Chapter 2 #2
Already imagining how we’ll commiserate over a cup of tea as we plot floral domination, I wave the cabbie off with a smile and drag my roller bag toward the entrance. Still grinning, I push on the center of the door, right in the middle of the world’s prettiest wreath.
A jolt of discomfort hits almost instantly as the heavy wood refuses to budge. I push harder, then try pulling—then pushing and pulling again—feeling increasingly silly.
And increasingly frustrated…
“This has to be it,” I mutter, glancing up at the sign.
Yep, The Crown and Thistle. This is definitely the place. And I can hear muffled music—” Silent Night” in high, childlike voices—coming from inside.
I check my phone: 8:28. I’m over half an hour early for my meeting and, according to the small plaque by the pub door, it’s still several hours until closing time.
I yank on the door again, putting my full weight into it.
Still nothing.
The snow is coming down harder now, already coating my hair and sneaking into the collar of my coat.
Maybe I’m at the wrong entrance?
Dragging my wheelie bag through what’s becoming a proper snowdrift, I circle the side of the building, cold and damp seeping into my sensible heels. By the time I reach another door under a softly glowing lamp, my pantyhose are soaked.
This door doesn’t have a sign and looks much less like a main entrance than the other, but it gives slightly when I push. Beginning to suspect both doors are swollen from the weather or something, I lean my full weight against it, shoving hard.
One more good push, and I should—
The door flies open, and I tumble inside, quickly realizing that, as I suspected, this is not the main entrance. I actually appear to be on a small stage at the back of the pub, where a nativity play is currently underway.
A play I am ruining with my terrible timing…
I try to stop myself, dropping my roller bag and digging my heels into the floor, but it’s too late to halt my forward momentum.
I barrel into the center of the manger scene, summoning shouts of surprise from the crowd below.
My shouldered purse takes down a shepherd and clips Joseph before I trip over a stuffed animal, and my feet leave the floor.
I hear one of the kids cry out in surprise seconds before I crash land in the middle of a baby Jesus made entirely of gorgeous white blooms.
I only catch a quick glimpse of the petalled Messiah as I fly through the air, but it’s enough to assure me he’s truly a work of art.
Or he was, before I crushed him.
Petals and wire explode all around me as I land flat on my back at the foot of the stage, confirming this night will go down as one of the worst nights of my life.
Bar none.
“Bloody hell! That scared me!” a little girl in a blue veil shrieks above me, before dissolving into hysterical laughter.
A female voice from the audience shouts, “Carina, don’t swear,” just as one of the shepherds I didn’t knock to the ground bursts into tears. Joseph, who can’t be more than seven or eight, clamps a hand over his mouth and runs off stage, muttering something about being sick.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell the girl before glancing toward an audience of what seems to be London’s poshest parents. They’re all holding mugs or martinis and wearing the kind of richly textured “casual” sweaters that cost more than the contents of my suitcase.
Most look stunned, a few seem to be vaguely amused, but the woman with pink-streaked hair storming toward the stage does not look happy.
Not happy at all.
“How could you?” she seethes, her eyes shining as she mounts the steps to the stage.
“I’m sorry, Mummy,” the little girl in blue says. “I didn’t mean to say a bad word.”
“No, not you, darling. Her,” Pink Hair says, thrusting a hand my way. “You! You destroyed it. The entire sculpture. Twenty-seven hours of labor, and we didn’t even get a proper shot of it all before you barreled in and ruined everything.”
“I’m s-sorrry,” I sputter again as I pick myself up off the floor, brushing stray petals from my coat sleeve. “I was just trying to—” I flap a hand toward the other side of the pub. “But the door was locked, or stuck, and I couldn’t—”
“And there’s no time to remake it before the actual nativity tomorrow night,” Pink barrels on. “This was just the rehearsal.” She sniffs and wipes at her cheeks. “Now, we’ll have to use a doll like every other school pageant.”
“Oh no, Belinda, really?” a velvety voice sounds from the audience. “We’ve already told everyone that the baby Jesus would be something special this year.”
Belinda?
Oh God…
Oh no, that means Pink is—
“I’m sorry, but there isn’t time, Caroline.
Not with all the other holiday obligations I’ve already made.
” Belinda’s voice could freeze vodka as she glares at me, still standing in the middle of the botanical crime scene.
“Speaking of holiday obligations, I won’t be making any with you.
You’re Emily Darling, aren’t you? The party planner? From America?”
I nod sheepishly. “Yes, but I—”
“That’s what I thought,” she cuts in, her cheeks flushing pinker than her hair. “We won’t be working together. Ever. Come on, Carina. We’re leaving. Now.”
She grabs her wide-eyed daughter and sweeps out. The rest of the parents follow suit, collecting their various biblical characters and guiding them toward the front door, which seems to be functioning perfectly for everyone else.
Within minutes, the pub has mostly emptied, leaving just the bartenders, a few old men by the fire, who are regarding me with the kind of judgment usually reserved for people who fart in church, and one well-dressed man still sitting in the corner.
Even considering the dramatic circumstances, I can’t believe I didn’t notice him before. He’s strikingly handsome in an aristocratic sort of way, all sharp cheekbones, luminous skin, and perfectly tousled dark hair.
He looks like the kind of guy who commands a room with a word, an impression he confirms as he murmurs in a rich, slightly smug voice, “Well, you certainly know how to clear a room, don’t you, Red?”
I’m trying to formulate a comeback that doesn’t involve sticking out my tongue or bursting into tears when my heel catches on a string of fairy lights. I go down again, this time taking a stuffed cow posed at the edge of the stage down with me.
I thud down three stairs to the main floor of the pub, landing with a soft grunt of pain.
From my new position on the floor under the cow, I hear Slightly Smug clucking his tongue like I’m the saddest thing he’s ever seen.
London—two falls and a professional fail.
Emily—zero.