierce pride to burying his head in his hands whenever she appeared onstage.
Detty had been oblivious, “translating” her signs for the audience exactly as they were written. Anette would most probably have got away with it completely, had it not been for the row of kids Ben told me were from East Dulwich Academy’s sign language class, who’d spent the entire time in peals of laughter.
“To be fair,” I said, smiling a little, “the audience was probably distracted.”
“Peter Pan meets the Spice Girls does make for a striking mash-up.” Ben’s tone was bone dry.
“I’m not sure the wind machine was strictly necessary.” It had almost blown several of the “Spice Boys” clean off the stage.
“I think it was their ode to nineties pop music.”
“What lyrics did the Spice Boys sing to ‘Wannabe’?”
“‘If you wanna be my mother, you’ve got to get with my friends.’”
I caught his eye and we both smiled. Then I remembered what he’d said to Samantha about me last weekend.
“It was really great seeing Anette so confident,” I said, keeping us on common ground. She had been prancing all over the stage by the end of the first act, completely stealing the show.
“I haven’t seen her like that for years. Not since before Chloe . . .” He trailed off, and suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t like me.
“How long has it been?” I asked gently.
“Almost three years.” I’d put money on him knowing the actual amount of time, right down to the day. “We’re okay. Christmases are still . . .”
“Christmases are tough,” I finished.
A beat. “You lost someone too,” he said softly.
I didn’t normally like to talk about it. “My dad,” I said, indicating the room. “Being here reminds me of him, actually. He used to come to all my film screenings when I was a student. My equivalent of the school play,” I explained. “I’d never sit with him in the audience. I’d peek into the room during the film so I could see his reaction. He always had this look. Like he was proud, but also the tiniest bit sad. I never really figured it out.”
“Ah,” said Ben. “The ‘How did I help create such a wonder and why is she growing up so quickly?’ look. A dad specialty.”
I smiled. “Is that what that was?”
His eyes crinkled.
“Chloe must have loved seeing Anette perform,” I said, encouraged.
Ben looked away. “This was her first time on stage.” When he fell silent, I thought maybe I’d overstepped, but then he spoke again. “Normally, whenever Anette does something new, that’s when I miss Chloe the most. When it feels most unfair. But tonight, Anette has never seemed more like her. Her mum practically grew up on stage. She would have loved seeing Anette up there, bad language and all. Plus,” he said, lifting the corner of his mouth, “she was a really big fan of the Spice Girls.” I smiled with him. Then he gestured to the stage and said, “How can I think Chloe isn’t here when Anette is right there?”
It was the most Ben had ever said to me. It made me wonder if I’d misunderstood something last weekend.
“Ben, I—”
“Ben! I thought that was you.” A woman had swiveled round in her seat to face us, cutting off whatever Ben might have said next. Her face lit with obvious interest. It occurred to me that, to her, Ben was an eligible single dad. The school-gates equivalent of the film industry unicorn. Tall, dark and brooding, as Samantha had so thoughtlessly put it. Ben, for his part, didn’t seem to notice. “Aren’t you our official photographer?”
I felt him tense beside me, though his voice was polite. “Not anymore, Ann.”
“Well, you’re used to a bit more excitement than a school play, no doubt.”
“I was always glad to do it,” Ben replied. “I’m just no longer a photographer.”
“But aren’t you always off up a mountain somewhere?”
There was a pause. “I . . . I work for the local council now.”
“Then whose camera is that?” The woman stabbed a finger toward the one sticking out of the canvas bag at his feet. It had a rainbow strap.
“Mine,” I said, picking it up. I’d never seen him quite so rattled. It made me want to rescue him. “I specialize in selfies, mainly, so I’m not sure I’d be much help either.”
To demonstrate, I angled the camera toward us both. “Smile, Ben.” It flashed in our faces. Ben blinked rapidly.
“Okay.” Ann’s smile took on a polite edge. “Well, Ben, if you ever change your mind . . .”
Ben nodded, relieved. It was only when she’d turned back around again that I felt him ease up.
“Thank you,” he said, quietly.
“It was nothing.” I couldn’t shake the thought of him being a photographer. What made you give that up, Ben? The man was a puzzle, one I had no business solving.
We both spotted them at the same time: a group of parents gathered at the front of the stage, looking over the audience. At us, I realized with a start. I recognized Justice’s and Detty’s mothers, who did not look pleased, and Samantha, who did. They were standing around a tall woman in her fifties with a severe bob that swung as she headed over to us.
“Ben.” The woman had an air of reluctant duty. She wore a black shift dress and platform boots. I guessed we’d found the Spice Girls fan. “Can we have a quick word before the second half starts?” The gaggle of parents still stood by the stage, all taking enormous care to look like they weren’t staring.
“Yes, Mrs. Clarke,” Ben said, tucking in his chin like he was in trouble. “Just tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
I bit back a surprised laugh. Mrs. Clarke didn’t look as if she appreciated the humor.
Up onstage, Anette’s head appeared between the curtains. As soon as she caught sight of her teacher with her dad, she disappeared.
Ben sighed. “I’ve got to go catch myself a fairy.”
When the curtain closed for the final time, I stood to leave, lifting my satchel. It was heavier than usual, reminding me of what was inside. Whatever had transpired backstage had kept Ben occupied for the rest of the performance. I badly wanted to find Anette, but that meant risking bumping into a certain group of parents.
“Evie!” Anette was pushing her way toward me through the throng, still in her costume and trailing glitter. “You came!” she squealed. The red ribbon was missing from one of her pigtails.
“You were spectacular,” I told her.
“I have some apologies to make,” she said, as if repeating dutifully a line that she’d been given.
I bent low so I could whisper in her ear. “Tink would have been proud.”
She grinned. “My dad said to come and get you. He’s backstage with my head teacher. Come on, I’ll show you.” She grabbed my hand and danced ahead of me, taking me up the steps and onto the stage.
We pushed through the curtain and stepped onto the dimly lit set. “Wait for me right here,” she told me, positioning me next to the wooden pirate ship and backing away. “Dad wants to speak to you.”
“Wait, Anette!” I called after her, sure she was mistaken, but she’d vanished into the wings.
Several minutes passed as I listened to parents attempting to round up their children behind the thin partition at the back of the stage.
Finally I heard footsteps.
“Anette?” It was Ben, looking harassed.
“It’s just me,” I called.
Ben picked his way through the Spice Boys’ den toward me. As he stepped over Tiger Spice’s canoe, his shoe got caught. I reached out to steady him as he extricated himself.
“Hi,” Ben said.
“You wanted me?” I said.
He frowned, studying my face as he took a step closer. “I thought you wanted me?”
I shook my head, puzzled, then caught sight of a bunch of mistletoe strung up on the bow of the pirate ship. It was tied there with red ribbon. Anette.
Was she trying to set us up? Surely not. And yet—this could be a scene straight out of Love Actually.
I flushed, praying Ben didn’t follow my gaze, so of course he did.
“Ah,” he said. “Evie, I—”
A blast of air hit me from behind like I’d been whacked with a pillow. Unable to grab hold of anything in time, I smacked bodily into Ben. He tried to peel me off, but I could get no more than a few inches away before I was sent careening back into his chest. He opened his mouth as if to say something, only to inhale the end of my braid.
“Justice Merriweather, the wind machine is not a toy!” Mrs. Clarke bellowed as Ben choked. The wind abruptly shut off and a piercing giggle rang out, followed by racing footsteps.
We quickly disentangled ourselves, Ben straightening his shirt and wiping his mouth. A smile tugged at my lips as I pulled my cardigan down from around my shoulders. Then I saw his expression.
“Evie,” he said gravely, “I need you to know. I’m not interested in being any part of what you’re doing.”
I stared at him, shocked. “I’m sorry?”
Ben indicated the machine, the mistletoe. “This is a meet-cute, isn’t it?”
Did he seriously think I’d set all this up for him?
“Believe me, Ben,” I snapped, cheeks burning. “You’d be the last person I’d want to meet.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that his daughter was behind this when she’d only been trying to help. I yanked at my satchel, pulling out the gift I’d brought with me, the reason I was late to the play. “Here, for Anette. This is what I came back here for.”
Ben took it from me, touching the edge of the large bow that was wrapped around the metallic-green paper. “It’s secondhand,” I said, as I turned to leave, knowing he’d have no idea what it was I had given him. “But loved. I wanted Anette to have it.”
I found a sheepish Anette standing in the wings. She threw herself at my legs. “Happy Christmas, Evie. I’m glad we met you.”
“I’m glad I met you too,” I said, throat tight. I didn’t look back at Ben.
This time there was no mistaking the message. Ben thought I was a complete fool, and his opinion of me wasn’t changing any time soon.