Chapter Five
Evie
The Manhattan streets throbbed with Christmas shoppers as Evie left work to meet Nicole. People walked every which way, somehow managing not to collide, and skyscrapers made their presence known, decorated with lights that shimmered across the city. Window displays competed for attention, red canopies over doorways were framed with sparkly lights, a gold Christmas tree made up of tiny lights went from the ground to the top of a building on one corner, and on another, a gigantic red bow made up of glowing lights illuminated passers-by. Window boxes had said goodbye to the flowers of spring and summer and instead green foliage interspersed with silver lights lit up the smiles of Christmas shoppers.
Evie and Nicole linked arms as they wove their way through the throng, people jostling for cab rides across the city, to get into shops, to make it home to loved ones. Even after three years of relative normality, which involved a comfortable apartment of her own, a job she loved, food on the table and even the odd luxury every now and then, Evie still found it hard to completely let go of where she’d once been, to stop the heartache from eclipsing the joy of the season as her memories crept in. But slowly she was beginning to believe that even she deserved to be happy, and it was a good feeling.
They made a beeline across West 34th Street towards Macy’s. Up above the entrance were Christmas trees, a sparkly invitation for shoppers to come in out of the icy wind, to defrost in the heated shop the second you stepped through the doors. The window displays on the Broadway side attracted thousands of people every year and today was no exception. On Thursday last week, they’d watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade with the thousands of other people as Santa came to town and put delight on the faces of kids all over New York. Giant balloons had bobbed up and down the street, different characters from last year and the year before that. Evie had timed it well yesterday and managed to see several window displays at major department stores and designer outlets when the crowds were at their smallest, early in the morning before she started work. She’d seen giant versions of Christmas ornaments, the holiday adventures of Charlie Brown, wintry depictions of the world’s greatest natural and man-made wonders, and she’d seen a song sheet illuminating the window of a store with the notes and lyrics to ‘White Christmas’.
‘What do you think of this, for Mrs Mack?’ Nicole had already located her first gift after only entering America’s largest department store minutes ago. She held up the camel cashmere scarf in Macy’s for Evie’s approval.
‘It’s beautiful.’ Evie couldn’t resist stroking the material. ‘I think she’ll love it.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Nicole told the sales assistant. ‘Do you have the gloves to match?’
Evie grinned. Nicole was a shopper—she could’ve done it as an Olympic sport if such a thing existed. They’d already bought earrings for Madison, an old school friend of Nicole’s, a posh pen that had cost an extortionate amount for Patrick, a man in his sixties who lived in Nicole’s building and was quite the writer—last week they’d been into Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue and seen his titles in there—plus a beautiful hand-crafted abacus for two-year-old Freya who lived with her parents in Nicole’s apartment block and whom Evie suspected Nicole wished was her grandchild most of the time. The child had one of those angelic faces and loved Nicole to bits. Evie had seen them together and it’d always made her wonder why Nicole had never married, never had a family of her own. She was the type: motherly, caring, kind, and most importantly, not a pushover.
They shared the shopping bags between them as they joined the escalator going up. Evie had finished all her shopping, not that it was much. She only bought for a friend at the shelter—they did Secret Santa and maximum spend was five dollars so she’d bought Selina, an art student, a furry notepad with a feathery pen—for Nicole, and for her boss, Bonnie, she’d made up hampers full of their favourite things: candles, bubble bath and hand lotion for Nicole, chocolates and a trendy, new pincushion cuff for Bonnie in a bid to stop her holding those pins between her teeth.
They bustled through the crowds surrounding the perfume counter. ‘There are still four weeks to go till Christmas and we’re nearly done,’ Nicole whispered excitedly. ‘I do so like to get it all ready, wrapped and out of the way early. Then I can concentrate on everything else.’
‘The food you mean,’ Evie teased. The woman’s passion for feeding other people was nothing short of amazing. She always cooked too much—two freezers solved that problem, as well as donations to Evie.
‘What’s on the menu this year?’ Evie asked. ‘If it’s anything like Thanksgiving …’ She puffed out her cheeks to show she’d burst eating the same amount all over again. They’d had Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of volunteers from the shelter and then worked the evening shift, where patrons had pestered them into joining the festivities, eating the turkey, the yams, pigs in blankets. Evie had relented when a regular at the shelter had offered the pumpkin pie because he looked as though his heart would break if she didn’t accept the bowl.
‘The usual,’ mused Nicole as she perused the bottles of designer fragrance and cologne on display. ‘Turkey with all the trimmings.’
Evie adjusted the bags looped over her arms. For a small amount of shopping they were surprisingly awkward to carry, but it didn’t help that the temperature was tropical in here compared to outside. She was already carrying her coat, and her jumper would be next to come off. ‘Christmas pudding and brandy sauce to finish?’
‘And mince pies,’ Nicole grinned mischievously.
‘Just remember how much there was leftover last year,’ Evie warned.
‘Ah, don’t you worry about that. It didn’t go to waste.’ She’d frozen plenty and taken mince pies, boxed up, to the neighbours the next day, as well as handing them out at the shelter.
Evie picked up a bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle and inhaled the heavenly fragrance. It smelled expensive even before you’d checked the price tag.
‘I still need to get you a little something.’ Nicole lifted the bottle as soon as Evie put it back.
‘Not at that price you don’t.’
‘It’s Christmas, let me spoil you.’
Evie shook her head. ‘You’ve already done so much for me, and all I want is your company, that’s all.’
‘But I need to get you something.’
‘Fine,’ Evie relented, ‘but nothing that expensive.’ She ushered Nicole along as the sales assistant, sensing a customer whose fingers itched to grab at their purse and open it, poised herself, ready to swoop in. ‘Let’s go upstairs and have a look what they’ve got there.’
They took another escalator up and wandered about the floor until they came to the cold weather accessories. ‘What about this?’ Evie picked up a ruby infinity loop scarf, checked on the price tag that it wasn’t horribly expensive, and hooked it over her head, winding it around again.
‘It’s gorgeous!’ Nicole felt the wool, soft as a baby blanket. ‘And it’s just your colour. It matches the rosy glow you’ve got going on.’ She reached up and pinched Evie’s cheek lightly.
‘That’s the freezing cold weather and being plunged into the tropics in here.’ Evie admired her reflection in the nearby mirror. She was about to take the infinity loop off and give it to Nicole, grateful it cost a fraction of the bottle of perfume downstairs, when a tall, well-dressed man stopped in front of them. He glanced at her but was transfixed with Nicole who was rummaging through racks, no doubt to find some accessory to match the infinity loop, determined to buy more for Evie than she already had. Generosity had to be the woman’s biggest fault.
‘Nicole?’ The man wore a suit, a cashmere coat, and a swanky deep red scarf hanging loose around the collar. His outfit looked like it cost more than all the items in Evie’s wardrobe put together.
‘Jackson?’ Nicole froze for a moment. ‘Oh my God! Jackson!’ And then she threw her arms around the man who towered almost a foot above her. ‘I don’t believe it. How are you? I haven’t seen you … since … well, you know.’
