A Not Quite Perfect Christmas. Annie Lyons
chaotic family and of herself as a mother now compared to two years ago when she so nearly lost everything. It had taken the death of her darling dad to make her realise how lucky she was. She missed him every day. He would have found the idea of Diana, Rachel and Lily in New York vastly amusing and completely wonderful. Rachel composed a reply to Steve.
‘Missing you all too. Lady Gaga on a mission to use up all bubble bath in hotel. Call you later for proper chat x.’
She heard Lily getting out of the bath and went to see if she needed any help. She was wrapped in a gigantic towel and was attempting to fashion another into a turban for her hair.
‘Let me do that,’ said Rachel.
‘No, it’s fine. You always do it too tight,’ snapped Lily.
Rachel held up her hands in defeat. To say that Lily was an independent little girl would be like saying Bill Gates knew a thing or two about computers. From the moment she could speak, which in Rachel’s mind had been almost weeks into her existence, she had known exactly what she wanted. It was a self-confidence that astonished her parents, teachers and peers and, when coupled with the cleverness and steely sense of justice she also possessed, made her the small-girl equivalent of Marmite. Some people found her funny, charming and bright. Others found her precocious and irritating. Rachel had a foot in both camps.
At the parents’ evening towards the end of the summer term in Lily’s first year at school, her teacher had observed to Rachel and Steve, ‘I think you might have a future prime minister there.’
Rachel had shivered. It hadn’t been the first time that the comparison had been made and for Rachel, growing up in the eighties with the echoes of ‘Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher,’ still in her head, she wondered at the monster she might have created.
‘She might be the first female Labour prime minister,’ said Steve when they got home. They heard Lily demanding that Will make room for her on the sofa or she would throw his Skylanders in the bin. Steve winced.
‘Or dictator of the first republic,’ said Rachel with a worried look. ‘And I know for a fact that I’ll be first against the wall.’
Rachel followed her daughter out of the bathroom and watched as she rifled through her bag, flinging tops, jumpers and leggings onto the bed. She decided to let her get on with it. There was a confident tap at the door. Rachel opened it to find her mother standing before her, dressed in a casual jumper and trousers with a scarf around her neck.
‘Morning, Mum. You look very nice.’
‘Don’t say “nice”, Rachel. It shows such a lack of imagination.’
Rachel rolled her eyes and wondered if she should just give up trying. Between her mother and her daughter, there was no hope of pleasing anyone. She longed for one of Alfie’s tight little hugs and breathy, ‘I love you, Mama,’ sighs into her ear.
‘Morning, Granny,’ said Lily, pulling a jumper over her head.
‘Good morning, Lily.,’ Diana smiled. ‘How did you sleep?’
‘Very well, although Mum hogs the bed a bit,’ she said confidentially.
Rachel ignored the comment. ‘What about you, Mum?’
‘Oh, I never sleep for long these days,’ said Diana. ‘I watched some of that American television. Most of it was advertisements for things I’d never heard of.’
‘Well, I don’t know about you two but I’m ready for breakfast. Bacon, maple syrup and pancakes anyone?’ said Rachel.
Diana wrinkled her nose. ‘Sounds revolting.’
‘It’s actually really yummy, Granny,’ said Lily. ‘I had them at my friend Daisy’s house. Her mum’s American and they were delicious. Mum tried to make them once but she burnt them all.’
‘Well, you’ll have to show me,’ said Diana, taking her granddaughter by the hand.
Rachel shook her head and followed them out of the room.
******
Emma pulled the belt of her emerald-green wool coat tighter around her slim waist and shifted her bobble hat over her shoulder-length hair. She looked up at the clear blue sky and thought how much she loved New York. Before she had lived here, she had never considered there to be a city as wonderful as London. It was her birthplace and her home and its history, beauty and crazy, bustling cosmopolitanism had kept her happy and occupied for as long as she could remember. It also made her think of her dad and, like him, was the bedrock of her very existence.
New York was different but, two years into her secondment, she couldn’t imagine going back home. Not yet at least. It was like a thrilling roller-coaster ride that she didn’t want to end. On her first day in the city, she had strolled along the streets soaking up the atmosphere like a sponge. All she could think was, It’s just like in the movies. Here are the yellow taxis, here’s the steam coming up from the ground, here are the ‘Walk, Don’t Walk,’ signs, here’s a man selling knishes, I have no idea what they are, but I want one. And on and on it went. Fifth Avenue, Central Park, the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building, Tiffany’s oh Tiffany’s, it was all there, just as the films she had watched since the age of twelve had promised. And she loved it. And the best thing of all was that the offices of Allen Chandler Inc. were on Broadway. Broadway! Added to this, the supremely efficient office administrator, Delia, had found her an apartment on the Upper West Side so she could walk to work through Central Park. Central Park!
‘You just want to pretend you’re Rachel from Friends,’ Martin had joked. Emma had laughed, but it was partly true. You couldn’t help getting swept up by the romance of the place as you strolled through the park towards the heart of the city. Emma had felt immediately at home here. She loved the place, the people and their sense of humour. It was very like the British sense of humour: dry but less self-deprecating. She found that New Yorkers liked her because she was British; they were wryly amused by her in an indulgent way. She was having a ball.
As she approached the Allen Chandler building she looked up at its magnificent high-rise splendour and grinned. She pushed through the revolving doors and was immediately greeted by Don, the regular security guard.
‘Ooh, is he like Don Draper?’ Rachel had asked when Emma told her about him.
‘Hmm, not really,’ she replied, considering Don’s nineteen-stone bulk. ‘But he does a good impression of Joey from Friends.’
Don fixed her with a side-on grin. ‘Hey, Emma. How you doin’?’
‘I’m doing quite well, thank you, Donald,’ said Emma in the English aristocrat’s voice she reserved for their morning banter.
Don slapped his considerable thigh as he chuckled. ‘You crack me up. “Quite well, thank you, Donald.” That’s funny. You have a good day, now.’
‘You too.’ She smiled.
She was about to climb into the lift when a voice behind her shouted, ‘Hold that elevator!’ She turned to see Wendell Burke, fellow editor and a man as irritating as a bad case of piles, marching towards the lift. Emma sighed. Not everything about New York was perfect. They had wankers here too.
‘Good morning, Wendell,’ she said.
‘Emma Darcy. Why, the pleasure is all mine,’ he said in a terrible English accent. He thought he was being funny and clever. He was neither. ‘So how is project Brit-Lit coming on?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ said Emma.
‘I told Michael way back, why would you want to bring over this editor from England with her books on baking and football and the royal family? It’ll never work.’
‘Well, it just goes to show how wrong you can be.’
Wendell looked unimpressed. ‘You’ve had one book in the New York Times bestsellers