Page 9 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

This was like watching a professional tennis match, with flirting instead of forehands. Had I ever flirted with someone like this? If I had, the memory of it appeared to have been pruned.

‘I’m Anneka, by the way. Flo’s sister – she lives on the top floor?’

‘Flo! Cool name. Don’t think we’ve met? I’m Marcie.’

She stretched out her hand to me from under Jason. I shook it briefly. Her grip was borderline intimidating. She released my hand and focused her attention back on Anneka, running her free hand through her pink pixie crop. She was so my sister’s type it was uncanny.

‘It’s Flora,’ I clarified. ‘And no, we haven’t. Nice to meet you.’

‘And this is your sister? But… you don’t look anything like each other?’

Her honesty was refreshing. Usually, when confronted with the information that Anneka and I were even vaguely related, let alone sisters, a big, familiar elephant wandered into the room. Someone had once said that Anneka reminded them of the radiant summer sun, thanks to her freckle-dusted light-brown skin and eyes that glinted amber in certain light. By that logic, my own appearance represented the cold winter moon, with my fine, silver-blonde bob, ash-white skin and watery blue eyes combining to project a definite lunar vibe. There were only two things that weren’t pale about my facial region: my large, black-rimmed glasses, which I ensured my short fingernails always matched with a continuous, Forth Bridge-style top-up of ink-black nail polish that prevented me from nibbling my nails down to the skin. And my full raspberry-red lips, which were also the only physical trait Anneka and I had in common – we’d inherited them from Mum.

‘Well, technically we’re half-sisters,’ Anneka explained, always the designated spokesperson in our unorthodox relationship.

Marcie cocked her head to the side, intrigued, but she didn’t probe further. I was thankful: having to reveal to people that I was the product of a one-night stand less than a year after Anneka’s dad – and the love of Mum’s life – had died from a sudden heart attack was never my favourite topic of conversation. Especially when questions started arriving about my own dad, about whom I knew practically nothing.

‘I… feel like we’ve met before?’ Marcie said, her attention fully fixed on Anneka. I sensed her gaze wouldn’t shift even if I started doing an acrobatics routine in the hallway.

‘I’m on the telly sometimes. I’m an actress,’ Anneka replied.

Here we go. Anneka insisted on calling herself an actress, even though her actual job was a dogwalker – and a very in-demand one, at that; she’d even had to rope in Mum to help her run the business from their shared home. She’d only had one paid acting gig in her entire life, as a bleeding one-off character in Holby City. And Marcie – an overtly arty type with tattoos and piercings on almost every available patch or flap of skin – didn’t look like the kind of person who’d ever watched midweek medical dramas.

‘Huh, not sure that’s it. Have you ever done modelling?’

‘Sure, a little.’

Another exaggeration – her latest shoot had been for South Gloucestershire Council to promote their new garden waste collection scheme after being ‘scouted’ in a local shopping centre. Anneka had eventually discovered that the council’s marketing assistant had been instructed to find local, ‘diverse’ faces: no mean feat in their semi-rural pocket of the south-west, where Anneka was one of the only brown-skinned people around.

‘Nice. Perhaps that’s how I know you. Well, let me know if you ever need any headshots.’

‘You’re a photographer?’ my sister asked, her interest even more piqued.

‘Yep, mainly corporate shit.’ Marcie opened her door a little wider and gestured behind her, revealing a mini-studio set-up in her living room. ‘But I do portraits on the side.’

‘Huh, that looks like high-end kit,’ said Anneka, visibly impressed. ‘You live here alone?’

‘I have occasional visitors.’ Marcie stroked Jason’s head as if to silently communicate her deftness of touch. There was a pause as she and Anneka appraised each other, unspoken knowledge and goodness knows what else flowing between them.

A slight uptick in Jason’s feline floundering broke the spell between them. I reached out and Marcie passed him to me.

‘Umm, anyway, we have a massive favour to ask you. Don’t suppose you could keep your eye on this fella for a little while?’ Anneka asked.

‘Huh, potentially! How long are we talking?’

‘Me and Mum are taking this one’ – Anneka gestured backwards towards me with her thumb, prompting me to grin and, inexplicably, wave as if I was schoolkid on an open-top bus – ‘away for six nights. Well, strictly speaking, seven if we’re including flights…’

My waving hand stopped mid-air as I did some mental maths. ‘Seven nights? That means we’re away until… Christmas Day? I’ve got plans on Christmas Day! And flights?! For fuck’s sake, Anneka, when you and Mum said we would be away for “an overnight trip” I assumed it would be, I dunno, a spa break in Sussex or something!’

Anneka snorted. ‘“A spa break in Sussex”? Omigod, you crack me up, Flo. Could you ever picture Mum in a spa? As for your Christmas Day plans, we land first thing, so you can still do what you need to do.’

As if I’d be in a fit state to show my face anywhere after a whole week – a week! – with Mum and Anneka.

‘So where are you flying to?’ Marcie asked.

‘Yes, where are we flying to, hmm?’ I asked, glaring at Anneka.

I tried to remember the last time the three of us had been on an aeroplane together, and concluded it must have been our ill-fated trip to Tenerife when I’d been about thirteen, Mum was in her fifties and they’d ‘accidentally’ booked us into a Club 18-30 resort. We’d then been detained at Bristol airport on the way home after it emerged Mum had tried to smuggle seven kilograms of overripe, borderline-rotten apricots into the UK that she’d found abandoned outside a shop on the last night of our holiday. The oozing juices from Mum’s suitcase had given her away after we’d landed.