I went over to the usher and handed him my ticket.
He shook his head. “You can’t go in yet.”
“But you said the 12:10 got out at 1:55.”
“It did, but you can’t go in till the crew finishes cleaning.”
“Which will be when?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Some guy threw up all over. It’s going to take them at least twenty minutes to clean it up.” He handed me back my ticket. “Why don’t you go get something to eat? Or do some Christmas shopping? They’re having a sale on Inception sleep masks over at the Sleepless in Seattle shop.”
And Jack will be standing right outside of it, smirking, I thought. “No, thanks,” I said, and squeezed past the Dr. Who and Little Goose Girl lines to the bench, hoping the mother and girls had gone.
They had, but the bench was now completely taken up by a passionately kissing and practically horizontal couple. I edged past them to stand by the wall, but by the time I made it, the couple had reached the R-rated stage and was rapidly approaching NC-17. I braced myself for Jack and another round of conspiracy theories and went back out into the lobby again.
“A gift for holiday moviegoers!”
—silverscreen.com
Jack wasn’t there. But he—and Zara and Kett—were the only ones who weren’t in the lobby. It was crammed to bursting with people checking their coats and buying tickets and refreshments and staring up at the previews and schedule boards. I found myself alternately jostled and smushed by the crowds going into and coming out of the theater complex and by kids mobbing the Christmas characters who meandered through, tossing candy canes and distributing Coming Attractions flyers. Alvin the Chipmunk gave me a chit for a free mince pie at Sweeney Todd’s snack bar, and a frighteningly friendly Grinch presented me with a coupon for half off a Twelve Dancing Princesses T-shirt at the Disney Pavilion.
I’d no sooner handed it off to a NewGoth girl and read a text on my phone, telling me I’d won a free ticket to a special Encore Presentation of Ghost Town, than I was nearly run down by an enormous Transformer stomping through the crowd, flailing his huge metal arms and nearly bumping his head against the lobby ceiling. I partly dived and was partly pushed out of its way by the crowd as it scattered and ended up on the opposite side of the lobby.
The crowd surged back toward the Transformer, snapping pictures on their cell phones, jockeying for position to have their photos taken with it, their backs forming an impenetrable wall. There was no way I was getting through that, at least till the Transformer left.
It didn’t matter—it was still fifteen minutes till they’d be finished cleaning. I turned to look for a place I could wait without being run down. Not Gusteau’s—I had no desire to hear Jack say “I told you so.” And not Sweeney Todd’s. It was too far away.
I needed someplace close so I could start back the second the crowd dwindled or the moment I saw the cleaning crew give the usher the high sign, and someplace with a short line, but finding one was practically impossible. Zombie Juice was even more mobbed than the lobby. Stargate’s Starbucks, which was advertising Mistletoe Mochas, had a line merging over into Zombie Juice, and the Transformer had apparently been passing out coupons for a Transformer Tea because Tea and Sympathy, usually a safe bet, was jammed, too.
And I was definitely not going to the Cantina even though at this point I could have used a drink. But Jack had obviously sent that text, which meant he was waiting in the Cantina to get me drunk and tell me more conspiracy theories. I was not going there.
That left a hot cocoa at the Polar Express, which was just off the lobby and whose line only had two people in it, but even then it took forever. The guy at the counter wanted a gingerbread clove latte, which the barista didn’t know how to make, so he had to give her step-by-step instructions, and then the teenager behind him couldn’t get her swipe card to work.
I looked back out at the lobby. The Transformer was gone, but now the zeppelin from The Steampunk League was floating above the ticket machines, throwing down gift cards on a converging crowd. If I didn’t go soon, the lobby would be even more jammed than it had been with the Transformer.
I decided I’d better bag the cocoa and head back, and I started for the door. And collided with the gingerbread guy, who was bringing his latte back for having insufficient whipped cream and who managed to spill the entire drink down my front.
Customers converged with napkins and commiserations, and the barista insisted on my waiting while she fetched a wet rag. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m kind of in a hurry. I have a movie I need to get to.”
“It’ll just take a sec,” she said, running back to the counter. “You can’t go all wet like that.”
“I’m fine,” I said and started for the door.
The gingerbread man grabbed my arm. “I insist on buying you a drink to apologize,” he said. “What would you like?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. “I need to go—” and the barista came over with the rag and began swabbing me down.
“That’s not necessary. Really,” I said, brushing her away.
“You’re not going to sue the Polar Express, are you?” she asked tearfully.
Yes, I thought, if I miss this movie because of you. “No, of course not,” I said. “I’m fine. No harm done.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “If you’ll hang on just a minute, I’ll get you a coupon for a free scone the next time you come.”
“I don’t want—”
“At least let me pay for the cleaners,” the guy said, getting out his phone. “If you’ll give me your e-mail address—”
“On second thought,” I said, “I think I would like that drink. A peppermint chai,” and when he started for the counter, I darted out of the Polar Express, into the protective cover of the crowd, and into the lobby.
It was even more crowded than it had been with the Transformer. I pushed into the scrum and started across, and it was a good thing I hadn’t gotten my cocoa. I had to bull my way through with both hands, prying couples apart and slipping between them, pushing aside excited kids in bright blue A Smurf Hanukkah T-shirts and teenagers staring up at House on Zombie Hill previews.
It was like swimming through molasses, and it seemed to take hours to get to a place where I could finally see the usher. There was a line in front of him now, but it wasn’t the Dr. Who or the Little Goose Girl people, who were still waiting in their mazelike lines. I needed to get over to him before those movies got out, or I’d never get in to Christmas—
Someone grabbed me by my arm. Please don’t let it be the Gingerbread Man, I thought as I was yanked back into the center of the crowd.
It wasn’t. It was Santa Claus, with a microphone and a phalanx of reindeer. “What do you want for Christmas, little girl?” he asked, sticking the mike in my face.
“To get over there,” I said, pointing.
“Ho ho ho,” he said. “How would you like a nice pair of tickets to the 3:25 showing of The Claus Chronicles?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’m going to see Christmas Caper.”
“What?” he said. “You don’t want to see Santa’s own movie?”