Page 43 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘Seventeen,’ he replied without hesitation.

‘And how many caption contests?’

‘Just the one. But I’ve got another one coming up in a couple of weeks.’

‘Ooh, could I get a sneak peek?’

‘Nuh-uh. Absolutely not, that wouldn’t be fair on the other entrants.’

‘I wouldn’t have put you down as a jobsworth, Mr Carmichael.’

‘A jobs-what-now?’

‘Oh, “jobsworth”. Someone who meticulously follows the rulebook at work.’

He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m a pro. Have you ever won the contest?’

‘No. I made the final once, but the pressure to canvass for public votes sent me into a tailspin and I basically hid for a week. I ended up coming second to a caption with an exclamation mark.’

‘Ouch, I’m surprised that even made the final.’

‘Tell me about it. Are you working on any other cartoons at the moment?’

‘Always. You can pitch up to ten each week, so it pays to be prolific and submit in batches. Wanna take a look?’

‘Abso-bloody-lutely.’

Ethan removed an iPad from his backpack and opened up an app called Procreate.

‘Huh, I kind of assumed you’d work on paper what with all the pencils?’

‘Yeah, that’s how I doodle and sketch out ideas, but once I’ve landed on a concept I move over to digital.’

He navigated to his latest sketch and handed it over. The cartoon depicted a man and a woman sitting on a sofa with a giant eye peering through their window. The caption read:

“I knew we should have gone for the mouth-facing apartment.”

‘Haaaa, that’s good.’

Ethan smiled shyly while I swiped through his other cartoons – and then something clicked into place in my brain.

‘Omigod, I’ve just had an even better idea for your speech, but it could end up being more work for you and you might hate it.’

‘I live for ideas that people might hate. Shoot.’

‘We’ve been thinking about your speech all wrong! You shouldn’t be writing your best man’s speech; you should be drawing it!’

‘Keep talking…’

‘So, just as one example: that anecdote about the mistaken identity of your boss. You could turn it into a cartoon, and show it on a big screen with a caption. And then all you’d need to actually say would be a few contextualising lines per image. You could still use the throughline of the road trip so there’s something to hook it to. It’d be such a unique speech and would mean you could play to your strengths. And, as we’ve established, your strengths are stronger than most.’ I lifted up my clothbound notebook and made an exaggerated motion as if I was trying – and failing – to rip it down the middle.

‘You’re gonna have to stop mentioning that poor novella; you’re giving me a complex.’

‘The joke’s always right there at the front of my mind, Ethan; it’s too hard to resist.’ It was the first time I’d said his name. It felt nice to say it out loud. But a little risky, too. ‘But do you see what I’m saying about the speech?’

‘Yeah, I totally do. In fact, it’s wild that I haven’t thought of this myself.’

‘Nah, that makes sense: you’re so close to it that you’ve not been able to see the bigger picture. Sometimes you just need a fresh eye staring into your metaphorical apartment window.’