‘You’re not going to expect me to be with you every minute of the day, are you? Oh Jesus, you are. You’re going to have me on the clock, track my every move, report back to Mum – not that she cares. She’ll be glad to see the back of me for a while. Bet she thinks all her Christmases have come at once.’
He could do a runner here but the chances of that were unlikely so she braved telling him what she had planned. She hoped he wasn’t going to freak out and make a scene at passport control that would result in them being detained like in one of those border-patrol shows, or their body cavities being searched. ‘In exchange for the apartment in the East Village we’llbothbe helping out at the markets.’
Face stony, he stared at her. ‘No way. I’m not working on a la-di-da wool stall selling ugly jumpers.’
If he wasn’t so volatile she’d have a bit of a joke with him, wind him up, but it wasn’t worth the risk. ‘You won’t be on the wool stall. Cleo has a lot of close friends doing her favours for us this holiday, and her friend Mitch has said he could use help with selling Christmas trees.’
‘Do I get to cut the trees down, with a chainsaw?’ He leapt into boy mode and mimicked using a chainsaw with his hands.
‘Behave, don’t draw attention to us.’ Something about airports and security always made Amelia nervous despite being totally innocent. Whenever she and Paul had travelled somewhere he’d insisted they do it smartly dressed so they looked like professionals rather than anyone who was up to no good. She’d seen his point after a friend of theirs was strip-searched before boarding a flight to Thailand. ‘You’ll be in the city at the Garland Street markets.’ Near me, where I can keep an eye on you, although she kept that part to herself.
‘Figures.’ He’d seen right through her.
‘If you play your cards right Mitch might want a hand at his Christmas tree farm out in Inglenook Falls, but you’ll have to prove yourself first.’ She put it back on him, left him in control rather than bossing him about, and he took her suggestion well, the corners of his mouth not looking quite so downturned. Dealing with trees and the possibility of getting close to a chainsaw was clearly manlier than handling soft, luxurious wool, or yarn as it was known in America. It was going to take her a while to get used to the different lingo, but it was exciting too. She’d never done much travel on her own – the last few long-haul trips had been with Paul when he went on business – and now they were here, she wondered why she’d left it so long to be more adventurous.
They inched forward in the queue and finally reached the front. ‘Don’t give them any attitude,’ she whispered to Kyle, referencing the security men standing to attention. Her work persona was never far from the surface.
‘Don’t draw attention, don’t give them attitude,’ he mimicked. ‘I’m not a total dumb arse.’ And off he went to the booth where they checked the passport and your fingerprints before she had a chance to reprimand him for his language.
This trip to New York was supposed to take her away from her job; she’d have to make more of an effort to switch off, but that was hard when it was family. She’d helped out with Kyle in the early days, which she hadn’t minded at all, in fact she’d enjoyed it. But the favours had long continued as Kyle got older, and although Amelia valued the bond she’d made with her nephew, the childminding hadn’t been done entirely without rancour. It’s just that as time went on Amelia had found it more and more difficult to turn down the requests. Her job in those days as a home-based telesales executive had been ideal in many ways. When she was feeling unwell she could stay in her pyjamas all day, if she had a cold there was nobody to offend with her constant nose-blowing and sneezing, but it also meant that others didn’t quite see her job in the same light as their own. Connie had assumed that because Amelia was based at home she could jump through hoops to keep her sister’s life running as smoothly as possible. Amelia was on hand to take Kyle when he was too sick to go to school, she was there to meet him at the school gate if Connie was held up in a meeting, and if Stuart was working overtime and between them they hadn’t coordinated childcare, there was Amelia yet again. But every time she was asked, Amelia acquiesced. It was what family did, wasn’t it? And after Stuart died, how could she possibly say no to Connie?
By the time they were both through immigration and making their way towards baggage claim Kyle added, ‘I do know not to mouth off at an airport. I’m seventeen, I’ve been out in public before.’
Surrounded by hoards who’d disembarked just like them and were waiting to make sure their luggage had made it as far as they had across the globe, Kyle found both cases on the conveyor belt, yanked them off and it was time to make their way into Manhattan.
She pulled up the handle on her suitcase so she could wheel it along the ground behind her. ‘What’s making you smile so much?’
He nodded towards two police officers stood back from the baggage carousel. ‘I thought that was a myth, cops and doughnuts.’
Both officers were enjoying a sugary snack that looked rather tempting right now. The food on the flight hadn’t been great, although doughnuts weren’t much better, and she couldn’t wait to have something decent.
‘Already this city is way more exciting than boring old Cornwall,’ he grinned and Amelia had a sudden pang that as hard as this was going to be, it was the right thing to do.
‘Your mum did a lot of travelling after she left school,’ she said. ‘I bet she’d love to help you plan a big trip like she did. She was away for ten months, she saw loads of Europe, far more than I ever have.’
Kyle let her get away with her subtle way of bringing his mum into the conversation and asked, ‘Why did you never go?’
‘I guess I never got round to it. We both got some money when we turned twenty-one, Connie used hers for travel, I used mine to put myself through university and change career.’
‘I forget you didn’t always work with lowlifes like me.’
‘You’re not a lowlife. But yes, I wasn’t always doing the same job. I was once a telesales exec, which sounds far grander than it really was.’
‘Why do it if you weren’t into it?’
‘I had no idea what to do so I got a job quick.’
‘Not necessarily a bad thing, it’s responsible.’
‘I should’ve taken time to think about what I really wanted. But what it did do was show me how much difference it can make when you finally find a profession you enjoy.’
‘It’s still work.’
‘It is, but the days go a lot quicker if you’ve got a passion for something. Don’t you have any passions, desires to follow a career?’
‘Not really.’ His brow creased in frustration. ‘I’d like to see a bit of the world one day.’
‘Then you need to start saving.’
