Page 67 of Christmas Is All Around
And suddenly, shedidfeel a little bit grateful.
“Thank you,” she said to her sister now. “You’re right, and I have some things to think about.”
Ava nodded, pushing off the counter to come over and give Charlotte a quick, fierce hug. “Don’t think too long. Because I’m guessing there’s a handsome Englishman who’s currently having an absolutelymiserableChristmas in his fancy old house.”
“Join the club,” Charlotte muttered, reaching for a clean glass and turning on the tap. The problem, she thought as she filled her glass, was that everything Ava said made perfect sense… and yet. She couldn’t shake the knee-jerk impulse she had to recoil at the thought thatGraham, of all things, was tied up inChristmas, Trulytoo. She’d wanted this one thing for herself.
And she didn’t know how to move past it.
Sometime later, their parents called. It was late in the afternoon by that point—not surprising, given the time difference—and Ava grimaced at the name on her phone screen when it lit up, waving it at Charlotte to catch her attention.
Charlotte groaned. “Please, no.”
“It’s Christmas—we have to!” Ava tossed her mane of hair over one shoulder, straightened as if bracing herself for battle, and answered. “Hi, Mom and Dad! Merry Christmas!”
“I didn’t know her voice was capable of reaching that pitch,” Simone said in an impressed whisper to Charlotte.
“It’s all that training for the stage,” Charlotte whispered back. “She has incredible vocal range.”
“Yes, Alice is right here,” Ava said now, in response to whatever their parents had said on the phone. She waved a hand at Kit, who was balancing Alice on his knee while trying to eat a sizable portion of Christmas pudding at the same time. He blinked at her, then proffered the baby, who Ava accepted. “Alice, do you want to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa?” Alice obligingly made some incoherent babbling noises, and then tried to tug Ava’s necklace off. Ava paused, frowning, for a long moment as she waved her offspring in Kit’s direction and listened intently. “Mom, Alice is six months old; she can’t actuallyspeak.” Another, longer pause. “I think that’s an unreasonable expectation of a baby, frankly.” Yet another pause. “Let’s let her learn English first before we start worrying about teaching her French.”
Charlotte blinked at this, suddenly wishing that she were privy to both ends of this conversation—not an emotion she regularly experienced when it came to her parents. However, in a true case of “be careful what you wish for,” at that precise moment Ava said brightly, “Did you want to talk to Charlotte? She’s sitting right here!”
Charlotte frantically waved her arms at her sister, offering a cartoonish grimace in case her meaning wasn’t already clear, but Ava pointedly ignored all this and merely brandished the phone at her.
Shooting her sister a look that promised retribution at some future date, Charlotte took the phone. “Hello, parents,” she said, trying not to sound too weary already.
“Charlotte, do you know that I was asked about you at a party the other day?” her father asked without so much as a “Merry Christmas” to ease into things. “It was at Tom Gallagher’s, and I ran into one of his old production partners, who wanted to know if there wasanything they could do to persuade you about theChristmas, Trulyreboot.”
Charlotte counted to five before replying. “No, Dad, I think I made myself perfectly clear earlier. I’m not an actress, and I have too much work to do these days, anyway.”
“Do you?” Her father sounded mildly surprised. “All those watercolors on Instagram keeping you busy?”
She took a slow breath; her instinct, previously, would have been to flare up and argue—they’d certainly spent enough Christmases doing just that, at whatever far-flung location they’d happened to land on that year.
Now, however, her earlier conversation with Ava crossed her mind, and so she took another breath, counted to three, and simply said, “Yes, they are. I actually have a meeting in New York next month with Perfect Paper—they’re interested in me potentially designing a special line for them.” She wouldn’t ordinarily have mentioned something like this to her parents until the contract was signed and it was a definite reality, because confessing that it didn’t work out later on would be absolutely insufferable, but it was Christmas and she was feeling… well, she wasn’t quite feeling like herself.
“That’s nice, honey,” her dad said, sounding a bit surprised—and also a bit distracted—but also genuinely, mildly impressed. Charlotte frowned. Had he had a stroke? “You’ll have to let us know when it’s on sale—your mother has taken it into her head that we need a pool house, and I’m sure some wallpaper would look nice.”
Charlotte frowned. “You don’t have a pool.” This had been a point of much discussion when they’d bought the house in LA; her mother did not believe in getting her head wet unless absolutely necessary, and so their backyard was occupied by a large patio and garden instead.
“Well, she hurt her knee traipsing around that farm in Vermontwith the young man she met there, and her doctor seems to think that some low-impact exercise would be best going forward, so we’re getting a pool.”
“Well,” Charlotte said, blinking. “That’s nice.”
“So you’ll let us know about your wallpaper, then?” her dad continued, still sounding vaguely distracted; she could hear her mom’s faint voice in the background, presumably occupying half of his attention. “And your mother says you could come see it, once it’s installed.”
And Charlotte realized, astonished, that this was a peace offering from her parents. So, too, was that email from her mom’s friend, looking to commission her. If she stopped looking for the insult in everything they did, she could see it better—the intent behind it. They weren’t thrilled that she hadn’t done what they wanted her to do with her life; they likely never would be. And everything this year with theChristmas, Trulyreboot had only reopened that old wound.
But this… this was them trying to salve it.
If she took the offer.
“I’d like that,” she said, clearing her throat.
“Excellent!” her father said brightly. “And perhaps, when you’re in town, if you wanted to swing by Tom’s office to take a meeting—”
“Nope,” Charlotte said cheerfully, without missing a beat.
