I could not have been any happier to find three Max Brenner cookies inside the second box and had already inhaled half of one before I even opened the accompanying envelope.
‘Oh,’ I smiled, face covered in chocolate, lap covered in crumbs. ‘Rockefeller Plaza, please.’
The driver nodded in the rear-view mirror and pulled out into traffic, turning right onto 13th Street and then heading up Sixth Avenue. I sat back in the plush leather seat, enjoying the warm air blowing around my feet, and imagined for a moment how it must feel to be as rich as Cici. No wonder she considered me poor. I lived in Brooklyn, I bought clothes on sale, I worked because I had to, not just because I wanted to. I took the subway, ate two-dollar slices of pizza at three in the morning on my way home from a dive bar where the drinks were two for one all night … and I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything. I had no idea what her romantic status was but I had to assume it wasn’t terribly happy. Anyone getting laid regularly wouldn’t have the energy to put into making other people so incredibly unhappy. I wasn’t rich but I wasn’t poor and, most importantly, I was happy. And I had a cookie and an iPhone five as well, but all of those things were definitely related.
Rockefeller Plaza was almost forty blocks north of Union Square but most of the bad traffic was leaving the city and so I hopped out of the car on Sixth and 50th less than fifteen minutes later. I hastily chomped a piece of dried-out old chewing gum I’d found at the bottom of my poor, abused Marc Jacobs bag in an attempt to de-cookie myself, hoping that I was about to find Alex at the Rockefeller Christmas tree. It was, after all, where he had proposed two years ago. The plaza was busy. It seemed like every tourist in New York who wasn’t at the Christmas market on Union Square was lining up to ice skate but it wasn’t hard to spot the person waiting for me underneath the tree. It was never hard to spot Jenny Lopez.
She’d got changed since our excursion to Macy’s and was wrapped up in a bright pink wool coat, knee-high black leather boots on her feet and her hair tied up and away from her face to stop it frizzing out in the snow. And to show off her white fur earmuffs.
‘Jenny!’ I waved madly as I approached, a little worried by the scowl on her face. Maybe she was still mad with me? ‘Jen?’
‘Angie,’ she sighed and gave me a standard kiss on the cheek, pulling the earmuffs down and wrapping them around her neck. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You get hit on by crazies hanging out here on Christmas Eve.’
Relieved that the filthy look wasn’t for me, I kissed her back and held out my arms.
‘So what’s the deal here?’ I asked.
‘OK, so you need to get some skates, do three laps around the rink and then you’ll see your box is dangling from the tenth branch of the Christmas tree,’ she explained, laughing at the look of horror on my face. ‘Nah, I’m fucking with you. Here.’
She handed me another gold box. This was even smaller than the previous two. There was definitely no cookie inside this time.
‘Your husband is crazy,’ she said, punching me in the arm. ‘You lucky bitch.’
‘You’re the one who’s having a baby with a Hollywood actor,’ I replied, smiling. ‘That’s pretty lucky.’
‘Yeah, we’ll see,’ she shrugged. I started to raise my eyebrow but this wasn’t the time or the place. ‘Maybe.’
‘You’re both still coming for dinner tomorrow, yeah?’ I asked, slipping the box into my pocket. I could open it back in the car – there was some one-on-one Jenny time needed, no matter how brief.
‘I am,’ she said, poking my nose gently and smiling a smile that I knew was a complete cover-up. ‘Who knows where Mr Jacobs might be. He’s kind of unreliable.’
‘Kind of,’ I agreed. ‘Thank goodness you’re completely sane and entirely dependable at all times.’
‘Thank goodness,’ she agreed, setting her hands on my shoulders and pushing me away. ‘Now go, you have a date to keep.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ I called over my shoulder as I left. ‘I want you there to open presents.’
‘I’ll be there,’ she promised, slipping the earmuffs back over her ears. ‘Merry Christmas, Angie baby.’
The last box was so small that I couldn’t imagine what was inside. The directions on the letter told us to head towards 350 Fifth Avenue and even though I promised the driver this would be the last stop, he still sighed and turned the radio up a little louder as soon as I got in the car. I gave him half of my last cookie out of guilt and immediately regretted it when I saw him toss it onto the passenger seat. Bastard.
Inside box number three was what seemed to be a credit card. I turned it over again and again but there was nothing written on it, it was just a white plastic card with a black magnetic strip. It wasn’t anything special.
‘350 Fifth Avenue,’ the driver announced as the car stopped in the middle of a boring-looking block. ‘This is it.’
‘Really?’ I said, looking around. ‘Do you know which building it is?’
‘It’s the big one,’ he replied. ‘Goodnight, miss.’
I hopped out of the car, narrowly avoiding an extremely slushy puddle, and looked up. It was the big one. The biggest one in fact. It was the Empire State Building. I fingered the credit card, turning it over in my hand and shaking my head. I didn’t even want to know how he’d managed this or what was waiting for me. I just wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life. The before, the almost. The way my heart was beating even faster than the first time he’d brought me here and the way I always wanted to feel.
The attendant grinned when I walked through the door and showed me straight into a lift, passing all the crowds waiting in the queue.
‘Ms Clark.’ He held open the doors and pointed towards my key card. ‘That’s gonna take you right up to the eighty-sixth floor. No need to switch.’
‘Thank you.’ I knew I was blushing but I couldn’t help it. For the first time in an age, I was nervous about seeing Alex. Not because I’d ruined his favourite shirt at the laundrette, not because I’d eaten the last doughnut after promising I would leave it for him and not because I’d been an absolute moron and risked our relationship with my appalling interpersonal skills. Well, not just because of that. It felt like our first date all over again. It felt like the day he’d taken me out and shown me his city, only the last time it was so sunny I’d burned the back of my neck and this time it was so cold I could hear my own teeth chattering. I looked down at the hand holding the key card and saw my wedding and engagement rings. I supposed they made things different as well. It just didn’t feel like it sometimes.
The butterflies in my stomach were sorely tested by the speed of the express lift, and when I stepped out onto the eighty-sixth floor observatory, they had vertigo, travel sickness and were buzzing around as though I’d done nothing but drink coffee and eat sugary cookies all day. Oh, wait … but there was no time to be nervous. The crowds were sparse on the open-air terrace – it was snowing and temperatures were dipping below freezing after all, but everyone up there was so happy. All I could see were smiling faces and shining eyes. Christmas in New York did that to people. It was one of the reasons I loved the season and loved the city so much. But not nearly as much as I loved the man I saw leaning against the wall opposite me. Alex raised a bare hand and curved his lips into a smile, his hair highlighted with snow that sparkled red and green from the lights above.
‘Hey,’ he said as I approached, pulling me in close, his chest still warm even though he was only wearing a leather jacket. It was bitter this high up but Alex was never cold. He was always warm enough for both of us. ‘You found me.’
‘You sang Mariah for me,’ I whispered into his neck as I nestled my face under his chin. ‘This is amazing. You are amazing.’
‘It’s Christmas,’ he replied. ‘Miracles can happen.’
‘You are a miracle,’ I said, running my arms around his waist and rubbing my cold hands against the soft wool of his sweater. ‘I can’t believe you did this.’
‘I know things have been tough lately,’ he said, pressing his forehead against mine and kissing me lightly. ‘I wanted to remind you of some of the good times. How we got here in the first place. How I fell in love with you.’
‘I’ve never forgotten that,’ I promised, kissing him back harder, hoping that I could explain without words. ‘And I never will. I know I get caught up in other stuff and I know I clam up and don’t talk when I’m stressing out but I am always, always in love with you.’
‘I was pissed that you didn’t tell me about the doctor stuff,’ he admitted, pressing a hand against my cheek. ‘I was pissed that you were keeping it from me. And then I was pissed at myself for making you feel like you couldn’t tell me.’
‘Oh God, don’t.’ My blue eyes met his green ones and not a single sight in all of Manhattan could have torn them away. ‘It wasn’t that. I had to process it all first, that’s all. I know I can tell you anything. I was just being stupid.’
‘And you’ve made an appointment to see the doctor?’ he asked, brushing my hair away from my face, his fingers catching carefully in its snowy tangles. ‘And we’ll go together?’
‘Not yet,’ I admitted. ‘But today was something of a write-off. I will, on Thursday, I swear it.’
‘And you know it doesn’t matter what she says, right?’ Alex looked super serious for a moment. It didn’t happen that often so when those sleepy eyes were open and alert, I paid attention. ‘Because I already have everything I want. I had it from the day we met in that coffee shop. I knew it the day we came up here together and I knew it for sure the day I gave you that ring.’
I looked down at my engagement ring and bit my lip. The snow was already making my mascara work so hard, there was no need to push it to the limit with tears.
‘And what about Max Brenner’s?’ I asked.
‘Oh man, I just needed to send your folks some place,’ he laughed. ‘Get them out of the house.’
‘They’re here for a week,’ I reminded him. ‘I think they’ll be hanging out there a lot.’
He leaned over me, shielding me from the snow as it began to come down in big, heavy flakes, and pressed his lips against mine. His mouth was warm and familiar and the feeling in my stomach began to spread all over my body as I pulled him towards me, standing on my tiptoes to get as close as humanly possible to the man I loved.
‘If you carry on like that we’re gonna get arrested,’ he said in a low, broken voice as he pulled away. ‘Save it till we get home.’
‘How about the cab on the way home?’ I replied, grabbing his collar and pulling him back into me. ‘Home seems very far away.’
‘You’re all talk, Angela Clark,’ Alex said, the same longing in his words that I felt in myself. It seemed as though it had been a long time since we’d been together. ‘Let’s get out of here so I can give you your real present.’
‘You do mean we’re going home to do it, don’t you?’ I asked as he took my hand and led me back towards the lifts. ‘Because a girl’s got needs.’
‘Yes, that’s what I meant,’ he said, shaking his head as we went. ‘We’re going home to “do it”. You and your romantic soul.’
‘One of a kind,’ I said, poking myself in the chest. ‘They don’t make them like this anymore.’
‘They really don’t,’ he replied. ‘Thank God.’
Christmas Day was exactly what Christmas Day was supposed to be.
Grace woke us all up far too early and when she jumped on top of me at six a.m., I was thankful that Alex had remembered to put his underwear back on after our late-night stealth sex session. Louisa and Tim emerged from the makeshift guestroom in the basement holding hands and looking incredibly awkward but clearly we weren’t going to be having any epic conversations while my mother was marching around insulting my selection of vegetables and preheating the oven to nuke the turkey.
While me and Lou helped Grace open her pile of presents, my dad poured the boys an Irish coffee while my mum wasn’t looking, and pretty soon everyone had a bacon sandwich in one hand (except for me who was a third of the way into a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, as was tradition) and a drink in the other. Once the mountain of presents Grace had managed to amass were open and strewn across the apartment, Alex allowed us all to open one gift each, having been brought up by abusive parents who only let him open his presents after lunch. I sat impatiently, watching everyone else ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over their gifts while trying to select the most likely-looking box under the tree. I picked the gift bag that contained a six-pack of knickers from M&S and three pairs of black opaque tights. I was not amused. After making the usual complaints when I turned on the TV, insisting that Christmas was family time and we didn’t need the ‘goggle box’ on, Mum eventually piped down when I gave her the latest James Bond on DVD and told her she could put it on while we all got showered and dressed in our nice clothes.
While some quiet time might have been what I wanted, it wasn’t what I needed. The idea of lounging around on the sofa with nothing better to do than annoy Alex all day long still sounded pretty great, but nothing could have made me happier than seeing my dad bouncing Grace on his knee while my mum and Alex, both resplendent in aprons Mum had brought from home, argued over whether or not to cut tiny crosses into the bottom of the sprouts before boiling them.
It was a proper Clark family Christmas.
Or at least it was until Jenny, Craig, Graham and James arrived with a bottle of tequila and a half-eaten pizza. According to Jenny, it was a Lopez family tradition but if it was, it was the first I’d ever heard of it. Not that a little thing like bullshit stopped me from taking a shot, obviously. Almost eight hours after the turkey had been brined, basted, cooked, carved and then microwaved out of my mother’s sight to get rid of any red bits, and our new dining table was covered in nothing but remains of the carnage that had been Christmas dinner, we left Mum with her two favourite Jameses – Bond and Jacobs – and let Dad pass out on the sofa while the rest of us headed out for a post-lunch stroll-slash-drink.
‘Everything’s all right then?’ I asked Louisa as we climbed the stone staircase. ‘With you and Tim?’
‘I wouldn’t say all right,’ she said, sniffling a little from the cold. ‘But he isn’t cheating. He is mates with that girl who’s been texting him and I’m not convinced she’s not having a go at him but he says she’s got a boyfriend and she’s just one of the lads and there’s nothing to worry about. But he did admit he’s been a bit shit lately.’
‘A bit shit doesn’t send you running off over the Atlantic,’ I replied, too much turkey straining against my jeans. I wondered if I could pop open the top button without anyone noticing.
‘Very shit then,’ she bargained. ‘From what I can gather, he’s been sat in front of the PlayStation in his boxers and feeling sorry for himself. He says he thought I wasn’t coming back.’
‘Then why didn’t he try to get you back?’ I asked, a very clear picture of Tim’s bachelor week in my mind. ‘Hasn’t he completed Grand Theft Auto yet?’
‘He says he was scared,’ she whispered. ‘He actually said he was too scared.’
‘Ohhh.’
We both stared in wonder. An English man. Having feelings. And admitting to them. Scandalous.
‘And I have to admit, I haven’t been on my best wife-ing behaviour either,’ Louisa said. ‘I’ve been too preoccupied with Grace and we fell off the radar. We both need to try harder if we want it to work. I feel so silly for overreacting now.’
‘It’s so easy to fuck it all up, isn’t it?’ I blinked as we reached the top of the stairs and walked out onto Brooklyn Bridge. ‘It happens before you know it.’
‘I think a lot of the time, it’s not one big thing,’ Louisa said. ‘I think it’s loads of little things. By the time the big thing comes along, it’s already dead. I hope we’ve caught it in time. I really do love him.’
‘I know,’ I said, squeezing her hand. ‘And he knows. Like you said, you just have to try sometimes. I’ve thought about getting it tattooed onto the insides of my eyelids.’
‘What are you guys whining about?’ Jenny crashed hard into the pair of us, throwing her arms around our shoulders and jumping up and down. ‘It’s CHRISTMAS!’
‘We were just deciding whether to throw you off the bridge now or on our way back,’ I replied, pushing her away. She was far too strong for such a small woman. ‘What do you think?’
‘You’re supposed to wait an hour after eating before you swim,’ she replied, sticking out her tongue. ‘So let’s do it on the way back. And then I’ll swim back to your place and kick your ass.’
‘She’s going to make a great mother,’ Lou said, smiling against the sunlight.
‘Yeah, maybe just not yet.’ Jenny pushed into the middle and linked arms with us both. ‘I think maybe I’m gonna hang in there and save up for that Birkin this time.’
‘You’re getting a handbag instead of a baby?’ Lou was rightly confused.
‘I’m gonna wait a little while longer and see if I can’t find a Birkin of a boy to knock me up,’ she explained. ‘Not that I don’t love the shit out of James but I need someone who will be around. And he can’t promise that he will be. Or rather he will promise and then he’ll flake and if that’s the way it’s gonna be, I’d rather hit up the sperm bank.’
‘I told you, I’ll make a baby with you.’ Craig appeared at my elbow and pulled Jenny out of the chain, tossing her over his shoulder. ‘It’ll be my Christmas gift to you.’
‘Because you didn’t get me anything, you cheap bastard.’ Jenny pounded on his back with small fists but she was laughing as he charged forwards, running off across the bridge.
‘I really, really hope that he’s joking,’ Alex said, taking my free hand in his. ‘That is not a christening I want to go to.’
Lou squeezed my arm lightly and let go of the other side, jogging to catch up with Graham and Tim. I raised my hand over my eyes to see the outline of Grace, happily swaying from side to side on her daddy’s shoulders.
‘And you know we’d be putting it through college,’ I replied, smiling at the happy-ish family. ‘And taking it to college. And picking it up from college. And feeding it and clothing it and everything else-ing it.’
‘I’ll get him sterilised first thing in the morning,’ Alex said gravely. ‘And you can get the Pill injected, right? Can you make your doctor friend give her that?’
‘I’ll give it to her myself,’ I promised. ‘I’ll tell her it’s Botox to stop her arse from sagging.’
‘She does have a great ass,’ Alex admitted, tilting his head to the side to get a better look. ‘I’ve got to give her that.’
I shoved him a little but he was right. She did have a great arse. That was one of the reasons I wasn’t worried about her finding a man.
‘But it’s not as great as yours, my love,’ he said, kissing the top of my head.
‘Obviously,’ I replied, lifting my face up towards him for a proper kiss.
We stalled for a bit, hanging back while the rest of the gang walked on and leaned against the barrier, looking out at the Statue of Liberty. It was hard to see anything when the sun was so bright but the sky was blue and the water glittered beneath us, keeping Brooklyn and Manhattan at a safe distance. Close enough to wave but not near enough to start any trouble. The spiky skyline of the city was completely greyed out as the sun leaned over into the west but Brooklyn sparkled. The windows of the warehouses and fancy apartment buildings on the waterfront glowed orange with the reflected late afternoon light and there were patches of snow that had settled on Christmas Eve and gone undisturbed overnight. I imagined me and Alex taking our child there and building snowmen or throwing snowballs. I imagined taking him or her over to the carousel in the summer and taking pictures to send to my mum and dad. Playing in the park, taking them to school for the first time, sitting on our stoop and watching Alex teach them to ride a bike on our new street. For the first time, I really imagined what it would be like to not just be us anymore, but to be a family.
‘You’re quiet,’ Alex whispered into my ear.
‘It’s a Christmas miracle,’ I replied in a voice just as low.
‘You’re having a good day?’ he asked, turning his back on Lady Liberty and leaning in towards me. ‘Or at least a better day than yesterday?’
‘I’m having the best day,’ I said, meaning every word. ‘And Mum remembered to bring my pork pies so it’s only going to get better.’
‘I’m going to make every day better,’ Alex promised, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand. ‘That’s my job. That was part of the whole marriage deal.’
‘I missed that part of the vows,’ I smiled. ‘But it sounds nice.’
I looked over to see Graham throwing Grace high in the air while she screamed with laughter. Tim and Louisa were holding hands, her head resting on his shoulder, and Jenny and Craig were stumbling alongside them, stopping every few steps to kiss like teenagers. Probably because they were drunk like teenagers. It felt good to see everyone smiling and I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly be happier than I was at that exact moment. I felt as though someone had emptied out all the stress and the worry and the panic and filled me up with light and sunshine and assorted Disney characters. That or I was very, very drunk.
‘Merry Christmas.’ Alex kissed the top of my head and pulled me by the hand, hurrying to catch up with the others. ‘Come on. You can open the rest of your presents when we get back. I’ve heard a rumour that there might be shoes.’
‘I’m coming,’ I said, letting him drag me along. ‘You don’t have to bribe me with footwear.’
‘Since when?’ he asked, eyebrow arched. ‘Shoes, Angela Clark, there are shoes waiting for you.’
I laughed and I picked up my pace but I wasn’t in a rush. I wasn’t in a rush for anything. I had everything I needed right there with me on that bridge, and it was more than enough.