Page 35 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“Will it?”
“Oh, it will,” she says. “If we’re doing this, let’s do it right.”
“Fine,” I say. “Our fingers should push PlayasI say three. Cool?”
“Agreed. Go.”
“One, two…three.”
The opening scene fades in. I can hear it both from my flat-screen and through my phone, somehow synced perfectly. “Shit,” I say. “We did it.”
“My god, that piano,” she says.
Along with the famous piano score intro, a choir of children sings “Christmas Time Is Here,” and it’s soothing and melancholy. The Peanuts gang skate together in a tight little clump.
“We just time traveled to my youth,” says Grace.
Brynn and I watched this together once, that first year in our house, but it wasn’t part of our annual rotation, so seeing it now reminds me less of her and more of being a kid.
Charlie Brown and Linus walk through their snowy little town.
“No one ever talks about this,” I say, “but Charlie Brown was, what, ten? Poor kid had the worst male-pattern baldness I’ve ever seen.”
“He’d so get plugs now,” Grace says, laughing. “Okay, shut up, they’re talking.”
Charlie Brown and Linus stop at a brick wall. “Christmas is coming,” Charlie Brown says, “but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.”
“Join the club, kid,” says Grace.
“Wow,” I say. “I forgot that’s how it starts.”
“Henry, are…areweCharlie Brown?”
“I think we might be.”
Linus tells Charlie Brown that he’s the only person he knows who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.
“Shut up, Linus,” I say.
“Right? Hasn’t he ever heard of the stages of grief?”
We chat as the show plays, randomly quieting down at times to watch, particularly when Snoopy is on the screen because there’s just something wonderful about that dog.
“How did you and Brynn meet?” Grace asks.
“Um.”
“Come on,” she says. “I like hearing about how couples meet.”
I tell her that we worked together—that she was a media buyer, and I was a creative.
“So, what, you lurked, pining, then you finally got the guts to ask her out?”
“Well, the first part of that’s true,” I say. “But she askedmeout, actually. Kind of. It’s hard to explain.”
On my TV, the Peanuts characters do their funny little dance while Charlie Brown tries to get them to rehearse for the Christmas play.
“Give it a try,” she says. “I’ve got time.”
