Page 51 of Holly Jolly July
Ellie
I ’ m bouncing in my seat and singing “Here Comes Santa Claus” the whole drive home. The cabin isn’t too far from the tree farm, but Mariah takes it slow so we don’t lose all the needles
off our little friend strapped to the roof. I can’t believe I get to have a Christmas tree—a real one, in July! And of all
the people to put this together and make my Christmas wish come true, it’s Mariah. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say her
little Grinch heart has grown ten sizes since we first met. And I think it’s all because of me.
Watching the wind tousle her blue hair as she fights the smile on her face, her cheeks pinching together and lips pursing
as they do, it makes me want to reach across the seat and tickle her. I refrain, as I also don’t want to get in a car crash.
We pull up to the cabin and I leap from the car, immediately working to untie the tree. Mariah takes a bit more time with
the knots on her side, always measured and careful, before helping me lift it down. We work together to carry it in and set
it next to the wood-burning stove.
“We didn’t really think this through, did we?” Mariah states, hands on her hips.
The tree, though small, takes up every square inch of free space in the already crowded living room. With the oversized ’70s
furniture and Mariah’s couch popped out into a bed, there is literally zero room to walk around.
“Maybe if we...?” I gesture at her bed awkwardly, not wanting to insinuate she sleep with me, but also insinuating that
she could sleep with me.
She nods, wordlessly removing the blankets and pillows to fold it back up. I do my best not to jump and dance, but I’m too excited and can’t help a subdued hop and wiggle. With the bed folded back into the couch there’s room to stand and walk.
“I think it’s perfect.” I inhale the nostalgic scent of pine. “That’s gotta be one of the best smells in the world.”
“It’s up there. So, how do we...” Mariah gestures at the thing, searching for words, before deciding on, “Erect it?”
I laugh, slapping my knee. “Oh my god, erect the tree.”
Mariah sighs, fighting a smile of her own. “You know what I mean.”
Still wheezing from my laugh, I explain, “We need a tree stand.”
“Okay, where is it?”
“I didn’t bring one.”
“Oh.” Mariah pulls at her bottom lip. “I didn’t think about that.”
I shrug. “We’ll figure it out.” I walk around the peninsula and dig through the cupboards in the kitchen, then find an old
Dutch oven that’s seen better days. Bringing the pot back to the tree, I get Mariah to lift it up and place it inside. Then,
I go outside and source some rocks to stack up inside the pot to give it support. It works well enough, keeping the little
guy upright. After some back and forth we decide to lift the tree and set it atop the wood-burning stove since the thing isn’t
on anyways. Doing so brings the top of the tree up just past Mariah’s height, giving the illusion that it’s a real big tree,
and also clearing up more space in the room.
“It’s perfect,” I murmur, standing back to appreciate our work.
“Almost.” Mariah disappears for a moment and returns with the box of decorations from my closet.
I clap my hands in excitement.
She sets it down and pulls out a box of red ornaments. “How do we start?”
“We start by putting on a Christmas movie!”
Mariah groans. “Again with the Christmas movies? Can’t we watch the last Alien ?”
“Nope. For this we need the real deal. I’ll let you do the honours.”
She kneels in front of the box and digs around, looking at a few options. Then, she picks up the plain black VHS tape with
sharpie on it. “Wait... Romeo and Juliet, 2006 . That movie came out in the mid-’90s. Is this your high school play you told me about?”
Now it’s my turn to groan. “Yes. It must have been put in the Christmas movie box by mistake.”
“Can we watch this instead?” She stands, turning it over in her hands like it’s a precious artifact.
“No. Christmas movie.”
She pouts, her bottom lip sticking out. “Please? Consider it a Christmas present.”
My heart stammers at how freaking adorable she is, begging to watch one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and asking
for it to be a gift to her. I sigh, relenting. “All right. But don’t judge me too harshly. It was my first time.”
“If your first time acting was anything like your first time giving head then I have high hopes for this movie.”
As the play kicks off, Mariah and I remove one of the strings of lights from the ceiling to repurpose for the tree. When we
finish with the lights, we move to the red and green plastic balls, then to the homemade decorations my family has had since
the dawn of time. The tree is a lot smaller than the ones I usually decorate so we only manage to get about a quarter of the
decorations on before every branch is overflowed to the point of sagging. It looks even more hideous than before, but in a
cute, cheerful way.
Mariah is helpful in the beginning, and I love watching her place her first decorations on her first tree, taking far more time than necessary to find the perfect spot for each bauble.
But as the play progresses it steals more and more of her attention, until she ends up on the couch, elbows on her knees, rapt.
I don’t mind at all, unsure if she’s more adorable decorating a Christmas tree or watching my old high school play.
By the time Act 3, Scene 1 rolls around, the tree is finished and I have no way of avoiding watching the play any longer.
I take my seat next to Mariah and cringe watching my past self act in a crude deep voice as Mercutio, challenging Jaime Wyatt
as he plays Tybalt. Moments later there is a flurry of plastic swordplay, and then my fatal blow where I deliver my final
lines. The whole audience laughs as I make my last joke about being a grave man, then again when I “slap” Brian Zanderhurst
and yell at him to find me a surgeon.
“Well, there you have it,” I say, moving to turn it off.
“Wait!” She grabs the sleeve of my sweater. “I want to see the rest of your acting.”
“That’s my last line,” I say, puzzled. “Wait. Have you never read Romeo and Juliet ?”
She gives me a pointed look. “I slept through most of high school English. I think I saw the film once, but don’t really remember.”
I blink several times, shocked. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is as obsessed with acting as me, and that they haven’t
at least read the CliffsNotes of each of Shakespeare’s plays.
“I don’t know how you can say you’re a bad actress after something like that ,” she says, gesturing at the screen as the play continues. “You’re so good.”
“Not good enough.” I sigh.
“What? Why?” She manages to tear her gaze away from the screen to look at me.
I watch for a moment as Juliet takes the scene, Ashleigh Blake with her silken hair and button nose fumbling her lines. I
point. “I auditioned for Juliet and was cast as Mercutio.”
“No offence to Juliet, but I think Mercutio is way cooler.”
I frown, then nod in agreement. “Yeah, but the whole point of being in the play was so I’d get to kiss James Tyler at the
end.”
“ Ooo -oooh,” Mariah singsongs, elbowing me. “Was he your crush?”
“Yeah. We had band together. I applied to be a clarinet player because all the cool kids played the clarinet—”
Mariah huffs. “I don’t think cool is the right word, but go on.”
“I applied for it but didn’t get chosen, since you can only have so many clarinet players. I got my second choice, trombone—I
only picked trombone because my favourite character in Donkey Kong 64 played it. Anyway, so I’m in the back of the band room behind the French horns and in front of the eager beaver playing the
cymbals, and I’m thinking, wow, this sucks , but lo and behold, guess who was also chosen to play trombone?”
I pause for dramatic effect and Mariah plays into it, holding her breath cartoonishly.
“James Tyler.”
She slaps a hand on her knee. “I knew it.”
I giggle, then continue. “I flirted with him all through first semester, but he wasn’t getting the hint that I liked him,
and at the time I didn’t know girls could ask boys out, right? Plus, I was a dorky little teen, all elbows and knees, bushy
blond hair I hadn’t figured out how to style, with braces and acne on top of it all. Meanwhile, he was on the volleyball team
and drove a moped.”
Mariah snorts a laugh.
“So then there’s going to be this school play, right?” I say, getting more and more animated as I talk. “If he was Romeo and
I was Juliet then he’d have to kiss me in front of the whole school, and then we’d fall madly in love and he’d be my boyfriend.
I convinced him to audition and he got the role, because of course he did, only like two guys auditioned. But guess who was
cast as Juliet?”
Once again, Mariah pretends to be fascinated, though she’s trying not to laugh.
“Ashleigh friggen Blake. She was gorgeous, like, I could never even manage to say two words around her because she made me so nervous. But she could barely remember her lines, and the lines she did remember you could hardly hear. I had to watch Ashleigh and James kiss in rehearsals over and over and over again from backstage, dressed up like a boy with a fake moustache. Worst part is my plan actually worked. Ashleigh and James kissed in front of the whole school, and they fell in love, and they went to junior prom together, and dated for like two and a half years.”
Mariah places her hand on my thigh and gives it a squeeze, her expression turned from amused to serious, lips twisting into
an apologetic frown.
“Anyway. It wasn’t the first time I was picked over. And it won’t be the last. I got used to disappointment quickly.” I frown,
recalling all the jobs since then, how I’ve auditioned to be the lead in every single one of them and have always been chosen
to play someone else. Even my personal life mirrors my professional one, with all my attempts at relationships falling flat,
someone else always being chosen over me.
Always the supporting character, never the lead.