Page 18 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
An ember floats up from the fire and vanishes. From here, I can see Harry Styles watching me from behind the sliding door like I’m one of his sheep and I’ve wandered off.
“Look, a girl’s got needs, right?” my sister asks.
“That’s the thing, though,” I say. “I don’t.”
Ruth has been slumping, but she sits up now. “You don’t what?”
“Have needs.”
“What do you mean?”
“My vagina,” I say. “She’s gone into hibernation.”
My visits to GriefUnited have taught me that sex drives often take a hit when you’re grieving. Nearly a year in, though, this feels like something permanent.
“Well, maybe you just need someone to wake her up,” says Ruth. Then she wiggles her tongue at me between her fingers, and I tell her that she’s a child.
The Family Stone
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, youalwayshear it, like intrusive thoughts.
Ulterior motives aside, my parents were right about myCity 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 stealMario Kartfrom my parents after they kicked me out, so I fall onto my couch. From this angle, myCity Serieslooks even cooler.
I’ve made a ton of advertising art over the years at Art of theBrand, the ad agency I’ve worked for my entire adult life. I haven’t madeartart, 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 7:47p.m.,and she said she’s been tired for eleven years.
Diane Keaton won’t stop staring at me, which isn’t helping.
I typeAre 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 fromWedding 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.
