Page 23 of Holly Jolly July

Ellie

I ’ m glad Mariah didn’t punch me in the face; judging by her stance, she knows how. We climb into our separate vehicles and

I lead Mariah through the city streets, down the side-roads, and along the twisty driveway to the cabin.

“Why the hell are you staying way out here?” Mariah asks, shutting her car door and crunching on the gravel toward me.

“You’ll see,” I singsong, though my heart feels very un-singsongy right now. I unlock the door and step inside to a welcoming

blast of air conditioning. Mariah follows, and I shut the door behind her.

“Wow.” She takes another step in, turning in a circle as she regards my Christmas swag. She finishes her full three-sixty

and gives me a perplexed look. “Did you do all this or did the place come like this?”

“I did it. I’m a method actor.”

She nods. “Of course you are.”

I’m too sad and tired to wonder if she’s being sarcastic or not. “Plus, I love Christmas. It’s kind of my thing.”

She grimaces. “I hate Christmas.”

“What! How can you hate Christmas? I have it on good authority that it’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

Her mouth twitches. I take it as a win.

But I’m too heartbroken to work any harder at getting her to smile.

Watching Matt profess his feelings to Mariah, lying about how she’s the only woman in his life—while also telling the truth that there wouldn’t be anyone else showing up at his house, and then using the same line on her that he’d used on me—it was too much.

I never should have gone there. But I’m glad I did.

He’s such a smooth operator, I wouldn’t have believed he was a liar unless I’d witnessed it myself.

I drop my purse on the floor. “Wine?”

“Fuck yes.”

I move past Mariah to the kitchen and unscrew a bottle of merlot, pouring two full glasses.

“Just one glass, though. One small glass,” Mariah chastises. “I have to work in the morning.”

“Sorry.” I pour some of hers into mine, filling it to the brim. “I guess I should be grateful I’m not on set tomorrow.” Handing

Mariah her glass, I take mine to the living room and settle on the couch, trying not to think about last night when I was

sitting in this exact same spot, snuggled up with Matt. Jax? Who knows.

Taking a long slurp of my wine, my throat tightens from the tannins and brings with it a little relief. I close my eyes and

lean my head back against the couch. A moment later Mariah joins me, the cushions sinking in toward her. “Today really sucked,”

I say, keeping my eyes closed.

“You can say that again.” I hear her sip, then swallow.

“Not just with the whole Matt-slash-Jax fiasco. I was so distracted by it I completely fumbled my first full day on set. I

didn’t have any lines today—thank god—because I probably would have forgotten them even though I memorized the script weeks

ago. I broke a coffee cup while sweeping the floor. How do you even do that? Like, I can’t even do my job as a barista, let

alone act in a movie as one.” I rub my face with my free hand. “They had to do three retakes, and I wasn’t even the main focus

of the scene. They hate retakes. It’s a one-shot deal usually, even if people flub their lines a little, since it costs so much money and we’re on

a really tight budget. Yueyi looked so disappointed in me. Probably second-guessing hiring me at all. I’m such a shitty actress.”

Mariah nudges me, and I open my eyes to look at her. “You’re definitely not a shitty actress. I’ve stared at your face and listened to you talk for hours, and I didn’t even recognize you in the bar.”

“Thanks,” I say, though I don’t quite believe it.

“It was Jax’s fault you had a hard time today.”

I blow a raspberry between my lips. “You’re right. I couldn’t stay focused after finding out we’ve been seeing the same guy.”

“I can’t believe I actually believed him.” Mariah looks down in her glass. “I feel like such a fool.”

“Samesies.” I clink my glass with hers, and we both take a big gulp.

Mariah’s phone rings. She sighs, ignores it, then mumbles, “I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I’ve noticed you have a reoccurring problem with your phone ringing.” I nudge her. “What’s going on?”

“Just... stuff.”

I can’t let her go that easily. “Did you win the lottery and your second cousin twice-removed needs money? Is some gang hassling

you to repay your gambling debts? Are you actually an heiress and your bodyguard is trying to track down where you are? Did

you—”

She exhales quickly through her nose, and I warm with satisfaction knowing I nearly made her laugh. Mariah glances at me,

then back at her phone, which has stopped ringing. “It’s my mom. I was supposed to stay with my parents while I was here.

When I applied for the job, I put their address as mine since they only wanted locals for the crew. I didn’t expect to be

hired, and I can’t afford to stay in a hotel while I’m here, and I can’t afford to drive in and out from Vancouver for work, so I asked if I could stay with them. They said yes. We...

don’t have the best relationship. I’ve been staying with Jax and have been able to avoid them up until now. But not going

home has just made it worse.”

“As avoiding things tends to do.”

“Yeah.” Her phone rings again, and this time she answers it. “Hey. Yeah... no, I’m okay. Sorry, yeah.”

I can’t hear what the other person is saying, only that they’re talking a mile a minute and Mariah is sinking further and

further into the couch the longer this goes on. Following my instincts, I snatch the phone from her. “Hey! Is this Mariah’s

mom? Oh, hey, Janine! Yeah, this is Ellie.” She asks if I’m the friend Mariah’s been staying with. Does she mean Jax? I go along with it. “Yes, that’s me!”

Janine talks for a few more minutes while I “Uh-huh” and “Sure!” my way through the conversation, ending the call as quickly

as I can before handing the phone back to a speechless Mariah.

“Um...?” she finally manages.

I gulp down the rest of my wine. “You’re staying here. At least for tonight. You’ve had a glass of wine, anyway. Safety first!

The couch folds out and there’s spare linens in the closet. I have turkey dinner leftovers, and more wine. Oh! And we’re going

to your parents’ for dinner later this week.”

Mariah’s eyes widen in shock. “What?”

“Yeah.” I give her a nudge. “I’ll be your buffer.”

Her eyes grow wider.

“Don’t worry, parents love me!”

Mariah’s shocked expression slowly shifts to horrified before she downs the rest of her glass. “I think I’m going to need

more wine.”

I put the turkey leftovers in the oven to warm and grab the bottle of wine before joining Mariah, who is quietly lost in her

thoughts, as usual.

Unsure of what to say, which is a weird situation for me, I sit pensively beside her and tap my fingernails on my glass. “Do

you... want to talk about Matt?”

She huffs through her nose. “Nope. Not enough wine yet.”

“Okay. How about your parents?”

“There’s not enough wine in the world for that,” Mariah says into her glass before taking a long sip.

“Okay.”

The awkward silence yawns between us. I’m not one for silences at the best of times, but it’s now settling in that I’ve invited

a woman I barely know, who barely tolerates me, and has been banging the same guy as me, to stay with me for an unknown amount

of time. It had felt like the right thing to do but now I’m having second thoughts.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” I ask, finally.

“Fine.”

“Great.” I disappear into my bedroom for a moment to retrieve the box of tree ornaments/VHS tapes and plop it down in front

of Mariah. “Pick one.”

Leaning forward, Mariah regards my collection with a mortified grimace. “Do you have anything other than Christmas movies?”

“Sorry, I’m on a strict Christmas movie diet.”

She sighs, then digs around, lifting the occasional ornament to inspect it before gingerly placing it back in the box. “What

about Romeo and Juliet ?” She lifts the tape with black sharpie on it and turns it over a few times. “I haven’t seen a taped VHS in years. Kind of

forgot they exist.”

I snatch it from her and toss it back in. “Anything else.”

“Fine.” She digs around for a few more moments before taking out Home Alone. “How about this?”

A classic. I nod my approval.

By the time the opening credits are finished rolling, we’re both cozied up with warm leftovers and refilled glasses.

“Where’s the tree?” Mariah asks between bites.

“What?”

“You have lights. Tinsel. Garland. A box full of ornaments. But no tree.”

“Oh,” I say, still mildly confused that, of all things, this is her choice of conversation. “I don’t have a tree because fake trees are blasphemous.”

She gives me a quizzical look.

“My grandpa would roll over in his grave,” I explain. “Every year we’d all get together at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. Me,

my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters, we’d go out into the woods and find the perfect

tree. It was always kind of scraggly because it was a wild tree, not a farmed one, but we’d fill it with so many decorations

you wouldn’t notice. All around it there were presents stacked almost to the ceiling because there were so many of us, and

then all of us kids would pile up on the floor and fall asleep with the lights twinkling around us.”

“That sounds so nice.” Mariah regards me for a moment, then gestures at the screen with her fork. “Must have been kind of

like this.”

“Oh, way busier than that. Macauley Culkin’s family ain’t got nothin’ on mine.”

“Really? How many cousins do you have?”

“I have...” I trail off a second, looking at the ceiling to count them all. “Thirty-six? First cousins.”

She gapes at me. “What!”

“Why? How many do you have?”

“Two.”

I gape back at her. “ Two cousins?!”

“Yeah. And they live in Newfoundland.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine such a small family. There were usually fifteen of my cousins there at the house, plus me and all my

siblings.”

“How many of those do you have?”

“Eight.”