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From my living room window as I write, I can look out across the broad front lawns of our farm, like a lovely picture postcard of wintry New England. In my fireplace, the good cedar logs are burning and crackling. I just stopped to go into my gleaming kitchen —
The shrill ring of the phone interrupts Samira’s typing, and she’s glad no one’s around to hear her yelp. She reaches over and picks it up on the second ring.
She doesn’t even get out a hello before John Shen’s yelling down the line. “Samira. Samira there’s a problem.”
“What on earth is the matter, John?” she says.
“It’s Robby,” says John,” and Samira sighs. It usually is.
“Well, tell him I have the next column almost done. He knows what a busy season this is on a farm.”
“He absolutely does not know that,” says John, “He lives on the Upper East Side.”
“And thank god for that,” says Samira, expecting John’s sharp bark of laughter, but none comes.
“I’m serious, Samira,” he says soberly, “it’s really bad.”
“Oh fine,” says Samira, “let’s meet at Parker’s for lunch. It can’t possibly be that bad.”
———
“Oh,” says Samira, an hour later, “this is really bad.”
She and John are crammed into the corner of the bar at Parker’s place, which is packed to the gills for lunch. Samira would feel excited for her friend if she didn’t want to throw herself into the Hudson.
As it is, she slumps over her gin and tonic and resists the urge to plant her face into the bar top.
“I told you,” says John, but there’s no gloating in his tone.
Samira opens her mouth to say … something, maybe, but her probably useless contribution is interrupted by Parker swooping over with a plate of beautiful sandwiches.
“Who died?” she says, propping her elbows on the bar in front of them.
“My career,” says Samira, glumly.
Parker laughs. “You always say that when you have a deadline. It’ll be fine! And then you get a Christmas break, right? You need it, Samira. You work too hard.”
“Oh, I’ll have a break coming up, all right,” she says into her gin.
Parker’s starting to look concerned. She glances to John, who despondently picks up a sandwich. Samira didn’t even know you could pick up a sandwich despondently.
There’s a pause, and then Parker huffs. “Whatever it is can’t possibly be that bad,” she says, “come on. Let’s hear it.”
“Robby," says John, gesturing with his sandwich, "and the United Services Organization, are giving Samira a pilot for Christmas."
“Oh how nice,” says Parker, and then, "Wait.”
Samira nods. John gestures again. A bit of bologna flies off and lands on the counter with a wet thwap. Samira feels like that slice of bologna. "Samira," John continues, "will be hosting this wounded war hero at her farm. The farm in Connecticut that she lives on with her husband and child."
Parker has a look of dawning horror on her face. “Samira.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have a farm.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have a husband.”
“I’m aware.”
"You definitely don't have a child."
"Correct."
“You live in the Village.”
“I know.”
“You live in a two room apartment in Greenwich Village. Have you ever even been to Connecticut?”
“Thank you, Parker,” says John, cutting in.
“Hell,” says Parker, and that’s when Samira knows this is really truly bad. She picks the bologna off the bar and eats it glumly.
———
Parker cuts lunch service short, ushering everyone out with an uncharacteristic brusqueness, and then rejoins Samira and John at the bar. Several additional gin and tonics have not shed any more light on the matter, but Samira does feel a little better.
“Well,” she says into her glass, head in hand, “it was nice while it lasted.”
John’s flopped over the back of the chair, staring at the ceiling. “Yeah.”
Parker rolls her eyes. “You’re both so dramatic. Can't you just say no?"
John sits up. "Are you crazy? Say no to Michael Robinavitch? The head of the largest magazine conglomerate in the country? The head of Smart Housekeeping?No one says no to him."
Parker raises her eyebrows. "Surely there's some kind of farm emergency that would make it inconvenient. Maybe your husband doesn't want guests. Maybe someone's sick."
"Ooh," says John, warming to the idea, "yes. You have to go see him after this, right? Maybe someone has something really contagious. Something a recently recovered war hero couldn't possibly be exposed to."
“That’s true,” says Samira, brightening. “Maybe my cow has whooping cough.”
———
“Look, Robby,” Samira’s saying an hour later, perched uncomfortably at the end of one of the stupid leather chairs Robby insists on keeping in his Park Avenue office, “I’d love to host, really but —“
“Great,” says Robby, making to stand, “that settles it.”
“No,” says Samira, regretting that fourth gin and tonic and the way it's making her head muddy, “no I mean, I would love to, but I can’t.”
“Why on earth not,” says Robby, getting that glowering line between his brows that he does when he feels like Samira isn’t churning out lines fast enough. “It’s Christmas, and he’s wounded. Think of it like your patriotic duty.”
“Well,” says Samira, feeling that characteristic flusteredness she always gets when Robby starts bullying her, “it’s just that —“
“What else could you possibly be doing, Mohan?”
“Well, it’s my cow, you see,” she says, rather desperately. “It’s got, uh, whooping cough.”
That brings Robby up short. “Do cows get whooping cough?”
“Oh yes,” says Samira, warming to it, “it’s very serious.”
“But surely your animal vet can see to it, can’t she?”
“My what,” says Samira.
“What’s her name,” says Robby thoughtfully, “You wrote about her in the July column about Pepper’s puppies.”
Samira had forgotten about the veterinarian she’d invented, as well as Pepper and her puppies. “Oh right,” she says, deflating, “yes, she’s looking after the cow now.”
“Well then,” says Robby, “it shouldn’t be too much trouble next week for Christmas, will it?”
“No,” she says despondently.
“Excellent,” he says, and then he’s clearly struck by one of his irregular bouts of gentle kindness, and he leans closer over the desk. “Look,” he says, eyes big and brown in the way Samira hates because it becomes infinitely harder to say no to him, “I know this is inconvenient, and is disrupting your plans with Joshua and the baby, but I’m very grateful, Mohan. Jack’s one of my oldest and dearest friends, and he was hurt badly, and I want to give him something nice that will force him to relax a little, finish healing. And where better to do that then at the warm and welcoming home of my best columnist? And I’ll make sure a nice Christmas bonus makes it way to you, too.”
And, really, how can Samira say no to that? She sighs. “Alright, Robby. Alright.”
She gets up to leave, already dreaming of the double she’s going to make Parker pour for her, and is halfway out of his office when Robby calls out, “Wait, Mohan. I just had an idea.”
———
Two hours later, she’s back at her apartment, feeling dazed. Parker and John came as soon as she rang the restaurant, and they're now all settling into the sitting area.
“How’d it go?” John says, sprawling on the armchair.
“Well,” says Samira, “every time I opened my mouth, he talked. I felt like Charlie McCarthy.”
“But so much cuter than a creepy ventriloquist doll,” says Parker, coming over from the bar cart with three very stiff pours. Samira downs hers in one go and tells the story.
“So now,” she says at the end, “not only did I not successfully turn him away, but Robby’s coming too.”
“Isn’t he Jewish?” says John, clearly trying not to laugh.
“That’s what I said,” says Samira, gesturing wildly, “and he said he’d always wanted to try Christmas out, and what better way then at his star columnist’s home? Apparently he liked last year's Christmas menu so much he had his cook make it for a month. And apparently this soldier is his ‘best friend’ and he wants to ‘spend time with him.’ Couldn’t he do that somewhere that’s not my house?”
John loses the battle and erupts in slightly hysterical laughter. “A house you don't even have.”
“Augh,” says Samira, and leans back, staring at her ceiling.
Her spiral of misery is interrupted by her doorbell buzzing. She opens it to her building's bellboy, half-obscured behind —
"Is that another rocking chair?" says Parker incredulously. "How many is that now, eight?"
"Oh it's thirty-eight," says Samira, signing the delivery receipt, "the rest are in the basement."
"Why in the hell are people sending you thirty-eight rocking chairs?" says Parker, peering past Samira into the sleeping porch, which has now been fully overtaken by rocking chairs.
"I said in last month's issue that I was combing antique stores looking for a rocking chair just like my father used to sit in by the fire," says Samira, "and now this. At least it's not pianos, like last year."
John shudders at the memory. "But see," she says, "This just proves how popular you are! We can't deprive the reading public of their favorite writer."
"Well," says Samira, sitting in the latest rocking chair. There's no room to rock it, and there's a great deal of clattering wood from the pile behind her as she tries to settle in it. "They'll have to endure, because I can't think of a way out of this jam." She gives another experimental rock and hears a chair in the back of the pile fall over. "Maybe I could open a furniture store."
“Cheer up,” says Parker, "Look, we can solve this.”
“How the hell can we solve this,” says John, “unless you have a farm in Connecticut lying around.”
Parker laughs. “I don’t, no. But I know someone who does.”
Samira and John both sit up. “Who?” Samira says, “Spill. What is it.”
“It’s Dana’s farm,” says Parker.
“Ok,” says Samira, “who’s Dana?”
Parker flicks a wet bar towel at her. “Dana, the one who gave me the funding for this restaurant? Dana who lives with Heather? Dana who gives me all the copy about the farm that I then give to you? That Dana?”
“Oh right,” says Samira. She’s heard all about Dana, but never met her. She'd been surprised when this whole ruse started how much Parker, a born and bred New Yorker like herself, seemed to know about farms, until Parker revealed that she was getting all her information from her good friend Dana. Dana inherited gobs of money from her husband’s untimely death at the hands of the New York subway system, and now lives on a farm with her very dear friend Heather. It’s the type of arrangement that would be scandalous, she assumes, if the people involved weren’t so filthy rich. From everything Parker has said about the two of them, they sound nice, but still… “Would they let me borrow their farm? At Christmas?”
“They hate doing Christmas there,” says Parker with a wave of her hand. “They’re coming into the city and staying at the Plaza.”
Samira is seized with jealousy. She could be at the plaza, enjoying a ridiculous cocktail and eating a steak and swanning around in the new mink coat she’d planned on ordering herself for Christmas before Michael Robinavitch had decided to ruin the holiday. Instead she’s going to have to go to a farm. In Connecticut.
Still. Beggars, choosers, etc. She does actually like her job. She likes the idea of a new mink coat even more.
“Ok,” she says, letting herself warm to the idea. “Are you sure, though? Will they have someone there to do the actual, you know, farm stuff?”
“Yeah,” says Parker, “some Nebraskan kid named Dennis, it’ll be fine. They've got a housekeeper too. It'll be swell.”
"Well," says Samira, feeling a flutter of hope for the first time since John rang this morning, "if they say yes."
"They'll say yes," says Parker, "but you can ask them yourself tonight. They're coming in for a show at the Howdy, but we'll eat at mine first. Just come by."
———
Samira, for all her brazenness in her professional life, is not, she'll be the first to admit, particularly good at making friends. She's got Parker, and John, and that's, to her mind, pretty much everyone she needs. She's awkward with new people, tends to avoid them.
There's also the added awkwardness of the secret, the great looming thing that's she's had an enormous amount of fun doing, but is now beginning to regret with every fiber of her being. She's actually never revealed the truth to anyone; Parker and John were in on it from the start, both excited about the idea of pulling one over on a chauvinist industry, getting Samira the writing accolades she deserved and getting John some steady editing work.
She needn't have worried. Dana and Heather both think it's an absolute riot. Heather laughs so much she cries, and Dana immediately agrees to let Samira use the farm, in exchange for a thorough retelling when they get back.
The whole dinner is lovely, actually, and not just because a significant portion of her emergency has been sorted. It's just nice, making new friends who feel like old friends. None of the awkwardness Samira tends to feel bubbles its way to the surface.
"Well," says Parker, once she's cleared the main course, a glorious veal cutlet with potatoes au gratin that Parker slips her the recipe for, to be written up in the January issue, "that's the farm settled. What about the husband? And the baby?"
Heather laughs. "Well, we probably can't help with the husband. But we might be able to sort out a baby."
John grins. "Say, what sort of farm are you running up there?"
Dana swats at him. "Oh hush. No, listen. Some of the ladies from the village work in a munitions factory near New Haven and drop their babies off for our housekeeper Victoria to look after sometimes. So," she says, gesturing grandly with her cigarette, "voilà. A baby."
"And I wouldn't have to, you know, take care of it?" says Samira, a bit skeptically.
"Victoria's happy to watch them," says Heather, "She's just darling about it, really.”
"Excellent," says Parker, bringing over a truly spectacular tray of poached pears and some more champagne, "now what about the husband?”
"Maybe he's traveling," says John, thoughtfully. "He's an architect, right? Maybe there's some kind of ... architect emergency somewhere, and he got stuck."
Samira's husband is an architect named Joshua who's a sort of pastiche of several different men she's gone out with over the years — a drip of an architect she'd seen back in '42 for two weeks, an absolute dish of a man she'd met at an automat and promptly ditched after one excruciatingly boring date, a very lovely man who'd come by to the neighboring apartment to take care of his mother and who'd gone and enlisted and never come back. Joshua is the best bits of all of them, though she suspects he'd also be a bit boring, if he were real, which he isn't. He doesn't feature prominently in her columns.
Still, he doesn't seem like the type to abandon his family at Christmas, and she says as much.
"No, no," says Dana, "this could work. Say he had to do work up in Boston" — they all take a moment to appreciate the horror of this possibility — "and there's a rotten snowstorm and the trains stop running."
"Hm," says Samira, taking a cigarette drag thoughtfully. "Alright. This could work."
"Wait," says John, with sudden urgency. "Wait, it's no good."
"What now," says Parker on a groan.
John points accusingly at Samira. "She," he says with solemnity, shaking his head, "cannot cook."
Samira sags. "He’s right. I can't cook."
"Damn," says Dana.
Parker laughs, and hands out some very full coupes of champagne. "You idiots," she says, "I'll cook."
"Oh Parker, would you?" says Samira, abruptly overcome with goodwill and gratitude, "Oh you're a peach, Parker, really."
"Oh I know," says Parker, "and I'll expect a glowing write-up of the best dinner you had in the city last time you came in in next month's issue."
"Parker," says Samira, hand over her heart, "I swear on my honor as a housewife that your restaurant will never be empty again."
Parker swats her arm, and they drink. Everything's going to be just fine.
———
A week later, the day before Christmas, Samira disembarks from the honest-to-god horse and carriage they'd had to take from the New Haven train station and looks up at her farmhouse.
It's a beautiful house, a gorgeous colonial that's spread out into several additions in the intervening century and a half, with rolling hills of farmland and forest behind it. An ancient-looking stone wall borders part of the yard, and there's a preposterous amount of cedar garland draped over the columns of the porch, and a huge wreath on the front door. The thick layer of snow makes everything soft and bright. It looks perfect. It looks exactly the way she's described it.
"Goodness," says John, coming up next to her.
"Come on," says Parker, bustling past them, "we're wasting daylight. The good captain comes in this afternoon. And so does your boss."
The door opens as they approach to reveal a very lovely young woman in an apron, who smiles shyly at Parker. "Hello Miss Ellis," she says, and Parker waves a hand.
"How many times have I told you to call me Parker, Victoria?"
Victoria's smile turns a bit impish. "Clearly not enough, Miss Ellis."
She turns to Samira and John, beckoning them inside.
The interior of the farmhouse is even more picturesque than the outside. A gargantuan but slightly lopsided tree dominates the big front window, and a fireplace on the opposite side of the room is roaring merrily. There are cedar boughs draping the staircase, and even though it's eleven in the morning there's a warm coziness to the air that makes Samira want to curl up and take a nap like a cat. She's never been one for Christmas in her non-literary life; her father had died in early December and afterwards her mother, before she died, had never bothered to observe the holiday. She loves the decorations and the twinkling lights of the season but can honestly say she's never had a proper Christmas. It's become something of a idle fantasy for her, not because she feels strongly about the holiday itself, but because of what it represents: the intimacy, the family, the warmth. She's never really striven to make such a holiday for herself, though she's certainly written about it, but she always thinks it would be nice if it somehow just happened to her. This feels like that, for a moment, and for a moment she lets herself forget that this is the most precarious predicament of her entire career.
Her little reverie is cut short by John bustling in front of her. "Right," he says, and looks Samira up and down. "You do not look like a New England housewife right now."
Samira looks down at herself. She's in a smart traveling suit from Bloomingdale's in her favorite silhouette - smart, sleek, modern. She sighs and tromps upstairs. She's idly poking around the various guest rooms, trying to decide which one she'll claim for herself, when Victoria gently clears her throat and says, "Um, Miss Mohan, ma'am, Miss Evans said you needed to take the big room."
Samira turns to see Victoria standing a bit nervously near the entrance to the master bedroom. Behind her, a sweaty and disheveled little slip of a farmhand is lugging her suitcases up the last of the stairs. This must be Dennis.
"Oh," she says, when Victoria's words register, "are you sure?"
Victoria pulls a folded note out of her apron pocket and hands it to her. Samira reads it.
Do not bother arguing. Take the big room. You're married, remember? Merry Xmas
She sighs. "Well, alright."
She gets herself situated and evaluates her outfit options. She doesn't have a lot that screams "I'm a wealthy Connecticut housewife and a really good cook," but last year she'd raided the Claire McCardell section of the Lord and Taylor's in Midtown so she figures one of them will do. She buttons herself into a smart red plaid number that feels domestic but Christmas-y, slicks on some lipstick, and is trotting down the stairs, thinking about breaking out the eggnog a little early as a warm-up for this whole charade, when she hears the jingle of actual sleighbells outside, and her heart sinks.
"Oh hell," she says, frozen on the stairs, and Parker and John pop their heads out of the kitchen.
"Oh hell," John says, "Someone's early."
"Right," says Samira, trying to pull herself together, "Ok. Parker, can you get some drinks ready? I'll hold them off."
"Aye-aye," says Parker, throwing a salute, and ducks back into the kitchen.
Samira makes it to the front door, smoothing down her dress, just as the doorbell rings. She closes her eyes for a moment, pictures the mink coat she's going to order from Saks as soon as she survives this, and opens the door.
———
Samira, as a rule, likes to be prepared. She researches for her columns diligently, she collects her recipes from Parker well in advance, she makes sure that none of the major facts of her fictional life contradict themselves.
But this whole debacle has thrown her off her game, she realizes as she opens the door, because she is absolutely not prepared for the sight of Captain Jack Abbot at the threshold to a farmhouse that doesn’t belong to her.
His hand — the one not leaning on a crutch — is raised to knock again when she opens the door, and he freezes for what feels like a whole minute, hand raised uselessly, until he seems to remember himself and doff his hat.
“Hullo,” he says, with a smile that crinkles up his whole face, “I think I’m here to see your mother?”
“My mother,” says Samira, slightly dumbfounded. Her brain is stalling like her mother’s old Studebaker.
Captain Abbot seems equally at a loss, at least. “Yes? Samira Mohan?”
He says her last name exactly right, which she files away to think about at a later date when she isn’t having a stroke.
“Yes,” she says, trying to sound like a normal person, “I mean no. That’s me. I mean, I’m Samira Mohan.”
“Oh!” says Captain Abbot, and his ears go pink. He shoves his uniform hat back on his head of silvering curls. “I’m sorry, I thought —“
“Pardon me, sir,” says the carriage driver, mercifully interrupting the moment, “but your things.”
“Oh of course,” says Captain Abbot, and steps aside to let the man bring in a suitcase, and then a —
“A rocking chair,” says the Captain, a bit sheepishly, as the man deposits it near the fire. “I read an awful lot of your columns in the hospital, you see, and I wanted to bring something, and you wrote about how you were looking for one, but I’m sure you’ve already got loads of rocking chairs, and —“
“Oh no,” says Samira, “no, actually, I haven’t got any, actually. This one looks awfully nice.”
It looks like every other rocking chair she’s got stuffed into her apartment. But none of them had been delivered by Captain Jack Abbot, dashing and charming and pink-cheeked.
She watches the Captain give the driver an enormous tip, and shut the door, and then they’re just sort of standing in the entryway, staring at each other.
“Sorry,” he says again, shaking his head, “I thought you’d be, well, a bit …”
“Older?” she says, and can’t stop herself from smiling. She can feel her dimples popping. “I get that all the time.”
He smiles back, a playful thing. “Oh I’m sure. Listen, Mrs. Mohan —“
“Samira, please,” she says quickly, before she can second-guess herself, “Mrs Mohan was my mother.”
This catches him up short. “Your mother? I’m sorry, I thought your husband —“
Samira curses internally. She’d forgotten about the husband. “Oh, I mean. Yes. My husband. Mohan is my maiden name, you see, and I use it as a pen name. Really I’m” —she tries to remember if she’d given Joshua a name — “… Duncan. Mrs. Duncan. Because I’m married.”
“Right,” he says, looking bemused, “so, Mrs —“
“Samira’s easier, really,” she says, “I insist.”
“Alright,” he says, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes. “Well then, you’d better call me Jack.”
“Jack, then,” she says, a bit dreamily.
“Samira,” he says, sounding charmed.
She feels like she ought to be doing something else, but she feels suspended in this moment, a little dazed and a lot delighted. He’s absurdly handsome.
Their dopey staring is interrupted by John pointedly clearing his throat, and Samira refuses to be embarrassed when she looks over to see John and Parker standing near the door to the kitchen, matching amused expressions on their face.
“Samira,” says John with a delighted little glint in his eyes as he looks between Samira and Jack, “why don’t you introduce us?”
“Right,” she says, smoothing her skirts a bit, refusing to look at Jack again, “Right. Captain Abbot, these are my dear friends John Shen and Parker Ellis. They’ll be staying here for Christmas too.”
“Delighted to meet you,” he says, tipping his head to each of them, “and please call me Jack.”
“Well Jack,” says Parker, grinning, and holds out the tray of eggnog she’s carrying. “Nog?”
“God yes,” says Jack, and takes one. “Thank you.”
They get settled on the couches in front of the fireplace, and any lingering anxiety Samira might have felt about how Jack would get along with her friends is immediately dispelled. They slip into a friendly banter like they’ve known each other for years. Jack asks about Parker's restaurant, about John’s editorial work, and the three of them settle into a banter that makes Samira feel cozy and warm, and then she shakes herself. This is a high-stakes situation, her job is at risk, and this unreasonably handsome and charming man is best friends with her exacting boss, with whom she is almost always at odds. She cannot let her guard down, no matter how inviting a smile or warm a laugh.
She’s grateful for this little reminder to herself when another jingle of sleighbells sounds just outside the door, and she realizes Robby has finally arrived. She takes a fortifying breath, sees Jack watching her with an amused quirk to his mouth, ignores him, and opens the door.
“Mohan,” says Robby, bustling past her, “nice place.”
“Thanks Robby,” she says drily, but whatever he might say in response is interrupted by Jack getting up and hopping over on his crutch, a giant boyish grin on his face that makes Samira’s heart flip a little.
“Robby!” says Jack, and pulls him into a hug, and Robby — harsh, demanding, inflexible Robby — all but melts, an answering grin spreading over his face.
“Jack,” says Robby, smiling, and then holds him out at arm’s length, looking him over. “You rascal, how are you?”
“Oh you know,” says Jack, “made it back mostly in one piece.”
Robby frowns at that, looking down at the leg that Samira assumes is mostly wood and steel, rather than flesh and bone. “You shouldn’t be up and about,” he says, and there’s the scolding tone Samira has come to know and loathe.
Jack for his part just rolls his eyes, but whatever he’s about to say in response is interrupted by a piercing cry from behind a closed door next to the fireplace.
Samira is just as befuddled as everyone else until Jack tips his head to the side and says, “Say, isn’t that the baby?”
“Oh!” says Samira, “yes, the baby!”
There’s a pause, interrupted by another piercing shriek, and everyone looks at her expectantly. Victoria has disappeared upstairs with Robby’s bags.
“Right,” she says, resigned, “I ought to go to it. It’s got to be time for, um, something.”
Jack looks at his wristwatch. “Oh, it’s his bath time, right?”
“I’m sorry?” says Samira, lost.
Jack turns a charming shade of pink. “I read all the back issues I could get my hands on at the hospital,” he says, “so I’d know all about you, you see, and I remember the July issue about the little fellow’s bath time routine.”
Samira decides to feel normal about this information, and not at all flattered or nervous. “You’re quite right,” she says, “it’s his bath time. With all the commotion, I’d forgotten, of course.”
He gives her a crinkly smile. “Of course.”
There’s an expectant pause. “Right,” she says again, steeling herself. “I’ll just go take care of it?”
She doesn’t mean to make it sound like a question, but honestly. She’s turning to go when Jack pipes up. “Say, would you mind if I helped?”
She stares at him. “If you what?”
His ears are pink. “Well, I just thought —“
“Go on,” says Robby, genially, “I’m sure Mohan would be delighted.”
Jack gives him a bit of a frown and turns back to Samira. “It’s really alright, I —“
“No,” Samira says, resigned. What’s one more humiliation? “It’s all right. I’d be delighted.”
She goes into the bedroom, Jack following on her heels, and finds an adorable and extremely blond baby swaddled on the bed, face red from crying. She swoops it up, remembering to brace the head — she’d read a lot of Dr. Cooley’s while she was “pregnant” a few months ago — and takes it into the adjoining bathroom. There’s a changing table and a baby-sized tub inside, and a pile of cloth that’s maybe diapers, and she manages to get the baby on the table, and then starts to fuss with the wrappings.
“Shall I start the tap?” says Jack, and Samira nearly drops the baby. She’d forgotten about him.
“Oh please,” she says, trying to figure out how to undo a diaper in a way that conveys that she’s done it many times before. There’s a rush of water, and then some rustling, and she looks over to see Jack slinging his uniform coat over the towel rail and rolling up his shirtsleeves. His forearms are …. goodness. She can’t look away.
She gets the diaper off — clean, thank god — and tosses it somewhere behind her as Jack dips an elbow into the water. “Perfect temp for a little prince,” he says, then reaches over to ruffle the baby’s hair. “What did you say his name was?”
“Oh,” says Samira, who hasn’t the faintest idea what this baby’s name is, “Robert? Robert.”
“Well, Robert,” says Jack, solemnly shaking the baby’s hand, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He turns to Samira. “It’s awfully nice to be around a baby again. I used to bathe my sister’s kids all the time. It got so they’d scream the house down if I wasn’t in charge of bath time.”
“Oh really?” says Samira, and thrusts the baby into Jack’s arms, “oh how wonderful.”
Jack beams at her. “Would you really let me?”
“Oh well,” says Samira with great magnanimity, “if you’re real careful.”
“Scout’s honor,” says Jack, and takes over bath time like he’s done it a hundred times before, which, apparently, he has.
He gets the baby into the tub and finds a washcloth somewhere, and starts wiping it down, humming a little as he does, until he pauses and turns back to Samira. “Did you say, um, Robert?”
“Oh yes,” says Samira, and then looks down to the baby and realizes what the issue is. “I mean — Roberta! Roberta, yes. My daughter Roberta.”
Samira can see Jack decide not to say anything to this, and instead turns his attention back to bath time, which proceeds without a hitch.
“You know,” says Jack as he’s wrapping the baby up in a clean diaper with military precision, “she doesn’t really look like you. Does she look like your husband?”
“Oh heavens no,” says Samira, and bustles them out of the room.
———
They reemerge to find a slightly harried-looking Victoria, who sags in relief when she sees the baby in one piece, which would feel more insulting if it wasn’t extremely fair. Robby is peering around at the room, but gives her a genuine smile when he sees her.
“Remarkable, Mohan, absolutely remarkable. It’s just like you described.”
“Well I should hope so,” says Samira, and reminds herself to find a really splendid gift for Parker after this.
“But where is your husband? Where is Mr. Mohan?”
Samira braces herself. “It’s Duncan, actually, Joshua Duncan. Mohan is a pen name, you see. But, well, he’s … working.”
Jack turns away from where he’d been fussing with the baby, now swaddled in Victoria’s capable arms, and frowns. “Working? On Christmas Eve?”
“Oh yes,” says Samira, “some kind of emergency. In Boston.”
Robby grimaces, like all good New Yorkers, but Jack still seems concerned. “Isn’t he an architect? What sorts of emergencies do architects have on Christmas Eve?”
Samira hadn’t thought that far ahead. She looks to Parker and John, and Parker comes to the rescue. “Why Captain Abbot, surely you’re not expecting Joshua to let a bridge collapse because he wanted to be home?”
“Well no,” says Jack, “but —“
“Oh yes,” says John, warming to it, “it’s dreadfully serious. And you know there’s that snowstorm, of course. Trains are bound to be delayed.”
It’s getting a little out of hand, so Samira nips it in the bud. “I’m sure he’ll be back,” she says, and then claps her hands. “Anyway. Dinner?”
Parker jumps up. “I’ll make you all the best Christmas Eve feast you ever had.”
“Oh,” says Robby, a bit deflated, “are you sure Samira can’t cook? It just wouldn’t feel like a proper Mohan farmhouse dinner without Samira cooking.”
“Trust me,” says Parker, “it will.”
“Besides,” says Samira, coming up next to Parker, “Parker’s a whiz in the kitchen. I taught her practically everything she knows. And this way I’ll have more time to spend with my guests.”
She very bravely doesn’t react to the pinch Parker delivers to the back of her elbow.
“But —” says Robby, but then Jack, like some kind of handsome angel, swoops in, cutting him off.
“Shut your trap, Rob,” he says, “you’re a guest. Besides, I’ve got to regale you with war stories.”
“Oh!” says John, perking up, “do tell.”
Jack is a consummate storyteller, as it turns out — he’d make an excellent writer, Samira thinks. He knows exactly how to build tension, how to spin out little bits of information, until they’re all at the edges of their seats listening to stories that would be improbable if the evidence wasn’t sitting directly in front of them. He manages to make it all sound very reasonable and humble too, which just makes everything that much more impressive.
Samira is gathering that Jack, until he lost his leg, was something of an ace, a crack pilot with an impressive record of dogfights in France, along with some work that he very neatly skirts around, that screams, to Samira’s uneducated but imaginative ear, of intelligence work.
The one thing he doesn’t talk about, at all, is whatever cost him his leg. He doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge it at all. He’s got a prosthetic, something advanced and proprietary, and seems pretty adept on it, though he likes to use a crutch to travel any distance longer than a few feet. But he doesn’t talk about it, and Robby doesn’t talk about it, though he casts plenty of doleful glances at Jack’s leg when he thinks Jack isn’t looking, and so Samira doesn’t talk about it.
Dinner goes well, is delicious as always, and then they’ve retired to the sitting room again. John and Parker are fighting over Dana’s record collection, Robby is dozing on the couch, and Samira and Jack are trimming the tree.
It’s a preposterous tree, enormous and slightly uneven in a way that feels charming rather than chaotic, and Dana and Heather had clearly gotten about halfway up the tree with ornaments and then given up.
So Samira’s on a ladder, and Jack is handing her ornaments from a spread of boxes at his feet, and it feels a little like it’s just the two of them. They’re chatting idly, bantering back and forth, and it feels like she’s known him for years.
There’s a lull in the conversation as he passes her a particularly ridiculous bauble, and then he asks, with a studied casualness, “So is your husband gone a lot?”
She drops the bauble and it shatters on the floor. Robby snorts a little from the fireplace, but seems to still be asleep. John and Parker look over, and they both look a bit shrewd, but they don’t interrupt.
“Oh!” says Samira, a beat too late, “oh gosh.”
She makes to get down from the ladder, but Jack stops her with a hand on her calf, big and broad and hot, and a cocked little grin. “Allow me,” he says, and bends down at his waist, letting his pants stretch in a way that makes Samira’s cheeks heat. She looks away to find Parker and John giving her ridiculous eyebrows.
“Right,” she says abruptly, “Bedtime I think.”
There are some token protests, but she is ostensibly the matron of the house, and so she manages to get everyone ushered upstairs. Jack trails behind until it’s just the two of them in the narrow hallway.
She leans against the frame of her bedroom door. “You didn’t need to walk me to my door,” she says, “it being my house and all.”
“Well,” says Jack, leaning into her space, somehow, without actually moving at all, “it seemed the gentlemanly thing to do.” He pauses. “With your husband gone and all.”
“Right,” she says. She keeps forgetting about the husband.
“Well,” he says, after a pause, “good night, Samira.”
“Goodnight Jack,” she says, and ducks inside the room before she can get herself into trouble.
Half an hour later, there’s an impish knock at her door, and she opens it to find Parker and John.
“We’re drinking,” says Parker, brandishing a bottle of champagne and three glasses, and bustles into the room.
They get settled on the ridiculously plush carpet, and once they’ve all got a stiff pour, Samira gestures at the two of them. “Go on, get it out.”
“What?” says John, with an unconvincing air of innocence, which is ruined by Parker immediately leaning forward with a look of glee.
“Jack Abbot,” says Parker.
“I know,” says Samira, and buries her head in her hands.
They kill the bottle in record time, but it’s only ten-thirty, and John volunteers Samira to go down and get a second bottle.
She stubs out her cigarette and throws on her robe, a flimsy number that’s absolutely not a farmhouse robe, but she figures the other two inhabitants are asleep. She sweeps down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Parker says Heather keeps the good bottles, and she’s so focused on her mission that she doesn’t notice at first that the kitchen light is already on.
“Jesus Christ,” says Jack Abbot as she swings the door open, and nearly drops the chicken drumstick he’d been reaching for.
There’s a lot of fumbling and apologizing for a moment, and then Jack finally takes her in, and Samira has the astonishing experience, for the first time in her life, of enjoying a man eyeing her up. There’s a heated appreciation in his gaze as he traces her form, barely concealed by the ridiculous robe, and when he finally meets her eyes, he just cocks a grin, no embarrassment at all in his expression. “Nice robe.”
“I’m a married woman, Captain Abbot,” she says, feeling her cheeks warm.
“Quite,” he says, and goes back to his drumstick.
“Right,” she says, “I’ll just …”
She trails off, going to the cabinet that looks like it houses wine. It doesn’t, just mountains of jars of tomatoes and various other farm-type vegetables. What the hell do Heather and Dana do here? She tries another cabinet, which houses a ridiculous amount of cake tins.
“Looking for something?” says Jack, in a drawl.
“No,” says Samira, and then: “well, yes. I just, um, can’t remember where I put it.”
“Of course,” says Jack, “it’s a large kitchen.”
They look around. It’s really not.
“Right,” says Samira, “well, I don’t think it’s in here. It’s probably in the… cellar.” Farms have cellars, she assumes.
“Of course,” says Jack, and then, after a pause, “say, since you’re up, would you like to crack open this with me?”
He produces, like a magician, a bottle of champagne exactly like the one she’d been looking for.
“Where on earth did you find that?” she says before she can think better of it.
“In the wine case?” he says, gesturing to a clearly labeled case in the corner.
“Oh right,” she says, “of course.”
“So?” he says, gently shaking the bottle.
She thinks of Parker and John upstairs, and then thinks that she can drink with Parker and John any old day of the week, and plops down onto the bench in the breakfast nook. “Alright,” she says, “pass me a glass.”
“Glass?” says Jack with a wink, “and make more dishes?”
He pops the cork, takes a swig, and passes it to her, like it’s something they do every day and not like it’s the strangest thing she’s done in a minute.
After a few swigs each, he cants a look at her. “You never answered my question, before.”
Samira’s feeling loose and giddy. “And what question’s that, Captain?”
He shoves her shoulder a little at that. “Your husband. He gone a lot?”
She feels abruptly much more sober. “Oh, well,” she says, hedging, “a bit.”
“Leaving you all alone?” He’s doing that looming sort of thing again, where he feels closer without having physically moved at all. She feels a bit pinned.
“Well, one is never truly alone on a farm.”
“Of course,” he agrees, like this is a well-known adage and not something she just made up, “but still. Seems lonely.”
Samira suddenly thinks not of her imaginary absent husband but of her own life, back in New York, in her little apartment with the radiators that spit and a giant secret that she has hanging over her head all the damn time. It is lonely, she realizes. She has Parker and John, of course, and now maybe Heather and Dana, but she can’t just let people in.
“It’s alright,” she says, “I don’t mind.”
He turns fully to her, suddenly, and fixes her with a heated gaze. “If you were my wife,” he says, gravely and low, “I’d never let you sleep alone. Certainly not at Christmas.”
She needs some air. She needs some space. She wants neither of those things. She tries to rally. “Captain Abbot, are you flirting with me?”
His ears tip pink again but he doesn’t look embarrassed, just leans back into the booth and takes another drink from the bottle. “What if I was?”
“Well, I —“
“Don’t worry,” he says, waving a hand, “I don’t kiss married women.”
“Right,” she says, and feels abruptly disappointed.
———
Christmas morning dawns bright and clear and blindingly white. It’s snowed more during the night, and everything is blanketed in a thick layer of fresh snow. It really is lovely, Samira thinks to herself as she dresses. One could get used to living in a picture postcard like this, if you ignored the country of it all. The Plaza probably looked even better. Next year.
She heads downstairs, feeling rather smart in a lovely little plaid pinafore dress, the picture of a housewife hosting a party.
The kitchen is in bustling cheerful chaos; Parker is at the stove while Victoria pulls a rasher of bacon from the icebox. John is mixing mimosas and is, from the fierce blush on Victoria’s cheeks, flirting up an absolute storm.
“Hello my holiday fellows,” says Samira, snagging a coupe of mimosa from John and flopping down into the breakfast nook — the same breakfast nook in which Jack had … Well.
Parker gives her a look from where she’s making flapjacks. “Fun night last night?”
Samira refuses to be embarrassed. She’d finally made it back upstairs to find that Parker and John had given up waiting for her, leaving behind a note in John’s editorial scrawl promising to extract a full report in the morning.
“Jack was down here when I came down,” she says, refusing to betray any feelings about that one way or another, “and we got to talking.”
“Did you,” says John with a theatrical leer. Victoria swats him with a towel and then looks slightly amazed at herself for her bravery. John looks delighted, but keeps his eyes on Samira. “Spill.”
“Truly,” says Samira, “we just talked.”
“Did you talk in the way you talk with Robby, or did you talk in the way I talk with Trinity?” says Parker, and Samira thinks of the last time she’d seen Parker and her particular friend, Trinity, together, curled up in a booth at Howdy’s like two parentheses. She thinks about the way she and Jack had been turned into each other last night. She doesn’t dignify Parker with a response.
Parker’s clearly gearing up for another round of interrogation when the door to the kitchen swings open and Robby and Jack come bustling in.
“Ah,” says Robby grandly, “what a charming Christmas picture. A lovely tableau. Just like I’ve imagined it.”
“Quite,” says Jack, but he’s not looking at anyone else. He’s locked onto Samira, taking her in. The look he gave her last night, piercing and a little wolfish, feels entirely taboo in the bright snowy light of Christmas morning, but she doesn’t make to stop him. She lets it trace up her form like a caress.
She glances over at John to see him looking between the two of them, eyebrows raised in delight, and she’s about to swat him with a towel when Robby interrupts.
“Say, Mohan,” he says, and there’s an eagerness to his voice that makes him boyish, nearly charming, “could we watch you flip a flapjack?”
“I’m sorry?” she says, totally caught out.
“Back in October you wrote about the best way to flip a flapjack, and my cook and I both tried it for weeks but neither of us managed more than a sloppy mess,” he says, looking rueful. Samira tries to picture Robby Robinavitch flipping a flapjack and her brain stalls a little. Nearly as preposterous an image as her flipping a flapjack.
“Well,” she hedges, “I wouldn’t want to interrupt Parker and Victoria at the stove.”
“Nonsense,” says Robby, “it’s your house, of course they won’t mind.”
“You’d be surprised,” says Parker drily.
“Come on,” says Jack, chiming in, and Samira looks over at him to see a playful glint in his eyes, “think of it like a Christmas present. For me.”
It’s awfully hard to resist that look he’s giving her, but Samira tries to rally, for the sake of her dignity. “Trust me,” she says, “you really don’t want me to do that.”
“You really don’t,” says Parker.
“Oh come on, Mohan,” says Robby, wheedling.
Samira sighs, resigned once again. “Oh all right,” she says, and approaches the stove the way she imagines a soldier might approach an unexploded mortar, waiting to see if it’ll blow.
Parker is looking at her with wide eyes as she hands Samira the frying pan, and Samira looks over to see the party staring at her expectantly. “Right,” she says, steeling herself, “well, I’m a bit out of practice, so.”
She jostles the pan a bit, the way she’s seen Parker do it, and then she squeezes her eyes shut and flings the whole thing upward. There’s a tense moment of suspended silence as the flapjack leaves the pan, but she can’t bring herself to look. It’s going to land on the floor, or maybe get stuck on the ceiling, or somehow land on Jack’s head, or —
The flapjack lands with a perfect polite little plop right in the center of the pan. She opens her eyes, disbelieving.
“Bravo!” says Robby with a clap, and then Samira looks over to see Parker, John, and Victoria looking at her with varying expressions of disbelief and relief. Jack just looks amused.
“Fascinating technique,” he says, “doing it with your eyes closed.”
Samira bristles. “It’s how my mother taught me,” she says, which is a blatant lie. Her mother hadn’t taught her anything remotely domestic.
“My apologies,” says Jack, “carry on.”
The rest of breakfast proceeds without any more hitches, and then they’re arranging themselves in the sitting room, near a roaring fire that Dennis pops in to tend to every half hour or so.
They’re chatting idly amongst themselves when, out of the blue, Robby pipes up. “Say, Mohan, did you hear that our competitor over at American Housekeeping is having a baby?”
“I’m sorry?” says Samira.
“Elizabeth Lane,” says Robby dourly, “is expecting.”
“I see,” says Samira, not seeing.
“Well, you remember how well the magazine did when you had your baby earlier this year.”
“Of course,” she says, and she does remember. It’s why she and John had decided it was time to add a baby to the mix.
“Yes,” says Robby nodding, “the advertisements alone! Endless pages of baby food, all for Samira Mohan’s beautiful Smart Housekeeping baby.”
“Right,” she says, not quite following.
“Well,” says Robby, looking at her significantly, “Elizabeth Lane is expecting again.”
“Yes,” she says, “you said that.”
“Exactly. So.” He sweeps a hand as if to indicate a point that Samira is missing entirely.
“Sorry,” she says, “what are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” he says, with a touch of that impatience she so often hears in his voice when he talks to her, “that you should think about a second baby too.”
She’s so gobsmacked that she can’t think of anything to say for a moment, just stares at him.
“Now see here,” says Jack, jumping in, “that’s not any of your business, Robby.”
She’s pathetically grateful for the interjection. Robby just rolls his eyes.
“I’m just making a suggestion, Jack, relax. Samira here knows what I’m saying, doesn’t she?”
“I —“
Jack cuts in again, and he sounds almost angry. “You can’t just tell a woman to have a baby,” he says, “her husband isn’t even here.”
She bristles a little at that. “I heard from Joshua, actually,” she says before she can think better of it.
Both men turn to her. “Oh?” says Jack, very casually.
“Yes,” she says, warming to it, “he rang this morning. He’ll be back tomorrow night, once the tracks clear enough for trains to run.”
This doesn’t seem to distract Jack the way she’d been hoping. If anything, he looks angrier. “You see?” he says to Robby, who doesn’t seem to see at all. Neither does Samira, if she’s being honest.
“Well anyway,” she says, “having a baby isn’t really the sort of the thing you can plan all of the way, Robby.”
“Of course, of course,” he says magnanimously, “just thought I’d suggest it. Speaking of, where is the little tyke? Shouldn’t he be out here enjoying Christmas?”
“He’s sleeping,” says Samira, and then — “I mean, she’s sleeping.”
She’s cut off by a piercing wail from the bedroom next to the sitting room. “Well,” she says, “she was.”
“Oh do bring the child in,” says Robby, “it’s Christmas.”
“Right,” says Samira, and looks around for Victoria, but remembers that she’d gone into the kitchen to finish the breakfast dishes. She sighs and heads into the bedroom and —
“Oh dear,” she says before she can think better of it.
Jack pops his head in behind her. They both look for a moment at the baby on the bed, and then Robby is bullying his way through the door, and stops short.
“Why,” he says in astonishment, “the baby’s hair has changed color. And he’s grown!”
They all look at the fussing baby on the bed — rather than a cherubic blond girl with no teeth, it’s a clearly older redheaded boy, who looks at them and says, clear as a bell, “Mama!”
“And he can talk!” says Robby, amazed.
“Hush, Robby,” says Samira, “now’s hardly the time for inventory. All of you out, I must see to it.”
She shoos them all away, Robby muttering as he goes. “Most extraordinary thing I ever saw.”
Jack lingers for a moment. “Need a hand?” he says, and she doesn’t appreciate the undercurrent of amusement lacing his tone.
“Certainly not,” she says, officious, “it’s my child.”
“Of course,” he says, with a crinkly smile, and then he’s gone.
Samira doesn’t actually know what to do with a baby, but fortunately she doesn’t have to find out, because Victoria comes sweeping in not a moment later. “Oh,” she says, “oh, that’s George,” she says, “I thought Emily was coming again today.”
“Clearly not,” says Samira drily.
“Well,” says Victoria, and then doesn’t say anymore, which is fair. What else is there to say?
———
The invitation comes sometime around noon, when Parker’s just finished making them some fantastically luxurious roast beef sandwiches.
“A dance?” Samira is saying to person on the other end of the line.
“Well yes,” says the woman, who introduces herself as Mel King, “it’s the annual Bethany Town Christmas Dance.”
“Of course,” says Samira, like she knows what this is.
“And the committee heard you were hosting a wounded veteran for the holiday, so they’d like to make him the guest of honor.”
Samira doesn’t know Jack that well, but she doesn’t think he’s the sort to want to be the guest of honor anywhere, except maybe in someone’s bed, a train of thought she very bravely decides to abandon. “Well, I’m not sure he’d like that attention,” she says.
“Oh neither would I,” says Mel King, “but, the committee —“
“Right,” says Samira, “well, I’ll ask them, but count us tentatively in.”
When she relays the invitation to the house party, Jack smiles ruefully.
“You’re right about not wanting to be the guest of honor,” he says.
“Come now Jack,” says Robby, clapping him on the back, “you’re a hero.”
“Not through any fault of my own,” says Jack, and there’s an acerbic quality to his tone that makes Samira’s heart ache.
“Still,” says John brightly, “a dance! It’ll be swell.”
———
It is swell. It’s in the Bethany town hall, which is also the elementary school, and there’s a contingent of kids from the Yale music school who have ridden up in the snow to serve as a band. Everyone’s in their finest, but it’s the country, so there’s a rustic quality to everything that’s positively charming. Samira’s in her favorite green velvet from Saks, a lovely Chanel number from before the war that she likes to bring out once a year to feel extra luxurious.
A significant part of her brain, the professional writerly part, is dedicated to remembering all the details of the evening so she can write about it for her next column. The rest of her brain is completely dedicated to the sight of Jack Abbot in his uniform, smiling and laughing and making every single woman, and some of the men, fall madly in love with him.
She’s by the punch bowl later when John catches her. “He’s something,” he says, and she doesn’t need him to elaborate. She knows exactly who he’s talking about.
She sighs. “I know.”
“You know,” says John, and there’s a gentleness to his voice that makes her pause, “you’re not actually married, you know. You could.”
She signs again. “I can’t. I’m not risking my job and yours just for …. for some pilot.”
“Well,” says John, “I don’t think he’s just some pilot, is he.”
She sighs. He’s really not.
She manages to avoid him for most of the evening, out of interest for the preservation of her sanity, mostly, but eventually he manages to corner her.
“Alright Mohan,” he says, and there’s a roguish twinkle in his eyes that makes her melt, “let’s go.”
“Go where?” she says, playing dumb.
He ignores her, just drags her onto the floor and sweeps her into a neat little two-step. Of course he’s good at this, she thinks irritably.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, after a beat.
“I haven’t,” she says.
“Oh, you have,” says Jack easily, “Not that I’m complaining. It’s given me some excellent views of this dress from across the hall.”
She swats at him. “You’re a rake.”
“Not usually,” he says with a grin, and sweeps her into a turn.
She tries not to lean into him too much, tries to keep her distance, but his hand on the small of her back is broad and warm and exerting an inexorable gentle pressure, and eventually she lets herself lean into him.
“There we go,” he says, into her ear, and she can’t suppress a shiver.
“I thought you didn’t flirt with married women,” she says, and then kicks herself.
But he just laughs. “I don’t kiss them,” he says, and then pauses. “Usually.”
She bravely ignores him, but the glint in his eyes makes her feel …. well.
The evening is winding down now; Parker has disappeared with one of the pretty young musicians, and John and Victoria ducked into a carriage a while ago. Robby is smoking cigars with some of the older men in the library. It’s the easiest thing in the world for Samira and Jack to slip out into the cold, no one paying them any mind.
It’s lovely out, or maybe Samira’s just having a lovely time, because abruptly she can’t stand the idea of going home right away.
“Let’s walk home,” she says impulsively, and Jack gives her a smile, but looks at her shoes.
“In those togs?” he says with a laugh. “Hardly.”
“Oh fine,” she says, “well let’s at least take the long way back.”
“Of course,” he says, and helps her into one of the waiting sleighs.
The driver hands them a fur to cover their legs as they go, and it’s only just big enough for the both of them if they sit close together. Somehow Jack’s arm has gone around her, holding her into his side, and the whole thing is so lovely that she wants to die.
“I’m sorry that Duncan isn’t here,” says Jack out of the blue.
“Hm?” says Samira, who’d been ever-so-slightly dozing against him. “Oh,” she says, a little sleepily, “I’m not.”
There’s a pause then, and she abruptly realizes what she’d said. “I mean —“
“You know,” Jack says, “you don’t act like a married woman.”
Samira sighs. “Sometimes I don’t really feel like one.”
He’s about to say something else when the sleigh stops, and she realizes with dismay that they’re back at the farm.
“Say,” says Jack, as he helps her climb out, “were you expecting company?”
It’s then that she realizes that there are a few motorcars in the drive, one of which has a “BETHANY TOWN POLICE” sign painted on the side, and she looks around in confusion. “No?”
The scene when they come inside is chaos. Robby is in the middle of it, blustering and red-faced, one hand on the telephone and the other gesturing to a small crowd of policemen.
“I’m telling you,” he’s saying into the phone, “The Smart Housekeeping baby has been kidnapped.”
“Oh no,” says Samira, and the whole room turns to her as one. Parker and John and Victoria don’t seem to have come home yet.
“There you are,” says Robby, “of course you must have been out searching, weren’t you?”
“Searching for what?” says Samira, completely at a loss.
“For your baby, Mohan. The baby who has been kidnapped.”
“Are you sure?” says Samira. It seems a bit fantastical.
“Of course I’m sure,” says Robby, and then turns back to the phone. “Yes, put out an advertisement at once. Missing baby, four months old, red-headed — no, blond — no —“
“Robby,” says Jack, “what the devil is going on?”
He says it in a booming sort of captain voice that makes the room fall silent. Samira feels a bit weak at the knees.
“Jack,” says Robby, “I came back from the dance and saw a woman carrying the baby right out the front door, brazen as anything. She must be found. The Smart Housekeeping baby must be found, Jack.”
“Ohh,” says Samira, realizing, “Oh, no, it’s alright.”
“Alright?” says Robby, and his face, if possible, gets even redder. “Of all the —“
“Robby, really,” says Samira, and the relief overrides her common sense, because the next thing she says is, “it’s really not an emergency.”
“Not an emergency —!”
Samira turns to the gathered crowd. “You may call off the search, gentlemen. My baby has not been kidnapped.”
“But I saw —“
“Robby,” says Samira, abruptly done with …. well, everything, she supposes. With the ruse, and the lies, and the convoluted scheming, and the Jack of it all. “It’s not my baby.”
“What?” says Robby, and at that point, Jack takes over.
“Right,” he says, officious and captain-y, “all you, out, shoo.”
He manages to get all the policemen out without more than a token protest, and then at last the three of them are alone in the house.
Robby has not calmed down. “What the devil do you mean, Mohan?”
“Well it’s simple,” says Samira, and suddenly, now that she’s decided she no longer cares, it’s the easiest thing in the world, “I haven’t got a baby.”
“No baby? But your husband —“
“Oh, I haven’t got one of those either,” says Samira.
Robby, for the first time ever, is completely speechless.
He sits down heavily, face blank in shock, and Samira’s brain is slowly catching up to her, horror seeping back in, when all of the sudden Parker, John, and Victoria sweep in the door.
In the ensuing chaos of shouting and explanations and perhaps the most dramatic firing Samira has ever seen — goodbye mink coat — she loses track of Jack, who hadn’t said a word after ushering the police out.
She’s sitting in the kitchen, finally, glumly drinking a mimosa and eating some bacon Parker keeps putting in front of her. She feels a bit rotten for John, who’s also lost his job, and she feels rotten about losing a job of her own that she’d really truly enjoyed, but she can’t seem to feel particularly bad about finally giving up the secret.
“Look,” Parker is saying, “you can both just come work at the restaurant. John, you can manage the books, and Samira you can … well, you’d better not cook. Maybe you can serve drinks.”
“Sounds fab,” she says, and munches another rasher of bacon.
“It’s not fair,” says John, suddenly. “So what if you lied? You were the best columnist that rotten magazine ever had. You built that magazine.”
“Oh John, it’s alright,” says Samira, “he would have found out eventually.”
“It’s his own damn fault,” says John, “inviting himself over for a holiday he doesn’t even celebrate.”
Victoria comes in then, looking harried, and says to Samira and John, “Robby would like to, um, see you.”
“What else can he possibly have to say,” says John, “he used all the swear words I know already, plus a few I didn’t.”
Samira can’t really bring herself to feel much of anything at all now that the worst of it seems to be over. “Oh sure,” she says, “why not. Let’s see what else the old battle-axe has to say.”
She drags John back into the sitting room, where Robby is sitting and looking a great deal more contrite than he had twenty minutes ago when he’d been threatening to sue them both for fraud.
Jack is standing against the fireplace mantle, face unreadable, and Samira suddenly feels nervous.
“Hi Robby,” she says, to get things going. She’d like to get back to the mimosas, honestly.
“Samira,” says Robby, “I believe I owe you an apology.”
It’s so far outside what she expects to hear from him that she can’t think of a single thing to say.
Even John, who always has something to say, seems at a loss for words.
Robby sighs, impatient. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for firing you.”
“I — alright?” she’s not sure where this is going.
“Jack here has made some rather salient points,” he says, and it sounds like he’s admitting something under torture.
“I see,” she says, but she doesn’t see at all.
Robby sighs. “Look, Samira. The truth is, you’re the best columnist we’ve ever had. You’re charming and funny and helpful. The public love you. It seems a shame to lose the best thing Smart Housekeeping ever had.”
“But —“
“Of course I don’t like that you lied to me, but you did a rather good job of it, and if you think you can continue to do a good job of it, I’d like you to stay on.”
“I — really?”
Robby looks impatient now. “Yes, really. And John too, of course.”
“A raise,” says John, and Robby gives him a look.
“You’re not really in a position to negotiate,” says Robby.
“Au contraire,” says John. “I hadn’t told either of you, because we had a good thing going, but American Housekeeping’s been trying to poach Samira for ages. We could just go there.”
“But the’ve got Elizabeth Lane!” says Robby, indignant.
“Not if they can have Samira Mohan instead,” says John, cool as a cucumber.
“Well —“
“Come on,” says Jack, cutting Robby off, “it’s Christmas, Robby.”
“Oh alright,” Robby says on a sigh, “fine. Raises for you both.”
Samira can barely believe it. She starts to smile. “Robby, truly, thank —“
“Don’t thank me,” says Robby, “thank Jack.” And with that, he gets up and heads upstairs. “Come on, John,” he calls down, “let’s talk terms.”
“Right away sir,” says John with a grin, and goes bounding after him.
That leaves Samira and Jack alone, looking at each other, and the moment stretches.
“You know,” says Jack, “you’re a terrible liar.”
Samira bristles, moves closer to him. “I clearly am rather good, actually.”
“Oh please,” says Jack, rolling his eyes, “I had you figured out the first night.”
“You did not,” she says. She’s right in front of him now.
“The box of mail in the kitchen is addressed to Dana Evans,” he says.
“Ah.”
“Quite.”
“So,” says Jack, still leaning up against the fireplace, “no husband after all, then?”
“No husband at all,” says Samira, and she feels the energy of the conversation shift, a luscious tension building. She’d have thought with everything out in the open that the tension between them might dissipate. It seems to have grown. “I’m free as a bird.”
“A shame,” says Jack, and a hand comes around her waist, pulling her in.
“Is it?” she says, a little breathless. He’s very broad.
“Well,” he says, “I think you’d make a fine wife, actually.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I live in the Village and I can’t cook.”
He laughs at that. “That’s fine. I can. And I like the city.”
“So what?” she says, but she’s smiling.
“Well,” he says, and draws her closer still. His other hand comes up to cradle her jaw. “Just seemed like relevant information.”
“Did it?” she says. His lips are very close.
“Just something to think about,” he says, and then he’s closing the gap, and kissing her.