Page 27 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
He was trying so hard to be cool now. I thought I was going to die of either utter shock or cuteness overload.
“Sure!” Bailey said with a sunny grin. “You want to come backstage and check that out?”
He remembered I existed and dashed a look at me.
“Sure, go ahead,” I told him. “You want me to go over and get your PE stuff?”
“Oh, I have to get a new set, too,” Bailey said. “The backstage door leads out that way, so we can do that next, if you want.”
This girl was either extremely helpful or thought Wyatt was cute as well. I’m biased, of course, but if she thought he was cute, she was right.
I got another of those hopeful, questioning looks from my cute son. “Go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll meet you at the car when you’re done, okay?”
His grin was my reward.
So I let my son ditch me for somebody cuter and went back to sit in our car and wait.
“THERE’S DRESSING ROOMSwith those mirrors with the bulbs, like in movies? And there’s a huge prop room crammed full of cool and weird stuff. Bailey says it’s like fifty years of costumes and props back there.”
Wyatt had come back to the car on his own, with a cheap school gym bag containing two PE uniforms and several informational pages about sports teams, tryout schedules, the school athletics code of conduct, and a brochure of fundraising events and other ‘booster opportunities.’ He’d tossed all that into the back seat and not given it another thought.
When I asked what he thought of the athletic center, he described it as “Cool, I guess. Big.” Then he’d launched into a detailed and enthusiastic description of the backstage area of the theater that had, thus far, taken us almost all the way home, and he wasn’t done yet.
“Bailey says she’s been in all the plays and musicals since she got to the high school. She’s in tenth grade like me. She says there’s a school play in the fall and a Christmas revue right before winter break, and then in the there’s a winter play in February and a big musical in May. She says Mr. DeValle—he’s the theater director, and he teaches eleventh grade English, too—hasn’t decided on the winter and spring stuff, but it’sDeathof a Salesmanin the fall and the Christmas revue is gonna be inspired by that old movie we watch during the holidays. She didn’t know the name, and I don’t remember it, either, but it’s that one you like.”
There were a lot of old Christmas movies I liked. Jessie and I used to go to Erin’s house on December 23rdevery year and have a day-long old-movie marathon. Daddy Ned would make us hot cider and eggnog (both the virgin kind) and we’d make cinnamon kettle corn and peppermint bark and gorge ourselves all day on crap while we watched impossibly beautiful people sing and dance and fall in love and be full of Christmas spirit.
That was the best day of my holiday, and I’d kept the tradition alive with Micah and Wyatt.
There are maybe ten Christmas movies from, say, 1940-1960 that I absolutely adore. We watch at least five of them every December 23rd, and find another day for the others (as well as all the classic cartoons, and a few newer titles that deserved the honor of tradition—likeKlaus, everybody should seeKlausat least annually) sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Wyatt’s description didn’t narrow it down much. I finally had a chance to get a word in, so I jumped on that and asked, “It’s a Wonderful Life?”
He turned and rolled his eyes at me. “Mom. I said I don’t remember the title. I remember the title of the best Christmas movie ever made.”
I drew my brows together in an exaggerated frown. “This sass thing. I’m not sure I like it.”
He grinned. “I’msure.”
“Watch yourself, bucko, or I’ll put an ad on Craigslist—'One son, slightly used. Thinks he’s funnier than he is. Free to any home.’”
Now he gave me his ‘I’m an angel” look. I returned a well-deserved eye roll.
“It’s the one with the ski lodge and there’s no snow. And all the soldiers.”
“Oh!White Christmas. Also a title you shouldn’t forget. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. 1954. People think the song came from this movie, but actually the song first appeared in a different movie—Holiday Inn, in 1942, which we don’t watch because there is an awful blackface scene in that one.”
“That’s a lot of facts to memorize about seventy-year-old movies. But you go right ahead and hoist that geek flag, Mom.”
“Upstart pup,” I muttered with a smile. To tease him back a little, I said, “So Bailey’s pretty cute.”
For the first time since he’d opened the car door, there was quiet. I looked over; he was turned partly toward his window, but I could see the spotty blush on his cheek.
“Don’t you think she’s cute?” I asked, poking a little harder. I wouldn’t push any further, but I was both honestly curious and feeling puckish. It’s nice to turn the tables on the adolescent snark once in a while.
“She’s cute,” he said without turning from the window. “Really cute. But I just want a friend, Mom. Just one friend.”
There was so much loneliness in those few words. He’d been lively and enthusiastic all morning, practically giddy on this very ride home, and I’d dumped ice water over his head.
