Monday, December 23, 2021
The walk from Mom and Dad’s only took about forty minutes. Kind of long, yes, but nothing a teenage girl couldn’t handle and when Sofie arrived at Atlas for the next Christmas movie marathon movie, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, she was the epitome of a wholesome, young, girl next door.
Pete was walking his bike next to Sofie, and judging by Sofie’s reaction, also cracking jokes as he turned the corner to lock his bike next to the Atlas side door.
“Hi there,” I said, as casually as I could, while I pretended to be filling the popcorn machine. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t really do it).
“Hi,” Sofie and Pete said in unison, and, realizing they had just said it in unison, burst out laughing at the same time. And then that made then giggle for a while.
“Sorry, Sofie, that I couldn’t pick you up, but I had a crazy busy day here,” I said.
“Oh, it’s fine. I bumped into Pete so we walked together,” she said.
“I was in the neighborhood. I was going to get a haircut … but … the barbershop had closed for Christmas,” he said, and looked away.
“I’m glad! Your hair’s fine as it is,” Sofie said, and realizing I stood there, looked away. “I mean, you do you, or whatever,” she added.
With an hour to go, I still didn’t have a solution for our movie problem. And I had to solve it not only to have a movie for our marathon but because I wanted to make up with Sara. Obviously, Die Hard was out of the question.
I needed fresh air so I took a short walk. To Kim’s store.
“Still no Christmas plans?” I asked him.
“Not really. Not big on holidays, I told you,” he replied and re-arranged CDs beginning with “R”. “But I may do something with Elisa,” he added and moved a CD to another rack.
“Elisa?” I asked.
“You know, the lady who dropped her Top 10 list.”
“Bring her to Atlas. Tomorrow at 4pm, Scrooged.”
“Buster Poindexter?”
“Buster Poindexter.”
“We’ll be there,” Kim said, beaming. “I don’t like to go to movies by myself, and now I wish I had asked Elisa to go see Gremlins with me the other night. But, but, too late now,” he went on.
“Well, nobody came, so…” I replied. The little bell above the door rang again, and so did a little bell inside my head.
“Nobody saw Gremlins,” I muttered, and slammed my knee.
There it was. The solution. I ran back to Atlas and was surprised to see Rexi already in the foyer.
“Listen, boss,” he said. “I was thinking – you know that I have other engagements tomorrow but the kid’s pretty good, I could teach him to do the changes,” Rexi said.
“I could do it, too,” I said.
“Yeah, well,” Rexi replied. “And I can sing like Freddie Mercury.”
“You can?”
“No. Anyway, I was thinking that I’d really reach him tonight. Of course, I’ll be there to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“Let’s do Gremlins tonight,” I said. “Nobody saw it the other night,” I went on, and Rexi nodded.
He gestured for Pete to follow him upstairs. As soon as Pete had disappeared around the bend, he came back for a cup of coffee. He leaned against the counter, joking, while Sofie made him a large hot chocolate. I went to tell Sara the good news about the movie.
“Listen, I was thinking and … we’ll run Gremlins tonight. So, no Die Hard,” I said. Sara got up from behind the computer and gave me a hug.
“Thanks, Peter,” she said.
Everything was going so well, I thought.
And then the phone rang. It was Tina.
“Listen, there’s a huge storm coming in, our train’s already been cancelled. We’re going to take our car and give it a go tomorrow morning but we may have to stay in Helsinki,” she said.
As soon as I put the phone down, it rang again. This time, it was Mom.
“Peter, it’s about the storm. Our delivery van is stuck in Stockholm the ferries won’t run tonight. What am I supposed to do with the presents?” she said.
“The kids will be so disappointed,” she added. She sounded desperate.
“We’ll figure something out,” I said. “Don’t you worry.”
Leave that to me, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud.
➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)