Page 124 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘Oh! Yes, yes I am,’ Mum said.

I shrugged. ‘Okay, let me just grab your presents from my room.’

The two of them had arrived at my flat at eight-ish and we’d spent the last few hours going through our photos from New York, reliving the funniest bits – which, to be fair to Mum, absolutely included her foraging faux pas and subsequent ambulance ride – while we shared an extra-large sushi platter and slugged cider.

Mum was back to full health, having had the all-clear from the GP a couple of days ago. To her absolute delight, she’d gone semi-viral in her foraging Facebook group after sharing her cautionary Central Park tale, complete with photographs.

‘Right then!’ I said, plonking myself down on the sofa between them and handing them their gifts.

‘Aren’t you guys exchanging gifts this year?’ I asked, looking around with a frown; usually, all our New Year gifts would appear in a simultaneous frenzy.

‘We did it earlier, didn’t we, Anneka?’ Mum said, her voice sounding suspiciously precise.

‘That’s right, yes. I gave Mum a voucher for a new chair burlesque class that’s starting in the pub, and Mum gave me a Ouija board.’

I knew better than to express surprise at either of these gifts, but I couldn’t dismiss a weird sense of unease that was creeping up my spine – there was something odd about the way they were speaking to each other.

Anneka unwrapped her present from me first – a framed photo of the three of us drinking our Manhattan cocktails in the New York bar.

‘This is so perfect, Flo. Thank you.’ She rested her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her, squeezing her tight. ‘Look, Mum,’ she said, passing the picture frame to her.

‘Gorgeous. Right! My turn.’ Mum tore the wrapping from a very long and very thin rectangular box, before extracting a substantial tree branch from it. ‘Wait! This isn’t…?’

‘No, it’s not your Central Park stick, but it’s the closest match I could find from the park when I went there with Laurie and the kids the other day.’

‘It’s almost identical!’ Mum cried, standing it up and doing a lap of the sofa with it. ‘This is the best gift I could have wished for. I knew you’d come round to foraging in the end! Come here, Flo.’

I stood up and she gave me a hug, squeezing my entire body this time, not just my thumb.

‘Thank you,’ she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear after she released me. She maintained eye contact with me for a couple of seconds before shaking herself to attention.

‘Right then! Anneka, is it time?’ Mum said, as I collapsed back into the sofa.

Anneka glanced at her watch, before locking eyes with Mum and nodding once, decisively.

My stomach plummeted to my toes – I knew for sure now that mischief was afoot.

‘Umm, what the hell’s going on?’ I asked, looking between them.

‘We know you don’t like surprises…’ Anneka began, causing me to experience the biggest wave of déjà vu in my life.

‘Omigod, please don’t tell me we’re about to jet off to Tokyo or something?’

‘Haha, no. But an aeroplane has been involved in our New Year gift to you. Mum – would you like to do the honours?’

‘Yes, I would,’ Mum said, extracting a plain envelope from her handbag and handing it to me with a manic grin on her face. Anneka stood up next to Mum so they could both look down at me as I tore it open and removed a piece of card from inside, gasping when I saw what was on the front of it. It was a cartoon, hand-drawn in Ethan’s unique style. It depicted an illustrated version of Ethan sitting on an aeroplane, sweating anxiously, next to a giant rasher of bacon. The caption read:

At least it’s not an egg.

I snorted, flipping the postcard over to read the message. But all it said were four words:

star.butter.kind

Midnight?

Wait, what?!

With shaking hands, I inputted the words into my what3words app. The location that appeared made me jump to my feet.