Page 19 of Christmas Is All Around
“Imeant,” she said, with what she considered to be infinite patience, “that you could go do… something else. While I’m working.”
There was a long pause, during which his gaze did not leave the side of her face, and hers did not leave her sketchpad. “You don’t try to make people like you, do you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never seen much point—some people like me, some people don’t. Just like everyone else—I just angst about it less.” She had realized this at a young age; one thing that was to be said for having a brief period of being a child star and general movie darling was that it had taught her how little other people’s adoration really mattered, overall. There had been an awful lot of people, all those years ago, telling her howcuteshe was and howsweetand howabsolutely darlingshe was in the movie, but it hadn’t mattered to her—not when she, at the age of ten, had realized that acting wasn’t something that made her happy, even if ithadmade people like her. For a little while, at least. She narrowed her eyes at Graham. “Youcare about being liked, though.” She barely knew him—and yet, somehow, she knew this.
He immediately looked defensive. “Why do you think that?”
“Because,” she said, on a sudden, uncanny hunch, “you alwayshavebeen, and so you don’t know what to do when someone doesn’t immediately fall under your spell.”
He crossed his arms and tilted his weight slightly sideways so that he was leaning toward her, which she should have found annoying but didn’t, because apparently she enjoyed attractive men leaning against things, which was infuriating.
“Let’s say you were correct,” he said, a wry, amused edge to his voice that she hadn’t expected. It made her like him a bit more; she realized, in a sudden flash, that each thing she’d learned about him had had that effect so far. “That would still do nothing to explain why you, specifically, seem to not want to like me.”
“I don’t not like you,” she protested, which was the truth.
“I know,” he agreed, a bit smug. “But you don’twantto like me. It’s against your will.”
“You surprised me, when you found me at Eden Priory,” she admitted, realizing that he was right; this was quite perceptive of him, and it made her wonder, for a brief, uncomfortable moment, if he was paying more attention to her than she realized.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You were at a Christmas lights switch-on attended by hundreds of people. You can’t possibly have expected to be alone.”
This was fair, and she hesitated. She avoided explaining anything about her past to people she didn’t know well; she wasn’t constantly recognized, but it did happen from time to time, and so she avoided making the connection for people who didn’t make it themselves, to spare herself more conversations about both a holiday and a movie that she disliked.
However, she was beginning to think that it was inevitable that Graham—or, more likely, one of his sisters—was going to figure outwho she was, and that the longer she went without telling him, the weirder it would be.
“Okay, so,” she said, taking a deep breath, and bracing herself as if she were about to jump into a freezing lake. “I may have had a brief moment of fame as a child star.”
To his credit, Graham didn’t blink. “May have?” he repeated slowly.
She sighed. “My dad’s a director, and a friend of his was directing a—a Christmas rom-com.” She paused. “Christmas, Truly, to be specific.”
“Ah,” he said, his expression unreadable, and Charlotte suddenly felt the pressing urge to explain this better.
“I had no idea that Eden Priory had been used in the movie until we got there on Saturday and I recognized it,” she said in a rush, suddenly concerned that—what? That he’d think she was so obsessed with her elementary school glory days that she’d deliberately seek out the filming locations of the one movie she’d ever acted in?
“Anyway,” she said, “I ended up in the movie—I was the kid in New York that was getting letters from the poor little rich English kid.”
“Pip.”
“Yes, Pip. And I was Tallulah.” She allowed herself an eloquent eye roll. “Anyway, I didn’t actuallylikeacting, turns out—I’d never done it before, so when they had me do a screen test I thought it seemed like fun—an excuse to get out of school, at least. And filming the movie was… fine, I guess. But it’s a lot of people, a lot of waiting around—I had no desire to ever do it again. My parents were disappointed—Ava, my sister, she’s a stage actress and has played a lot of prestigious roles, and was already really into acting even when we were kids—and my dad directs art-house films, and my mom’s a playwright. They assumed afterChristmas, Trulythat I’d get the acting bug, too, and I’d have a career in the movies. They were genuinely confused when I decided to go to art school, and they could not give less of a shitabout my art. They don’t think it’sbad, I don’t think, but it just… doesn’t interest them. And they don’t understand why I’m interested in something that the rest of the family isn’t.”
She broke off, realizing that she had detoured a bit from what she’d actually intended to tell him, but he hadn’t interrupted—was instead watching her intently, a faint frown wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, so simply and without any elaboration that Charlotte, who had opened her mouth to continue speaking, snapped it shut again.
It was ridiculous, of course. But something about the way he said it—without trying to flatter her by telling her how worthwhile her work was, how talented she was—made this feel unlike any other time she’d had this exact conversation with someone. Usually, people were indignant on her behalf—one weekend in college when Padma and Charlotte had gotten drunk on cheap wine, Padma had spent an entertaining twenty minutes coming up with increasingly creative, though decreasingly logical, insults to describe her parents—but something about his calm, quiet rejection of the very premise was even more reassuring.
“Right,” she said slowly. “I mean, yes—thank you.” She waved a hand. “It doesn’t really matter, except that earlier this year, I was approached—through my dad, of course; I don’t even have a film agent or anything—about doing a reboot.”
“A reboot.”
“OfChristmas, Truly,” Charlotte confirmed. “Set twenty years later.”
“Dear god,” he muttered. “Is anyone asking for this?”
“Apparently, yes,” she said darkly. “At the time, I told them that it would be a cold day in hell before I ever got in front of a movie camera again.”
He choked on a laugh. “In those exact terms, I hope.”
