Page 66 of Christmas Is All Around
“Nothing,” Charlotte hedged, then quailed under her sister’s narrow-eyed gaze. “I had a fight with Graham,” she confessed reluctantly, trying not to be offended when Ava’s face brightened at this news. “Why do you lookhappyabout that?”
“Because,” Ava said, “it means youlikehim.”
“We fought, and are possibly never going to speak to each other again, but you think this is agoodthing for the relationship?”
Ava waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll make up—but the fact that you’re this upset about it means that you really care about him. Which, to be clear, I definitely knew,” she added, sounding extremely pleased with herself.
“Well, maybe save the smug self-congratulations until you know what we fought about,” Charlotte said grimly, before giving her sister a brief rundown of the argument with Graham.
Annoyingly, by the time she was done, Ava was frowning thoughtfully, rather than seething with righteous indignation, as Charlotte might have hoped.
“So,” she said slowly, adding a scoop of detergent to the dishwasher and closing the door, “you’re mad at him because of something his sister did?”
“No!” Charlotte hung a dish towel on its hook on the wall and turned to face her sister, leaning her hip against the counter. “I’m mad because he pretended not to know who I was, and never mentioned the fact that his entire reason for getting to know me was because ofChristmas, Truly.”
“Hmm,” Ava said, pressing the button to start the dishwasher and then crossing her arms over her chest. “I thinkthat’swhat you’re really mad about.”
“What?”
“Christmas, Truly. Not Graham.”
“They’re completely connected in this situation.”
Ava shrugged. “Sort of. But the problem here isn’t really Graham, who, from what his sister said, seems to have gone out of his way not to do anything manipulative or creepy in this whole series of events. The problem is that you are soinsanely touchyaboutChristmas, Truly.”
Charlotte, ridiculously, felt this accusation like a blow to the chest. “I think I have cause to be touchy.”
Ava sighed impatiently. “I’m not denying that the fallout from thatVarietyarticle was a bit intense, and I don’t blame you for being freaked out by it. But you’re blowing this out of proportion, because you’re mad that you’re more famous for that movie than you are for your art.”
“I’m not—” Charlotte began heatedly, but Ava wasn’t done yet.
“Remember when you were interviewed for that article about your stationery line, and the headline called you Tallulah?”
“Vividly.”
“You complained about it for months.”
“I didn’t—”
“Youdid. You were joking, sort of, but you also mentioned it a lot. Because that movie is a sore spot, and you haven’t fully sorted out how you feel about it, and the way those feelings are all tied up in the way you feel about Mom and Dad.”
“Ava, what the hell.” Charlotte felt like her sister had transformed into a different person, even as she stood there before her.
Ava exhaled a frustrated breath; her long hair was loose, she was still wearing her bathrobe, and there was a smear on her neck where Alice had gotten a bit overly enthusiastic in trying to share some of her mashed avocado, but she looked imposing for all that—a reminder, in case Charlotte needed one, that Ava had spent the entirety of her adult life commanding the attention of sold-out theaters.
“Charlotte. I love you, and I know Mom and Dad are… difficult.”
“Easy to say when you’re the one who’s done exactly what they wanted you to do with your life.”
Ava let out a laugh—a sharp, biting laugh that Charlotte hadn’t heard from her sister in a long time, since the worst fights of their teenage years. “Yes, please imagine how easy it is to try to create your own career in theater with Mom constantly breathing down your neck. Imagine how easy it is for your first major role to be in a playthat Momwrote—and of course she had plenty of notes on my performance.” Ava sighed. “I’m lucky, I know that—I’ve obviously gotten a huge leg up in my career because of Mom, and I’ve had a much easier time of it than most people. But there are definite negatives that come along with it. So don’t think that you’re the only one who ever fights with Mom and Dad.”
Charlotte was shamed into silence; she knew that her sister and mom fought sometimes, especially during the early years of Ava’s career, but she hadn’t spent too much time thinking about it—they were four years apart in age, just enough for them to each be very much caught up in their own lives. Ava had gotten her own apartment when Charlotte was still in high school. She wondered how many of the dynamics in their family, as she remembered them, weren’t entirely accurate—the recollections of a child.
“None of this is really the point anyway,” Ava said, more gently now. “I know that it’s annoying to be incredibly talented, to be successful in your career, and to have people still bring up one thing that you did when you were a kid, twenty years ago—but come on. Hollywood is impossible to break into, and you were basicallyhandeda role. Do you know how many people would kill for that—how many people I know, how many of my friends, would commit murder for the chance to be in a movie likeChristmas, Truly? And it’s not like you haven’t benefited from it—that movie is the reason you were able to start your own business, without asking Mom and Dad for help. It’s the reason you’re able to more or less ignore them and do whatever you want. It gave you a leg up, just like Mom gavemea leg up. It’s let you spend your adult life doing the thing you really want to do. So maybe… be just a little grateful for it?”
Charlotte had never thought of herself as ungrateful, exactly. She wasn’t so self-centered or oblivious as to be unaware of the fact that her position was incredibly privileged, and that most people couldn’tstart a creative business in one of the most expensive cities on earth at the age of twenty-two. But still, whenever she’d done something that alluded to herChristmas, Trulyfame—that article that Ava mentioned; the film screening yesterday, even—she’d viewed it as an unpleasant necessity, a way to get some benefit from an experience that she hadn’t enjoyed. But maybe this was the wrong way of thinking about it.
She didn’t have tolikethe movie… but it was one small moment in her life that had enabled a lot of other, great ones.
