Page 40 of Not Another Christmas Movie

When her thoughts couldn’t provide relief, Annie decided to try and smooth out the spinning spirals in a bath. The beautiful tub was a singing siren she allowed to lull her to its depths. When she had relaxed, she toweled off and found a jar of body butter in the bathroom that smelled like orange and ginger. She generously applied it across her skin, imagining herself as the two-dimensional wife character “lotion acting” as she confronts her husband about some grave matter. It had been a private joke between Annie and Marsha since high school, both of them remarking on screenplays (almost always written by a man) with a punctuated emotional moment that also still prioritized female moisturization. Annie instinctively reached out for her phone to text her friend, only to find her fingers empty. Ah, Marsha. Or perhaps, Eve? Annie’s heart ached, realizing that seeing her best friend without being recognized hurt more than she could have imagined.

Annie had now completed another day in this weird world, and she was no closer to getting out of it; if anything, she was more confused than ever. She needed answers. Or at least to vent out her frustrations, and the only person she had to meet the challenge was Nick. She glanced out her window and saw the Laurels’ lights were all on, so before she could second-guess herself or overthink it, Annie grabbed a blanket for a coat and marched next door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nick had the door open before Annie could knock on it. “Hi!” he said, his eyes widening in surprise.

“Glasses,” Annie sputtered, seeing Nick wearing a pair. Slutty little glasses I want to lick off his face, she thought.

“Oh, yeah, I usually wear them at night, but my vision seems to have improved here, I put them on more from habit—”

“Don’t take them off,” Annie ordered as Nick adjusted the glasses. “I mean, do what you want!” Annie tried to laugh her lust off.

“I was about to come knock on your door and ask if you’d walk around the house with me and turn off the lights,” Nick admitted, and Annie was grateful for the subject change.

“Turn off the lights?” Annie asked and allowed herself to be ushered inside.

“Yeah, like when Judy Garland asks the boy next door to accompany her around the house …?” Nick continued heartily.

“What are you talking about?”

“Annie Meyers. You’ve never seen Meet Me in St. Louis?” Nick asked, putting his hand on his heart in mock disbelief.

“I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”

“Oh. This is not a film one forgets,” Nick told her. “We are watching it immediately. Or, fine, I will restart it because I watched some last night …”

“I thought we didn’t have access to TV!” Annie yelled, whacking his arm.

“We don’t. This is on VHS.” Nick winced, rubbing the area.

“VHS,” Annie exhaled in wonderment.

“A relic, that’s for sure,” Nick nodded.

“Wow, well, okay. Sounds better than talking to Arthur … but at some point, we need to talk strategy and reevaluate our circumstances. Today was a bust,” Annie sighed. “Any luck on your end?”

“I wouldn’t call today a bust. We did a ton of stuff. But if you’re asking if I won an iced coffee tonight, no, I did not.”

“Oh, hey, do you have any snacks? And if you offer me hot chocolate or a sugar cookie, I will light the street on fire,” Annie cautioned, and Nick laughed. She still didn’t feel an urgency to eat or any pangs of true hunger, but she liked the idea of keeping her mouth occupied and the sense of normalcy only a snack could offer.

“We can raid the kitchen, but I’m afraid there may not be much,” Nick said, leading the familiar walk to the kitchen, his own matching pajama set crisply swishing each time he tried a cabinet.

“I found popcorn!” Nick cried out. Annie gasped in excitement. “Looks like we can heat it on the stovetop.”

“Let’s pretend we’re Drew Barrymore in Scream,” Annie prompted before clearing her throat and doing her best impression of Casey Becker. “I’m getting ready to watch a video!”

“I don’t think I’ve seen Scream. Or any of the Screams, actually,” Nick admitted.

“Are you serious? What were you doing in high school?”

“Probably singing along to old movie musicals. Scary movies are scary!” Nick said, and Annie laughed. It struck her that she and Nick had laughed together more in just a few minutes than she had ever laughed with Chris.

“Well, you need to watch Scream. It’s iconic and surprisingly funny,” Annie told him as Nick turned the stove on.

“I’ll see if it’s in our VHS collection,” Nick said.

Suddenly, a kind of nervous energy jolted through Annie. “This is kind of weird,” she confessed.