A Lot Like Christmas

by Connie Willis

  I nodded.

  “When you get out to the lobby, go over to one of the cafés, not the Polar Express, order a drink, text your friends, and then wait at least a few minutes before you try to leave, and you should be fine.”

  He pulled me to my feet. “Look, I can’t tweet or call you—it might be traced—so it may be a while before I can get in touch. All I’ve proved so far is that there’s a blocked-off passageway between theaters and some suspicious activity. I still have to prove the movies don’t exist, which I’ll have to do in Hollywood.” He hesitated. “I feel bad about leaving you here like this.”

  “But Peter O’Toole left Audrey Hepburn in a closet and Kevin Kline left Meg Ryan in Paris without a passport,” I said, following him down to the far end of the passage. “And now I suppose I’m supposed to say, ‘It’s okay. Go,’ and you kiss me goodbye, and I stand in the doorway like Olivia, looking longingly after you with my tresses blowing in a wind that smells like the sea?”

  “Exactly. Except in this case it smells more like rancid popcorn oil,” he said, “and we can’t afford to leave the door open. It lets in too much light. But I can definitely manage the kiss.”

  He did. “See?” he said. “You do like scoundrels.”

  “I happen to like nice men,” I said. “How are you going to get out of the Drome without security’s catching you?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Look, if you get in trouble—”

  “I won’t. Go.”

  He kissed me again, opened the wall, and went through it, only to appear again almost instantly. “By the way,” he said, “about the geese and the graduating thing. Remember in How to Steal a Million where Peter O’Toole tells Audrey Hepburn he’s not a burglar, that he’s actually a security expert ‘with advanced degrees in art history and chemistry and a diploma, with distinction, from London University in advanced criminology’?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me you have an advanced degree from London University?”

  “No, Yale. In consumer fraud,” he said, and was gone, leaving me to hurriedly gather up all the telltale trash by the less-than-helpful light of my cell phone screen, get out into the passage, shutting the door soundlessly behind me, and over to the corridor that led to the theater next door, and wait for the movie to let out.

  “A movie experience that leaves you wanting more! An enthusiastic thumbs-up!”

  —rogerebert.net

  He’d been right about Lethal Rampage. It went on for another twenty minutes, giving me time to make sure the door was completely shut with no seams showing, check again for stray popcorn, and then lean against the corridor wall, listening to a whole symphony of crashes, bangs, and explosions before the lights came up, people started trickling out, and I had to somehow merge with them without being noticed.

  It was easier than I’d thought. They were all too intent on switching their cell phones back on and complaining about the movie to pay any attention to me.

  Lethal Rampage had apparently been just as awful as it had sounded through the wall. “I couldn’t believe how lame the plot was,” a twelve-year-old boy said, and his friend nodded. “I hated the ending.”

  Me, too, I thought wistfully.

  I eased in behind them and followed them down the passage, eavesdropping on their conversation so I could talk about the movie in case anybody asked me about it.

  Like the ticket-taker, who I still had to get past. I wondered if he’d remember I’d been going to Dragonwar, not Lethal Rampage. Maybe I should go back to Theater 17 and go out with the Dragonwar audience.

  But if it had already let out, I’d have to go out past the ticket-taker alone, ensuring he’d notice me. And what if somebody on staff saw me going back and concluded I was sneaking into a second movie? I’d better stick with this crowd.

  I stopped just inside the door, loitering by the trash can till a group of high-school kids came by, and then hastily tossed my popcorn sack and Coke cup and attached myself to them. And it was a good thing because there was a cleaning crew lurking just outside the door with their dustpans and garbage bags, and for all their slouching against the wall, waiting for the theater to empty out, they looked unnaturally alert.

  I stuck close to the high-schoolers as we passed them, bending over my phone and pretending to text like they were doing, and stayed with them as we merged with the audience from Pirates of the Caribbean 9, which had just gotten out.

  From the sound of things, Pirates hadn’t been any better than Lethal Rampage, and it occurred to me that I’d had a better time than any of them, even though I hadn’t seen a movie, and—

  The conclusion of that thought was swept away by a bunch of people pouring down from the upstairs theaters, and it was all I could do to keep my footing as the whole mass of people surged past the ticket-taker and out into the only-slightly-less-crowded lobby, which I was relieved to see wasn’t full of security guards and blaring sirens. Jack must have gotten safely away.

  But just in case he was still in the Drome somewhere, I needed to do what I could to keep them from getting suspicious.

  Which meant detaching myself from the high-schoolers and getting in line to get tickets for the next showing of Christmas Caper. If I were still trying to see it, I obviously didn’t know it didn’t exist.

  The high-schoolers were trying to decide which restaurant to go to. “While you make up your minds, I’m going to go get a funnel cake,” I said to the nearest of them, who didn’t even look up from her smartphone, and went to check the time of the next showing, which should be at 6:40.

  It wasn’t. It was at 7:30, and the one after that was at 10:00. I stared at the board for a long minute, contemplating what that meant, and then went to try to find the end of the ticket line.

  It was ten times longer than it had been when we’d first arrived, snaking all the way back to the Death Star Diner, and it was barely moving. It was a good thing I wasn’t trying to actually get in. I wouldn’t make it even halfway to the front before the last light-rail train home.

  I wondered how long I needed to stand here. Jack had said it wasn’t safe to use his phone, but he might have been able to borrow someone else’s and send me a text from it, so I turned on my phone and looked at my messages.

  There weren’t any from him, but there were four from Zara, all of them asking, “Where r u?” except the last one, which said, “Assume ur not ansring means u finally got in 2 Xmas Cpr. How was it?”

  I needed to text her back, but not till I was far enough along the line that it wouldn’t look like I’d just gotten into it. I didn’t want her wondering what I’d been doing all this time—she was way too quick to draw connections to Jack. So I switched off my phone and then stood there, periodically inching forward, thinking about Zara’s text. “How was it?” she’d asked.

  Great, I thought, and remembered those boys complaining about Lethal Rampage and my thinking I’d had a much better time at the movies than they had.

  And how did I know that wasn’t what I’d just experienced—an afternoon at the movies? That I hadn’t just been participating in a romantic spy adventure concocted by Jack, who knew how much I wanted to believe he’d had a good reason for going off without saying a word to me and who’d heard me complain countless times about going to a movie with Zara and Kett and ending up not getting to see it?

  There could have been lots of reasons that that passage was there. It could’ve been a shortcut between theaters for the projectionist, or some sort of required evacuation route in case of fire that Jack had appropriated for his own private Tunnel of Love. He could have bribed the usher to tell me I couldn’t get in and to put Christmas Caper up on Theater 28’s marquee after the audience for Make Way for Ducklings was inside. And the other stuff—the vomit and the spilled gingerbread latte and Santa—could all have been coincidences, and Jack had simply made them sound like a conspiracy.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. Do you honestly think he’d
go to that much trouble just to get you into bed?

  Of course he would. Look how much trouble he went to just to play a practical joke on the dean. And the whole thing had been just like the plot of How to Steal a Million or I Love Trouble, complete with spies, slapstick, a sparring couple forced together into a small confined space, and a hero who was lying to the heroine.

  And believing it was a scam made a lot more sense than believing that some vast Hollywood conspiracy lay behind this decorated-for-Christmas Cinedrome.

  There isn’t any conspiracy, I thought. You’ve been had, that’s all. Again. Christmas Caper is showing right now in Theater 56 or 79 or 100. And Jack is off plotting some other practical joke—or the seduction of some other gullible girl—while I stand here in this stupid line trying to protect him from a danger that never existed.

  I looked back at the end of the line, which I was only a dozen people away from. I still couldn’t text Zara, but for a completely different reason now—she couldn’t ever find out what an idiot I’d been.

  So I continued to stand there, thinking about how easy it would have been for Jack to bribe somebody on the staff to put a NO TICKETS AVAILABLE sign on the schedule board, just like he’d bribed some farmer to lend him those geese. And to pay somebody to block me on my way across the lobby. And thinking how, when I found Christmas Caper was sold out, I should just have gone to see A Star-Crossed Season instead.

  Three Hanover freshmen leaned over the barrier to talk to the girls ahead of me in line. “What are you going to?” one of them asked.

  “We haven’t decided,” one of the girls said. “We were thinking maybe Saw 7. Or A Star-Crossed Season.”

  “Don’t!” the trio shouted, and the middle one said, “We just saw it. It was beyond boring!”

  “Well worth the trip!”

  —comingsoon.com

  I waited another ten minutes, during which I moved forward about a foot, and then called Zara.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been texting and texting you.”

  “You have?” I said. “I haven’t gotten them. I think there’s something wrong with my phone.”

  “So where are you now?”

  “Where do you think? In line.”

  “In line?” she said. “You mean you still haven’t seen Christmas Card?”

  “Caper,” I corrected her. “No, not yet. All three afternoon showings sold out before I got to the front of the line, so I’m trying to get a ticket to the seven o’clock.”

  “Where are you exactly?” she asked.

  I told her.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, which I doubted. It would take her at least twenty minutes to disentangle herself and Kett from the guys, and then on the way here they’d be delayed by the dress Zooey Deschanel wore in Son of Elf or some other guys, and by that time I’d hopefully be far enough forward in the line to make it look like I’d been in line since the 12:10.

  But she showed up almost immediately and alone. “This is all the farther you’ve gotten?” she said. “What happened to Jack?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Where’s Kett?”

  Zara rolled her eyes. “She texted Noah and they went off to the Dirty Dancing Club. Did he tell you where he’s been all these months?”

  “Who? Noah?”

  “Very funny,” Zara said. “No. Jack.”

  “No. In jail, probably.”

  “It’s too bad,” Zara said, shaking her head sadly. “I was hoping you might get back together. I mean, I know he’s kind of a…”

  Scoundrel, I thought.

  “Wanker,” Zara said. “But he’s so scorching!”

  That he is, I thought. “What are you going to do now?” I asked her, to change the subject.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sighing. “This trip’s been a complete bust. I didn’t meet anybody even lukewarm, and I couldn’t find anything for my family for Christmas. I suppose I should go over to the Pretty Woman store and see if they have anything my mom would like, but I think maybe I’ll just go see Christmas Caper with you. When did you say the next showing was?”

  “Seven.”

  She checked the time on her phone. “It’s already 6:30,” she said, looking at her phone and then up at the line ahead of us. “We’ll never make it.”

  “When’s the showing after that?” I asked her, but before she could look it up, Kett came up, looking annoyed.

  “What happened to Noah?” Zara asked her.

  “He’s at the first-aid station,” she said.

  “The first-aid—?”

  “He had a bloody nose. He said he wanted to take me dancing, but it turned out it was because he wanted to enter me in the wet T-shirt contest, the slimewad,” she said. “So what’s going on?”

  “Lindsay’s still trying to get in to see Christmas Caper,” Zara said.

  “You mean, you haven’t managed to see it yet?” Kett asked. “Geez, how long have you been standing in line?”

  “Forever,” Zara said, studying her phone. “And she’s definitely not going to get in to see the 7 o’clock. This is showing it as sold out.” She scrolled down. “And the next showing isn’t till 10”—she scrolled some more—“which doesn’t get out till after the last train to Hanover leaves, so that one won’t work, either.”

  “Geez,” Kett said. “You spent all this time standing in line for a movie you don’t even get to see. Was it worth it spending the whole day on it?”

  Oh, yes, I thought. Because, lies or not, bill of goods or not, it was still the best afternoon at the movies I’d had in a long time. Much better than if I’d gone to see A Star-Crossed Season. Or Lethal Rampage. And much better than wandering around looking at Black Widow boots and Silver Linings Playbook leotards like Zara, or dealing with creeps, like Kett had. Unlike theirs, my afternoon had been great. It had had everything—adventure, suspense, romance, explosions, danger, snappy dialogue, kissing scenes. The perfect Saturday afternoon at the movies.

  Except for the ending.

  But it might not be over yet—Jack had after all promised me he’d watch Christmas Caper with me if it ended up being streamed. And right before the end of Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Jack had left Whoopi Goldberg sitting waiting for him in a restaurant. Michael Douglas had left Kathleen Turner standing abandoned on a parapet. Han Solo had left Princess Leia on the rebel moon. And they’d all showed up again, just like they’d said.

  Of course Jack had also told me he’d graduated from Yale and was investigating a huge, far-reaching conspiracy, and that putting those geese in the dean’s office hadn’t been a prank. But not everything he’d told me was a lie. He’d said he loved movies, and that was true. Nobody who didn’t love them could have engineered such a perfect one.

  And even if he’d made up everything else, even if he was every bit the scoundrel I was afraid he was and I never saw him again, it had still been a terrific afternoon at the movies.

  “Well?” Kett was saying. “Was it? I mean, you didn’t get to do anything.”

  “Or have anything to eat,” I said, getting out of line. “Let’s go get some sushi or something. How late is Nemo’s open?”

  “I’ll see,” Kett said, getting out her phone. “I think it stays open till— Oh, my God!”

  “What?” Zara asked. “That slimewad Noah didn’t text you something obscene, did he?”

  “No,” Kett said, scrolling down through her phone-number list. “You won’t believe this.” She tapped a number and put the phone up to her ear. “Hi,” she said into it. “I got your text. What happened?…You’re kidding!…Oh, my God!…Are you sure? Which channel?”

  Oh, no, I thought, even though I’d decided he’d concocted the whole thing, they’ve arrested Jack. They caught him with the camera strip.

  “Oh, my God, what?” Zara said.

  “Hang on,” Kett said to whoever was on the other end, and pressed the phone to her chest. “We should have stayed home,” she said to us. “We missed all the
excitement.”

  Jack went back to the campus to leave me a message, I thought, and the campus police caught him.

  “What excitement?” Zara asked. “Tell us.”

  “Margo says there are all these TV camera crews and squad cars with flashing lights around the admin building, and a few minutes ago Dr. Baker told her the dean’s been arrested.”

  “The dean?” I said.

  “For what?” Zara asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kett said. She texted like mad for a minute, and then said, “Margo says it has something to do with taking federal loan money for students who don’t exist. It’s apparently all over the news,” and Zara began swiping through screens to find the coverage.

  “The dean says it’s all a big mistake,” Kett said, “but apparently the FBI’s consumer fraud division’s been investigating him for months, and they’ve got all kinds of evidence.”

  I’ll bet they do, I thought, thinking of Jack’s saying he had to go, that something had come up, and of what a good idea geese had been. In all the chaos—and mess—nobody would have even thought to check the dean’s office to see if anything was missing.

  “There are?” Kett was saying. She put her hand over her phone. “Margo says the place has been crawling with scorching FBI agents.”

  “Here it is,” Zara said, holding her phone so I could see the screen, which showed the quad full of police officers and FBI agents, and reporters trying to get a shot of the dean as he was perp-walked down the steps and over to a squad car. There was no sign of Jack.

  “Are they still there?” Kett said, and then glumly, “Oh.” She turned to us. “She says there’s no point in our coming home. It’s all over. I can’t believe we missed it.”

  “Especially the FBI agents,” Zara said teasingly.

  “Right,” Kett said. She sighed. “Instead, I got felt up by a slimewad.”