Being back in her parents’ house was like being on a different planet. Her dad had given her a bear hug at the train station, her mom had kissed both her cheeks when she’d walked through the door, and her older sister, Robin, had squeezed her tightly. Jules hadn’t realized how much she’d missed affectionate physical contact since Aaron had left.
She remembered Vivian touching her hand over a cup of La Colombe.
Oh no. This wasn’t happening. Vivian Carlisle was not going to cross her mind again until Jules had to return to New York.
Easier said than done. Everyone wanted to know about her exciting job working for a fashion publication in Manhattan. When she went out for a few drinks with college buddies, when she helped her sister set the table, even when she was hanging out with extended family at a party, Jules found herself trotting out the same old stories about busy days, late nights, designers, and celebrities.
And influencers. Her two younger cousins were excited about Jules getting to meet people with popular Instagram accounts and YouTube channels, and they wanted to know if Jules had any tips for growing their own audiences.
“I don’t do a lot with social media,” she tried telling them. “I’ve got a Twitter account, but I don’t have time to update it much.” She also hated Twitter. As a hustling writer, that was a cardinal sin, but she couldn’t help it. Her life was already full of frenetic activity—no need to add constant online chatter to the mix. “Mainly I’m a writer.”
“Where?” her fourteen-year-old cousin Madison asked. “Do you write for Du Jour?”
She’d be laughed out of town if she tried. “Maybe I will someday, but right now I’m just trying to break in. It’s tough. In fact, I’ve submitted to—”
Her twelve-year-old cousin Daniel looked at Madison. “Do you have the Switch? I want to play Mario Kart.”
“Let me get it,” Madison said with a clear expression of relief. “That’s, uh, really cool, Jules. Bye!”
Jules could take a hint. So much for the youth. In the meantime, The Cut still hadn’t gotten back to her, so Sigourney Weaver hadn’t been a good bet either.
Onward, then. Vox should be her next stop. At least she could try more serious fare.
Something had to land eventually.
* * *
On the morning before Christmas, Jules and her mother were drinking coffee at the kitchen table. “So,” her mother said, “any boys in the picture? Men,” she amended quickly.
Jules sighed. Surprising that her mom had waited two whole days. “Not unless you count Vivian’s driver,” she said gloomily. “I think he wants to ask me out.”
“Is he nice?”
Jules glared at her. “You’re the one who told me never to get involved with anybody I work with. You always said it was bad news.”
“Well, yes,” her mother said, “but is he nice?”
Jules groaned and took another sip of coffee. “Can we please change the subject?”
There was a pause. Then her mom said, a bit hesitantly, “Any…girls?”
Jules almost choked on her coffee.
“I’m just asking. I remember in college, you and—what’s her name?”
“Chelsea,” Jules said, her hands tightening on her mug. Chelsea had been a brief relationship in her junior year at Penn. They’d spent four months together before deciding they were incompatible, and Jules had met Aaron shortly after that. It was the only relationship with a woman she’d ever had, and sometimes she thought it had been a mistake to tell her parents. It let them ask awkward questions about more than one gender while clearly hoping she’d pick one over the other.
“Yes, Chelsea! So, you know, any girls?” Her mom’s voice was too bright, too full of hope that Jules would say no.
“No,” Jules said, trying not to sound depressed about it.
She gave her mom credit for keeping the relief off her face. “Well, just as long as you’re happy, honey.”
“Oh yeah.” Jules rose to her feet and took her coffee cup to the sink, even though it was still a quarter full. “I’m happy, Mom. Trust me.”
* * *
The morning of Christmas Eve dawned. Jules woke up already excited, as if she were a kid again.
The Morettis’ Christmas Eve followed a well-ordered tradition. It was filled with delicious food and last-minute gift wrapping. Jules’s grandparents arrived for dinner, armed with hugs for Jules, Robin, and Robin’s fiancé, Rick. Post-midnight mass, the family stayed up late drinking eggnog and singing Christmas carols, the quality of which decreased correspondingly with the eggnog intake.
By two o’clock in the morning, they’d be laughing more than they were singing and would applaud themselves before staggering off to bed. The older she got, the more Jules grew to appreciate it; time with her family felt more precious than any gift she’d receive the next morning.
Thinking of this and looking forward to the evening, Jules was ensconced in the recliner in the den. Might be time for a nap. She was just contemplating the climb upstairs to her bedroom when she heard her phone ringing in the kitchen. Groaning, she lumbered to her feet.
She idly checked the screen. Then she gasped. Vivian was calling. Vivian was calling. And even after all the surprises of the past few months, it seemed highly unlikely she just wanted to wish Jules a merry Christmas Eve.
Her father, who was sitting at the kitchen table, looked up from his newspaper. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Jules lied as she answered the phone. “Hello, Vivian?”
Her father sat up ramrod straight. “You’re kidding. Isn’t she in Lon—”
She held up a hand for silence as Vivian barked, “Michelle has pneumonia.”
“Uh…” Still stuffed and sleepy, Jules couldn’t think of anything to say but “I’m sorry.” She grimaced; she had to do better than that. “I mean, is she—”
“I dismissed her immediately, of course. I can’t have an assistant who coughs her lungs up all over my schedule.”
Jules shook her head as if that would help to clear it. “I’m, uh, sorry. Are you asking me to find a replacement or…”
“Be here by tomorrow,” Vivian said.
Jules’s voice died in her throat, and she stood stock-still at her parents’ kitchen counter, looking out the familiar window and watching traffic go by on the street where she’d grown up.
“Julia?” Vivian snapped, and Jules jumped.
Her father had risen to his feet and was looking at her with concern.
“Tomorrow?” Jules was short of air. “Vivian, I can’t. I’m home with my family—”
“Philadelphia has direct flights to London. I checked.”
“You did?” Jules blurted out. Then she recovered. “I mean, I guess so. But my passport is in New York.”
“What?” her dad said. “She can’t possibly want you to—”
She flapped her hand frantically at him. “Listen,” she said, inspired, “I know the London agency has other PAs. I’ll get them to send one over right now, and you won’t have the hassle of waiting for me.”
“Is there some part of ‘be here by tomorrow’ that you didn’t understand?” Vivian’s voice was a dangerous murmur.
Jules dug her free hand into her hair. “No, but—”
“Let me repeat myself, just in case: I. Want. You. Here.”
Jules closed her eyes. The words rolled through her, electric and irresistible. And that’s all there was to it. She was going to London, like it or not.
She didn’t like it. She couldn’t possibly like it.
“Use the company expense account,” Vivian continued. “Fly first class. There should be some available seats. You know how to make it happen.”
Of course she did. Vivian Carlisle’s name opened doors in a way that had to be seen to be believed. That didn’t make this okay. “I do, but—”
“Stopping by New York first will slow you down.” Vivian’s voice dripped with scorn for Jules’s thoughtlessness in not bringing her passport to Philadelphia. “Get the first flight out that you can.”
“Vivian—”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She ended the call.
Jules stared at the phone in her hand, her head whirling, wondering if she was about to pass out. Or if she could just go upstairs, take that nap she wanted, and pretend she’d never gotten a phone call at all. No, that was no good. Her heart was pounding so hard, she’d never get to sleep.
“Jules?” her dad asked, looking at her with wide eyes.
She met his eyes with a flinch. “Um,” she said miserably, “can you drive me to the train station?”