As he turned round again to look at her, she kept the phone to her ear even though there was no one on the line any more.
‘Great,’ she said loudly, lashing out as she watched Oke and Dahlia’s heads close together. ‘See you, Blair.’
And she hung up, even as Oke was looking at her, his face hurt and confused, and stalked off, back the way she came.
The shouting crowds of the fair felt irritating now as Carmen pushed her way through them, her head a mess.
Blair was ridiculous. Of course he was. But he was … She felt underneath all the nonsense he was funny and cynical and she couldn’t help finding him attractive. Oke was attractive – of course he was – but Blair was a man of the world, had been everywhere, had met everyone, was famous – and was still texting her. She couldn’t deny it was flattering and appealing and she remembered his cold hand on her waist …
Oke was nice. Definitely nice. But he was seeing someone else anyway; he was just making a habit of acquiring shop girls as he went on.
Oh, but she had liked him. She had liked him a lot. But he belonged to someone else. Story of her life.
But Blair … he had what everyone else had round here. Money and a career and he knew what he was doing and where his life was heading. Okay, he was a doof but … God, it would be nice to have a bit of that. When everyone else in the world （she was still getting very jolly messages from Idra） seemed to have their shit together but poor old Carmen. It was all right to want that, wasn’t it?
Carmen sighed. Christmas was getting to her, she could tell. There was something about the magical pull of this town, the swirl of snowflakes that was sending her – argh – completely mad. She had nearly kissed a near-total stranger.
Mind you.
Her phone kept buzzing.
She allowed herself, just for a moment, to imagine what it would be like: the sun streaming through the hotel bedroom window, the crisp white sheets, the fruit plate. She wasn’t exactly sure what a fruit plate was but it sounded like something she should probably order.
What would it be like being Blair’s girlfriend? Well, he lived in London, but he went to LA for work, and maybe the sun would stream over her face and she’d be in his arms and he’d ask her what she felt like doing that day – pool first, or a walk hand in hand on the beach? Or possibly rollerblading? She frowned as she crossed the road towards the lights at the Caledonian Hotel. She didn’t actually want to go rollerblading at all. This fantasy had got completely out of hand.
‘Hey babe, how’s it going? Are you in the shower?’
‘There’s a snow shower,’ she texted back. ‘Not sure that’s the same thing.’
‘Hey, give me your email. I got something for you.’
Carmen did so, and couldn’t help a bit of her thinking, Goodness, what if it was plane tickets for the next time he went to LA?
The email finally came through.
She looked around the busy shop as her phone pinged. Although, funnily enough, if a month ago she would have said that the only thing she wanted was a famous handsome rich man to whisk her off somewhere sunny, now, as she looked round, she found herself thinking, well, she couldn’t leave the shop in the lurch this close to Christmas. At that moment, Mr McCredie was trying to help a woman who wanted several expensive guides to Edinburgh gift-wrapped and had managed to stick a piece of Sellotape to his whiskers. She went over to help, waiting and wondering what the email was going to be.
At first, it didn’t make any sense; it was an attachment.
‘You do stories in the shop, right? For kids?’
Carmen’s heart sank a little; there was only one way he could have known this and it wasn’t from her.
‘I’m going to do a kids’ Christmas book for next Christmas. Get some decent artist in, takes me five minutes, big picture of me on the front, sorted. Money for nothing.’