Page 16 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘No “buts” allowed this week, Flora. Stop trying to foresee everything that might go wrong. Take a deep breath.’

I feigned one, my mind refusing to absorb her words. I’d been in so many questionable scenarios with Mum and Anneka over the years that it was practically impossible to expect this one to play out positively.

‘Did you just fake a deep breath?’

I nodded bashfully, and she chucked a pillow at me.

‘Right, let’s take this one step at a time. Firstly: what are you trying to find in your suitcase and how can I help?’

I took an actual deep breath and smiled. ‘My pyjamas.’

‘Ah.’

‘“Ah”? What does that mean?’

‘Well, I couldn’t find your pyjamas back at your flat, but I did find…’ She dug through the heap of my underwear and extracted the flimsy, silky nightdress I’d been saving for my wedding night. ‘…this.’

‘Mum!’

She fell onto the bed, laughing. And, despite everything, I couldn’t help but do the same.

Chapter 6

I awoke to the unmistakable feelings of horror and confusion. Where the hell was I? For at least two-and-a-half seconds, I wondered if I’d been kidnapped and bundled into a car boot, which would explain the pain in my right hip and shoulder, both of which were pressing into a hard and vaguely curved surface. But then I remembered that the situation – and location – I currently found myself in was somehow even stranger.

I was in Manhattan. Lying in a bathtub.

After about three hours of failing to sleep while Mum and Anneka had snored in spooky unison beside me, I’d given up and clambered over all the luggage on the floor space around the bed to go for my sixth anxiety wee. And that’s when I’d noticed where the most amount of square footage existed in the hotel room for me to lie in relative peace: the bath.

I’d grabbed my pillow, a couple of discarded decorative cushions, every towel, a blanket from the top of the wardrobe – and even some jumpers from my suitcase for good measure – and, at about four o’clock in the morning, had piled it all into the tub, aiming to create some kind of vaguely soft nest in which I could attempt to get some sleep.

Was it comfortable? Not in the slightest. But was it better than trying to fall asleep on six inches of available mattress width while a drilling-like noise bored into my skull? Marginally so. At least in the bath I was able to untense my muscles, safe in the knowledge I couldn’t roll out and break a bone in a foreign country. So, that’s what I did. And it must have worked, kind of, because now there was an unmistakable crack of daylight seeping under the door, illuminating the windowless bathroom in a slowly intensifying golden glow.

I checked my phone on the cistern of the toilet next to my head and groaned. It was only just gone eight o’clock. Four hours of sleep after the assault-course-like events of the journey here was nowhere near enough. And I hadn’t even been able to claim my prize of a bed to lie down on at the end of it. My only hope was that Mum and Anneka would wake up soon and go off on some breakfast-scavenging adventure, leaving me to catch up on rest with the double bed all to myself.

I climbed out of the tub, every joint audibly creaking and clicking as I did so. I took an agonising stretch before peeking into the bedroom. Mum and Anneka had absorbed the newly available space created by my departure. They were no longer snoring in a single rhythm, but one after the other, creating a continuous, vibrating drone of sound. I pulled the door closed again and sat on the toilet.

I felt shellshocked, as if I’d been instantly teleported to this overseas bathroom the moment I’d fallen into a peaceful slumber on my sofa after I’d ordered my sushi.

I groaned out loud. I should be at home watching Meg Ryan fake orgasm, not sitting on an unfamiliar loo surveying the crumpled, sweaty aftermath of a makeshift bathtub bed. But then I had a thought. The iconic Washington Square Arch that featured so pivotally in that movie and that I’d always wanted to see with my actual eyes? I had a blurry memory of driving past it in the cab last night as we approached the hotel. I could… go and find it?

Temporarily energised by my micro-target, I emptied the bathtub of fabric and turned on the shower. As much as I usually loved a bath, I’d spent quite enough time lying in it already, thank you very much.

After brushing my teeth and pulling on a random combination of clothes – the beauty of wearing more or less the same outfit every day was that everything matched – I found a pad of cheap paper and a pen in the desk drawer and wrote a quick note for Mum and Anneka.

Morning! Have gone for a wander. And to find caffeine. Connect to the hotel Wi-Fi and then we can WhatsApp each other to figure out a plan.

I left it propped up on the closed toilet seat, deducing that would be the only place they’d be guaranteed to see it. I grabbed my backpack – still unpacked from the flight, but figuring that all the important stuff I’d need would be in it somewhere – and stepped into the corridor of the hotel. I strategically hooked the ‘do not disturb’ sign onto the handle after pulling the door closed so Mum and Anneka were less likely to get themselves into trouble through any human interactions.

The hotel reception was humming with a not-unpleasant atmosphere that had been absent late last night, with a couple of new arrivals checking in, and a few others queuing to leave their luggage with a smartly dressed older fellow. If the efficiency of his analogue luggage labelling system was anything to go by – and his friendliness with various guests with whom he appeared to be on first-name terms – he seemed to be something of a stalwart figure.

He caught me looking at him and tipped an imaginary hat at me, causing me to blush and grin.

As I passed the reception desk, which was no longer manned by the exhausted night manager but a young, smartly dressed woman, the last guest checking in moved towards the lifts, and I wondered if I should take this opportunity to ask for—

‘Can I help you, ma’am?’

I looked over my shoulder but the grinning receptionist was definitely speaking to me. I swallowed and walked towards the desk.