Christmas Shopaholic(76)

    Happy health-seeking!

Debs

(membership assistant)





From: Myriad Miracle To: Becky Brandon Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re: Query!




Hi, Mrs. Brandon (née Bloomwood): Thank you for your quick response.

I’m sorry to hear that you have broken your leg.

Olga is looking forward to hearing from you and organizing your complimentary three-hour Skype session as soon as you have recovered.

Happy health-seeking!

Debs

(membership assistant)





CHATS





Christmas!


Janice

Dear Becky, it was such a lovely day yesterday. Thank you so much for hosting. I have a small request: Might I bring Flo to our festivities on Christmas Day?





Suze

OMG, Bex, have you SEEN what Janice has asked? She wants to bring Flo to Christmas!!! That miserable drip!!!





Suze & Bex


Bex

Suze!!!! Wrong thread!!!!!





Suze

Shit. D’you think Janice has seen it?





Suze

Oh God. Two blue ticks. Yes she has.





Christmas!


Suze

Oh. Janice. Gosh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to post that message. Actually, I was talking about someone else called Flo that I met at a different party altogether. That Bex and I were at but not you. Isn’t that a hilarious coincidence? Just to confirm, it was a different Flo. Not your friend.





Suze

Janice???





Suze

Hello??? I know you’ve read my message.





Suze

OK, forget that. I WAS talking about your new friend, because we all think she’s FRIGHTFUL.





OK. Don’t panic. Don’t panic, Becky. It’s only Christmas. That’s what I keep telling myself—but the trouble is, I don’t believe myself anymore. There’s no such thing as “only Christmas.”

Everything is sliding out of control. For example: 1. My garlands keep falling off the mantelpiece, even though I’ve tried Sellotape and Blu-Tack and string and, in desperation, my gym weights to anchor them down. 2. My giant snow globe of a Christmas village leaked all over the floor yesterday. 3. My Alexander McQueen dress still doesn’t fit, even though I did twenty crunches before I tried to put it on, and I breathed in.

(Should I do the three-hour Skype session with Olga after all?)

(No. I mean, an ice bath? Are they kidding?)

But the thing that’s most out of control is: 4. My guests.

It’s all kicked off between Suze and Janice. After her WhatsApp faux pas, Suze decided to defend Mum and tell Janice she shouldn’t have got a new best friend so quickly. Whereupon Janice took umbrage and threatened not to come to Christmas. But then she changed her mind and said she believed that the invitation had come from “dear Becky,” so it was nothing to do with Suze and maybe Suze should rethink her Christmas plans instead.

Argh.

Mum is playing the martyr and saying things like, “It’s up to Janice if she wants to move on and ignore my phone messages; good luck to her. I can easily return her Christmas present.”

(Point of information: Janice didn’t ignore her phone messages, they were lost in the cloud, but no one’s listening to facts anymore.)

Jess won’t take sides; in fact, she won’t communicate. She’s totally monosyllabic and unhelpful these days. I sent her a two-page email asking her what I should do, and she literally replied, “I don’t know.”

When I appealed to Dad, he said, “Oh, it’ll sort itself out.” Then I asked Luke what he thought, and he pretty much said the same. (He spoke for longer, but it essentially boiled down to “Oh, it’ll sort itself out.”) He also thinks I shouldn’t get involved. He said last night, “Becky, you can’t do everything. You have a hard-enough job organizing Christmas without organizing everyone’s emotions too.”

Which is fair enough. But maybe I don’t have any choice. Maybe “emotions” is something else a hostess has to put in order, along with napkins and canapés. Because maybe if I don’t, we won’t have any Christmas.

All the fretful voices and WhatsApps are jangling in my head and I keep thinking, There must be a way to unite everyone. But I don’t have time to ponder on it right now. Because, amid all this, I’ve got to give a speech about bloody billiards.

I’m walking up St. James’s Street in a smart dress and carefully blow-dried hair, giving myself a last-minute test on random billiards facts. The stick thing is called a cue. I already knew that. But everything else about the game is gibberish. There’s “balk” and “winning hazard” and “cannon.” If you play a seventy-sixth consecutive cannon it’s a foul, I know that. Only I can’t remember what a cannon is.

I keep telling myself they won’t actually quiz me on billiards facts. And I’ve prepared a few remarks to make in conversation, so I’ll sound like a pro. Like, “I was double-balked the other day, total nightmare.” But on the whole, I’m hoping I can just slip in, make my speech, and slip out again with the portmanteau. Anyway, Edwin will look after me. He can make conversation about double balks or whatever.