It’s the first day of December.  The start of Advent.  That delicious period of excitement leading up to the joyous frenzy that is Christmas.  Unless, of course, you’re without a man and then it’s a pants time of dodging embarrassing invitations because you’ve got no lovely boyfriend to go with.  At every single one of the obligatory family gatherings my crusty old relations, huddled round their small, dry sherries, will say to me in very loud voices, ‘Not married yet, Marcia?’ or words to that effect.  I’ll brightly and politely reply, ‘Still looking!’ when I actually feel murderous or at least want to do something hideous like hiding their dentures when it’s time for them to tackle the turkey.

Chrissie and I sigh at each other over our skimmed milk lattes – the ones that Chrissie just nipped out to get from the fabulous new coffee and chocolate bar across the road from the office – Coco Café.  We spoil the effect of the skimmed milk by chasing our drinks with one of their delicious hand-baked chocolate brownies.  Deep, deep calories.  Deep, deep pleasure.

‘This is the third year that we’ll both be without a man,’ I say, sinking lower towards my desk.

The comment is rather unnecessary as we are both more than aware of our single status.  The great myth perpetrated about singledom is that it’s fun.  Oh, yeah.  Sitting at home all alone over Christmas with a box of ‘Eat Me’ dates – the only dates I’m likely to get.  A barrel of laughs.  It can’t be just me who’s only solace is stuffing my face with the annual tin of Quality Street, surely?

‘Do you think if I write to Santa and ask for a man this year, the red-suited one will oblige?’  I ask my friend. ‘ Dear Santa, I’d like a tall, dark handsome man.  Doesn’t have to be too rich, too bright or even too handsome.  Short, blonde and passably attractive would work for me.  Yours, Desperate of Dulwich.’  He must have someone that fits the bill lying around on his dusty little Santa shelves. 

Chrissie eats the last bit of her brownie.  ‘You’re not from Dulwich.’

‘I know but Desperate of Camden, doesn’t have a ring to it.’  I notice that she doesn’t say I’m not desperate.

‘I wouldn’t trust Santa,’ Chrissie says.  ‘Another dodgy bloke.  Last year I asked for a pair of black, spike-heel Manolo Blahniks and I got a pair of Marks & Spencer’s fluffy granny slippers in pale blue instead.  Santa is useless, Marcia.  Live with it.’

At least I did get a new car last year, a sporty little number, complete with all the bells and whistles a girl could ever want.  I did have to buy it myself, of course.  It wasn’t waiting on my doorstep with a bow tied round it bought by my millionaire toy-boy lover who couldn’t decide between that and a small yacht.  Still you can’t have everything in life.  I let my eyes rove out to the car park where my lovely car, Flirty Gerty, is sitting waiting patiently to whisk me away from the drudgery that is my working day.  I call her Flirty Gerty because she certainly turns more heads than I ever do.  If she was a friend, I’d dump her.  As it is, I try to kid myself that she increases my pulling power.  My eyes then go to my watch – home time is hours away yet.  I sigh again.

‘Eyes right,’ Chrissie hisses under her breath and my gaze swivels again.

We have a new hunk in the office.  The only hunk in the office.  Chrissie and I work as Editorial Assistants at a very small publishing house.  Think the smallest publishing house you can imagine.  We’re not in Bloombury – the heart of books.  Oh no.  We’re plonked on the edge of a run-down industrial estate in a less salubrious part of north London.  Our books are earnest self-help tomes bought by the sort of women who think tofu is a marvellous foodstuff and will only eat Fairtrade chocolate even if they’re really desperate and can only get the normal stuff.  They’d actually go without chocolate rather than compromise their principles.  How weird is that?  We have a handful of middle-aged editors who all wear kaftans or ethnic knits and have their hair dyed in varying shades of aubergine.  There’s a Managing Director who wears a white linen suit, a tie with dollar signs all over it and red socks.  He also carries a raffia shopping bag.  Everyone in the marketing department is over fifty and bald.

And now we have Lovely Richard.  Well-cut suit, gelled, spiky hair, expensive shoes.  How on earth we managed to recruit him, goodness only knows.  He is the future of Earth Publishing.  Lovely Richard has been brought in by our despairing owner to widen our acquisitions – i.e. books that don’t feature vegetables and Reiki quite as heavily.  He’s even looking at the possibility of doing a chocolate cookery book.  In our mind that’s truly forward thinking, especially if we get to try out the recipes in the name of work.  We both worship him for this vision.  But Chrissie, unlike me, is in love with Richard.

She thinks it’s because he’s adorably handsome and charming.  I think it’s because we are very bored and have small lives and, therefore, are easily swayed.  Richard stops by our desks.  He does this a lot.

‘Hey,’ he says.  ‘What’s new?’

There is never anything new at Earth publishing and we remind him of this constantly.  He assures us this will change and that, very soon, we will be publishing books by top celebrity authors and fending off calls from Richard and Judy.  Jamie Oliver’s name crops up periodically.

Lovely Richard eyes our chocolate brownies greedily.  ‘They look good,’ he says.  ‘I’d die for a bite of one of those.’  He flashes his big brown eyes at me.  ‘And a coffee.’

‘I can take a hint,’ I say.  ‘What do you want?’

‘Cappuccino.  Lots of chocolate on top.’  He hands over some money.  I admire the fact that he shares our passion for all things chocolate.  ‘There’s enough there for two brownies.  I can never eat just one.’

A man after my own heart, indeed.  I shrug on my coat.  ‘If Antonio Banderas phones for me tell him I won’t be long.’

‘If Antonio Banderas phones,’ Chrissie says, ‘he’s mine.’

Outside, the hit of cold air takes my breath away.  I had to scrape inch-thick ice off Flirty Gerty this morning – surely the first sign of the onset of the depths of Winter.  I wonder will we have a white Christmas this year.  Plodding through the car park to Coco Café – the only highlight on our bleak horizon - I pass by my car and glance over towards her.  Something has been stuck behind one of her windscreen wipers and I wander over to have a look.  There’s a little plastic bag jammed there – which looks suspiciously like the ones that hold parking tickets.  But inside this one there’s a little chocolate shaped like a Christmas pudding, complete with holly spring on top.  There’s also a hand-written poem on posh paper.  The writing is round and tidy.  The writing of someone who has taken a lot of trouble.  I ease it out from behind the black rubber and read it.

Some noses are red,

some noses are blue,

I’m looking forward to Christmas,

Are you?

My forehead creases in a frown.  Possibly not the most romantic verse I could think of, but I wonder who put it there.  I look back towards the office, lips pursed.  Mmm.  Instantly, I dispose of the chocolate evidence.  Into my mouth.  Mmm again.

When I get to Coco Café, there’s no queue there, for once.

‘Hi,’ the guy serving says.  He’s wearing a fur fabric Santa hat that is playing Christmassy tunes, jingling away as he works.  That must be truly irritating.  And probably against all manner of health and safety regulations.  He doesn’t seem to mind.  ‘How’s the glamorous world of publishing today?’

‘Wonderful.’  Little does he know that I’m currently editing a book about how to build an authentic American Indian tepee using only recycled materials.  It’s not exactly Sex and The City, is it?  ‘How’s business here?’

‘Booming,’ he tells me with a smile.  His eyes crinkle very nicely when he grins.  ‘Thanks to all the dedicated coffee and chocolate addicts around here.’

I can hold my hand up to that.  Though I don’t point out to him that his only competition is Kevin’s Kebabs – a portable emporium selling the Doner kebabs that have inspired the name and a choice of builders’ tea or instant coffee that tastes worse than the stuff that comes out of the vending machine at Earth Publishing.  And that’s bad.  There’s not a drop of chocolate in sight either.  How can Coco Café fail to thrive in this cappuccino-starved enviroment?

While I muse on this, I order Lovely Richard’s coffee, pick out two scrummy-looking brownies, wondering if he’d miss a tiny bit of one corner if it just happened to break off.  While I’m here I might as well get a few extra bits for Chrissie and myself.  You have to be well-prepared for the post-lunch slump.  I pick out some chocolate-coated flapjack and two slices of the calorie overload that is the marshmallow-laden Rocky Road.  The Rocky Road to ruination, I think.  And maybe some more coffees.  Our days pass by so much quicker when we eat and drink our way relentlessly through them.

‘Thanks,’ I say when my order comes.

‘My pleasure,’ the guy says and I struggle out with a tray of cups and several paper bags stuffed with goodies.

Back at the office, I hand over Richard’s coffee, brownies and his change.  He thanks me profusely and wanders off.  I tell Chrissie about the note and the chocolate under my windscreen wiper.

‘Ooo,’ she says.  ‘I bet Lovely Richard put it there.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Who else would it be?’ she wants to know.  ‘I’ll hate you if he fancies you and not me.  I’ll stop being your best friend.’

The next day when I’m dispatched for our morning order, there’s a single red rose and another chocolate under Flirty Gerty’s windscreen wiper.  This time the chocolate is in the shape of a little fat snowman with an orange marzipan nose and a top hat.  There’s a gift tag attached to it with a neat note – same hand-writing as the poem.

‘Twenty-four days to Christmas,’ it says.  ‘I can’t wait.’

I eat the chocolate.  Delicious.  When I get to Coco Café the place is rammed.  The guy behind the counter is rushed off his feet.  Even the tunes on his hat seem to have speeded up.  As he packs my order, he clocks my rose.  ‘Someone love you?’

‘They must do,’ I say.  ‘Haven’t a clue who?’

‘Hmm.  Perhaps he’s an international man of mystery.’

‘I do hope so.’  Then people start tutting behind me, so with a mumbled ‘thanks’ I move off.

Back at the office, I take the rose and put it in a prominent place in a left-over polystyrene Coco Café cup on my desk.  When Richard comes to put in his afternoon chocolate order, Chrissie and I wait for his reaction.  A faint flushing, a sudden coyness.  Nothing.  Nada.  He doesn’t even notice it.

‘It’s just a ploy,’ Chrissie tells me sagely.  ‘It’s him alright.  I know men.’

I don’t point out that she hasn’t known a man for a long time.  Me neither.

And so it continues throughout December.  Every day something new and wonderful is sneaked under one of Flirty Gerty’s windscreen wipers.  Every day Chrissie and I fail to see who the culprit is, despite spending an inordinate amount of time staring out of the window when we should, in fact, be working.  I’ve still no idea who’s supplying me with my much-appreciated daily dose of chocolate each with a funny, cryptic note attached.  It’s like having my own brilliant, car-based Advent calendar.  I’m feeling so unusually in the mood, that I’ve bought a  CD of Christmas songs old and new, which blasts out in Flirty Gerty every morning.

Chrissie, however, is becoming very morose whenever Richard calls by our desk.  She is convinced that any day now he will be proposing marriage to me at the very least.  But, despite the flow of chocolates and notes, he still hasn’t made any further approach towards me – other than hanging round our desk more and more when he, in fact, should be working.  How’s the chocolate dessert book going to materialise at this rate, eh?  There’s been no intimate little comments, no trying to catch up with me by the lift, no offering to get my order from Coco Café, no hints at all that he might have the hots for me.  Nothing.

Pondering this deeply, I take the office coffee and chocolate order and plod out, weaving through the cars in the car park, to see my friend at Coco Café.

‘Signed any A list celebrity authors yet?’ my Coco Café friend says as he fiddles about making two frothy cappuccinos.

‘Yes.  Jordan and David Beckham.  That was this morning.’  I select some particularly delectable pieces of chocolate-topped caramel shortbread for our lunchtime treat.  ‘This afternoon I’m going head-to-head in a bid for Nigella Lawson and Alan Titchmarsh.’

‘Your name will surely be up in lights.’

We both laugh.  I’ll probably just finish off my recycled wigwam book first.  ‘Managed to derail Starbucks yet?’

‘Yes,’ he says with an evil cackle.  ‘It won’t be long before they fall at my feet.  My quest for world domination has begun.  I want to open a chain that spreads across Britain, then America and the rest of the known world.’

He’ll probably be able to retire in a few years from what we at Earth Publishing spend in here.  ‘I like a man with ambition,’ I say.

And he raises his eyebrows.  ‘See you this afternoon.  I have some white chocolate snowmen coming in.  I’ll save some for you.’

‘Do you like Christmas?’ I ask with a frown.

‘Love it,’ he says with a smile.  ‘It’s the time for giving.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Chrissie wails.  ‘We should rent escorts for the night.  Ones that look as if they’re in boy bands.’

‘We can’t do that.  Be sensible,’ I tut.  ‘There is no shame in going to the office party alone.’

‘There is,’ she moans.

‘It’s no good.  I can take this no longer.’ I stand up from my desk.  ‘Time for some calorific comfort,’ I announce.

‘You always go for the chocolate these days,’ Chrissie says.  ‘Don’t you want me to take a turn?  You used to always complain that I didn’t do it often enough.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I insist.  And for some reason I flush.  Even though I’m depressed about the impending office party, I take the stairs with a spring in my step.  The guy from Coco Café is doing the catering for our Christmas Eve lunch at work and, when I reach the car park, I remember that I should have brought the list of sandwiches and goodies that we want, to discuss with him.  He’s building up a great business over there and I’m really pleased for him.  I turn and dash back to my desk to collect it.

When I get there, Chrissie is sitting in a catatonic state.  Her face is as white as the driven snow – apart from two bright pink circles on her cheeks.

‘What?’ I say.  ‘What’s happened?’

‘You’ll never guess.’

‘You’ve been sacked.’

‘No.  No.’

‘I’ve been sacked.’

Chrissie looks up at me.  Her eyes are glazed and staring.  ‘Lovely Richard has asked me to be his date for the office party.’

‘No.’  I sink to my seat.

‘It wasn’t you he fancied after all,’ she says and I look for a hint of smugness in her voice, but there isn’t one.  ‘It was me.’

I go round and give her a hug.  ‘I’m so pleased for you.’

‘So am I,’ she says.  ‘But what will you do?  And, if it isn’t Richard,  who’s putting all those chocolate pressies on Flirty Gerty?’

I only wish I knew.  To divert my brain, I pick up the Christmas list for Coco Café and head out there.  As I make my away through the car park, a few flakes of snow start to fall.  Looks like it might be a white Christmas after all.

The door bell dings my arrival and I shake the snow from my hair.

‘Very festive,’ my friend behind the counter says.

‘I brought the Christmas food list for you,’ I tell him.  ‘Nothing too complicated.  We all eat it and then scarper as early as we can get away with.’

‘Have you got any plans for Christmas this year?’ he asks.

‘Me?’  I shake my head again.  ‘No.  Nothing.  All quiet on the Western front.’  And then because he’s studying me rather intently, I hastily turn my attention to my list.  ‘Here’s the list.’

I hand it over.  It’s suddenly hot in here.  Must be because I’ve rushed in from the cold.

‘I wrote out a quick quote for you,’ he says.  ‘Sorry.  I didn’t have time to put it on the computer.’

He gives me the piece of paper, headed with the Coco Café logo.  My mouth drops open, but it’s nothing to do with the price noted down.  I stare back at him.  I’d know that hand-writing anywhere.  I’ve seen it often enough over the last few weeks.

‘It’s… it’s… it’s  you!’ I say, suddenly developing a stammer.

‘Perhaps it’s time we were formally introduced,’ he says.  ‘I’m Josh.  I hope you’ve liked your chocolates.’

‘Marcia,’ I reply.  ‘I’ve loved them all.  That was such a kind thing for you to do.’

Josh shrugs.  ‘I do have an ulterior motive.’

I wait with baited breath.

‘I have no one to spend Christmas with this year.  I thought you might like to share it with me.’

‘I’d love to,’ I breath.  And Bing Crosby starts up on Josh’s festive fur fabric hat.  "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", he croons.  And do you know, I think I just might.

Copyright © Carole Matthews 2006