Page 9 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Nory laughed silently to herself: Jenna definitely did think so.
Jenna played a country vet in the soap operaDays and Nightsset in rural Surrey, and she pretended as best she could to hate being recognized and asked for selfies wherever she went. She read for audiobooks and radio plays, and she’d had a few bit parts in films, but she hadn’t yet made it properly onto the big screen. As a thirty-four-year-old woman, she knew her chances to play the leading lady in a blockbuster movie were dwindling by the day.
“Before too long,” she’d complained at their last lunch date, “I’ll start being offered mother roles. I don’t want to be the mother; I want to be the lead!”
With the likelihood of Hollywood calling lookingincreasingly slim, Jenna had turned her attentions toward the theater, claiming, “An actress has more longevity in the theater. The theater doesn’t cap women at the first hint of crow’s-feet!” Not that Jenna needed to worry about crow’s-feet; she’d been pumping her face full of Botox since her twenty-seventh birthday. Sometimes Nory found herself missing the things Jenna said because she was entranced by her paralyzed forehead.
Nory laid her phone back on her book pile and turned over, pulling the duvet over her head. The messages from Jenna had hauled her out of her thoughts maze and at last she knew she would be able to sleep.
It would be good to be all together again. They were—for the most part—as dear to her as family. Since opening the bookshop, Nory felt more comfortable in her own skin. She had found her calling, and that brought with it the inner peace that she had so craved in her twenties. And even though she still wasn’t sure she was adulting at full capacity (Would that come with age? Children? A mortgage? Fat chance.) she no longer felt like she was being left behind.
Three
Fancy a nightcap?” Ameerah asked as they reached the point when they would have to part ways to get home. They’d just left Andrew’s sister’s secondhand boutique, having scored a couple of reasonably priced evening dresses for Nory.
“Sure.” All that was waiting for Nory was a grumpy feline (she’d already nipped back after work to feed him) and packing decisions; what did one wear to a castle in the middle of winter?
They ended up in O’Malley’s, an ancient, crooked little pub near Kensington Gardens they’d discovered when they first moved to London, and which had become their favorite hideaway ever since. They sat up at the bar, sharing a tub of peanuts and taking bets on what song the drunks hogging the jukebox would choose next.
“ ‘Piano Man,’ ” said Ameerah.
“No way. They’ve got ‘Fairytale of New York’ written all over them.”
They waited. Sure enough, after a moment the sounds of violins filled the dimly lit pub, and the drunks began dancing and singing a terrible tribute to Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan. Ameerah shook her head laughing. “All right, you win. What’ll it be?”
“I’ll have a small glass of Chateauneuf, please.”
“A small?”
“It’s only Wednesday!”
“Lightweight.”
“Alcoholic.”
“Celibate.”
“Ooh,” Nory cried. “Low blow!”
“You need to stop holding out for Mr. Perfect and loosen up a bit. Have some fun. Have a one-night stand.”
“If you remember, my last one-night stand didn’t exactly end well.”
“Guy doesn’t count. A one-nighter should be anonymous.”
“I don’t want anonymous. I want... well, I don’t know what I want.” The barman rested her wine down on a coaster, and Nory took a sip.
“Don’t take it all so seriously. Look at me. I’m not going to fall in love with the man-Barbies; they’re simply a delightful way to pass the time.”
“What happened to man-Barbie Allan?”
“He was a flat-earther.”
“Really?”
“I mean, I know I’m not with them for their cerebral faculties, but if they must occasionally speak, I require them not to spout bullshit.”
“Fair enough. Have you checked man-Barbie Dev’s opinions on the whole flat-earth thing?”
