The Dickens with Love by Josh Lanyon

half fell back over it, glasses crooked, blinking up in astonishment at me.
    I said, “Enjoy the rest of your stay in L.A., arsehole.”
    I managed not to slam the door on my way out.

    ~ * ~

    I ran into Darcy on the way up to my apartment. She was dragging—literally dragging—plastic bags
    of groceries up the stairs. She’d already lost a can of condensed milk and a packet of lime Jell-O on the lower steps. The frozen turkey was perched precariously about midway up the staircase. I picked it up, tucked it under my arm, adding to my collection, and overtook Darcy near the top level.
    The amount of groceries, clearly destined for Christmas day, made me feel queasy. Why did she have
    to go to so much trouble? Why did she have to make such a big deal of it? Why had I ever agreed to spend the day with her? The last thing I wanted to do was have to try to pretend holiday civility for hours on end.
    She greeted me, flushed and panting. “They’re saying we may have snow for Christmas!”
    “They’re lying. As usual.”
    “James.” She sounded as wounded as though I had control of the weather and was deliberately
    withholding snowfall.
    I got control. “Snow in Los Angeles? Come on, Dar. Besides, the sun is shining.” Way too brightly.
    “It might,” she said stubbornly. “It could be a freak storm.”
    “Well, that would be right for L.A.” While she fished for her keys, I deposited the bags and turkey
    outside her door and moved on to my own.
    I let myself in to my dark apartment, closed the blinds tight so it would be even darker, and pulled
    down the wall bed. I stripped off my clothes and threw myself on the cool, rumpled sheets.
    Sedgwick Crisparkle could go fuck himself.
    Granted, he shouldn’t have any trouble finding help with that, given his single-mindedness.
    I lay there brooding, and eventually my mind wandered back to the Christmas book. What was the
    connection with Miss Anjaley Coutts, though? Why was that name familiar to me?
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    The Dickens with Love
    Suddenly restless, I rose and went over to the bookshelves. My books were about all I’d managed to
    salvage from the financial ruins of my previous life. Corey and I had lived well and inevitably a percentage of that living had been on extended credit. It hadn’t been a problem because I earned good money, but
    finding myself abruptly unemployed—and homeless—had wreaked financial havoc. They say the average
    American family is four paychecks from the street. In my case it was four credit card cash advances. I’d paid the cards off—including the horrific interest—but I was literally living paycheck to paycheck.
    Needless to say I earned a lot less these days.
    But I still had my books. Most of them. So far.
    I stroked the green cloth cover of Chesterton’s Charles Dickens , opened the book, flipping through.
    It was as I scanned a section on Dickens’ involvement with Urania Cottage, a home for fallen women,
    that I remembered. One of the wealthiest women of her day, Angela Burdett-Coutts shared with her friend Charles Dickens, “a fellow campaigner and reformer”, a passion for practical do-gooding. Urania Cottage had been their second joint venture.
    Although he had initially resisted involvement in the asylum for fallen women, Dickens had
    eventually become active in every aspect of the home, even debating with Burdett-Coutts what uniforms
    the fallen ladies should wear. (Dickens had pleaded for color but been overruled.)
    Anjaley Coutts and Angela Burdett-Coutts. Too close to be a coincidence. Martin Chuzzlewit was dedicated to Burdett-Coutts in 1844, and so apparently had the missing Christmas novella written in 1847, the year Urania Cottage was established.
    This was absolutely…fascinating. At least to someone like me—and certainly anyone who collected
    Dickens.
    I read a bit more about Urania Cottage and Dickens’ involvement, but nothing shed insight into The Christmas Cake . At last my