Page 13 of Christmas Is All Around
Padma: !!!
Padma: Omg. Definitely telling Andrew we have to hold off on redoing our bathroom, then, so that we can use MY BEST FRIEND’S WALLPAPER LINE to decorate it!
Charlotte: Nothing confirmed yet!
Padma: Crossing all my fingers!! And toes!!!
Charlotte set down her phone, smiling. Padma had gotten married that spring, and she and her new husband (a fellow lawyer; thoughts and prayers to their hypothetical future children) had bought a house in the suburbs that they were in the process of renovating. They were still an easy train ride from the city, but Charlotte had undeniably seen them less, these past few months, and she liked the thought of a pattern of hers on their walls, a reminder of her place in their lives. Not that she’d ever voice that thought aloud, of course—she never, ever wanted to seem like she needed attention, extra care. She’d spent her childhood trying to ignore the drama of the family that surrounded her, and maintained her status as the most low-maintenance friend to everyone she knew. No temperamental, needy artist typehere. If herlife felt a bit smaller and quieter, now that her very closest friend lived in New Jersey and spent a lot of time discussing the struggle to find a reliable plumber, this was nothing she’d ever mention to anyone. Shaking her head at this thought, she returned her attention to her inbox, opening her planner to the page for a new week, uncapping her pen, and beginning a to-do list.
A couple of hours later, she shut her laptop, her eyes beginning to cross, and tugged her now-cold coffee toward her, draining the dregs of it and contemplating ordering another. She glanced over her shoulder, registered the queue at the counter, and instead opened her sketchbook to pass a few minutes while she waited for the line to shrink. She glanced out the window and began a rough sketch of the scene before her: a row of terraced houses, most featuring winter greenery wrapped around the wrought-iron railings on their front steps, each door sporting an enormous wreath. Charlotte had never had an exterior-facing door, thanks to an entire adult life spent in various apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but having caught a glimpse of the prices of the wreaths on offer at the Christmas tree vendor at the end of Ava’s street, she decided that if she everdidpossess an exterior door, she would not be spending a week’s grocery money on a circle of shrubbery.
These cheerful thoughts distracted her enough that she didn’t notice that she was no longer alone until she heard the faint thunk of a ceramic mug set down on the counter, and she turned, startled, to see Graham Calloway settling onto the stool next to her.
“Hello?” she said. Thewhat are you doing here?was, she thought, clearly implied.
“Good morning,” he said, then nodded at the mug he’d set down before her. “That’s for you.”
She lifted it and sniffed suspiciously.
“I didn’t poison it,” he added.
“Ha,” she said darkly, taking another sniff. It seemed to be plain black coffee—in other words, exactly what she would have ordered for herself. “How did you know what to order?”
“I’ve been watching you for the past three hours,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I’m calling the police. It’s nine-nine-nine over here, isn’t it?”
“I asked the man at the till what you’d ordered,” he said, lifting his own cup to his lips. She could see from the tea bag dangling from the small teapot he’d set down before him that it was peppermint tea. This seemed irritatingly virtuous compared to her own possibly problematic caffeine habits.
“I’ve been told never to accept drinks from strange men,” she said primly, unable to resist taking a sip anyway. It had been a particularly early morning, after Alice awoke the entire flat at four and then refused to go to sleep again.
“You were probably told not to get into cars with them, either,” he said, raising that eyebrow at her again. She was pretty sure that he found himself very charming, and she was therefore determined not to.
“You don’t have any brothers, do you?” she asked.
His brow furrowed slightly. “Er, no.”
“I figured,” she said triumphantly. “You’re pleased with yourself the way only a straight man raised in a household full of women could be.”
“Thank you.”
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
“Are you certain?”
She looked at him stonily. “Very.”
He sighed, then rubbed at the back of his head in a way that left his dark hair slightly rumpled. He was dressed casually in jeans and a cashmere sweater, a wool coat carefully hanging from the back of his stool. She wondered what he did for a living—everything about hisclothing screamed money, despite what he and his sister had mentioned about the family finances on Saturday.
“I didn’t actually seek you out merely to buy you a coffee and irritate you,” he said, taking another sip of tea and then setting down his cup.
It was her turn to raise a brow. “Oh?”
“No. I wanted to speak to you because I’ve been thinking about Eloise’s idea of commissioning artwork for the shop at Eden Priory after she mentioned it in the car the other night.”
Charlotte frowned. “I don’t—”
He raised a hand. “Let me make my proposal, all right?”
