Page 54 of Christmas Is All Around
“There are”—Charlotte said breathlessly, bursting through the door into Ava and Kit’s flat laden down with packages—“so many people in this city that it should actually be illegal.”
“Charlotte, darling, you live in New York,” Simone said from the couch, where she was bouncing Alice on her knee. Alice was emitting the sort of high-pitched squeals that Charlotte had learned from hard experience to be very wary of, as they tended to slip from glee into absolute fury without more than three seconds’ warning. “Every time I set foot in your city, I feel as though there’s someone sweating on me. It’s very unhygienic.”
“If we weren’t all wearing coats, I guarantee I would also be covered in other people’s sweat,” Charlotte said grimly, dumping the bags on an empty chair. “I feel like I just escaped some sort of horror movie. There was Christmas music playingeverywhere.”
“It’s December,” Ava said, wafting into the room, wearing a caftan and looking strangely relaxed for a woman who was spending ten hours a day with her mother-in-lawandwhose baby was almost certainly about to begin howling so loudly that there was a real possibility thepolice would be summoned. “There’ssupposedto be Christmas music. Hear it?” she added beatifically, tilting her head to the side, and Charlotte caught the unfortunately unmistakable sound of Mariah Carey coming from the kitchen speakers. Charlotte sighed. Ava beamed.
“Why are you so happy?” Charlotte asked suspiciously.
“Because I gave her one of your little marijuana gummies, darling,” Simone said casually, still smiling at her granddaughter.
Charlotte nearly fell off her perch on the arm of the chair. “I didn’t bring edibles into a foreign country! I don’t want to get arrested!”
Simone waved a hand dismissively, which resulted in Alice teetering wildly on her knee; this merely made the unhinged cadence of her squeal more pronounced. Charlotte felt a premonition of doom.
“Not yours as inyours, Charlotte; don’t be so literal,” Simone said severely. “But yours as inyours. Your generation.”
“I don’t think millennials invented weed, Simone.”
“No,” Simone said thoughtfully, “I suppose you’re right. I had a very torrid night in Paris with John when we first started dating, you know, and if memory serves, there were some substances at play.”
“I am so glad I ate that gummy so that I’m not bothered by the sound of my mother-in-law describing a torrid weekend,” Ava said cheerfully.
There was a thump from the master bedroom down the hall. “I’m fine!” came Kit’s muffled voice a moment later.
“Thanks, babe!” Ava called back at him.
“I got everything on your list,” Charlotte informed her sister now, mustering the strength to reach for the bags to continue her journey into the kitchen. “I continue to be incapable of remembering where to find eggs in grocery stores here. I wandered up and down five aisles before I found them.”
“I don’t buy eggs,” Ava said serenely.
Charlotte frowned at her. “They were on the list.”
“Yes.” Ava nodded, looking pleased. “Youbought eggs.”
“But…” Charlotte was beginning to wonder ifshehad taken an edible without realizing it. “I’m usually not here to go grocery shopping for you. You can’tnevereat eggs.”
“First of all, vegans exist, Charlotte,” Ava said, sounding remarkably self-righteous for a woman who Charlotte had personally watched eat an entire cheeseburger the night before. “But also, husbands exist. Kit buys the eggs.”
“So when you go grocery shopping—”
“No eggs,” Ava confirmed. “I even avoid the aisle they’re on. Just seeing them sitting there in their little cartons on the shelves like they’re canned beans is horrifying.”
“You do realize that these eggs were on those shelves, right?” Charlotte said cautiously. “I didn’t fly to America to buy refrigerated eggs.”
Ava waved a hand in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Simone. “I just need to not see it with my own eyes. I canpretendthese aren’t unnatural European room-temperature eggs, so long as I don’t have to see them on the shelf.”
“This is insane,” Charlotte said. “Just so we’re clear on that.”
There was another, louder thump from down the hall.
“Fine!” Kit called again, though his voice sounded a bit more strained this time.
“Any blood?” Ava hollered back.
“Not much!” Kit yelled, sounding disturbingly cheerful for such a proclamation.
“Does Kit need help with… whatever he’s doing?” Charlotte asked as she dragged the grocery bags into the kitchen and began unloading them, her sister trailing behind her.
