Kate Forster - The Perfect Christmas

Zoe smiled, ‘You’re always on your last nerve,’ she said, ‘You’re the most impatient person I know.’

Maggie hugged her best friend and manager.

‘What’s up?’ asked Zoe as they walked inside the house.

‘I haven’t seen you in ages.’

‘I know, I know,’ sighed Maggie. ‘Things at home have been horrible. I haven’t seen you, I haven’t seen anyone.’

Zoe walked into the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine.

‘Espresso?’ she asked.

‘If I have any more adrenalin in my system, I’m going to go through the roof,’ Maggie said as she draped herself over Zoe’s sofa and put a pillow over her face. ‘I’m so goddamned angry!’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Zoe.

Maggie pulled the pillow away and sat up, ‘Will. And don’t tell me you don’t know, I heard him yelling at you today,’ she moaned.

Zoe sat on the chair opposite her friend.

‘How is Elliot?’

Maggie felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘He’s sick and he needs his mother but she’s in India, chanting in an ashram and, as Will reminded me when I walked out, I’m only his stepmother and they don’t count for shit.’

‘He can be a cruel bastard sometimes.’

‘Not having Christmas with Elliot makes me want to cry,’ Maggie sighed as Zoe reached out and rubbed her leg.

‘Elliot knows how much you love him,’ she said.

‘And that’s what makes Will’s cruelty so harsh. He knows I love Elliot like my own.’

Silence filled Zoe’s living room.

‘I wish I could have told him to organize his own stupid trip to Mexico but he’s my client, I have to do what he asks even if it hurts my friend.’

Maggie nodded and then grabbed Zoe’s hands with hers.

‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a crappy friend,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you in, what? Two months? It’s just been diabolical in my world. I haven’t had anything good to say, so I’ve stayed away. I don’t think we’re going to make it. I don’t think I want to be married to him anymore. Do you think I’m being weak?’

Zoe squeezed her hands in return.

‘Of all the things you are, Mags, weak isn’t one of them. You’re the bravest and most loving person I know,’ she said and Maggie knew she meant it. In a town of false promises and empty compliments, Maggie could always rely on her oldest friend to tell the truth.

‘What are you doing this Christmas?’ asked Maggie forlornly. She was now wearing the pillow as a hat and Zoe laughed as she looked at her friend.

‘I have a few parties I’ve been invited to and a couple of clients have invited me to their Christmas lunches,’ said Zoe vaguely and Maggie frowned.

‘Weren’t you going to come to ours?’

Zoe paused, ‘Honestly? I couldn’t bear the tension in your house, I mean, Will isn’t the most congenial of hosts.’

Maggie closed her eyes, ‘You wanna try living there.’

She put the pillow over her face again for a moment, before sitting up as though waking from a nightmare.

‘I have an idea.’

‘God help me,’ said Zoe.

‘No, seriously, it’s a good one,’ Maggie was now on the edge of her seat. ‘How about we go to London and escape from all this madness?’

‘Your madness,’ Zoe reminded her. ‘I have plans to drink champagne and talk business over roasted turkey with power players who are wearing paper hats.’

Maggie was now out of her seat, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa.

‘No, that’s a terrible idea. You’re always working. Even when you think you’re relaxing, you’re working. I need to get away so I can think straight about what to do with my marriage, and you need to get away and remember how not to work for a while.’

Maggie was warming to her own idea with each word.

‘Think about it. In London we can roam around all their gorgeous high streets or whatever they call them, drink ourselves to oblivion in shadowy pubs, buy lovely things for ourselves and each other, look at the Christmas lights, watch the snow fall. Be generally English and cultured and immerse ourselves in the place.’

Zoe was laughing. ‘You’ve watched The Holiday too many times.’

Maggie got up and looked out of the window into the flood-lit garden. ‘No. Well, maybe. But I just want to do something different. God knows, what I’m doing now isn’t working.’ She turned round, feeling her eyes fill with tears. ‘We are each other’s family, Zoe, we don’t have anyone else; no parents, no siblings, only us. If we don’t celebrate our friendship then we don’t deserve each other.’

Zoe nodded slowly, ‘But why England?’

Maggie shrugged, ‘I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s full of tradition and here it’s just about business. You know, last Christmas Will took a production meeting with Jeff Beerman after Christmas lunch. ’

Zoe shook her head. ‘Jeff’s Jewish, so Christmas isn’t his thing and he’s a studio head who is a workaholic, but Will should have known better.’

‘I know, right?’ Maggie was sitting down again, holding the pillow to her chest. ‘Can we go? Will you come? Please?’

‘You sound about twelve,’ said Zoe good-naturedly.

‘Then I can’t go to London alone, I will need a chaperone,’ said Maggie with a smile and Zoe shook her head.

‘Okay, little Miss Christmas, let’s go to London.’

***

Over the years of Zoe Greene pushing Maggie Hall to the heights of Hollywood, Maggie had learned that almost everyone was ambitious, that most people in LA would sell their grandmothers for a good deal and that true friendship was rarer than an actress over forty without Botox.

Maggie was brave, Zoe was smart and somehow they were the perfect balance. Zoe could hear Maggie in the next room, talking to her assistant on the phone. Maggie made a point of not using Zoe as a PA, but as a business manager.

No doubt Maggie would have them on a plane in a heartbeat and Zoe would be whisked away to the land of pints and pubs, and Maggie would spend the entire trip practicing her cockney accent.

Zoe had so much work to do this Christmas. There were new clients with careers that needed careful guidance, existing clients who needed her advice in all areas of their life, and there was her busy office to keep running. A trip to London wasn’t something she had time for but Maggie was hard to say no to and, sometimes, friendship came before work.

If she was honest with herself, she had to admit she had avoided Maggie as much as Maggie had avoided the world for the past few months.

Being the manager of both Will and Maggie had the potential to create a conflict of interest and, with a separation on the cards, she had tried to stay out of the whole matter.

But Maggie needed her and she couldn’t bear the thought of her spending Christmas alone in their huge house.

For years Zoe had indulged Maggie and her whims. Not because she was her biggest client, a well-loved movie star who commanded millions of dollars per picture, but because she’d saved her from the worst experience in her life and, for that, she would always be grateful.

‘We’re all sorted,’ Maggie exclaimed in her worst Eliza Doolittle accent, ‘We’re going to Ol’ Blighty.’

‘I’m not going anywhere if you talk like that, you sound deranged,’ Zoe said, putting her feet on the coffee table.

‘Spoilsport,’ said Maggie cheerfully. ‘We leave tomorrow, first class. I’ve booked us a suite at The Dorchester.’

‘Jesus, you don’t give a woman much notice,’ said Zoe, thinking of everything she would have to pack for the cold weather, and the work she would have to load onto her laptop to make sure she was ready to return to the office up to date and ahead of the rest.