Page 11 of Duke, Actually
He had hoped she’d forgotten.
When he didn’t answer right away, she said, “Come on.Itoldyouall the gory details of my career ennui.”
“It’s an annual Christmas party held by a woman named Lucrecia von Bachenheim.”
“That is a made-up name!”
“It’s not, though it does have a bit of a cartoon-villain ring to it, doesn’t it?” Lucreciawasa bit of a bully. “She helms a crowd of continental European ex-pats in New York—she’s a second cousin to the Austrian archduke.” And she never let anyone forget it.
“Where’s the party going to be?”
“It was last night, at her apartment on Central Park West.”
“And was it everything you dreamed of?”
“I had more fun at your party this evening.” She laughed incredulously, but it was true. He didn’t want to talk about the party, though, so in an attempt to change the subject, he asked, “What are you going to do with your first weekend of freedom? You should celebrate.”
“Well, I have a ton of grading to do, but my first priority is fruitcake.”
“Fruitcake?” he echoed.
“Yes. I’m on dessert duty for Christmas, and I’m supposed to be making buñuelos, from my dad’s side of the family, and fruitcake from my mom’s. The buñuelos are fine because I’ll do those the morning of—they’re a kind of fried donut–type thing, and they’re best fresh. But the fruitcake is one of those ones where you soak it in boozy cheesecloth for a hundred years and I’m going to have to do a cheater’s version and I’m going to be so busted.”
She didn’t sound overly concerned, though. “You’re close to your family?”
“Yeah.”
“You celebrate on Christmas Eve?”
Her eyes widened. “What’s the date? It’s the tenth, right?”
He looked at his watch. “It’s ten past midnight, so technically, it’s the eleventh.”
“Then it’s officially Christmas. In my world, Christmas starts on December 11. I kind of skipped Christmas last year.” She stuck out her tongue and blew air over it, resulting in a kind of wind-tunnel noise that made Max smile. “I’m not doing that this year.”
“Do you have a cultural or religious tradition associated with December 11?” It was an oddly specific date.
“Nope. December 11 is two weeks before Christmas. And even though I am, historically, a fan of Christmas, I amnotone of those people who thinks we should start celebrating it in October. It’s only special because it’s”—she slapped the bar—“Time-limited. So I have this thing where I start ‘doing’ Christmas on December 11. Except for the fruitcake, which Ishouldhave started in October. But you were probably asking about theofficial-official celebration, like with my family.”
He didn’t know Dani well, but the idea of her being a secret lover of Christmas but allowing herself only a strict two-week window in which to celebrate was ridiculously charming.
“The family to-do is dinner on Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, then presents in the morning. I’ll stay over—they’re on Long Island. Christmas Eve dinner is a huge spread, but then for Christmas morning we eat Christmas versions of kids’ cereal—Lucky Charms, that sort of thing. My sister and I weren’t allowed sugary cereal as kids, except at Christmas, when my parents would buy us one box. That was all we ever wanted to eat on Christmas morning, and at some point, they started eating it, too, saying they were too tired from cooking the dinner the night before to make a proper breakfast. It evolved into a thing, and now we have a full-on buffet of trashy Christmas cereal. Then we have a reprise on January 6, which is Epiphany. That’s when my dad’s side of the family—they’re in Mexico—celebrates. We go see my grandparents every few years, and in the off years we all FaceTime. That’s part of why I’m kind of strict about when I start doing Christmas. It’s a long holiday season for us!”
“That all sounds wonderful.”
She looked at him quizzically, and he thought back to her saying that things came easily to him.Not all things, he’d been tempted to say, but he hadn’t wanted to sound like a jerk.
“What do you do for Christmas?” she asked.
Nothing. He showed up at the appointed time for the family lunch and went through the motions, but that was the extent of it. “I celebrate whatever I can, whenever I can,” he said by way of deflection. “I don’t limit it to Christmas.”
“I bet you do.” She snorted. “I bet you ‘celebrated’”—there were the air quotes again—“After the party last night. Who was the lucky girl?”
“I will have you know I didn’t ‘celebrate’ after the party.” It was true. He’d gone back to his hotel to brood in the sauna. “I did, however, make out with a charming partygoer in the coatroom.” Not the partygoer he was meant to connect with at the party,though. Not the partygoer who had been the whole reason for his New York trip. He’d only talked to her long enough to be able to go home and tell his parents that, yes, he met her.
His duty done, he’d allowed himself to be hit on by the event’s photographer. They’d had a perfectly pleasant time, hidden among the coats, but for some reason, when she’d invited him to come home with her, he’d pled exhaustion.
“Back to celebrating. If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?”