Page 13 of Christmas at the Movies

Sarah groaned. ‘Christmas is just more work for me!’ How could he not see that?

So much stress went into making Christmas a magical day for the whole family.

There were presents to be bought and wrapped.

Cards to write. Food to prepare. It wasn’t done by Santa’s elves – it was done by her.

‘I haven’t done any Christmas shopping, or put up any decorations, and I haven’t even planned the bloody film festival! ’

‘But you love the film festival.’

Sarah did love the festival, and picking the movies they showed. She wasn’t normally so Scrooge-like.

‘I just don’t know if I can be bothered with it this year,’ said Sarah. ‘Can we really afford to run it?’

‘I’m sure you don’t really mean that,’ said James. ‘Everyone loves the film festival. They look forward to it all year. We wouldn’t want to let them down.’

Great. Once again, what Sarah wanted was irrelevant. Sometimes it felt like her husband cared more about everyone else in Plumdale than he did about her.

Shaking her head in dismay, Sarah went upstairs to get ready for work.

Holly was in her room, but instead of doing her homework as she’d told Mum she was trying to figure out what to wear to work. That was waaaay more important.

A few weeks ago, she’d painted her bedroom walls deep purple, covering up the babyish floral wallpaper that had adorned her room since she was little.

Mum had warned her that the colour was too dark, but Holly had gone ahead anyway.

Now her room made her feel like she was trapped inside a plum, not that she was going to give her mother the satisfaction of admitting that.

Holly pulled on some jeans and a cropped, scoop-necked top. Then she took off the jeans and put on a denim miniskirt. Did it look like she was trying too hard?

She wriggled out of the skirt and put her jeans back on. She studied herself in the mirror.

Yes, that was better.

She tuned out the sound of her parents squabbling downstairs as she did her make-up.

Copying something she’d seen on a make-up tutorial, she drew dramatic swooshes of kohl on her eyelids, making her blue eyes pop. Her drama teacher at school was always saying that eyes were the windows of the soul.

Standing in front of the mirror, Holly practised conveying different emotions with just her eyes. She lowered her lids in what she hoped made her look like a smouldering temptress.

‘Holly!’ Mum shouted up the stairs. ‘Hurry up or we’ll be late for Kids’ Club!’

Now, the emotion in her eyes was unmistakeable – irritation. Kids’ Club was a nightmare – some kids acted completely feral at the cinema and their parents didn’t even tell them off.

‘Holly!’ called Mum again. ‘Are you nearly ready?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Holly. Her mother was soooo annoying. Holly was sure her mum could have persuaded Dad to let her audition if she’d wanted to. But no, she’d stopped Holly from being involved in the only interesting thing ever to happen in Plumdale.

Did she really think pancakes could fix things? (That said, it had taken all of Holly’s willpower not to have one.)

Downstairs, Mum was fussing over Nick. As usual. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be OK at home?’

‘He’s twelve,’ said Holly. ‘He’s not a baby.’ Holly’s little brother didn’t like noisy situations, and the Saturday morning Kids’ Club was LOUD. He’d been relieved when his parents had started letting him stay at home. No such luck for her though.

Nick picked up the cat who was rubbing against his legs. ‘Jonesy will keep me company.’

‘Bye, squirt,’ said Holly, even though Nick was rapidly catching up with her height. She felt bad about being mean to him earlier. He was actually a pretty cool kid, just … different.

Holly and her parents stepped out of the house into the cold, drizzly morning.

‘I bet it’s going to be busy today,’ said Mum, unlocking the mud-splattered Volvo.

Rainy days were good for the cinema. Holly wasn’t an idiot.

She knew that the cinema was in trouble and they’d probably need a whole monsoon season to change its fortunes.

But somehow she couldn’t imagine them not having the Picture Palace in their lives – it was her second home.

She’d even taken her first steps in the lobby.

Holly’s parents were weirdly quiet in the car. They usually chatted and sang along to indie rock songs on the radio. But today, Mum just gazed out of the window, stony-faced. She was obviously still sulking about the fact that Holly hadn’t eaten her pancakes.

Good, thought Holly. She deserved to be upset. But she couldn’t help missing her parents’ terrible singing. It was better than the silence.

Holly swiped through her notifications as they drove along. Her friend Riley had sent her a message, asking her if she wanted to go Christmas shopping at the outlet mall in Swindon.

Soz. Have 2 work 2day.

Then, her pulse racing with excitement, she checked filmboi06’s profile.

She scrolled through his feed, looking for new updates.

Her heart leapt as she saw he had posted a picture from the night before.

She enlarged the image, trying to work out if the girl he had his left arm around was just a mate, or his girlfriend.

His right arm was around a male friend in a football jersey, so it was impossible to read anything into the picture.

Holly studied the caption – epic sesh with a dancing girl emoji – trying to parse a deeper meaning from it.

She didn’t think he had a girlfriend, but there was no way to be sure without asking him – and she definitely wasn’t going to do that!

She scrolled through older images, which she had practically memorised. She sighed at the adorable throwback image of him as a little boy with wild curls, cradling a puppy.

Filmboi06 was Aaron, who worked at the cinema. She’d gleaned the following information about him from his socials:

He REALLY liked movies

He had a pet dog named Molly (presumably the one from the picture)

His grandparents lived in Jamaica – there were lots of photos of him on the beach, with his amazing abs on display

He played rugby (which explained the abs)

He had a great smile and perfect teeth, thanks to the braces he’d worn until the end of Year 11 (judging from older pictures on his profile)

He’d run a 10K to raise money for a cancer charity, in memory of his aunt

He liked grime music (Holly had tried listening to grime artists but couldn’t really get into it. She was more Bugsy Malone than Bugzy Malone …)

His most-used emoji was the dancing lady, followed by the skull

He liked to bake and had made his mum a very impressive birthday cake

He had dressed up as T’Challa – aka Black Panther – for Halloween

Not that she was a stalker or anything …

Of course, she could have gathered this information by actually talking to Aaron. Unfortunately, every time they worked together, Holly got uncharacteristically tongue-tied and could barely string a sentence together.

Today, thought Holly. Today you’re going to talk to him about something more than refilling the popcorn machine or restocking the coffee cups.

When they got to the cinema, Dad unlocked the doors and switched on all the lights. They had over an hour until the Saturday Morning Kids’ Club screening of Encanto.

The lobby doors opened and Aaron came in. He looked gorgeous – as usual – in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and some vintage-style Reeboks. Holly knew – courtesy of a recent Instagram post – he’d found them at a charity shop.

Uh, Say something! she commanded herself.

‘Aaron Burr, sir,’ she said, regretting the words the second they came out of her mouth.

He looked confused. ‘Um, my surname is Armstrong?’

Holly laughed nervously. ‘I know. It was a joke. There’s, ah, a character in the musical Hamilton called Aaron Burr?’

‘Oh,’ said Aaron. ‘I haven’t seen it.’

‘It’s really good,’ babbled Holly. ‘Lin-Manuel Miranda’s a genius. He, like, wrote the songs in Encanto too – which was why I was thinking about him.’

OK, you can stop talking now.

Mum went into the office and came out with a list. ‘Holly – can you check the bathrooms. Aaron, I need your help decorating the lobby for Christmas.’

Holly glowered at her mother. Was she actively trying to ruin her life? OK, Mum didn’t know Holly was secretly in love with Aaron. But still – bathroom duty was the worst.

She went over to the cleaning cupboard and got out rolls of toilet paper and an industrial-sized bottle of hand soap.

She refilled all the cubicles and soap dispensers, and then sighed.

After Kids’ Club, it would be a complete mess in here – kids seemed incapable of aiming their wee inside the toilet bowl.

Holly checked her make-up in the mirror, then went back out into the lobby. A woman with a black bob approached, pushing a baby in a buggy. There were dark circles around her eyes, her coat was buttoned up wrong and it looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair.

‘Is Sarah here?’ asked the woman.

‘I’ll get her,’ said Holly. She went over to the office, where Mum was standing on a footstool, handing boxes of Christmas decorations down to Aaron. ‘Some lady is asking for you, Mum.’

Her mum got down and they went out to the lobby.

‘Oh, hi, Iris,’ said Holly’s mum. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Henry left his favourite toy behind when we were at the Baby and Me screening the other day. I wonder if you found it?’

Mum went behind the counter and pulled out the lost-and-found box.

Iris rummaged through the collection and pulled out a rubber giraffe toy. ‘Oh, thank goodness!’ She handed it to her son. The baby kicked his legs gleefully and immediately began to gnaw on one of the giraffe’s ears.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Mum. ‘You look a bit tired.’

‘Last night was rough,’ admitted Iris. Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘I feel so low.’