Page 60 of Christmas Is All Around
“It’s part of your healing journey,” Charlotte informed him, topping up her glass of wine. “And, I don’t know, maybe mine? I got death threats on the internet and yelled at by a teenager because of this movie; I guess it’s probably time I revisited it.”
“What a promising beginning,” he murmured, but gamely reached for the remote and hit play.
For the next two hours, they were—well, they were kind of transfixed. It wasn’t thatChristmas, Trulywas going to make any lists of all-time classic films anytime soon—no movie that contained the line “Christmas, truly, is all that we need,” uttered in complete earnestness, could lay a claim to that designation—but therewassomething strangely watchable about it. It was just a bunch of attractive, upper-middle-class, carefully-diverse-but-not-too-diverse-in-the-way-of-the-early-aughts people on both sides of the Atlantic having romantic problems while running around New York and London in nice sweaters. (Nadine really wasn’t kidding about the sweaters.) By the time the credits rolled, she felt like she’d had her brain ironed, but in a nice way? (That might also have been the wine.)
Graham clicked off the TV and turned to her.
“Oh my god.” She leaned forward on her knees. “Are youcrying?”
“The woman with the dying husband who hoped to spend one last Christmas with her wassad.”
“Oh boy, we havegotto watchThe Notebooktogether—I do not think you’d be able to handle it.”
“Is that the one where Ryan Gosling does a Southern accent and then there are elderly people with dementia?”
“Confirmed.”
“Seen it.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Sisters,” he reminded her.
“And? Did you cry?”
“I might have,” he said, looking a bit shifty. “I can’t remember.”
“Ha! I knew it!” She flopped back onto the couch, satisfied, then turned her head to meet his gaze. “So?”
“So, what?”
“So, what do you think? Do you agree with your dad that that was such an embarrassment to the entire concept of film that the use of Eden Priory as a filming location foroneset of scenes was enough to sully the legacy of your jackass of an ancestor forevermore?”
“I mean, to be clear, it wasn’tCitizen Kane.”
“My good sir, you are preaching to the choir. Have you forgotten that I derailed an entire reboot due to my distaste for this piece of cinema?”
“Fair enough.”
“But answer my question.”
He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No, Dad was wrong. It doesn’t matter.”
“Exactly,” Charlotte said smugly, cradling her glass of wine in a protective manner against her chest.
“I rather enjoyed it, actually.”
“Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Charlotte said hastily. “But my point remains: one movie does not a legacy destroy.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Onemightsay that siring five children out of wedlock but refusing to allow them to use your last name while still allowing them to live in the same house as you destroys a legacy.”
“You’ve made your point, Lane.” He paused, brow furrowed. “Actually, I’m not sure I remembered that detail.”
“I am your newly minted resident Christian Calloway expert,” Charlotte said cheerfully. “Anything horrifying you want to know about him, I’m your girl.”
“We’ve really got to get to work on that addition to the exhibition,” he muttered, but reached over to take her hand.
“Yes, you do.”
He turned to her then, his eyes still a bit red, his hair disheveled due to the fifteen minutes he’d spent gripping it in dismay during the portion of the movie in which Tallulah had thought that her pen pal, Pip, had abandoned her forever after failing to respond to her last letter, and cried herself to sleep each night in the hair of her pet rabbit. “Lane,” he said softly, and something in his tone, the way he said her name, made her heart kick up a rapid beat in her chest. “What are we doing?”
