November 14th
Hollis
Jay
Marv
ghijkljkl dpqrghituvde defmnopqr pqrsadefdetwxy
Jay
Suit yourself. Hollis? Want me to pick you up?
Hollis
Depends. Will there be a wagon?
Jay
Guess you’ll have to send me your address and wait and see.
Hollis
I like surprises.
Jay
I like surprising.
Hollis
Explains the hat.
Jay
I think you like the hat.
Hollis
I think you want me to like the hat.
Marv
apqrde wxymnotu twmno pqrsdewxtghimng
Hollis
Can you translate that, Jay?
Jay
I can but won’t. Marv, I’m telling the government where you live.
Hollis
Yikes.
But also, what did he say?
Jay?
“Ithink that’s the mom—No, the grandma from Parenthood,” I observe around a mouthful of popcorn from the passenger seat of Jay’s SUV. “That one.” I point at the large face through the windshield. “Bruce Willis’s wife. Or ex-wife?”
Bruce Willis’s face appears on the drive-in movie screen as Marv’s silhouette cuts across it, arm swinging a metal detector over the ground in front of him.
“Never heard of it,” Jay says without looking at me from the driver’s seat.
“Never heard of it?” I scoff. “We’re watching Die Hard for Christmas—which is not a Christmas movie, by the way—and you’ve never heard of Parenthood?”
He looks at me, smirks, and says, “Nope.”
As if scripted, a Christmas tree appears and festive music plays through the speakers of the car.
He gives me a look like, told ya, and I shoot one back: go straight to hell.
Only three other cars—including Marv’s box truck—are parked in the grassy field of the drive-in theater I didn’t know existed.
Possibly because it’s in someone’s backyard and we had to pass a dozen hand-painted enter and get shot signs to get here. Mostly because the rest of the town is gathered in the park to watch a movie—a real Christmas movie. My kids included.
Without me.
“Everyone else is watching It’s a Wonderful Life in the park—together—and you’re here. I don’t get it. Why not just go where everyone else is?”
He tosses a piece of popcorn in his mouth and glances from the screen to me. “I don’t like that movie.”
I gasp. “You what?”
He shrugs. “George Bailey kind of sucks.”
Another gasp. “He what?”
“Sucks.” He doesn’t look away from the screen. “He complains. Helps people then whines about it. Just a pain in the ass, really. And he has that voice.” His nose scrunches in disgust. “Kind of nasally, you know?”
I open my mouth, close it.
Open my mouth, close it.
Open my mouth, give up.
Because, maybe, he’s not wrong.
We watch Bruce Willis work to save the day for a few minutes. A topless woman is dragged across the screen.
Christmas movie, my ass.
I shove another handful of popcorn in my mouth.
“Plus,” Jay continues, “it’s warm in here. I hate sitting on those blankets, they always get damp. And the volume is never loud enough. It’s kind of bullshit.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “Bullshit?”
He glances at me, hand of popcorn stilling before he tosses it in his mouth. “Kind of, yeah.”
“That’s a sacrilege,” I accuse, only half meaning it. It might actually be bullshit. I’ve been doing it for so long because it’s what we’ve always done, I’ve never even considered my opinion. It’s tradition. Repetition required, no matter how unpleasant.
I do not admit my kids have said the same thing minus the explicit language for the last two years. Nor do I tell him they weren’t even excited when I asked them about the parade this week.
“How was the parade?” I had asked them over dinner.
They all shrugged.
“There was hardly any candy,” Millie complained in her sing-song voice. “And it’s always the same floats.”
I shot her an incredulous look. “Of course it’s the same floats,” I explained, annoyed that the nine-year-old already noticed. “That’s the whole point.”
She shrugged; Owen started talking about a kid who got in trouble for talking back to his teacher; the parade ceased to exist.
My eyes are back on the screen. “You didn’t tell me Professor Snape is the villain.
” Jay doesn’t respond. “From Harry Potter,” I clarify.
He shakes his head; I blow out a disbelieving breath.
“Half-Blood Prince? Professor of the Dark Arts?” Blink.
Blink. “Bad guy but ultimately not really because Dumbledore trusts him and he loved Harry’s mom? ”
He gives me a blank look. “Never heard of him.”
I groan, spot another familiar face on the screen, then perk up. “Stop it. Snape’s right-hand man is Trivette from Walker, Texas Ranger?”
Jay’s silence is revealing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I admit with a sigh.
“You’re thinking, Hollis is annoying to watch a movie with.
I already know, thankyouverymuch. I really am trying to do better.
My ex-husband told me I ruined movies because—okay, wait.
Bruce Willis is going to bring down all these guys—” I pause to let Bruce Willis shoot a construction zone filled with thugs.
“In an undershirt and without wearing shoes?”
When I look at Jay, he’s smiling.
I frown around a mouth of popcorn.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re very charming.”
Three things happen at once with his statement: my face heats, my heart skips a beat, and I want his hands all over me. That last one clearly a sign of how neglected of another’s touch my body has been.
“I . . .” have never once been called that in my entire life. It’s too pathetic to admit. Instead: “Okay.”
He turns his attention back to the fight happening on screen, and the light plays across his features as he tosses his antler hat onto the dash and rakes a hand through his thick head of dark hair. At the top it’s wavy and tousled.
This observation starts a chain reaction; I can’t stop looking at him. I absorb every little detail like a kid looking through a toy store window planning a wish list for Santa.
One perfectly angled jaw.
Two green eyes complemented by a dark blue long-sleeved fleece, rolled up his forearms, which somehow flex from the simple movement of him grabbing handfuls of popcorn.
Six lines splaying from his eyes when he smiles.
Even the mustache—that stupid thing—is intriguing.
He’s annoyingly attractive.
I wonder if this is who he always is. If he looks like this every other day of the week. What his hands would feel like if they—
“For someone who told me they gave their asshole of an ex-husband birthday blowjobs the first night we met and never stops talking,” he says, raising two good eyebrows as he looks at me. “A lot goes on in that head of yours you don’t say.”
The darkness is a blessed thing for hiding the blaze on my flesh that is burning me alive.
The first night I met Jay I was a wreck and could have easily read into his kindness and attention just as much as I could have read into the way I swore he looked at me last weekend while I was under the influence of romantic Christmas trees and spiked hot chocolate.
Divorce and dating at this age make my feet feel slippery and my judgment untrustworthy.
I have no way of knowing if my reaction to him is driven by my desperation for companionship this season, a silly me-sided crush, or if he’s feeling whatever this is that I’m feeling.
Plus, I’m not just one person, I’m five, including my kids. I can’t just chase after the first man who reminds me I have a neglected vagina. I have to make sure it’s right. For all of us.
Instead of saying any of that, I deflect.
“Why do you have the mustache?”
He chuckles. “Because I like it.” He sweeps popcorn crumbs off his hands and strokes said mustache, playful expression consuming his face. “The ladies really seem to like it.” I ignore the new kind of wondering that unleashes in me. “And that’s not what you want to ask.”
“It was,” I argue.
He looks at me, smug and reading my lie. “Then why are you asking?”
“Fine.” I chew my lip, debating how to redirect this conversation to something closer to what I want to know. “Do you date?”
He sends me a sideways look and a smirk. “You asking me out?”
I scoff. “No.”
“Do you date?” he tosses back.
I bring a hand to my throat. Tug at the neck of my sweater. Fumble with the dial of the AC. Why am I hot? “I’m a mom.”
“Ah,” he says, turning his attention back to the screen; Bruce Willis found another gun. “Moms don’t date, I forgot.”
“That’s not—that’s—” I huff a flustered breath, bothered. He’s a nice man being nice to a lonely woman by letting me be here. That’s all this is, and I’m not ruining it by acting on a weird, illogical crush. “I’m thinking of going online. To date. Men. Romantically.”
I have never once considered that.
“Really?” He looks at me, curiosity consuming his face. “Online?”
I pull my shoulders back with a sniff. “Maybe. It’s what I’ve read people do at my age. I don’t know how to meet men.”
Even my skeleton is mortified by this ridiculous confession.
His brows pinch as he fills his mouth with popcorn. A piece misses and lands on his lap; he makes no effort to clear it.
“And I was thinking since we are spending time together—” I clear my throat. “You could give me pointers.”
“Really?” Jay says around a mouthful of popcorn. “About what?”
I swallow. “What men like.”
He stares at me; eleven years pass. “I see.”
“You don’t see,” I defend. “There’s nothing to see. You asked if I date, I told you I might and—”
“Online strangers.”
I let out a sharp exhale. “Most people are strangers when they start to date, where they meet is irrelevant.”
He reaches into the back seat for the thermos and refills our adult hot chocolates. “Your profile say must love annoying traditions?”
I blow out a flustered breath as he tops off my mug. “I’m ignoring you.”
He chuckles, relaxing into his seat before taking a sip of his hot chocolate. He drapes his free arm over the center console that separates us.