Page 30 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
I step into my bedroom now and find Harry Styles sprawled out on his dog bed on the floor. He pops his head up and asks with mournful eyes if he can get inmybed and press his warm little body against me all night. “No dice, dude,” I tell him, like always.
It took about a month after the kids and I brought Harry Styles home for me to finally admit how much I loved him. By any measure his presence was an immediate joy, but it was joy made possible by something terrible, so I resented him a little at first.
It seems stupid now when I think about how catastrophic Tim being allergic to dogs felt when we first got together. It came up on our second date—a bombshell, like he’d confessed to being a drug dealer. Our first date had been perfect, and our second was tracking even better. Then, suddenly, I was sitting slack-jawed at Petit Louis Bistro in Roland Park.
“You’re what now?”
“Allergic,” he said, “to dogs. Very.”
I asked him about Benadryl. I’d heard the nondrowsy stuff only makes you feel like half a zombie. I didn’t have a dog then, but I’d always assumed I’d get one as soon as I could. He assured me, though, that his problems were worse than an antihistamine could handle. Breathing issues. An unbearable burning in his eyes. Hives, like welts, on his neck. I didn’t know this guy’s middle name yet, but there I was, my steak frites before me, wondering if I could live a dogless life.
A third date happened, though, then a fourth. Weeks became months. Dating turned into more than dating, and eventually, I accepted that dogs were things other people would have that I simply wouldn’t, like Jet Skis.
Tim was worth it.
I brush my teeth, moisturize,turn out the overhead light. My T-shirt and sweatpants aren’t pajamas but they’re pajama adjacent, so I skip a step and get in bed. With the comforter just past my hipbones, I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and wait.
At some point—I never quite know how long it takes—I can smell him. His shaving gel. The Speed Stick deodorant he committed to in high school and kept buying. Grass clippings. The leather seats in his car—the one I took to CarMax in February and signed over to a woman with at least twenty earrings who offered me a free soda from the vending machine when I started to cry.
Now, eyes still closed, I sense him, like that feeling when you know you’re not alone. A moment later I hear him breathing. When I open my eyes, he’s lying beside me. His eyes are green, like mine, but one is a browner sort of green—an incongruity that adds drama, like a small scar. We smile at each other because I’ve had enough reality lately, too.
Hey, babe.
Hey.
I don’t feel him take my hand, but of course, I do, because I remember exactly how it felt when he did.
Those were my frites, by the way.
Hmm?
At Petit Louis. Our second date. You ordered that weird French salad and instantly regretted it, so I gave you my frites.
He’s right. He handed them right over, no questions asked.
The best kind of silence is nighttime silence, just us, and we enjoy it for a while. Harry Styles’s collar jingles again, because he’s a restless little bastard when he sleeps. Then Tim touches my hair and asks,You sure you aren’t lonely?
He does this sometimes; he pops in and makes it clear that he’s been paying attention to things. I tell him the same thing I told Bella, and it’s the truth.I’ve got you, right?
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Not to generalize, but there are basically two types of guys: those who know their way around a hardware store and those who don’t. I thought having my brother with me would help make it seem like I belong in that first category. Unfortunately, Cal and Mick, the owner of Mick’s Hardware, are making fun of me right to my face.
“One thing you could try,” says Mick, “is negotiate with the mice.”
“Right,” I say.
“Good idea,” says Cal. Kelsey is here, too, via BabyBjörn again. She’s holding a teething ring shaped like a crab and watching us talk.
“What you do,” says Mick, “is have a little chat with the mouse in charge. Tell him you want him and his buddies out. My experience, most of the time they listen to reason and skedaddle.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to participate in my own ridicule, so I say, “Right,” again.
If you asked AI to generate the owner of an independent hardware store in Baltimore in December, you’d get Mick. He’s a giant, he’s wearing an unbuttoned flannel over a Ravens T-shirt, and his hands are big enough to palm my head. Oh, and he’s also wearing a Santahat. A Beach Boys Christmas album is playing from a little boom box on a shelf filled with bags of sidewalk salt.
“Or you could play hardball,” says Cal.
“Really?” I ask. “We’re still doing this?”
