Page 61 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Hi. Sorry.”
The mom fromEdward Scissorhandsis giving Johnny Depp a tour of her weird little house. “I’ve got one for you,” I say. “A movie.”
“Yeah?”
“Question first. IsEdward ScissorhandsChristmassy enough to be a holiday movie?”
Henry says, “Ha,” in my ear.
“What?”
“I’m watching it right now,” he says. “On, um, AMC.”
I see the channel’s logo at the bottom of my screen. “Really? I just turned it on.”
“Me, too,” he says. “Great minds.”
“Eh,” I say. “Minds at least. I forgot how weird this movie is. When is this supposed to be, exactly? Like, historically.”
“No idea. I like to imagine the pitch, though. Tim Burton sits some fancy executives down and says, ‘Okay, so, Johnny Depp stars in a sweet romance.’ And they’re like, ‘Awesome.’ Then he says, ‘But here’s the catch: He has scissors for hands.’ ”
Johnny Depp looks at framed pictures of Winona Ryder.
“Can you believe how hot she was?” I ask. “I mean, she still is, obviously. ButyoungWinona? Come on.”
“Agreed,” says Henry.
“Did you and Brynn watch this one?”
“Yeah.” He says this in his Sad Henry voice, so I must’ve struck a nerve. “She had a thing for Johnny Depp.”
“Well, yeah, duh. He’s super weird now, but for a solid two decades there, he…made us feel things.”
We watch as Edward pokes a hole in a waterbed, and Henry’s laugh makes me laugh.
Then I say, “You wanna come over and watch with me?”
That was supposed to be something I eased into, but I just sort of blurted it out, and now that I have I realize how much I want him to say yes. Instead, he says nothing.
“I’ll hit Pause,” I say. “We can push Play when you get here.”
He’s still saying nothing. Then he says, “Um,” which isn’t a word.
Edward is trying to put pants on. It isn’t going well.
“Or not,” I say. “I mean, it’s fine, you don’t have to be all wei—”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
And that’s how I discover that straightening up and swiffering the first floor of my house takes almost exactly twenty minutes. I start in the kitchen, do a circle around the empty humane trap, then work my way through the TV room. As Harry Styles tries to attack the pole, Iadmit to myself that I purposely didn’t tell Henry that it’d be just us. Because if I did, he might’ve said no.
There’s a small knock. Harry Styles runs to the door and barks, then tries to tackle Henry as I open it.
“No Costco sweats?” he asks when he makes it inside.
My face gets hot. Along with the swiffering, my twenty-minute Henry prep included changing into yoga pants, which I also bought at Costco, but they were more expensive. “I don’t do yoga,” I say, “but I support the pants. The Crocs are mandatory, though.”
“Cool,” he says. Then he takes a bag of M&M’s out of his pocket. “Oh, and check it out. Is Bella still up? I brought her a present.”
