Ready for My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille!

One of my matches enjoyed watching movies, something I had said I liked to do, too. And I truly do. I’ve gone alone to a movie theatre once or twice. It was more fun when I went with a group of my girlfriends, though. I imagined it would be a lot more fun going with a date!

We had originally set the meeting up as dinner and a movie—something that sounded really nice. We had planned to meet at the mall, go to one of the two non-fast-food restaurants there at 5:45 p.m., then catch the 7:05 showing of an action movie.

While I’m not a huge fan of action movies, I thought it would be interesting. I was eager to meet this man, and thought getting to talk to him ahead of the movie at dinner would be nice. It might have been, but I never got the chance.

I got a phone call at four p.m. the day of the date from this guy—I’ll call him Cecil (as in DeMille, a famous Hollywood film producer from 1914 to 1956). It seemed some of his family had dropped in unexpectedly, they were all going to have supper together, and would I mind terribly if we pushed the movie back to the nine p.m. show? And, again with abject apologies, would I either like to have dinner after that time, or would I want to go ahead and eat on my own before the movie?

I had been planning on going on this date for several days, so I had not planned on having anything to eat at home that night. The late show? This man was my age—what time was his bedtime? I could stay up until the ten o’clock news was over, but barely. And another thing—I’d had to cut short my visit with my kids to come home before four to get ready and allow enough time to drive to the mall so I would make the 5:45 dinner.

“Oh, of course,” I said cheerily. “I’ll just eat on my own, and the later show will be fine.” I hadn’t screwed up enough courage, or thought on my feet fast enough, to ask him a few questions. Why hadn’t I just asked him to reschedule the date? For that matter, why hadn’t he just suggested we reschedule? Why hadn’t he told his family he had plans? Poor guy. We hadn’t even met, and already I had assigned him minus three points. But maybe actually meeting him in person would boost his ratings.

One peanut butter and jelly sandwich and over four hours later, I was seated in the mall near the theatres. It was crowded there, as any Friday night at the movies normally is. I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. I checked my phone—no calls from Cecil. I made plans to head home and go to bed if he didn’t show up by nine.

I had just stood up and started toward the exit door when Cecil rushed in. We recognized each other from our profile pictures. He seemed genuinely distraught about keeping me waiting, and also very happy to meet me. We shook hands, and then he started to tell me what had happened and why he was so late. His mother was elderly, he explained, and didn’t get out often, so when his sister and her husband and kids stopped by with his mom, he . . . “Well, we can talk after the show,” he said abruptly, after glancing toward the lines to the ticket sales counter.

He grabbed my elbow, steered me to a line, and purchased the two tickets. It was ten after nine by then, but he stopped at the popcorn counter and asked if I’d like something to eat. By that time, the peanut butter and jelly was a mere memory, and my stomach was growling at the smell of butter and salt. I said yes, and he ordered one extra-large tub of popcorn, obviously for the both of us. I carried the two cups of soft drinks he’d also bought.

We found our theatre, entered, and walked down the long corridor. I was looking ahead at the movie screen, and turned to Cecil to ask if Tom Cruise was in any other upcoming movies, because the trailer that was playing sure looked like the ones I’d seen for this movie.

Before he could answer me, the crowd let out a collective gasp as our hero Tom did something awesome that I missed. I had just turned to find a seat—and I gasped, too. It looked like the theatre was full.

“Where are we going to sit? It’s full!” I whispered.

Cecil looked a little dismayed, too, but then said, “They wouldn’t have sold us tickets if it was totally full.”

Well, obviously there were two seats left because we were the last ones in. But the problem was not only that we were late enough that the movie had started, but the two seats were not together.

Cecil pointed toward the front of the theatre, where one empty seat sat at the far end of the second row. “You go ahead and take that one. I’ll try to find another,” he said gallantly. Then he reached for his soft drink. “I’ll meet you in the lobby when it’s over.”

He turned away and disappeared into the darkness. With my half of the popcorn, I might add.

If I was a teenager again, I could have made it to my seat somewhat more gracefully than the sixty-one-year-old me did that night. Trying to walk down a row of movie theatre seats is not a feat accomplished gracefully, even when the row is not filled with people who have purchased drinks and food. I have night blindness, which means I can’t easily see in the dark when some idiot in the row is slouched in his seat with his long legs fully extended out into my path. I was trying to duck down to avoid having the shadow of my head play on the giant screen, and sidestepping along the row. I was praying that my “best” side wasn’t knocking over others’ drinks or popcorn, when all of a sudden, I tripped on the feet of the lounging gentleman. (“Gentleman” is not the term I muttered at the time.) In my hunched-over state, I went lurching rapidly toward the end of the row like a sidling, but lumbering, crab. I even spilled a little bit of pop, unfortunately not on the slouched culprit. I kept apologizing and excusing myself to the other patrons as I stumbled over to my seat.

When the date (me) is seated in the front of the theatre, getting cricks in her neck, and wishing she had some delicious popcorn to eat, and the dater (Cecil) has found a seat in the nosebleed section where all the young couples go to kiss, text, and do other assorted unmentionable things, all I can say is: “This date was dead to begin with.”

The good part was that I ended up really enjoying the movie, except after it was over, I had trouble hearing. I think my eardrums ruptured at the high-decibel volume. It took me a few minutes to adjust my eyesight when the movie was over and the lights came up, but yes, it was a decent movie. Eventually, I made it to the lobby with the rest of the herd of moviegoers.

The bad part was when I finally spied my date. The first thing I noticed was that there was no popcorn! I just hoped my stomach wouldn’t growl if we went somewhere. But evidently Cecil was as tired as I was, because after some lame conversation, punctuated with a lot of “huhs” and “whats” because we were both temporarily theatre-deaf, we realized that other than the movie, we really didn’t have much in common to talk about.

I thanked him, told him that I needed to get home to go to bed, and that there didn’t seem to be any sparks. Maybe if we were young again, this would have been the start of the evening, but at eleven p.m., it was the middle of the night for me! Besides, my ears were still ringing, and I didn’t think I’d even be able to hear him if we did have any sort of conversation.

I made it home by half past eleven, ate one more peanut butter and jelly sandwich, put some analgesic heat rub on my neck, and hit the sack. I decided if I ever went to another movie, it would be in comfy clothes and no makeup, with a full stomach, and no date!