Page 72 of The Wedding Forecast

Hayley and I get dressed up and catch the subway to the theatre.

The play is a comedy about a son (played by Mac) who has to move home with his father and the series of small but escalating dramas they become involved in with their neighbours.

I am worried how I will feel watching Mac on stage. Maybe I’ll lose my attraction for him. Which would be good, in a way. I am anxious, too, in the way it is anxiety-provoking to see someone you know go on stage when you don’t know how good they are yet, whether they can manage it, pull it off, if they’ll capture the crowd, make people laugh.

But from the second Mac walks on stage, I relax. He knows what he’s doing. He has it, like the magician, but even better. He is the character on stage, but he’s Mac, the actor, too, and he’s also Mac, the guy, and maybe he’s Cormac the survivor as well. And unfortunately it doesn’t extinguish my crush in any capacity—it only makes it more intense. I can hardly breathe, I can hardly move. His timing is perfect. He is the straight man to the father’s more over-the-top character, but he gets a lot of the big laughs for his panicked reactions, his helpless pleading, his trying to keep things under control. I could hug him, I could protect him with my life, I could eat him up with a spoon.

At the end, during the applause, Hayley cheers loudly, and I join her, and Mac looks at us and grins.

There are a few people waiting at the stage door with us, and we let them go ahead and get his signature on the show playbill and talk to him. One young woman is definitely flirting, and I feel ridiculous, suddenly, because of course, he gets this every night. Fawning women. He has other actors, he has backstage crew, he has a whole little family here at the theatre, and he has fans, he has dedicated fans, women throwing themselves at him after every show. And now I feel like one of them, a desperate clawing fan. Me, me. Pick me.

I hold out my playbill to be signed.

He smiles with crinkly eyes, and signs his name. He signs it as Cormac, I note, which he didn’t do for other women. He signed Mac for them, Mac is the name listed in the playbill. He is full of adrenaline, from the show, the audience, the night, I can tell, and it’s contagious. He invites us out to the bar where the cast and crew go afterwards, and Hayley and I are thrilled.

‘We’re real New Yorkers now,’ she says.

‘Don’t say that out loud,’ I shush her, laughing. ‘A real New Yorker will hear and have us sent home.’

We follow the real New Yorkers into the bar, and Mac introduces us to everyone as his friends from home. Hayley sits down and becomes instant friends with the dresser. I’m seated next to Mac, and his leg keeps bumping mine, and then we need to move along the couch to fit someone else in, and our bodies are fully pressed together, and it feels like too much. Too much, but also not enough.

After a few hours of drinking, talking and laughing, Hayley begs off, exhausted. She has a big day planned for us tomorrow. We say our goodbyes.

‘Mac, come over here and hug us, we might not see you again before we go,’ Hayley says. And it hits me, that it’s true, Hayley and I have tickets to a Broadway show tomorrow night, and our itinerary for the next two days is nonstop, and Mac has shows to do, his own life to live. Mac’s face looks like I feel. It’s like the goodbye at the wedding brunch, but so much worse. We three stand together, off to the side of the group.

‘Goodbye,’ Hayley says, hugging him. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to hang out much but you and Anna seem to have had a great time.’

‘We have,’ he says, ‘had a great time.’ His eyes meet mine.

He leans over to hug me, and this time there aren’t any big coats between us, and I feel his whole body. He’s hugging me tight, and I’m hugging him, and I can feel a volcano of emotion in my chest. I need to get out of here. I’m going to need therapy to get over what this man triggers in me.

‘Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘For the full New York Christmas experience.’

‘Can I tell you something?’ he says.

‘What?’

‘I actually hate Christmas.’

‘What? But your Christmas jumper!’

‘That was a joke gift from someone. I had never worn it before.’

‘I made you do so many Christmassy things, I’m sorry! Well, really, you made me do them. But I made you think of them.’

‘No, I wanted to say thank you, because I had fun. This is the first time in a long time I’ve felt okay about Christmas. All because of you,’ he says, smiling.

‘It’s like a real-life Hallmark movie. I’m the small-town girl who showed you the true meaning of Christmas.’

I wish I hadn’t said that, because I feel like I’m implying romance, but he smiles at me.

‘It is,’ he says. ‘You did.’

I let him go and step back, feeling flustered.

‘So. Goodbye, then,’ I say.

‘Bye,’ he says, and Hayley and I walk out of the bar.