Chapter 16
Twenty minutes later, as Anne shuffled around the corner of Tompkins Square Park with a five-foot-tall balsam fir on her back and a tree stand tucked awkwardly under her arm, there was only one thought going through her mind: Joy is overrated.
After hanging up with her mother, she had turned to walk back home, with James’s words in her ears.
She had never considered joy as an active word, just a random feeling that found you at fleeting moments.
Maybe that was why she only encountered it sporadically.
But if joy was a conscious choice, something she could reach out and grab, then why not start now?
That’s when she reached the corner and saw the motley collection of trees lined up in a Christmas tree stall.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. The vendor had even thrown in the tree stand for free.
But now, two blocks from home and her grip slipping, it was clearly the stupidest idea she had ever had.
Where would she put it? The apartment was already crammed full of Cricket’s stuff—it barely had room for the few things she had moved in, let alone a Christmas tree. And what about decorations? And cleanup? Even its minimal needles would be murder on her bare feet when they fell off in January.
This is why I always need to stick to the plan, she chastised herself. The first time I try something impulsive and look where it gets me: sweating on a sidewalk, holding a tree. She should have paused and thought this through. How embarrassing to be stuck like this without—
“Do you need help with that?”
The deep voice was so close and so familiar that her heart seized, and she straightened before she could think better of it. It was a quick motion that sent the stand and the tree falling to the ground, leaving a halo of needles around her on the sidewalk.
Freddie was standing in front of her, staring down at the tree with morbid curiosity.
“No, I’m fine,” she managed to say. “I was just…”
Her words fizzled out as her eyes found Freddie again.
“You were…” he repeated.
Anne blinked. “Carrying a tree.”
He looked down at the collection of needles at their feet. “Does it have a Do Not Resuscitate order?”
She laughed, but she was so short of breath that it came out sounding like a long wheeze. “That’s… very funny.”
He smiled, too. “You sure you don’t need help?”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, waving him off. “I just… need to get it to the building. And into the elevator. And up to the apartment. It’s fine.”
She was almost impressed with how convincing she sounded, until Freddie threw her that look she had been so familiar with eight years ago, the one that told her she wasn’t fooling anyone, then stepped past her to take hold of the tree and hoist it over his shoulder in one easy motion.
It was only slightly hot.
“You all right?” he asked when he caught her expression.
She gaped up at him, then finally managed to say, “Yes. No. I mean. It’s a Christmas tree.”
“Yeah. I picked up on that,” he said, then motioned for her to walk with him toward their building.
She quickly picked up the tree stand and fell in line with his steps as they walked down the sidewalk to the Uppercross.
“Thank you,” she said as they entered the lobby. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I was heading home anyway.”
She nodded as they made their way over to the elevator, even though part of her wanted to poke holes in his rationale.
He didn’t need to help. He could have walked by, and she wouldn’t have even noticed as she struggled.
Then again, she couldn’t imagine Freddie ever walking by someone who needed help and not offering it.
Even if that someone was an ex-girlfriend, or if he was wearing an obviously expensive coat that was now covered in sap, or—
“Oh my God,” Anne blurted out when she saw the streak of sticky liquid across his shoulder. “Freddie, your coat…”
The elevator doors opened as he looked down at the dark gray wool. Then he shrugged. “That’s all right. I never liked this coat anyway.”
He pressed four and the doors closed. They rode up in silence until the doors opened again on the fourth floor.
“Thanks,” Anne said, turning to him and moving to take the tree from his hands. “I can take it from here.”
“No way,” he said, stepping past her into the hallway. “Me and this tree have come too far. I need to see this through to the end.”
“It’s a Christmas tree, Freddie.”
“It’s my Everest.”
She smiled, even as her heart stumbled. She reached into her bag, trying to find her keys and ignore a litany of questions that popped up in her brain.
But why are you doing this? What does this mean? What are we even doing here?
By the time she finally found the keys and unlocked the door, it was too much. She paused before turning the knob and looked back at him.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said again.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned that familiar grin, the one that seemed to erase the expensive clothes and new haircut. The one that made him look like the old Freddie again. “Now, can you open the door? I can’t feel my shoulder anymore.”
“Right.” She smiled and opened the door, staying close to the wall to make room for him to walk by.
The tree was deceptively tall, and on Freddie’s shoulder it was almost a battering ram in Cricket’s apartment, knocking over a coat rack, a collection of hats, and three plastic wineglasses before Anne found the right place for it in the corner.
She set the stand down and helped him guide the trunk into it, finally getting it on the fifth try.
“Perfect,” Freddie said.
She stood up and stepped back. It was bent at an odd angle, and she could now see that it had a grand total of six branches, but she had to agree. It was perfect.
She had never bought her own Christmas tree before.
To be fair, she never really had to. Walt Elliot had a twelve-foot-tall fake tree he paid someone to haul out of storage each year.
While Bianca had been in charge of decorating it when she was still with Walt, the responsibility fell to Anne after the divorce.
Not that anyone ever asked her, of course.
But not this year, she thought and smiled. It may have been a broken little tree, but it was hers.
“Do you have to water it?” Freddie asked, moving to stand beside her.
She looked up at him incredulously. “Freddie, your entire company was based around hydroponic farming.”
He looked almost offended. “Hey. Give me a break. The only Christmas tree I’ve ever had was that ten-foot silver monstrosity my mom puts up every year.”
Anne’s smile returned along with the memory. She had only spent one Christmas at the Wentworth home, but she remembered that tree in the window when they arrived, each needle made of silver tinsel, so its lights were almost blinding from the street.
“She doesn’t still have it, does she?” Anne asked.
He nodded. “Oh yeah. I had to haul it up from the basement just a couple of weeks ago.”
Anne laughed again. As the sound faded, a heavy silence fell, one that seemed to highlight the facts: The tree was here, it was up, and there was nothing left for Freddie to do.
But she didn’t want him to go. It felt like she was finally getting the old Freddie back and she was afraid that something as simple as him leaving would erase all the progress they had made.
She had no idea how to avoid it, though.
So she just stared at the bare branches of her tree, hoping to prolong the moment before the inevitable.
“I think it needs something,” he finally said.
Right. Of course. She had to decorate it. She didn’t know how to explain to Freddie that she barely had the money to afford the tree, let alone ornaments. Then a thought popped into her mind.
“I have lights!” she exclaimed. “Wait here.”
She started toward the hallway closet before he could protest.
Chloe’s fairy lights were right where Anne had put them a few weeks ago, coiled up on the shelf.
She returned, holding them above her head like a prize catch, then plugged the cord into the socket by the tree.
The floor lit up with a thousand points of light around their feet.
She picked up one end and he grabbed the other, and together they found a rhythm passing the lights back and forth between them.
“This is going to look better than I thought,” Anne said halfway through the process.
“Well, you cheated,” Freddie said before handing the lights back to her to go around again.
“Excuse me?”
“You plugged the lights in before they were up. You’re supposed to plug them in after you’ve covered the entire tree, then stand back, and say, ‘Okay, ready!’ Then someone plugs them in, so you get that real ta-da moment.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “That’s not something people do.”
“It absolutely is.” That grin pulled at his lips again.
She shook her head. “No one would waste that amount of time decorating a tree without checking to see if the lights worked first.”
“It’s part of the drama,” he said. “The ‘will they/won’t they’ effect.”
She laughed. It felt like a release, like she had been holding it in for eight years, just waiting for this moment, so she didn’t try to temper the sound. She let it bubble out of her until there were tears in the corners of her eyes. Freddie watched her, smiling, too.
A few minutes later, they were done. The room was darker now that the sun had set, and the warm glow of the tree made the room feel smaller, like a cocoon around them.
“We did it,” she said, almost embarrassed by the sense of pride swelling in her chest.
“We did,” he said with a nod.
A moment passed before she turned to him. “Can I ask you a question?”
He was still staring at the tree as he answered. “Sure.”
“Why did you help me?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why did you offer to bring this up here? Why did you stay to help with the lights?”
He stared at her for a minute, as if he was just considering the fact as well.
“I guess I don’t know how to be strangers with you, either,” he said. “So maybe we could try friends.”
Friends. She had made the same offer to him eight years ago: It was all she’d asked of him after their breakup.
His only answer then had been to block her number.
Now, here they were again. She had felt so angry, so hurt back then, and she expected those same feelings to rise up now.
But they didn’t. Instead an old kernel of hope returned to her chest.
“I could be friends with you,” she replied.
He stared down at her in the dim light, and smiled. In that moment, it almost felt like those eight years hadn’t passed at all. That maybe…
WHAM.
“Finally!” James cried out, throwing the front door of Cricket’s apartment wide open while balancing a big heavy box and pivoting into the kitchen, “I never thought Ellis would leave. Honestly, how many ways can you say ‘get out’ without just saying ‘get the fuck out so I can make a birthday cake for you!’? I tried ‘you should go to the gym, bring your new weighted vest,’ and ‘there’s a secret sale at ABC Carpet, hurry!’ I even made up a building HVAC emergency.
The man is oblivious! I finally had to call Cricket to have her pretend she lost the keys to their office.
Oh, did you get the powdered sugar?” He dropped the box on the kitchen counter and had already removed the flour and baking soda when he looked up.
“Oh, Freddie! I didn’t even see you there. Oh, and look! Cricket got a tree!”
“Actually, I got the tree,” Anne said, pushing a few loose strands of hair away from her forehead. God, she didn’t even want to imagine what her ponytail looked like right now. “Freddie was…”
“The muscle,” Freddie added.
Anne swallowed down another laugh.
“Hmm, so helpful,” James’s eyes narrowed as his mouth quirked up playfully. “Who is Freddie Wentworth? Entrepreneur. Tree mover. I have so many more questions. For instance, do you know how to bake?”
Freddie chuckled. “Unfortunately, no.”
James frowned. “That’s too bad.”
Anne turned back to Freddie. “It’s Ellis’s birthday on Friday, so we’re baking him a cake.”
“Throwing him a party, too,” James replied as he unloaded the hand mixer and measuring cups on the kitchen counter. Then he paused, eyes wide like he had an idea. “Oh! You should come! Friday night, are you free? It’s just upstairs on the roof deck.”
Oh God. This was quickly going off the rails.
“I’m sure Freddie has plans,” she said, waving off the invite.
“I’ll think about it,” Freddie answered as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
“Fantastic!” James clapped his hands together. “Now, where’s the powdered sugar?”
Anne turned to Freddie, ready to apologize, but he spoke first.
“I should get going. I didn’t realize how late it was,” Freddie said.
“Oh, okay,” she replied, trying to appear nonchalant. “Well, thank you again. For helping me with the tree.”
“No problem,” he replied, then he turned toward the door.
“I won’t tell Cricket you were here!” James called after him, but he was already gone.
Anne exhaled.
“That man has an air of mystery around him and it’s so hot. Don’t you think?” James asked as he opened the flour, sending powder all over the counter.
She shook her head, trying to curb her smile. “Let’s start this cake already.”