My brain waves blur as I open a new bottle of wine, footsteps unsteady. I pass thirty reflections of myself in Eileen’s hallway endcap of mirrors and record a TikTok soliloquy about how I could’ve been a movie star if I wanted. If I had the time, which I don’t. I’m a busy business lady, lots of green-eye tea to peddle. Would anybody else like to sponsor me? Except I’m highly exclusive, you probably can’t afford me. But you should definitely put in an offer. And you know what? Nobody invited me to any Halloween parties, which is bullshit, but I don’t care, I don’t want anything to do with all those two-faced... with all those people and their however many faces. I don’t even care! What happened to all the friends I used to have and why did they leave when I stopped paying for group vacations?
In my fizzy state, my attention turns inexplicably toward that hack Kelly Frederick, spamming her socials with pictures of my Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards surfboard, which I won for being a Red Carpet Fashion Icon in 2010 (it was the Before Times, when the populace still liked my fashion). “Suck on that,” I mutter. “They don’t give you surfboards at the... the goddamn New Year’s Times, do they.”
Then I drift back to Twitter, perhaps unwisely.Magnolia stores are unethical. Don’t shop there!!
This garners a comment from my sister Athena (who has double the followers I have):I love those stores!In under two minutes, a dozen people reply to say that by promoting Magnolia, Athena just convinced them to shop there. The official @magnolia Twitter account “likes” all of these tweets, even mine, which feels passive-aggressive.
I envision myself on Christmas Day in Grandma and Grandpa’s living room, handing them the free samples from Mary Had a Little Boutique because that’s all I’ve got. You can forget presents for my nieces and nephews; those gremlins are money pits. They’ll each get a hug.
Nothing is cheering me up. Not the wine, not the spare Christmas decorations I found in Eileen’s closet. I can’t even plug in the artificial tree, a kitschy, miniature pink thing, because I don’t know what happens when alcohol and electricity mix. I could be electrocuted. Or the tree could end up drunk. Nobody knows.
For my birthday last year, my grandmother sent a Kinollghy record player to my PO box in L.A. It’s styled to resemble yesteryear but with Bluetooth compatibility, and it looks damn spanking good on Eileen’s coffee table. I only have two Christmassy records (packaged together—a gift from my sister-in-law), one of which I tip out of a big square envelope-looking thing and onto the big black round thing that makes music happen. Presumably. This is my first time using the record player. I’ve been holding out to spite my grandmother, who would probably be able to sense it in the air if I did something she wanted me to. Like a bloodhound.
The volume isn’t quite high enough, so I try to notch it up byzipping the needle around. Some wine splashes onto the red disc, but that’s fine. “Mariah Carey is thirsty today,” I remark.
The record squeals and skips to the second track, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Mariah Carey isn’t thirsty, Mariah Carey is possessed by demons. The song spitting out of my record player with a weird succession ofthwip-thwip-thwips sounds like an attack, the beats arising not from Mimi’s unparalleled vocal range but rather from a dark temple at the earth’s core, storming and sinister, some creature chanting in a haunted language with the exception of one clear refrain: “Ooooooooh, Chriiiiiiistmaaaas!” The lights brighten and then dim, buzzing in discordant sync with thethwip-thwip-thwip, the high, mangled “Ooooooooh Chriiiiistmaaaas, Ooooooooh Chriiiiistmaaaas.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end; I am instantly and unfortunately sober.
I try to pry the record off the player, but the needle grates a hot spray of sparks that burns my hand and I shriek, springing back. Everything electric is going haywire: the overhead light, a Himalayan salt lamp, the miniature twenty-four-inch television, my Ocean Galaxy Light Projector. They’re all drunk, pulsating wildly, bright and then dim, bright and then dim—my head spins along, stomach roiling. I’m about to paint the walls with pizza rolls. It’s an earthquake! It’s Revelation! Quick, Bettie, be religious!
“Dear sir, baby God,” I cry, reaching for more wine. “Small, holy bundle.” You know, on second thought, perhaps the wine can wait. “Forgive me. I won’t do again whatever it was that you’re mad about, you’ve got my word. I swear on Bettie Watson’s life.” Not Bettie Hughes, mind you. Bettie Watson. My grandmother’s lived long enough, whereas I’ve got so much ahead of me.
I yank the record player’s cord out of the wall right as Mariah’s distorted soprano reaches a fever pitch, all six bulbs in the ceiling fan popping in an explosion of glass, a table lamp behind me catching fire.
“Agghhhh, shit! What the hell! What the ever-loving hell!” I seize my weighted throw blanket and almost use it to tamp out the flames, but it’s a remnant from The Time I Had Money and, more importantly, it’s been discontinued. I know for a fact that Carrie Underwood has publicly bemoaned not having one. I simply cannot destroy a thing so exclusive that Carrie Underwood will never have it.
I use an afghan Eileen crocheted instead, thankfully succeeding in beating the fire into submission. The electricity stabilizes, that piercing buzzing noise ebbing away. Smoke lingers in the room, and my mind flashes with ideas for utilizing this near-death experience to come back into public favor. I’ll post a picture of the exploded bulbs in the Clarendon filter, an afghan singed with black craters.Lost my only memento of my great-grandmother, I’ll caption it,but I’m thankful to still be here.I’M SO SORRY, Kelly Frederick will type-sob in a front-page headline. Then the byline:The world almost lost Bettie that day. And I... can’t help but feel responsible, after I exposed her money problems to her investors and ruined her life.I’ll forgive her, but only after Oprah gently advises me on national television to take the high road.
“Whew.” I blow out a shaky exhale, then revolve to find a man in my living room, standing not five feet away from me.
He waves. “Oh, hey!”
I scream and fall down, frantically scuttling backward like a crab, broken glass biting into the pad of my hand. A swift glance at the door shows me it’s still shut. The man is speaking, althoughwhatever he’s saying can’t be heard over my never-ending scream. He’s a blur of colors, mostly red and green with a squiggle of brown on top, wearing what I think is (but cannot possibly be) a sweater featuring aT. rexeating a candy cane.
“I’ll never drink again,” I vow. “Please, Mariah, release me from your curse. I’ll be good.”
“As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I am the Holiday Spirit,” the man tells me mildly. “Due to an obscure typo in the Festivities Legislation, the Holiday Spirit can be conjured by playing the current Billboard Hot 100 number one hit, if it is a holiday hit, and if it is played backwards, on vinyl.” He gestures to the scarlet record on display, sticky with wine. “Well done, Miss Carey. I’m as shocked as you are that it’s taken until now for that typo to be pressed into action.”
The last of my air abandons me in a wheeze.
“But you can call me Hall, as in Holiday.” He beams, head slanting.
“Oh, right,” I reply faintly, and then pass out.
*
Chapter Two
CALIFORNIA ZINFANDEL HASlet me down. It has pushed me all the way down a broken elevator shaft, in fact. It’s well past dark when I roll off the couch onto the shag carpet, skull thumping with a migraine, and release a pitiful wail. The house smells like dessert for some reason, and there’s a stretchy beige bandage on my right hand that I don’t remember putting there. This is what happens when you day-drink.
“What have I done to deserve this,” I murmur forlornly. My phone lies inches away on the carpet. I must pull through for the sake of my fans, which I’m going to have again someday.
Zero outreach from Dad, Felix, or Athena, as per usual. Felix and Athena never check in because they’re snobs, and Dad never checks in because he’s a quiet, private soul who doesn’t contact anyone unless it’s an emergency. One single text from Kaia, which she meant to send to a friend. Six from Mom in the few hours since I last glanced at my phone, asking how I’m doing, if I’ve booked my flight, when I’ll be getting in, if she needs to pick meup from the airport. Directions in case I rent a car. She wants to know if it’s still raining on my end and I have to look up the current weather in Haiku, Hawaii, before I respond. My house, which the bank took away, has been bought and sold twice over. It’s been relisted on Zillow, which I stare at nightly through my tears. The fact that my mother keeps an eye on what the weather is like where all of her children live makes me feel so much worse about lying and being the only Hughes child who didn’t show up at Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving just reminds me of Christmas, which reminds me that I’m a failure with no presents to give everybody, a sponsorless woman in her midtwenties who steals Wi-Fi. And now I wish I were unconscious again.
