The Christmas Orphans Club(42)
As she pulls on the synthetic-velvet elf costume, I think about how the heck I ended up here. After four years of failed auditions—I got close a few times, but never booked a part—it was clear I needed a plan B. Something creative, I thought. Even if I couldn’t be onstage or in front of the camera, at least I could still be involved in making it happen. Hannah was the one who found the listing for my new job at ToonIn. She came to happy hour armed with a sheaf of printed job listings annotated with handwritten messages riddled with exclamation points like “This sounds cool!!” or “Fun perks!!!”
“Educational cartoons?” I mused aloud, less enthused by the prospect. That had to be the skid row of the entertainment industry.
“Think of it like a launchpad,” she urged. “And it doesn’t hurt to apply and get some experience interviewing.” Much to my shock, I got the job. And I accepted on the spot, because after four years of “no,” it felt exhilarating to finally hear “yes” for a change.
And while the job has many downsides—there’s the always-burnt pot of Kirkland brand coffee, the glut of middle-aged suits obsessing over market research data on what the under-five demo deems “cool,” and the elementary-school-themed free lunch Fridays (trust me: the square Ellio’s pizza of your youth is worse than you remember)—one perk is the chance to ride on ToonIn’s float in the Christmas Day parade.
A company-wide email went out two weeks ago, and I added my name in the first slot on the sign-up list. I grew up watching the parade on TV every Christmas morning. In my nine-year-old brain, watching the parade in person was something every New Yorker did on Christmas.
I’d bring Priya as my plus-one; she’d be the most game. Hannah and Theo could sleep in and meet us after. But when I checked the list again on Friday, my name was the first and only. How were people not more excited? This parade is an institution! Didn’t they want to bring their kids? Their loss is our gain, I thought, as I added my cubemate Liam’s name to the sheet in the second position. He wouldn’t care, he was already in Breckenridge skiing with his aggressively WASPy family.
“Also, if anyone asks, Theo’s name is Liam,” I tell Hannah.
She looks up from putting on her pointed elf slippers to roll her eyes at me.
* * *
? ? ?
?Three hours later, we’re inching down Sixth Avenue so slowly I can only tell we’re in motion if I mark our progress against a building and watch it gradually come closer. Hannah and I are stationed at the edge of the float waving and throwing candy into the crowd, while Theo and Priya are on a raised platform dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, flanking Chicky, the star of our network’s top-rated cartoon and our float’s guest of honor.
We met Keith, the paunchy guy in his late fifties assigned to wear the Chicky suit, in the staging area before he put on the head to his costume. Despite being dressed as a chicken—a female chicken, judging by Chicky’s long eyelashes and pink-painted talons—Keith was overjoyed by his assignment.
Hannah and I are having a significantly less joyful experience. “My arm is so fucking tired,” Hannah complains. “No wonder Michelle Obama has those biceps, it’s probably from all the waving.”
“The pain in my arms is a good distraction from how cold it is,” I tell her.
“I forgot about how cold I am because of how badly I have to pee and now you reminded me.”
“This sucks.” I understand, now, why none of my colleagues signed up to come to the parade.
Up ahead, Bryant Park is on our left, which means we’re somewhere in the lower forties. At this speed it will take an hour to get to the parade’s end point in Herald Square. We are never doing this again.
“You need to give me something else to think about,” Hannah whines. “I think my right pinky toe is about to fall off from frostbite. I’m considering peeing my pants because one, they’re not my pants, and two, it would be warm. Is that totally nuts?”
“Totally disgusting,” I tell her. “At least you have pants. I only have tights.”
“Well, these elf slippers are not insulated!” she complains. “Okay, go! Entertain me.”
“Entertain you how?”
“I don’t know. Tell me a secret.”
“You know all my secrets.” Hannah and I keep up a near-constant stream of Gchat messages throughout the workday. I don’t drink a LaCroix, take a pee break, or have a mean thought about Maureen in marketing that Hannah doesn’t know about. But there is one thing I haven’t told her. Maybe the cold is making me delirious because I feel the confession on the tip of my tongue.
She gives me a funny look while I debate whether I should say anything.
“I have a crush on Theo,” I admit.
“I’m sorry, that’s your secret?”
“Yeah?”
Her face splits into a gleeful grin, which in the elf costume makes her look like a horror movie villain. “That’s not a secret. Everyone knows.”
“Everyone knows?” Who is everyone? Does everyone include Theo? I thought Hannah believed the spark had passed. I’d been careful not to mention my crush since Theo and I became close friends.
Last Christmas—our second with Theo—was different from the one before. We left his apartment with plans to come back on New Year’s Eve for the fireworks. It turned out the buildings surrounding his blocked the view, but we didn’t mind. Instead, we killed six bottles of champagne and skinny-dipped in the building’s rooftop hot tub that was supposed to be closed for the season.