Booked for Christmas Read online

  Glancing away from the laptop screen, she let her gaze fall on the newest letter from the bank, lying facedown on her desk under an old teacup. Just like that, Annika’s anger was momentarily swallowed by a wave of anxiety.

  The idea of running her own business had always held a glow for Annika. Make Up was supposed to have been her fairy tale. She’d never dreamed of a big, fancy wedding. She’d never wanted the handsome prince or the cherub-cheeked children or the home with a yard in some ritzy Los Angeles suburb. She remembered being six years old and dressing up as Indra Nooyi, then Pepsi CEO, longtime business badass, for Halloween. No one had gotten her costume, but she didn’t care. All she’d ever wanted was to be her own boss. As a four-year-old, that meant ordering Daddy around the house while wearing his suit jacket that hung to her ankles. As she got older, the dream morphed from bossing her dad around to running a company that made a difference in people’s lives.

  Annika stood, smoothed down her black tulip skirt, and paced her tiny twenty-sixth-floor office, still throttling ZeeZee. Her gaze lingered on the tufted velvet settee in a trendy but sophisticated plum color; the original art from LA artist Cleo Sanders, which made a statement without being gauche; the giant metal sign she’d commissioned to wrap around the walls.

  MAKE UP

  HAPPILY EVER AFTER, REDUX

  She looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the bustling city below. She’d thought being in downtown LA would put her right in the middle of the action, that it would make her easily accessible to beta testers for the app—most of whom would come from the university—and to other businesses that Make Up might want to collaborate with. It was expensive, but the payout would be totally worth it.

  So Annika had borrowed money from the bank and signed away her life on her zillion-dollar-a-month lease.

  It worked for a time. Make Up had seemed to be touched by magic—the grant she’d won last year had been the first one she’d applied for. She had innovation, a kick-ass developer, and a relentless hunger to change the world. The deep-learning prototype was supposed to have been ready for release within six months at the latest. But that’s not how things had worked out.

  When Annika came up with the idea for Make Up about a year ago, she and her developer (and best friend extraordinaire), June Stewart, had designed the perfect app to help people translate their words in a way their partners would understand. The app would bridge the gap created by poorly spoken words and misunderstandings. No one had ever done that before, and that’s what the Young Entrepreneur’s Foundation had seen—the future, a vision, a brilliant prospect. That’s why they’d given her the grant.

  The bank didn’t see any of those things. It saw someone who was delinquent, someone who was cash-poor, and that was all that mattered. Annika squeezed poor, beleaguered ZeeZee until his zombified unicorn brains bulged through the gaps between her fingers.

  “Good morning! Did you see all those boxes in the empty office next door? I think we’re getting new neighbors really soon.”

  Annika turned to face her best friend/partner in crime, who’d just walked in the front doors. The way she described June really just depended on the day. Annika took a deep breath and attempted a breezy tone that would conceal her roiling inner turmoil. “Hey! Yeah, I think they’re moving in—” She eyed the armload of shopping bags June was carrying. “Really? It’s barely past ten.”

  June widened her blue eyes in what she probably thought was an innocent way. “Bloomingdale’s was having a sale. Besides, shopping helps me calm down. I needed it for our big meeting this morning.” She was dressed in her usual flamboyant work attire: six-inch-high, leopard-print Jimmy Choos and a hot pink, one-shoulder silk dress. Her blond hair was styled in an intricate crown braid, the kind Annika could never do without the help of thirteen hair stylists.

  Annika glanced down at her own understated-yet-classy burgundy peplum top, tulip skirt, and patent vegan leather sling-backs, her heart sinking. They were so different; they presented completely incohesive images of the company. The bank manager was going to think they were two flaky young women who couldn’t get their shit together.

  “You know,” June said, studying Annika’s expression. “We’re totally going to win over this McManor guy. I can be the wild, creative one and you’ll be the more controlled, sensible one. A little bit of yin and yang working together.” She stuffed her bags in the tiny supply closet and went to sit in her (leopard-print) office chair, which was two feet away from Annika’s. After sweeping a bunch of Star Wars–themed Funkos out of the way, she put her feet up and began tapping at her phone.

  It didn’t surprise Annika that June had read her mind so well. A friendship that had survived college-roommate status took on certain magical powers. “Mm hmm.”

  “What?” June looked up from her phone. “You don’t think so?”

  Annika sank into her own ergonomic chair, tossed ZeeZee onto the desk, and put her head in her hands. “No, I really don’t, June. This is going to be a disaster. I can feel it. You know how strong my sixth sense is.”

  “It’s not going to be a disaster!” Annika peeked at June from between her fingers as June continued speaking. “McManor’s going to see that we make a dynamic, forward-thinking team and that we have what it takes to get our little cash flow problem under control. And he’ll give you an extension on your loans. A big one. Everyone’s finances are a train wreck these days, not just yours.”

  Annika sat up straight and smiled bleakly. “It’s funny you say that. I was just thinking what a massive train wreck Hudson Craft is before you got here.” For obvious reasons, she left out the part about thinking of him as a handsome train wreck. There was no need to cloud the issue. Besides, June had eyes. She knew what Hudson Craft looked like.

  “Uh oh.” June fired up her Millennium Falcon–skinned laptop. “Is he in another article?”

  “Just emailed you the link.”

  She heard June click a few times, and then gasp in satisfying outrage. “Tech Buzz? You were supposed to get the Tech Buzz article. That journalist said it’d be about you!”

  Annika drummed her fingers on the desk. “Read the headline; it gets better.”

  “No!” June cried again. “You’re ‘Mr. Relationshape: The debonair twenty-five-year-old with the GQ smile who’s changing the shape and nature of relationships!’”

  Annika raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, uh—except I guess you’d be Miss Relationshape, and you’re twenty-four. And I’d say you’re more charming than debonair.” June paused thoughtfully. “Also, your smile is more Yoga Journal than GQ. I knew I should’ve called my cousin. I’m pretty sure he has a friend at Tech Buzz.”

  Annika sighed. “It wouldn’t have helped. Breaking people up is way sexier than helping them make up.”

  “But his business model is built on tears and heartbreak. If someone I was dating paid a ‘terminator’ to break up with me for him?” June mimed her head exploding. “Oh hell no.”

  Annika couldn’t help the disdain from creeping into her voice as she read out loud from the article. “‘It’s better than being ghosted.’” She looked up from her screen at June. “So—the options are being broken up with by a random ‘terminator’ or being ghosted? What about being kind enough to let someone down easily?”

  June shook her head. “He’s a complete and total ass-face, Annika. That’s the only explanation.”

  Annika picked up ZeeZee again and pulled on the zombie stress ball’s wart-studded nose. “I don’t like to say I hate people, but I think I actually viscerally hate Hudson Craft. Like, I hate every single thing he stands for.”

  June gave her a look. Damn. That was the problem with having a best friend who’d been your college roommate and was now practically your business partner: They knew way, way too much. “You don’t like to say you hate people? What about Fishdick Felix?”

  “Who?” Annika screwed up her nose. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, you mean that guy in the fre
shman dorms who used to microwave fish sticks in the kitchen? Everyone hated him.”

  “Do you need a refresher?” June held up her fingers one by one. “Rehan Shah, your lab partner who chewed his gum wrong?”

  “It was ridiculously noisy.”

  “Mm hmm. Adrian Westinger, who always said, ‘GRAAAIIIINS’ like a zombie to make fun of your vegetarianism? He was a jerk, but I’m pretty sure you used the word ‘hate’ with him, too—”

  “Okay, I get it, I get it.” Annika threw ZeeZee at June, who caught it midair and threw it back in one fluid motion. “So maybe I’ve hated a few more people than I thought…”

  June laughed. “You’re ruled by emotion. Messy, conflicting emotion. Just admit it.”

  Annika looked past her friend into the hallway outside the office. “Well, I’m feeling a lot of messy, conflicting emotion right now.” She wiped her palms on her skirt and tossed ZeeZee back into her stress drawer. “Because I think Mr. McManor from the Bank of California is walking up.”

  * * *

  Annika had never met Mr. McManor in person before. He turned out to be one of those extremely tidy, precise people who likely arranged their silverware drawers for fun on weekends and had a pair of monogrammed socks for every day of the week. He kept pushing up his little round glasses as he spoke, probably because his nose was so tiny. Annika was afraid they’d go tumbling right off his face if he made too sudden a movement. Thankfully, he was placid to the point of seeming half-dead, so sudden movements didn’t seem to be a concern.

  “Well.” He sat very still on a floral-patterned accent chair, clutching his briefcase tightly on his lap. “I’m afraid the news isn’t good, Ms. Dev. You are what we call ‘grotesquely delinquent’ on your accounts. Thoroughly overleveraged.”

  Grotesquely delinquent? Annika caught June’s eye. She had the feeling he’d made that up on the spot just to be spiteful. “Be that as it may, Mr. McManor, I believe if you’d just listen to this short presentation we’ve prepared…” She nodded at June, who hopped up to her laptop and began queueing up the Power- Point slides. “You see, Mr. McManor, Make Up is not just a burgeoning young business. It’s a statement about the greater good in life, about our basic humanity. The need to belong somewhere, the need to connect with another human being, the need to—”

  “Press on.” Mr. McManor waved a hand. “We need to press on. I’m sorry, but the time for last-ditch efforts has passed.”

  Annika stared into his dead-fish eyes. Coldly unsympathetic. And the bank he’d sworn his ruthless allegiance to owned both her business loan and the building where she worked. Awesome. “But … I sent you a payment. Last month.”

  “Ah, yes.” Mr. McManor consulted his notes quickly. “Your payment of four hundred eighty dollars and … seventy-four cents does not come close to overcoming your rather monstrous debt, I’m afraid.”

  “I can keep making payments.” Annika spoke firmly, willing him to see the capability in her eyes, the passion, the fire, the willingness to do whatever it took to keep Make Up running. “I can make up the back rent; I just need more time. It’s a temporary cash flow problem.”

  “Isn’t it better that you have a tenant here who’s willing to work with you, Mr. McManor?” June perched on the edge of the desk. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, that’s what my mama always says.”

  “Firstly, your back rent is only part of the problem. Catching up with rent has nothing to do with your business loan, on which you also owe quite a substantial sum of money. And secondly, we’ve had plenty of interest in the space, as it turns out. From people who would be able to afford the rent rather easily.”

  June narrowed her blue eyes. “Like who?”

  “Gwyneth Paltrow’s first cousin.”

  Annika blinked. “What?”

  “We’ve been approached by a representative for Gwyneth Paltrow. Her first cousin wants to rent out this space for an interior design business she’s launching. She’s willing to prepay the first six months.” Mr. McManor stood, brushed his suit off, and walked to the Make Up sign on the wall. The one Annika had been so proud to order. The one that had her feeling like she’d made it, that she’d achieved the dream, that she was unstoppable.

  He turned to her, his eyes flat and distant behind those little round glasses. On anyone else, Annika might have admired them for their chic Harry Potter vibe. A beam of sunlight from the window lay in a stripe on his balding head, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Unless you completely resolve your delinquency, including late fees and penalty interest, Ms. Dev, the news isn’t going to be good.”

  “Before you go,” June said. “Who’s moving in next door? Are you managing their loan, too? Because maybe we’ll tell them how you treated us.”

  Mr. McManor looked at her like she was an idiot. “Why, that is privileged client information, Ms. Stewart, and as such, is undivulgeable to you.”

  “That is so not a word,” June muttered.

  Annika drummed her fingers on her desk. “Interesting. But you did divulge that Gwyneth’s cousin wants this space. Doesn’t that violate some kind of confidentiality?”

  Mr. McManor turned bright pink. “That was rather gauche,” he said after a long pause. “I was simply … excited. I’ve been an admirer of Ms. Paltrow since her masterful performance in Emma.”

  “Excited?” Annika stared at him. “You’re excited right now?”

  Mr. McManor cleared his throat and stood up straighter, a flash of annoyance dancing across his features. It was the most animated she’d seen him in the twenty minutes he’d been there. “Ms. Dev, I suggest you do some serious thinking about your next steps. Good day.” He walked away primly, his shiny black shoes whispering on the industrial carpet as he headed to the elevators.

  “Why does he try to talk all British when he’s not British?” June said in disgust.

  “He wants us out of here.” Annika sat back heavily as the full impact of his words crashed into her. She smiled bleakly at June. “Do you know how much we have in the business account right now? Less than five thousand dollars. Do you know how much we owe?” She shook her head and thought, I am the boss. I will not cry. I will also not say how much I hate Mr. McManor. “It’s over, June.”

  “Sweet pea—” June squatted so they were eye to eye. “Let me give you the money. I know you’re probably going to argue, but please just think about it. I’d really feel good about being able to help you out. Maybe I could be, like, an investor.”

  A fact not well-known (because June did her best to hide it) was that Violetta “June” Stewart was the only daughter of extremely wealthy movie producers. Needless to say, she didn’t really need this job. June had a trust fund and lots of high-powered connections. The only reason she’d come on board was because she wanted to help Annika. Annika couldn’t afford to pay her what she was really worth, but June never complained, either out of loyalty or pity. Annika was in no position to turn down either.

  Annika shook her head and squeezed her longtime friend’s hand. “That’s really, really sweet of you, Junebug. But … no. Thank you, but no. I can’t take your money.”

  June sighed. They’d had this conversation many times before, and she knew not to expect a different outcome. Still, she was June. And that, Annika supposed, meant she had to try.

  Giving up, June flopped down to sit cross-legged on the floor. Even while wearing a tight dress and skyscraper heels, she somehow managed to look more graceful than Annika, who was sitting in a chair. “What about your dad, then?”

  Annika’s dad was one of the leading anesthesiologists in the country. He was regularly paid to travel to various conferences and give talks because apparently, he knew more about putting people to sleep than anyone else did. Annika didn’t get the specifics—she just knew she never wanted to do what he did.

  That fact had almost broken his heart.

  Annika still remembered her dad’s face when she’d gone to him eight months earlier to tell him that
, in addition to the grant money she’d won, the bank loan had also come through, and that Make Up was going to be an actual business. He’d stared at her for a long moment, scotch in hand, and then said in his deep bass voice, “But what about medical school?”

  She’d graduated from UCLA two years earlier, but her dad had never let go of the dream that his only child would come to her senses and decide to follow in the family footsteps after all. Annika was all he had in this world—both his physician parents were dead, and Annika’s mom, who’d been a pediatrician, had passed away shortly after Annika was born. Her dad was desperate for her to continue the family trade. Never mind that the thought of slicing into a cadaver made Annika want to suck down his unconscious-making chemicals just to escape.

  Come to think of it, after he’d asked her about medical school, Annika had gotten kind of cocky. She’d raised an eyebrow and said in a very “you wanna throw down?” tone, “Just wait. In three months when my face is plastered across magazines in every newsstand between here and the hospital, you’ll be singing a different tune.” In her defense, things had been on the come-up then. She’d had no idea that fate would kick her in the ass just a few months later.

  God, how embarrassing.

  Annika nibbled on her lower lip. Far below them, a car honked in the perpetual LA traffic.

  “What are you thinking?” June prompted, playing with the Baby Yoda figurine on her desk Annika had given her last Christmas.

  “Well—don’t get me wrong.” Annika got up and began pacing, wearing a path from her desk to the window. “I believe in us. We can bring in a profit if we work our asses off. Our cash flow issues would be a thing of the past. But there’s a part of me that’s so worried I’m kidding myself—this tiny, heckling voice that just won’t shut up. I expected the app to be ready for release way before now—no offense, I know you’re working as hard as you can—and that hasn’t happened. What if I’ve lost my fire?”