Henry
Basically December
It’s only the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but my neighborhood has gone full-on holidays already.
Starbucks is awash in green and red, J. Crew has giant photos of people wearing sweaters, and there’s an animatronic Black Santa Claus in the bar window down the street that dances nonstop to “Jingle Bell Rock.” I stood looking at it earlier for longer than I should have, like I was hypnotized.
To make matters worse, there’s Christmas music playing in the lobby downstairs.
I can’t technically hear it from my apartment, but that’s the thing about Christmas music: Once you hear it, you always hear it, like intrusive thoughts.
Ulterior motives aside, my parents were right about my City Series.
I hung the pictures with a little hammer and some nails that I borrowed from Gilberto, my doorman, and they look fantastic.
Unfortunately, the rest of my apartment looks like it’s set in a dystopian future where humans no longer care about home décor because we’ve been enslaved by robots.
I don’t have anything else to hang, and I forgot to steal Mario Kart from my parents after they kicked me out, so I fall onto my couch. From this angle, my City Series looks even cooler.
I’ve made a ton of advertising art over the years at Art of the Brand, the ad agency I’ve worked for my entire adult life.
I haven’t made art art, though, since MICA.
As I turn on the TV, I tell myself that I will again soon—the sort of art that’s just for its own sake.
But then I see Sarah Jessica Parker from 2005.
She’s on my TV’s home screen beneath a headline that reads, The Holiday Movie Marathon Begins, and my heart sinks.
“Goddammit, Hulu.”
Last Sunday as I was leaving Grace’s parents’ place, she told me I could call or text whenever. “Talking is good,” she said. “Probably. I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go. Here, take my digits.”
After pacing around my apartment for a few minutes, I grab my phone, but then wonder if she was just being nice, like when you run into someone from high school at Target and talk about getting coffee sometime.
But no, that’s ridiculous. We used the word “friends”—we shook on it and everything.
Still, my palms are sweating because I’ve never been good at initiating things.
Plus, she probably isn’t even awake. It’s 7:47 p.m., and she said she’s been tired for eleven years.
Diane Keaton won’t stop staring at me, which isn’t helping.
I type Are you still awake? then hit Send.
The last time I watched this movie, Brynn was beside me in her version of pajamas: stretchy pants and a T-shirt from a Turkey Trot.
She could never keep the Wilson brothers straight, so I’d have to remind her which was which every year.
Owen is the blond from Wedding Crashers; Luke is the other one.
We were watching the scene where Sarah Jessica Parker meets the family. Luke Wilson’s hair hung across his forehead, disheveled and charming-looking.
“Do you think I should grow my hair out like his?” I asked.
She ran a hand through my hair, which has always been short. “You don’t really have the jaw for it.”
“Okay,” I said, “quick but devastating.”
Brynn kissed her finger and touched between my ear and chin. “Nah, I like your weak-ass jaw,” she said.
In seven weeks, she’d be gone.
My phone buzzes.
Did you just send me a booty text?
I reread what I wrote, and shit, it definitely looks like I did. I start typing, but apparently Grace is the world’s fastest texter.
Because if that’s what “friends” means to you, I’ve got bad news. I’m sexually dead inside. And even if I wasn’t, I’m not taking these sweatpants off until at least Monday.
I try again, but another text arrives.
Oh, and it’s 7:49 on Saturday night. Of course I’m awake. How old do you think I am?
I delete what I was trying to say as more words fill my little screen.
“BootyText” is a funny term, don’t you think?
Finally, I manage, How are you texting so fast?
You don’t use voice to text? You should try it. It even does punctuation.
Sometimes it says duck instead of duck though.
I mean duck.
Why would Apple think I want to say duck?
The flood of words finally stops, and I gather myself.
No, it wasn’t a booty text.
Um, ouch. But, actually, whew!
I feel myself smiling—even the botoxed parts. I hardly know this woman, but it’s nice to be talking with her again. Suddenly my apartment feels a little less empty.
Hello?
More words come as I try to think of what to say.
Did you pass out? I see how it is. You chugged a bottle of rosé, sent me an unsolicited booty text, now you’re asleep. I’m officially blocking you.
Also, note the little dash thingy over rosé. That’s called skills.
I laugh now. A kid was wearing Crocs at my local coffee shop this morning, and I thought of Grace. I remembered how she’d left the heel straps folded up, like she’d committed fully to inactivity.
Henry?
You okay?
I type, hit Send again. Can I maybe just call you?
“I swear to god, Henry, if you ask me what I’m wearing…”
This is how Grace answers her phone.
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Actually, I already told you. Yeah, Costco sweatpants. And I’ve combined them with my favorite lounging sweater. Last time I wore it home, my mom said she didn’t know Goodwill had a section specifically for shut-ins.”
“Jeez.”
“She means well,” says Grace. “I think. That’s what I tell myself.”
“Are you at work?” I ask. “Aren’t bar-slash-restaurants open Saturday nights?”
“No,” she says. “Well, yeah, they are, but the beauty of owning one is that I don’t have to go very often. I have a good manager.”
“Smart,” I say.
This is where an awkward pause might go, but there isn’t one. Although we’re on the phone, it feels like we’re still by her parents’ firepit watching Harry Styles chase her kids.
“I’m sexually dead inside, too,” I say. “I thought maybe it was just me.”
“Nope. I’ve researched it. A small percentage of grievers go all spring break and nail everything that moves. Most of us, though? Full sexual lobotomy.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
The cast of The Family Stone is watching me have this conversation, so I feel like I should be eating cereal with a young Rachel McAdams. I turn the TV off and ask Grace if she likes holiday movies.
“I guess,” she says. “Are there people who don’t?”
I move to the window. An truck is triple-parked. A guy gliding past on a rented scooter gives it the finger. “We used to watch them together,” I say. “Brynn and me.”
“Oh,” she says. “Gotcha.”
“I know,” I say, “everyone does, right? But it was kind of our thing. A few weeks after we started dating, we figured out that we both loved holiday movies. So, every year about now, we’d start watching them. One every night till Christmas.”
“Every night?”
“You’d be surprised how many there are. And they keep making them.”
She breathes out, one of those sighs that sounds like she gets it. “Us, too. Maybe not every night. But yeah. Tim loved Die Hard. I guess that’s not really a Christmas movie, because of—”
“Oh no, it is,” I say. “There’s a big argument on the internet about it every year. It totally is, though. Christmas bells are ringing when Bruce Wills shoots Hans Gruber at the end, right?”
“Just like in the Bible.”
I laugh, then there is silence, but not awkward. “We liked to start with The Family Stone,” I say. “Then we always finished with Love Actually.”
“That’s sweet,” says Grace. “Can I ask, though, why you and Brynn bookended your holidays with two complete pieces of shit?”
It’s like I’ve been slapped. “Excuse me? Are you kidding?”
“I’m not,” she says. “They’re objectively bad movies, Henry.”
I sit, then immediately stand. “It would’ve been helpful the other day if you’d mentioned that you’re insane.”
Her voice turns away. “Harry Styles, put that down. That’s not yours.”
“Your cases against The Family Stone and Love Actually,” I say. “I need to hear them immediately.”
“Okay, I’ll start with the lesser of two evils. Love Actually has its moments, granted, but it’s aged about as well as gas station sushi.”
“What?”
“Henry, the fat jokes about that poor British girl? Come on. And why does nobody talk about how Keira Knightley was freaking seventeen when they shot that movie? She was legally a child!”
“Oh,” I say. “Really? Okay, but—”
“On to The Family Stone,” she says. “A real feel-good family romp, right? Yeah, except for the sister swapping!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dermot What’s-His-Face and the Wilson guy.”
“Luke Wilson.”
“They literally trade Claire Danes and Sarah Jessica Parker at the end,” says Grace.
“Okay, not literally, though,” I say. “Luke Wilson’s and Claire Danes’s characters were never actually a—”
“Do not mansplain me on this, Henry.”
“Okay, sorry,” I say, “carry on.”
“Like, we’re supposed to be happy for them?” she asks. “It’s offensive. Worse, it’s completely implausible. Any idea how awkward that would be for the rest of their lives? Like, do you ladies remember when we did the ole switcharoo a coupla Christmases ago? Ahh, good times.”
Although Grace is taking some liberties with the term “sister swapping,” I’m ashamed now because…how have I never thought all of that through?
“Oh,” she says, “and let’s not forget the dinner scene where Sarah Jessica Parker says one of the most homophobic things ever put on film.”
Harry Styles barks from somewhere.
“Well, shit,” I say. “I feel like a real asshole now.”
Grace sighs again—a different sort of sigh this time. “No. You know what? I’m probably the asshole here. Once I start joy-killing, I have trouble stopping myself.”
“Yeah, you were really on a roll there, huh?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“If it makes you feel better,” she says, “that Colin Firth scene in Love Actually always gets me. You know, when he shows up at the cleaning girl’s house. I mean, technically, that’s probably borderline creepy, too. It’s sweet, though.”
The truck outside lurches away; a UPS truck takes its place.
My palms get sweaty again, like I’m at a junior high mixer. “Well, um,” I say.
“Um, what?” she says.
“I was gonna ask if maybe you wanted to watch The Family Stone together. But I guess—”
“Oh. Yeah, no, I absolutely do.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” she says. “I mean, it’d technically be hate-watching, so I’d be talking shit the whole time, if that’s cool.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s cool.”
“Oh, and there’s zero chance I’ll make it to the end. I was all talk before. Eight o’clock might as well be midnight.”