The Notting Hill Diaries: Ripped / Burned

It didn’t, but I had to admit there was something uplifting about walking through Notting Hill on Christmas Eve. Shop windows sparkled with lights and decorations and everyone was smiling, which didn’t make sense when you thought about the number of people who found this a miserable time of year or didn’t celebrate, but maybe they’d all stayed indoors.

A family strolled past, dragging an enormous tree. They were all holding hands. A mother, father and two very excited children with pink cheeks and shiny expressions. Something twisted inside me. I didn’t understand how I could envy that when it wasn’t what I wanted.

I caught Rosie’s eye and she shrugged, reading my mind.

That was one of the things I loved about my sister. Not only did she know what I was thinking without me saying it, but the past was the past. If something was messed up, then she was going to make sure she did it differently in the future. She was all about moving forward.

Snow was falling on her hair and I thought how pretty she was. Dancer-slim with amazing green eyes and blonde hair that licked around her face and fell to her shoulders. Long, slim limbs that could knock you out with one kick. It was her superpower.

Everyone else was thinking about Christmas, but I was thinking about the wedding. ‘Do you think I ruined their big day?’

‘No, but it would serve them right if you did. It was mean of them to insist you be a bridesmaid. Not that he was right for you, but they never should have put you in that position.’

She was my sister. It was her job to try and make me feel better, but I really wanted to believe her. It was Christmas Eve and no one wanted to feel bad about themselves on Christmas Eve.

‘It’s kind of ironic that I went because of my pride, and ended up half-naked in public and then kissing a man who hates me.’

Rosie made a snorting sound. ‘He doesn’t hate you. The two of you have chemistry. You always have. You two have always been much better suited than you and Charlie.’

I stopped dead and gaped at her. ‘How can you say that?’ I analyzed the evidence. ‘Nico Rossi has barely ever spoken to me. Whenever we’re in the same room, he ignores me. He doesn’t like me.’ Which made the whole thing all the more confusing. How could I possibly have had such a hot encounter with a man who didn’t like me?

‘He arranged for a car to drive us home from the wedding so you didn’t have to face the guests. That must have cost him a fortune.’

And I’d already tucked the money into the pocket of his Tom Ford. I didn’t want to be in debt to Nico. ‘He did it because he wanted to get us out of there. I’d already ruined the wedding.’

‘He rescued you when everyone else stood around gawping.’ My sister had stopped, too. Snow settled on her blonde hair. ‘He gave you his jacket. He didn’t have to do that.’

I frowned. ‘He didn’t want me naked in a church.’

My sister bent gracefully and scooped up a handful of snow, forming it into a snowball. ‘Who gave you a lift home the night you invited a load of us to celebrate your new job and Charlie proceeded to ignore you and get wasted?’

‘Nico.’ That evening had been the beginning of the end for Charlie and me. He’d proposed the day after, as an alternative to taking the job. I’d thought he was still drunk and kidding. Turned out he was sober and dead serious. He saw marriage to him as a preferable career option. ‘Nico, but he was driving past my house anyway.’

I waited for her to say ‘yes, you’re right’, but instead she watched me steadily and suddenly I wondered what explanation Nico had given his sister. Maybe he’d told her it hadn’t been his fault, that he’d been assaulted by my bare breasts and had merely been defending himself. He was a lawyer. I was pretty sure he could plead self-defense better than anyone.

On the other hand he didn’t strike me as the sort of man who made excuses.

Take him or leave him.

I’d tried to take him and look where that had got me.

I slid my arm through Rosie’s and resolved to stop thinking about him. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’ I’d never spent so long thinking about a man I wasn’t even in a relationship with. ‘So far my resolution to have emotionless sex isn’t turning out so well. Maybe I should have just gone for something more traditional like losing weight and getting fit.’

‘You’re already fit, and you’re not supposed to start your resolution until the New Year. Perhaps you’ll meet someone cute tomorrow.’ Something in the way she said it made me turn my head suspiciously.

‘Who have you invited? Please don’t tell me it’s that journalist guy.’

‘Just all our usual friends and a few others.’ She was studying a gingerbread house in the window of our favorite bakery. ‘Should we buy that?’

‘If you buy any more food there won’t be room for the guests. Rosie, who exactly is coming tomorrow?’

‘I never know until they knock on the door. You know what it’s like—not everyone confirms.’ She didn’t look at me. The year before she’d invited an entire class from her gym. They were all kicking in our living room.

We wandered on, staring in windows. I thought how much I loved London. We lived in a great area, with shops, markets and lively restaurants on our doorsteps. Our apartment was on the top floor of a beautiful red-brick Victorian house in the trendy part of Notting Hill. The streets were really pretty here and we were round the corner from Portobello market and an easy walk from Kensington Gardens. Loads of our friends lived nearby.

I wondered where Nico lived. Had he gone home to Italy for Christmas?

I hoped he didn’t need his jacket.

‘Hey, wake up. It’s been snowing all night.’

I burrowed under the covers, resenting my sister’s energy levels. ‘It’s too early.’

‘It’s Christmas. We have to open our stockings and there’s loads to do.’

‘Only because you insist on inviting half the world to lunch.’ I emerged from under the covers and looked out of my attic window.

London was covered in another deep coating of sparkling snow. It almost was a fairy tale, except I had to get up and cook Christmas lunch for a bunch of people I’d probably never met before when all I wanted to do was lie in a heap, watch back-to-back TV and try to forget about the disastrous wedding.

Rosie sprang onto the bed and crossed her legs, her daisy pajamas a cheerful, springlike rebellion against the winter weather. ‘Do you mind? Would you rather I didn’t do this?’

I was about to confess that one year it might be nice to just eat turkey sandwiches and flop in front of the TV when I saw the look of excitement in her eyes and knew I would never, ever, stop her doing this. And anyway, I understood why she did it. We couldn’t have a proper ‘family Christmas’ so she had a ‘friend Christmas’ instead.

Rosie was determined to create the life she wanted to live and I admired that.

‘I think it’s great.’ And I did. Because of my sister, no one we knew spent Christmas on their own. Everyone with nowhere to go was invited, which meant that some years our apartment was pretty crowded, but I didn’t really have a problem with that.

‘Are you sure?’ She dragged the stockings onto the bed. ‘I wondered whether you wouldn’t rather just have a quiet day.’

‘Not in a million years.’

Don’t get me wrong—my sister and I fought, but it was always over the small things. When it was anything to do with our past, we were a united front.

We opened the ‘stockings’ we’d laid out the night before (she filled mine and I filled hers. Last year we’d bumped heads stuffing stockings at the same time). Each was full of funny low-priced gifts. Thanks to the stress of the wedding, I’d bought all mine on the internet. I had no idea when Rosie had done her shopping. Soon my bed was covered in ripped paper and in amongst chocolates, a notebook, an exceptionally cute stuffed llama, and a festive bra and panty set in red with white faux fur trim, there was a packet of condoms with ‘not to be used until the New Year’ on them.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t remember mentioning those when I wrote to Santa.’

‘He knows you’ve been a good girl this year but he also knows you’re going to be a bad girl very soon.’ She winked at me. ‘And he wants you to be prepared.’

Rosie was as subtle as a kick in the stomach from a reindeer.

I was pretty pleased with the presents I’d chosen for her, and as well as the small things I gave her my main gift—a leather handbag in a soft shade of cappuccino she’d admired in the market back in November.

‘I love it.’ She cooed over it and then threw me an enigmatic look. ‘Your big present is coming later.’

I wondered how my present could be coming later when there were no deliveries on Christmas Day, but I had no time to dwell on it because we were expecting a load of people and we had to produce food.

Surrendering to the inevitable cooking marathon, I showered quickly and teamed my favorite skinny jeans with thigh-length boots and a cute shirt with shell buttons. Underneath I was wearing my new festive underwear (including the bra, in case you were wondering. Never let it be said I don’t learn from my mistakes).