Page 120 of The Wake-Up Call

She nods, pulling her hair up and clipping it in place. “Sometimes you do need someone else to say it,” she says. “I don’t know why, but you do. Right. Shall we?” She gestures towards the door.

Izzy

I’m dotted in face paint. The band is playing Harper Armwright’s “December Kisses,” and a group of tipsy ladies are dancing an unrelated Scottish reel by the front desk; Charlie and Hiro are here, our very first success story of the Ring Thing, enjoying a glass of mulled wine by the fire with Mr. Townsend. Arjun has finally stopped laughing about the fact that I’m now Lucas’s girlfriend (“I am never going to let you live this down, Jenkins, you know that, right?”) and has even taken a short break from the kitchen to enjoy the festivities.

I am full to the brim with happiness. For a bright, freedom-filled moment, the future of the hotel doesn’t seem to matter, because right now we’re at our very best. Forest Manor Hotel is glowing with festive joy, and if you squint a bit, the sleet coming down outside the windows might even pass for snow.

And it’s almost time for Lucas’s Christmas present. Planned and pulled together late last night, in whispered phone calls taken while hiding in his bathroom, because until yesterday I was genuinely planning to buy him a lump of coal.

I just have one last thing to do before the clock strikes six, and it’s going to be unpleasant, no matter how joyful the mood in here.

Last week, I decided that unfinished business is bad for the soul, so I offered Drew Bancroft a job.

Well, only three hours’ work, making cocktails with Ollie. I’m notthatnice. But I thought an olive branch was overdue, and I kept thinking of her Instagram post about how she couldn’t find work. Before I knew it, I’d DMed her.

And now she’s here, filling a punch bowl with eggnog in the orangery. She’s rocking a serious-New-York-journalist kind of look which I can’t help admiring. It’s so weird seeing her in the hotel again. I hope this wasn’t a terrible idea. I was feeling very secure and loved-up when I reached out, but now I’m remembering seeing Drew at thelastChristmas party. Which was... awful.

I’m briefly waylaid greeting guests—the Jacobses, and Lucas’s friend Pedro, and a couple of the temps I’ve worked with this year—so by the time I get to her, she’s fully prepared to face me.

“Oh my God,hi,” she says, as if she had forgotten my existence until this very moment but is delighted to have been reminded. She reaches a long-nailed hand out to touch my arm across the bar. “I appreciated you reaching out.”

And finding me some work, I wait for her to say. She doesn’t.

“Hello, Drew,” I say, trying to sound olive-branchy. “How are things?”

“Listen, I’ve been thinking,” she says, entirely ignoring the question. Drew has always worked to her own script. “I want to tell you...” She pauses dramatically. “...That I forgive you.”

I stare at her. Beside her, Ollie freezes midway through zesting an orange, his eyes going wide.

“You’veforgivenme?”

“For kicking me out the way you did.”

“For... Drew. I did not kick you out.” My heart ispounding. I think of all the times I bit my tongue with Drew and tried to be a “good friend,” and I think of all the times I snapped at Lucas aboutsomething meaningless, and I can’t believe I got this so twisted. “Let’s recap: You knew how I felt about Lucas. You knew I wrote him that card. You kissed him under the mistletoe. I got upset. I asked you to give me the month’s rent you owed me and move out by the end of January. And then you threw a bauble at my head and stropped off.”

She rolls her eyes, and suddenly she looks exactly like the woman I lived with last year, despite the new hair and glasses.

“Izzy, please. The bauble thing was an accident.”

“How?” I ask, genuinely bewildered.

“I think you need to let stuff go?”

“Right,” I say, because there is definitely some truth in this. I am a grudge-holder. I can be petty. I know this. It has caused me some bother this year. “Well, if you say sorry, I am happy to let it go.”

“Say sorry?”

Ollie has stopped even pretending to make cocktails. He is just watching this unfold, half of a squished orange segment in his palm, a drop of juice trickling down to his elbow. Around us, the crowd mills and hums, and beyond them, the garden stretches out in frosty whites and greens through the orangery windows.

“Why would I say sorry when you were such a bitch about it?”

I take a deep breath, and I smile. My favourite smile, the one I reserve for the very worst guests.

There are times for olive branches, and then there are times for the sort of childish pettiness that a year of baiting Lucas has really helped me hone.

“Drew... you’re fired,” I say.

Her mouth drops open. “Excuse me?”

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