Chapter 1
Charlotte Donovan was cursed.
She’d been trying to ignore the signs all day long, but now, three weeks before Christmas, she found herself stuck in a vintage cage elevator between floors four and five having a panic attack, and denial was no longer an option.
Granted, she’d known the truth since she was a kid—December was the month the universe conspired against Charlotte and rained down an amalgam of mishaps, everything from a mundane red wine spill on a white blouse to the disaster five years ago she wouldn’t even let herself think about anymore.
Except here she was, clawing at the latticed elevator door of Elle’s Upper West Side building,thinkingabout it.
“We’ll get you out of there, sweetie. Just stay calm.”
This was from Sloane, her colleague at the Manhattan School of Music and cofounder of the Rosalind Quartet, which they’d started together two years ago. Charlotte couldn’t see her—well, she could see Sloane’s booted feet standing on the fifth floor,cuffed jeans just above her ankles—but her friend gave off a decidedly relaxed air that made Charlotte want to scream.
“Easy for you to say,” Charlotte said, bouncing a little in hopes the elevator would take the hint and do its goddamn job.
“I don’t understand it,” Elle said from next to Sloane. Charlotte could also only see their feet, which were covered in socks featuring tiny cellos and Christmas trees.
How wonderfully festive.
Charlotte’s lip curled as she turned her gaze away, looking up at the elevator’s ceiling as if it held a clue to escaping this hell.
“This has never happened before,” Elle said.
“Of course it hasn’t,” Charlotte said through her teeth.
“What do you mean by that?” Sloane asked.
Charlotte exhaled, closed her eyes, tried to breathe through her frantically pounding heart. For all intents and purposes, Sloane was her best friend, though Charlotte never thought about her in those terms exactly. Sloane was definitely a friend. Agoodfriend. They drank nice wine together. Arranged music for their ensemble, for their students. They’d even cowritten a few original pieces that had ended up on the quartet’s debut album,Evergreen, just released this past October. Charlotte also knew that Sloane’s parents had divorced amicably, and she had an older sister who lived in Nashville, who, according to Sloane, was the butch lesbian complement to Sloane’s femme bisexual style.
Bestfriends, though?
Charlotte balked at the term, even though she was pretty sure it was the one Sloane would use. Still,bestcame with expectations, a ride-or-die sort of commitment, and Charlotte hadn’t felt that for anyone in a long time.
Five years to be exact.
Not that she missed that kind of closeness. If anything, itsabsence was a relief, which was probably why Sloane knew nothing about Charlotte’s December curse. Last Christmas was their first in each other’s lives, and Charlotte had managed to avoid any and all disasters in Sloane’s presence. Clearly, this year, the universe was upping its game.
“Holy shit,that’swhy the elevator isn’t working?”
This London accent belonged to Manish Sahni, the fourth member of their quartet—he played viola—who had obviously just arrived on the fifth floor safe and sound via the marble staircase Charlotte had been too tired to take.
Oh, December, you fickle little bitch.
“It’s fine, Manish,” Sloane said in that tone she used when she was trying to keep Charlotte calm during rehearsals. Charlotte hated that tone, like she had to be managed.Shewas the manager, not the managee, goddammit.
The elevator’s walls seemed to close in on her then, as if to say,Oh, really?Charlotte hugged her violin case to her chest and whimpered.
“Sweetie, it’s okay,” Sloane said softly, which only made Charlotte’s panic rise like lava inside a brewing volcano. She hadn’t meant for that whimper to be audible, but in her defense, she’d been stuck in this cage for a good fifteen minutes, and she was about to lose her shit.
Maybe she should give in, let December win, because it was only the seventh, and the jammed elevator was already the third mishap of the day.
The first misfortune was easy to chalk up to coincidence. It was New York City in December, after all, so when Charlotte had stepped off the curb at the crowded street corner by her apartment early this morning and been promptly jostled so vigorously she’d ended up ankle-deep in a slushy puddle, her tea upturnedand mixing with the snow and ice, she’d tried to shake it off. Sure, her brand-new leather boots didn’t appreciate the dip, but maybe that was just what she got for wearing them the day after the season’s first snowfall, light as it had been.
The second calamity happened hours later, while she was grading finals for her Arranging for Strings class in her office at the Manhattan School of Music. It was the last day of the semester before break, and grades were due by four o’clock that afternoon. Her vision had started to blur, and she realized she hadn’t yet had a single drop of caffeine. She got up, calm as could be, exited her office for the small faculty kitchenette down the hall, turned the corner, and was very soon wearing what seemed to be a giant smear of jam all over her black cashmere turtleneck.
“Oh my god, Ms. Donovan, I’m so sorry.” Tansy, the String Department’s secretary, who changed her hair color weekly and always looked at Charlotte as though Charlotte might unhinge her jaw and devour her at any second, stood there red-faced and purple-haired. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Charlotte said tightly, therightthing to say, her arms held out to avoid spreading the mess.
