A Lot Like Christmas

by Connie Willis

  “I knew it,” he said delightedly. “You’re still crazy about me. ‘So what say we go discuss this over a nice cozy lunch,’ as Peter said to Audrey in How to Steal a Million. There’s a little place over on Pixar Boulevard called Gusteau’s—”

  “I am not going anywhere with you,” I said. “I am going to the 2:20 showing of Christmas Caper. By myself.”

  “That’s what you think,” he said.

  “Watch the sparks fly between these two!”

  —The Web Critic

  Jack had sauntered off before I could demand to know what “That’s what you think” meant, and I couldn’t go after him to ask for fear of losing my place in line, so I spent the rest of the wait to get tickets worrying that the 2:20 would be sold out, too, though there were only a couple of dozen people left ahead of me, they were all going to something else, and the schedule boards were still showing tickets were available.

  But there were three other lines, and the ticket seller on mine apparently had the brain of a character in Dumb and Really Really Dumb. It took him forever to make change and/or swipe people’s cards and then shove their tickets at them. It was a good thing I wasn’t trying to get a ticket for the 1:10. I’d never have made it.

  It was half past before I even got close to the ticket counter, and then the guy three people ahead of me couldn’t make up his mind whether to see Zombie Prom or Avatar 4. He and his girlfriend spent a good ten minutes trying to decide, and then his card wouldn’t swipe and they had to use his girlfriend’s, and she had to search through her entire bag to find it, digging out handfuls of stuff for him to hold while she looked, and standing there to put it all back after they’d finally gotten the tickets.

  This is exactly what Jack was talking about, I thought. What if they were doing it purposely to keep me from getting in?

  Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. You’re seeing conspiracies where they don’t exist. But I still looked anxiously up at the schedule board as I came up to the counter, afraid the NO TICKETS AVAILABLE would blink on at the last minute.

  It didn’t, and when I said, “One adult for the 2:20 showing of Christmas Caper,” the ticket seller nodded, swiped my card without incident, handed me my ticket, and told me to enjoy the show.

  “I will,” I said determinedly, and started toward the entrance of the theater complex.

  Halfway there, Jack suddenly reappeared and fell in step with me. “Well?” he said.

  “They weren’t sold out, and I didn’t have any trouble getting a ticket. See?” I said, showing it to him.

  He wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, and in Romancing the Stone, they found the diamond,” he said, “and Whoopi Goldberg got Jumpin’ Jack Flash an exit contact, and look what happened.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re not in the theater yet, and if you don’t make it by 2:20, they won’t let you in.”

  That was true—it was part of the Drome’s security precautions not to let anyone in to a movie after it had started—but it was only 1:30. I told Jack that.

  “Yeah, but the line to get in could be really long, or the line to buy popcorn.”

  “I’m not buying popcorn. And there isn’t any line to get in,” I said, pointing over at the usher standing all alone in the entrance to the theaters.

  “At the moment,” he said. “You’re not there yet. A horde of middle-aged women could show up for the new Fifty Shades of Grey before you get over to the usher. And even if you do make it into the theater, the film could break—”

  “The Drome doesn’t use film. It’s all digital.”

  “Exactly, which means something could go wrong with the digital feed. It could be contaminated by a virus, or the server could crash. Or something could trigger the TSA’s alarms and send the whole Drome into lockdown.”

  “Like setting geese loose in a theater?” I said. “What are you up to, Jack?”

  “I told you, I’m not up to anything. I’m just saying you might not get in. In fact, I’m almost certain you won’t. And if you don’t, I’ll be at Gusteau’s.”

  “Nothing is going to happen,” I said, and started across the remaining half of the lobby toward the entrance and the usher.

  The lobby was getting more crowded by the minute with gaggles of excited children and texting teenagers and families arguing about where to go first. I pushed past and around them, hoping a line wouldn’t suddenly collect in front of the usher and prove Jack right, but the usher was still standing there alone, leaning on the ticket stand and looking bored.

  I handed him my ticket.

  He handed it back. “You can’t go in yet. The movie’s not over. Excuse me,” he said, and reached around me to take the tickets of two eight-year-old boys who’d come up behind me.

  He tore their tickets in half and handed them back. “Theater 76. Up the stairs to the third floor and turn right.”

  The boys went in. I said, “Can’t I go in and wait in the hall outside the theater till it lets out?”

  He shook his head. “It’s against security regulations. I can’t let anybody in till the movie gets out.”

  “Which is when?”

  “I’ll check,” he said, and consulted the schedule. “1:55.” Ten minutes from now. “If you don’t want to wait—”

  “I do.” I moved over against the wall, out of the way.

  “Sorry, you can’t stand there,” a manager said, coming up. “That’s where the line for Dr. Who: The Movie has to go.” He began busily cordoning off the space.

  I moved to the other wall, but a bunch of little girls and their parents were already lining up there to get in to see The Little Goose Girl, and the sole bench near the door was occupied by a mother vainly trying to talk her two daughters into relinquishing their virtual-reality glasses. Shrieking was involved. And kicking.

  I was going to have to wait out the ten minutes in the lobby. Hopefully Jack’s gone off to Gusteau’s, I thought, but he hadn’t. He was standing just outside the entrance with his hands in his pockets and an “I told you so” smile on his face. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing happened,” I said, walking past him. “The 12:10’s not out yet.”

  “So you decided to have that talk with me after all. Great,” he said, taking hold of my arm and propelling me through the lobby toward Pixar Boulevard. “We can go to Gusteau’s and you can tell me what excuse the usher gave you for not letting you in and why they wouldn’t let you wait there in the entryway.”

  “I don’t have any intention of telling you anything,” I said, wrenching my arm free of him. “Why should I? You didn’t tell me you were planning to get yourself expelled a week before you were supposed to graduate.”

  “Yeah, about that,” he said, frowning. “I wasn’t actually going to graduate—”

  “Of course not,” I said disgustedly. “Why am I not surprised? Was that why you broke into the dean’s office, because you were flunking out and you were trying to change your grades?”

  “No,” he said. “The fact is, I wasn’t actually—”

  “You weren’t what?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It’s classified.”

  “Classified!” I said. “That’s it. I’m not listening to any more of your paranoid fantasies. I am going to go stand over by the entrance until this movie gets out,” I said, pointing, “and then I am going inside, and if you try to follow me, I’ll report you to security.”

  I fought my way back to the entryway through a mob of cloaked and hairy-footed hobbits who were obviously on their way to The Return of Frodo, a bunch of old ladies going to see a special Nostalgia Showing of Sex and the City, and the mazelike line for Dr. Who, which now extended ten yards out into the lobby. By the time I made it to where I intended to wait, there was no longer any reason to. It was already two o’clock.

  I went over to the usher and handed him my ticket.

  He shook his head. “You can’t go in yet.”

 
“But you said the 12:10 got out at 1:55.”

  “It did, but you can’t go in till the crew finishes cleaning.”

  “Which will be when?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Some guy threw up all over. It’s going to take them at least twenty minutes to clean it up.” He handed me back my ticket. “Why don’t you go get something to eat? Or do some Christmas shopping? They’re having a sale on Inception sleep masks over at the Sleepless in Seattle shop.”

  And Jack will be standing right outside of it, smirking, I thought. “No, thanks,” I said, and squeezed past the Dr. Who and Little Goose Girl lines to the bench, hoping the mother and girls had gone.

  They had, but the bench was now completely taken up by a passionately kissing and practically horizontal couple. I edged past them to stand by the wall, but by the time I made it, the couple had reached the R-rated stage and was rapidly approaching NC-17. I braced myself for Jack and another round of conspiracy theories and went back out into the lobby again.

  “A gift for holiday moviegoers!”

  —silverscreen.com

  Jack wasn’t there. But he—and Zara and Kett—were the only ones who weren’t in the lobby. It was crammed to bursting with people checking their coats and buying tickets and refreshments and staring up at the previews and schedule boards. I found myself alternately jostled and smushed by the crowds going into and coming out of the theater complex and by kids mobbing the Christmas characters who meandered through, tossing candy canes and distributing Coming Attractions flyers. Alvin the Chipmunk gave me a chit for a free mince pie at Sweeney Todd’s snack bar, and a frighteningly friendly Grinch presented me with a coupon for half off a Twelve Dancing Princesses T-shirt at the Disney Pavilion.

  I’d no sooner handed it off to a NewGoth girl and read a text on my phone, telling me I’d won a free ticket to a special Encore Presentation of Ghost Town, than I was nearly run down by an enormous Transformer stomping through the crowd, flailing his huge metal arms and nearly bumping his head against the lobby ceiling. I partly dived and was partly pushed out of its way by the crowd as it scattered and ended up on the opposite side of the lobby.

  The crowd surged back toward the Transformer, snapping pictures on their cell phones, jockeying for position to have their photos taken with it, their backs forming an impenetrable wall. There was no way I was getting through that, at least till the Transformer left.

  It didn’t matter—it was still fifteen minutes till they’d be finished cleaning. I turned to look for a place I could wait without being run down. Not Gusteau’s—I had no desire to hear Jack say “I told you so.” And not Sweeney Todd’s. It was too far away.

  I needed someplace close so I could start back the second the crowd dwindled or the moment I saw the cleaning crew give the usher the high sign, and someplace with a short line, but finding one was practically impossible. Zombie Juice was even more mobbed than the lobby. Stargate’s Starbucks, which was advertising Mistletoe Mochas, had a line merging over into Zombie Juice, and the Transformer had apparently been passing out coupons for a Transformer Tea because Tea and Sympathy, usually a safe bet, was jammed, too.

  And I was definitely not going to the Cantina, even though at this point I could have used a drink. But Jack had obviously sent that text, which meant he was waiting in the Cantina to get me drunk and tell me more conspiracy theories. I was not going there.

  That left a hot cocoa at the Polar Express, which was just off the lobby and whose line only had two people in it, but even then it took forever. The guy at the counter wanted a gingerbread clove latte, which the barista didn’t know how to make, so he had to give her step-by-step instructions, and then the teenager behind him couldn’t get her swipe card to work.

  I looked back out at the lobby. The Transformer was gone, but now the zeppelin from The Steampunk League was floating above the ticket machines, throwing down gift cards on a converging crowd. If I didn’t go soon, the lobby would be even more jammed than it had been with the Transformer.

  I decided I’d better bag the cocoa and head back, and I started for the door. And collided with the gingerbread guy, who was bringing his latte back for having insufficient whipped cream and who managed to spill the entire drink down my front.

  Customers converged with napkins and commiserations, and the barista insisted on my waiting while she fetched a wet rag. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m kind of in a hurry. I have a movie I need to get to.”

  “It’ll just take a sec,” she said, running back to the counter. “You can’t go all wet like that.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and started for the door.

  The gingerbread man grabbed my arm. “I insist on buying you a drink to apologize,” he said. “What would you like?”

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “I need to go—” and the barista came over with the rag and began swabbing me down.

  “That’s not necessary. Really,” I said, brushing her away.

  “You’re not going to sue the Polar Express, are you?” she asked tearfully.

  Yes, I thought, if I miss this movie because of you. “No, of course not,” I said. “I’m fine. No harm done.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “If you’ll hang on just a minute, I’ll get you a coupon for a free scone the next time you come.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “At least let me pay for the cleaners,” the guy said, getting out his phone. “If you’ll give me your email address—”

  “On second thought,” I said, “I think I would like that drink. A peppermint chai,” and when he started for the counter, I darted out of the Polar Express, into the protective cover of the crowd, and into the lobby.

  It was even more crowded than it had been with the Transformer. I pushed into the scrum and started across, and it was a good thing I hadn’t gotten my cocoa. I had to bull my way through with both hands, prying couples apart and slipping between them, pushing aside excited kids in bright blue A Smurf Hanukkah T-shirts and teenagers staring up at House on Zombie Hill previews.

  It was like swimming through molasses, and it seemed to take hours to get to a place where I could finally see the usher. There was a line in front of him now, but it wasn’t the Dr. Who or the Little Goose Girl people, who were still waiting in their mazelike lines. I needed to get over to him before those movies got out, or I’d never get in to Christmas—

  Someone grabbed me by my arm. Please don’t let it be the Gingerbread Man, I thought as I was yanked back into the center of the crowd.

  It wasn’t. It was Santa Claus, with a microphone and a phalanx of reindeer. “What do you want for Christmas, little girl?” he asked, sticking the mike in my face.

  “To get over there,” I said, pointing.

  “Ho ho ho,” he said. “How would you like a nice pair of tickets to the 3:25 showing of The Claus Chronicles?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I’m going to see Christmas Caper.”

  “What?” he said. “You don’t want to see Santa’s own movie?”

  He turned to his reindeer. “Did you hear that, Prancer?” he said, loudly enough for the entire lobby to hear. “We have a problem here. I think I need to check my naughty-and-nice list, Blitzen.” The list was duly produced, Santa put on a pair of spectacles, and he ran a very slow finger down it while I looked longingly over at the entrance to the theaters, where the line in front of the usher was growing longer by the minute.

  “Here she is,” Santa finally announced. “Yes, definitely naughty. And what do we give naughty children for Christmas, Vixen?”

  “Coal!” the crowd shouted.

  Santa reached into his sack and produced a lump of licorice. “Shall I give this to her or shall we give her another chance? After all, it is Christmas.”

  “Coal!” the crowd bellowed, and Santa had to ask them two more times to persuade them to offer me the tickets again, which this time I had the sense to take.

  “And here’s a ticket to the 2:30 showing of The T
welve Days of Christmas for being such a good sport,” he said. “Merry Christmas, ho ho ho,” and I was finally free.

  I shot over to the entrance, where the line in front of the usher had miraculously disappeared, and handed the usher my ticket. “Sorry,” he said, handing it back.

  “They’re still cleaning?” I asked incredulously.

  “No, but you’re late. It’s 2:22. The 2:20’s already started.”

  “But they do previews for the first fifteen minutes—”

  “Sorry. It’s theater policy. No one’s allowed in after the start time. I think you can still get tickets to the 4:30.”

  I don’t, I thought, and I know who’s responsible.

  “Do you want me to check and see if there are still tickets available?” he asked.

  “No, that’s okay. Never mind,” I said, and went out, across the lobby, and into the wilds of the Drome to find Jack.

  “A great movie! Don’t miss it!”

  —Time Out

  I’d expected Gusteau’s to be a bar somewhere near the dance clubs and Rick’s from Casablanca, but it wasn’t, and after consulting two maps and a Drome guide dressed as Frosty the Snowman, I found it in the depths of Munchkinland, sandwiched between the Monsters, Inc. ball pool and the Despicable Me moon drop, both of which were filled with toddlers emitting ear-slashing shrieks of joy and/or terror.

  The restaurant was a replica of the French bistro in Ratatouille, with rats on the wallpaper and the tables. Jack was seated at a table at the back. “Hi,” he shouted over the din from the ball pool. “Didn’t get back in, huh?”

  “No,” I said grimly.

  “Sit down. Would you like something to drink? Gusteau’s is G-rated, so I can’t offer you a Pimm’s Cup, but I can get you a mouse mocha.”

  “No, thank you,” I said, ignoring his invitation to sit down. “I want to know what you’re up to and why you saw to it I didn’t—”

  “Hey, what happened to you?” he interrupted, pointing at my still-wet top. “Don’t tell me you collided with Hugh Grant carrying an orange juice, like in Notting Hill?”