Page 29 of Christmas Is All Around
I hate rich people.”
“Doesn’t your dad work in Hollywood? Feels a bit pot-kettle.”
“I don’t think you want to go down that road with me, Country Estate Man.” Charlotte looked darkly at the Maserati idling directly opposite the bench she was settling onto in Sloane Square. “My point is more that they buy such stupid things with all their piles of money.” She gestured at the car before her, which had probably cost an amount that would make her cry.
“Lane, that is an objectively beautiful car.”
“And yet you’re driving around in a banged-up Mini Cooper.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I currently can’t afford a new roof, so I sure as hell can’t afford a Maserati.”
She eyed him skeptically; he looked a bit posher than usual today, wearing wool trousers and an oxford shirt underneath a crisp gray coat. She guessed this was what he looked like in his regular life, when he was going to his fancy job every day, and it was strange to think of him in that context, which felt very removed from worries about a leaky roof and escorting her on these outings around London and the surrounding countryside.
“But when you bought that Mini Cooper, you could have afforded something nicer,” she said on a sudden hunch, and the slight reddening of the tips of his ears informed her that she’d guessed right.
“I will grant you that I’m not a spend-a-couple-of-years’-salary-on-a-car type of man,” he admitted.
“Ha! Which returns us to my original point: rich people suck.” She opened her sketchbook to a blank page. “Which my investigation into this particular movie already convinced me of, by the way.”
Charlotte, having done some Wikipedia research that morning, was genuinely appalled by the fact that this movie—titled, ridiculously,A London Home for Christmas—even existed.
Graham shifted on the bench, looking a bit guilty. “I don’t know much about it.”
Charlotte, who had begun to sketch in rough strokes, glanced up at him, frowning. “You said you’d seen all of the movies with your sisters.”
“Mostof them,” he corrected. “I fell asleep ten minutes into this one. I recognize the building, and Eloise has given me strict instructions on the angle you’re supposed to capture, but otherwise I couldn’t tell you a thing about it.”
“How fortunate for you thatIcan enlighten you,” Charlotte said smugly, her eyes on the mansard roof of the redbrick mansion block before her. Apparently the building had been converted into a hotel several years earlier, so she carefully omitted the hotel signs and ostentatiously waving flags from her sketch.
“You? CharlotteI have never seen a Christmas filmLane?”
“A fun fact about me is that Idoknow how to use the internet,” she said. “And I went on an absolutely fascinating Wikipedia journey this morning. First of all, you didn’t mention that this movie is basically the British equivalent of a Hallmark movie.”
“A what?” He sounded genuinely confused, and Charlotteexperienced a moment of overpowering envy. What she wouldn’t give to be similarly unwise to the ways of the Hallmark Christmas universe.
She waved the hand holding her pencil. “You know. Big-city woman with an impressive career heads back to her charming, rural hometown for Christmas, where she falls in love with a Christmas tree farmer who makes her realize that professional success means nothing and that all she really needs is marriage and the bonds of community.”
He stared at her, appalled. “That’s nightmarish.”
“You have no idea. There are also ones that involve strangers trying to travel in the middle of a snowstorm and being forced to string together a series of unconventional transportation options to reach their destination, and an entire subgenre involving royalty, and this series where Vanessa Hudgens plays, like, three different characters—”
“Please stop.”
“Happily.” She heaved a world-weary sigh. “I thought they were an American phenomenon, but it sounds like this one was a one-off hit that took the internet by storm about ten years ago. I don’t know how I’ve never heard of it before.”
“Too busy sitting in a cold cave wearing all black and blocking the word ‘Christmas’ in all of your social media settings,” he said, and she could tell without looking at him that he was smiling.
She rolled her eyes, suppressing her own urge to smile. “Anyway. Would you like to know the plot?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me regardless.”
“Correct.” She flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and began working on a detailed sketch of one of the dormer windows. “Our tale begins with a plucky girl from bumblefuck nowhere—”
“Meaning?”
Charlotte paused, wracking her brain. “Wales, maybe? There wasdefinitely some sort of attempt at a colorful accent in the one clip I watched.”
“Noted. Please continue.”
