Christmas in July

by Alan Michael Parker

  The website was easy to build because I didn’t build it. Phil splashed a picture of the movie poster on the home page—a shot we got off the Web, the poster you see everywhere—and I added some text, mostly fluffy PR stuff, and then we selected the tabs, which Phil said were the most important: Trivia, Toto Too, Dear Dorothy, Store, and Links. We knew the first two categories would get the heaviest traffic, and that Toto Too would have the shortest page views (because it’s a catchy phrase, and cute, but it’s mostly about animals in showbiz), and that Dear Dorothy would be the interactive page, a kind of message board/chat room. I’d provide Phil with weekly content for Trivia and Toto Too, and Phil would handle the Store and Links. The Links were the easiest to collect, especially with the seventy-fifth anniversary having just passed. Dear Dorothy—well, that’s me, so I would reply to posts, be right about the movie, and try to bump our standing in the analytics. For the Store, Phil would contact vendors who trade in The Wizard of Oz collectibles and request a shiny dime for every item sold.

  We agreed to go live only when every page had good content, once the links were working and there was something juicy to say—like a previously unknown, salty Billie Burke wisecrack about the raunchy midgets that we could run as a banner along the bottom of the home page, a teaser, with a link to the Trivia page.

  The posts to Dear Dorothy we had to fake at first, to spoof interest and generate traffic. So we began, on a nice day at the end of June, the palm trees applauding in the hot wind off Santa Monica. I grabbed an okay bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to get us going, and agreed to meet Phil on the patio in the garden, to combine our limited imaginations. That’s what I joked to him, that the two of us together make one good brain. It’s a little true. I learned in film school that I have nothing to say.

  Having lived in LA since the invention of skin cancer, I know all about SPF and lip gloss and water bottles and wide-brimmed hats. I’m all West Coast, as Queen Bey says, I woke up like this. I was not quite bedazzling, headed out the kitchen door of my apartment on the third floor, down the stairs, when I changed my mind. Not these shoes: let’s go with something strappy and Thirties. I found my pink mules with the feathers on the top and the peekaboo toe—I mean, they’re not Jimmy Choos, and they totally clashed with the rest of my outfit, but I like that kind of drama in my clothing. It’s also how I like my men, but maybe that’s not a story for Dear Dorothy.

  When I clumped down the stairs and into the garden, Phil had his laptop open on a low wooden table, and he looked kind of cute, deeply slumped in the big pillows of one of the curved lime-green sectionals, eyes closed. It was late in the day and hot and blowy. Phil was usually just waking up around this time. The propane fire columns in the garden were beginning to sputter—the landlords had put in six of the faux torches, after Joe and Kris in 2C got drunk on April Fool’s and Kris bashed his head in the dark, earning seventeen stitches and a suicide cocktail party. That the never-ending California drought dictates strict rules for open fires didn’t seem to bother the landlords; they paid for Kris’ suicide margaritas, what a great party.

  Me, I love sitting in the garden at the end of a day, reading or prepping for a class, cuing up clips from The Manchurian Candidate or just talking to Phil, sipping a cool white in a tall glass. There’s even something about sitting alone in the dusk, the day growing darker, watching the building’s tenants hurry around, absorbed in their lives and kind of sucked into the evening as it comes. I don’t know. It’s not magic, but it’s special: I’ve decided the landlords are right, and the propane torches are worth the risk. Didn’t they say on KCRW that the cure for the drought was a fire? I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard—but maybe it was a PSA for quitting smoking.

  A bottle of wine, a pretty yellow bow in my hair. In other circumstances, my girly heels might have threatened to turn the outfit into a cliché, to transform Dear Dorothy into a Margo Channing wannabe in her own All About Eve remake, but I’m too Korean ever to have been an ingénue, so I felt pretty safe. When I picture myself as a sitcom star, I’m mostly batting my eyes.

  Phil wouldn’t notice anyway. Phil’s a trip, in tank tops and flip-flops and Smiths—he has a stupid love for both the pants and the band. He’s maybe five years younger than me, and as far as I can tell, he’s either straight or bi, but I’ve only lived in the building for eighteen months, which means I don’t know all the secrets yet. Phil has secrets. He looks away when he’s thinking really hard, spoiling the two-shot. He doesn’t really care about his good side. And maybe he’s a little pudgy for my taste, but so am I at the moment. He has nice green eyes. I would imagine he’s going to get pudgier, and probably soon, and he’ll no doubt be surprised by how that happens once it sneaks up on him. He gels his hair straight up at the front. He’s very proud of his hair.

  “You look…” Phil didn’t finish. He was lying on the sofa, maybe half awake, one arm across his head. “Awesome shoes.”

  He did notice, that’s nice. “I try…wine for breakfast?” I offered the bottle by the neck.

  “My darling…” Phil’s voice rose into an awful falsetto.

  “Oh, God, what accent is that?”

  “It’s Masterpiece Theatre,” Phil protested.

  “More like Disaster Piece. Here, drink this magical concoction.” I poured for us both, handed him a glass. I could see the screensaver on his laptop: Pacman, of course, old school, and maybe the GOAT, if you’re a coder. “Honey, let’s make some money,” I said, plopping down next to him on the sofa, my wine sloshing, uh-oh. I wiggled my ass into the pillows to get comfortable, which made me giggle for some reason. “There!” I kicked off my heels with a flamboyant ta-da.

  “You’re genius at this stuff,” Phil said, and gave me a little elbow dig. “I love it.”

  “This stuff?”

  “Life,” Phil said. “This stuff,” he looked away.

  “If only,” I said, and meant it.

  The first posts we wrote together were crazy easy. We wanted to make Dear Dorothy sympathetic and sincere and especially responsive to children, whose parents were naturally our target audience on the monetized website—Mommy’s got the credit card. Phil had confidence in the commerce: he said he knew how to turn page views and click-throughs into any dream house I wanted, Healdsburg here I come. He promised, too, that my ex would never find out, that my alimony (LA for “rent”) was safe. He promised. So we began.

  Dear Dorothy,

  I’m seven years old and I love you. I have seen “The Wizard of Oz” a thousand million times! I think I’m a good witch but my mom says there aren’t any witches only fairies. And there’s Harry Potter. She said I could write to you and ask. Please tell my mom the good witches aren’t all dead.

  Your friend,

  Melanie McCall

  Dear Melanie,

  You can be any kind of witch you want, so long as you help people, like I do. Remember in the movie, when Glinda says at the end, “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas”? You have the power to be a good witch, Melanie.

  The good witches can’t all be dead! Tell your mom that if we believe, we can make anything happen. That’s what I think.

  Your friend too,

  Dorothy

  Dear Dorothy,

  I just love the munchkins! They’re so adorable. I know you became BFFs with all of them, especially with the three ballerinas in The Lullaby League. I want to join The Lullaby League! Can you tell me how?

  Love,

  Hannah

  Dear Hannah,

  Yes, of course you can join The Lullaby League! You’ll make a beautiful ballerina. When you watch the movie again, make sure you’re wearing your pink tutu, and put little flowers on your shoes. Then you can learn the dance the ballerinas do, and sing the whole song. Practice a lot. Don’t forget to twirl! That’s all it will take. You’ll be in The Lullaby League.

  The munchkins are little people, you know—and they’re grown-ups. They might be adorable, but they want to be treated like
grown-ups too. Can you remember that?

  Please write to me again, and tell me what happens when you do the Lullaby League dance! I had to leave Munchkin City to follow the Yellow Brick Road, and I haven’t been back in a long time, and I love to get letters.

  Love,

  Dorothy

  The website went live on a Thursday night, with an eye on the TV schedule, as the movie was scheduled to air on TNT three times a day that weekend. By Sunday night, the website analytics were buzzing, according to Phil, and he texted and suggested we meet for a cocktail in the garden. There was a new Dear Dorothy letter—one we hadn’t written, the first—which he had discovered once all the spam was cleared away. Ads and junk, Internet trash, like what had happened to the LA we all used to love.

  Dear Dorothy,

  I saw you once at the Winter Garden many, many years ago. You had such a lovely voice. I’m sure you didn’t see me—you didn’t seem to be “with it,” as my Robert would say. It’s nice to know you’re better.

  Best wishes to you and your family, especially to your wonderful Liza.

  Yours truly,

  Betty Undegraf

  Sioux Falls

  Phil made me a drink. He had read the post already, and he turned around his laptop so I could see, his poker face pretty good—until he saw the expression on my face, and we both lost it, laughing. We didn’t know what to do, and so we laughed and laughed.

  Sometimes, when I laugh, I get lightheaded. Finally, I was able to breathe. “She…” But not yet, I still couldn’t finish my sentence. “She…” I sputtered.

  “You’ve got to answer her!” Phil said.

  “But… she…”

  “You have to!”

  “Okay, okay!”

  I had the laptop open, the password entered, the world flat as the computer screen where Betty Undegraf slept in South Dakota, where I hoped someone was monitoring her vitals, because her meds had to be off.

  I took a good pull of my drink, thought about Betty and Judy and Liza, and playing the Winter Garden, and typed my reply.

  Dear Betty,

  Thank you. I always loved to sing “Over the Rainbow.” Did you know that song almost didn’t make it into the movie? After the second sneak preview, the producer tried to have the song cut, but his assistant and the composer and the lyricist were having none of that guff. “Over the Rainbow” stayed.

  Yours truly,

  Dorothy

  I posted my answer and spun the laptop around to show Phil. He didn’t say anything at first, but the look on his face changed. He sipped his bad Tom Collins. Finally, “Cool,” Phil said. “We’re off to see the Wizard,” he added. “Guff,” he said. “Props for ‘guff.’”

  The letters began to be posted more regularly, mostly in the after-school hours no matter the time zone, which, according to Phil, was a good sign. The questions posed to Dear Dorothy were totally darling. Dear Dorothy, can you help me with my art homework? Dear Dorothy, I still drink Maxwell House because of Margaret Hamilton. Was she nice? Dear Dorothy, I live in York. That’s in England. What happened to the jumper you wore in the Emerald City? I would love to see that jumper on one of the Obama girls—did you ever meet them? Dear Dorothy, do you like the Tin Man or the Cowardly Lion better?

  Admittedly, without telling Phil, I began to check the message board often, and then maybe even a little obsessively: on my iPad in the bathroom at Seafood City, in traffic on the 10, at home as the juicer squished my breakfast into a glass, and at the end of the day, one more time, before I went to bed each night. I had to see what people thought of me. I even left a screening in my summer school class of Cabaret (Bob Fosse, Dir., 1972, released the year before I was born, and starring Liza Minnelli, of course) to duck into the supply room in the Media Center and check the Dear Dorothy site, although there hadn’t been any new posts that hour.

  Then, a week after the site went live, with thirty-one letters posted already, including a reply from the mother of “Melanie,” our first writer—a thank-you letter that I wrote myself, for kicks, because I like to write thank-you letters, it’s trop vintage—the world changed.

  I was in the Mean Bean, getting a caramel macchiato on my way to campus, a regular treat I give myself so I can slog through my Intro course, and it was 9:45 in the morning. I’m sure. I remember. “Purple Haze” was pounding through the speakers, and my bag was too heavy on my left arm, and my Mean Bean pal, Louie the screenwriter/dog walker/barista, was pulling my triple shot—all of this I can see clearly, a “Do Not Touch” moment. I even remember there was a little donation box for Cerebral Palsy on the Mean Bean counter. I might have been hungover.

  With my free hand, I logged in and read Dear Dorothy.

  Dear Dorothy,

  I am thirteen year old. I have cancer. I want to meet you.

  Yours,

  Christmas Danzig

  “Is this for real?” I didn’t say hello when I called Phil. I’m sure I woke him up, but he shouldn’t have left his phone on.

  “What?…Hello?”

  “Christmas! That’s her name?”

  “You saw.” He coughed. “Excuse me.”

  “Three-shot caramel macchiato for Dorothy!”

  “Here. Thanks, Louie…. Hold on, hold on, I’m getting coffee…” I had to juggle my phone and my drink and my bag, which felt like juggling what I was feeling. “No, no, hold on…shit…I’ll call you back.”

  I went out to my car to sit and think. I had to get to school: today was Birth of a Nation.

  I called him back: “Phil?”

  “I Googled her,” he said. “There’s no one with that name, but I pinged her ISP, and it’s in Maryland somewhere.”

  “Maryland?”

  “I think it’s real,” Phil said. “You didn’t write it?”

  “Phil!”

  “You wrote the one from Melanie’s mother.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Phil. I’ve gotta go teach. I’ll see you later.”

  “You have to answer her. She has cancer. Can-cer.”

  That night, Phil Papadopoulos and I had pretty good drunken sex. I was surprised too. And I’m telling the story out of order, the fourth act can’t go before the third, but we had sex, and that’s the part of the evening I remember the most, or sort of remember. That’s the part of the night I want to remember. I brought home takeout burritos from the drive-through at Lucky Boy’s, we drank a pitcher of Sangria, we talked about what to do with Dear Dorothy, and how she should reply to Christmas Danzig, and then Phil and I had sex. Well, twice.

  I didn’t know I was attracted to him. He was a good lover, really happy about it, and also noisy in a funny way. At first, I thought his noises were a joke—as though he were making all of these sounds to make me laugh, to relax me—but then I realized that he was into it, that the grunts and moans and half words were just Phil. He had a wide back from working out, which I like.

  I liked the noises. I might have made a few noises myself.

  It had been a couple of months since I had slept with a guy, not since Earnest Manny—that’s what I called him in my head, Earnest Manny—the junior agent I met at a Quaker meeting, with dyed blond hair, kind of punk, kind of Euro, totally LA and oh-so-boring. Earnest Manny, who was always taking the red-eye somewhere. We had seen each other for a few months, three or four, over this past winter, but there wasn’t any sizzle to the twizzle. I guess that’s what you get from Quaker meeting.

  “Now what?” Phil asked.

  He was lying in his bed, and I was moving about the room in the low light of a single bedside lamp, a cloth thrown over the shade, all atmosphere and after-sex smells. I was getting dressed to go upstairs to my apartment. I couldn’t tell what time it was, for sure after midnight, because I was worn out and sober.

  “The usual…now we get married,” I said. I patted his leg.

  Phil smiled. “I knew I was good,” he said, grinning.

  “D
on’t kid yourself, Phillie,” I said. My shirt on the chair. Shoes. Was I forgetting something else? “Korean chicks are the sexiest.”

  “True that,” Phil said. He didn’t know what to say next. “I’m going to get some work done,” he said next, not to me, sitting up and reaching for his laptop.

  “I’m going to write to Christmas,” I said. “Like we agreed.”

  “You’re fun,” Phil said. “This is weird.”

  Dear Christmas,

  That’s awful you have cancer. Are you getting treatment? Do your parents think you’ll be okay?

  You know, this is a website, and we probably live far away from each other, but I’ll see about getting together. Until then, I hope you wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind you. That would be somewhere over the rainbow—I’m sure you recognize those lyrics from the song!

  Love,

  Dorothy

  Four more letters arrived that day, but none from Christmas Danzig. One of the letters was a rant—You are totally appropriating the reputation of Judy Garland. She was treated so unfairly by everyone, and she was just a little girl. This site’s a travesty, you’re just trying to capitalize on the popularity of the movie, and you have no respect. Judy Garland was in pain… yadda, yadda, yadda. I hate when people are so opinionated. At least the letter was unsigned. I would ask Phil to take it down.