“Apparently our website has stopped working,” Barty says, phone still at his ear as the security guard looks left, right, left again, and then gestures Harper through after Ollie, who seems to have remembered how to be a functional human being.
We all turn to stare at Barty.
“It says there is ‘too much traffic.’ Apparently, we’ve had one hundred bookings in the last six minutes.”
Mrs. SB lowers herself slowly onto a box. Harper beams around at us from the doorway.
“Oh, that’s so nice!” she says, then waves goodbye over her shoulder, her hand just about visible behind the gigantic bald man in sunglasses who follows close behind her.
Slowly, as one, we turn to look at Poor Mandy. The lights on the tree shine through the door from the lobby, alternating red and green, flashing in Mandy’s glasses.
“Sorry,” she says. “You said do the social media. Did I go too far?”
“Mandy,” Mrs. SB says, voice choked. “Dearest Mandy. I am so sorry.”
Poor Mandy looks baffled as Mrs. SB pulls her into a hug, and then Barty and Izzy join them, and then, because it’s Christmas, and because Izzy loves me back, and because Mandy has just saved my job, I pile in, too.
“What are you sorry for?” Mandy asks from inside the hug.
“When someone doesn’t value themselves, dear,” Mrs. SB says, pulling back and wiping her face, “it’s far too easy to take their word for it. But you’re absolutely brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that you’ve saved Forest Manor Hotel from oblivion.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to have helped,” Mandy says, looking overcome. “I did wonder . . . but I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, and . . .” She breathes on her glasses and then wipes them on her reindeer jumper. “Anyway, it was all Izzy and Lucas, really. It was all the Ring Thing. I just spread the word. I have to say, I’ll be very glad to delete Twitter now,” she says, just as Mrs. SB cuts in to say, “I’ll be promoting you to Head of Social Media Marketing with immediate effect!”
“Oh,” Poor Mandy says, looking stricken. “Really?”
“Well, you have such a knack for this!” Mrs. SB says, waving her phone.
“Right,” Poor Mandy says forlornly. Then, after a deep breath, she lifts her chin and says, “Actually, I’d rather stay on reception, if I may.”
“Oh!” Mrs. SB looks at Mandy with surprise. “Yes! Of course.”
Mandy draws herself up. “But I am very happy to train whoever you recruit to work on our social media,” she says, voice wobbling slightly. “And I look forward to the pay rise that will be forthcoming once the hotel is back on its feet in the new year.”
There is a shocked, admiring silence, and then, behind us, the lobby fills with cheers as Harper hits the opening notes of an acoustic “December Kisses.” It feels like an appropriate response.
I don’t think Mandy will be called Poor Mandy any longer. That name doesn’t suit her at all.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Izzy snuggles into me, shifting up the bench. It’s four in the morning, and we’re in the pergola, lit by the fairy lights. The trees reach above us, their branches criss-crossing the star-sprayed sky. My muscles ache from hours of dancing on the lobby rug with Izzy in my arms.
“So, I guess . . . Mandy won the bet,” Izzy says, resting her head against my shoulder. “She found Harper.”
“Does that mean we both have to dress up as elves tomorrow?” I ask, kissing the top of Izzy’s head.
“Yep,” Izzy says. “Looks like it. Good old Mandy. I’m so proud of her.”
“We have not made Mandy’s year easy,” I say.
“God, we were a nightmare, weren’t we? Do you remember that week back in January when we refused to communicate directly, and she ended up as the go-between?”
I snort. “Do you remember the time you moved the location of every single icon on my computer home screen and pretended the temp did it?”
“It could have been the temp.”
“Was it the temp?”
Izzy waves a hand, as if this is beside the point. “Do you remember the time you told Arjun that I thought his mousse was too floofy?”
“You did say that,” I point out.
“Not to Arjun.”
“Do you remember the time you glued my mouse to the desk?”
“That was actually an accident,” Izzy says, grinning.
“Do you remember the time we almost kissed in the pool?” I say, my voice quieter now.