Page 59 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

He shrugged. ‘Just that I met someone cool, I guess. That I liked her a lot. And how it felt like I’d known her for years, not hours. But that it, well, that it wasn’t meant to be.’

My goosebumps retreated to my stomach, as if every single one of them had been cruelly flicked.

For fuck’s sake, I barely know this man. Why does this feel so brutal?

Before I could respond, Frank returned with three drinks – a beer for himself and another round of cocktails for me and Ethan. He contorted himself into the booth opposite me and, for a few beats, nobody spoke.

Frank cracked first. ‘Jeez, guys, I could slice this tension with a box cutter. Are you gonna tell me what’s going on or do we need talk about the weather?’

I took a sip of drink for courage, before I began to speak. ‘Firstly, Mr Stylus, I’m a huge fan of your work.’

Apparently I, too, was tipsy.

Frank cocked his fingers like toy guns and fired them at me in gratitude.

‘Secondly,’ I continued, ‘I landed in New York the night before last. And yesterday morning, while I was minding my own business in a coffee shop, a stranger touched my arm…’

By the time Ethan and I had told Frank most of the story, three other cartoonists had arrived, each of whom Frank had got up to speed on who I was and why I was there. We held back the more… intimate details, but when we’d got to the part where Ethan’s parents had surprised us at his apartment, everyone had screamed with horrified laughter so loudly that the bartender had turned the music up to mask the screeching sounds.

‘And then we came here,’ Ethan said, finishing our tale.

‘This is like a fucking rom-com,’ said Suki, a tiny woman about half Frank’s height who, even from the short time I’d spent in her company, was probably the wittiest person I’d met in real life. She’d cemented that position not long after arriving when she’d declared that it was so cold outside she’d been tempted to head to the New York Public Library and start burning books.

‘Ah, but rom-coms always have a happy ending,’ I said, emboldened by alcohol – I must have been on my third cocktail by now. Or fourth – they’d just kept coming with every new arrival.

‘Who’s to say this won’t end happily?’ mused Jem, who was beautiful in an other-worldly way, but extremely quiet – these were the first words I’d heard them say since they’d got here.

‘I’m literally about to leave,’ I said, finishing my latest drink and waggling my empty glass.

‘Well, I think you should stay a while longer,’ Suki said with conviction, nodding once in Ethan’s direction. He tipped his glass towards her in thanks.

‘That’s nice of you to say, but I feel like I’m derailing your meet-up.’

‘We’re humourists, Flora – stories like these are rocket fuel for our brains. You should stay,’ said Sonny, a baseball-cap-wearing born-and-bred New Yorker whose accent sounded like something straight out of The Sopranos.

‘You heard him, Ethan; keep Flora’s glass topped up!’ Frank said.

I sighed as if defeated, not delighted.

‘Fine, just one more,’ I said. ‘I gotta go to the loo but I’ll buy us all another round on my way back.’

‘The “loo”!’ Suki shrieked, as I shimmied out of the booth.

The floor felt as if it was tilting once I was inside the single gender-neutral cubicle, which was just beyond our table. I was way drunker than I’d intended to get.

The interior of the toilet didn’t help; it was all neon lighting and splodges of fluorescent paint, which began to swim in my vision like some kind of psychedelic kaleidoscope. I sat on the toilet and attempted to focus on the graffitied hand dryer in front of me, trying to enforce order on the thoughts that were competing for my attention but melting into booze-infused puddles before I could grasp them. There was a single thought I could get a fix on, however, because it was by far the dominant one: I’m having so much fun.

‘Fun’. When was the last time I’d had fun for the sake of it? Despite my drunkenness, I couldn’t help but admit that this was exactly why Mum and Anneka had wanted to bring me to New York in the first place. Had they been… right? I snorted out loud at the realisation, washing my hands and trying to focus on my reflected face in the UV light. All I could see in the mirror was a smile – and it wasn’t at all able to keep itself a secret.

Chapter 13

Ethan and I stumbled out of the bar two drinks later. Jem had headed out with us – totally sober as far as I could tell – and had hugged both of us fondly in farewell before heading to a nearby bar for a poetry slam. As they embraced me, they whispered in my ear, ‘Hold on for that happy ending,’ before squeezing my shoulder and fading into the Brooklyn night. Ethan and I began heading in the vague direction of the subway.

‘Jem’s… different?’

‘Yeah, out of all of us, they were the one who was born to be a fine artist, not a cartoonist. But their perspective on world events is so unusual that the angle they can find for quick-turnaround cartoons about current affairs is unparalleled… sorry, am I being really boring?’

‘Of course not! Why would you ask me that?’