Friday was my first official night working at the drive-in. Imagine a huge bathroom at the public pool without the stalls and showers, and a funny smell you can’t identify. Maybe dirty-sock smell. That’s what I thought when I stepped inside the snack shack for the first time with the others.
“We all work on Friday and Saturday nights,” Marty said, switching on the pizza ovens. “Sometimes it’s crowded on Sunday nights too. Depends on the movie.”
“Sometimes Deja ditches,” Winnie said in a low voice while helping me refill the candy display with Skittles and peanut M & Ms. “Like when she has a big date.” She looked up at Deja, who I noticed had one earbud dangling, not plugged into her ear. Deja mouthed Shut up to Winnie.
“Winnie, you know Deja can’t date until she’s sixteen,” Marty said, shutting the door of the industrial-sized freezer with her foot and dropping an armload of pizzas onto the counter.
Winnie rolled her eyes. “Sure, Mom.”
Marty poured some Pepsi into a cup at the soda machine. She took a swig and scrunched up her face. “Dad, you want to check the fountain?”
Carl came from a doorway and made some adjustments with the canister under the soda machine. Then he said, “Try it again,” and filled a paper cup for her.
Marty guzzled it down. “Perfect.”
Carl motioned for me to follow. “Come on back. I’ll show you the projection room.”
The projection room was small, hot, and windowless, except for a small opening in front of the projector. It smelled old too. Not the old-book smell of a library, soaking up the scent of cinnabar and great adventures, but a lifetime of James Bond, Disney, and Schwarzenegger sentenced forever to cheap seats and stale popcorn. Stale popcorn with extra liquid butter that squirts from a pump.
Like an old-movie graveyard.
“It works like this,” Carl said. “You see these black disks?”
The giant disks hung suspended over one another with a black snake of coiled film spiraling from the top disk feeding into the projector.
“When the film for the first feature comes out here, it feeds back onto the empty platter in the middle. Then we’ll play the second feature, which is on the bottom, and it will feed back onto the empty platter on top.”
Something caught his attention on the projector, and he lifted his glasses and looked closely through the bottom. His hair had more blond in it than I’d first thought. Maybe he wasn’t ancient, after all. He fixed his glasses back and looked at me over the top of them. For a second I thought I’d said it out loud. His eyes were that same funny gray color as Marty’s. He squinched them up and asked, really serious, “You seen Godzilla?”
“I saw Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and Godzilla vs. Mothra. Mothra was better, except those twin fairies were so annoying.”
Carl gave me a blank look, and I realized we weren’t speaking the same language.
“I didn’t see the new one.”
My parents were classic movie buffs. We owned a whole library. The first videos they ever bought were Casablanca and Philadelphia Story.
“I remember now. I think I took Marty to see Mothra when she was a little thing.” He tapped the coil of film. “Scary movie, this new one.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, that reminds me.” He went to the doorway. “Marty, remind me to call the distributor for that Disney film tomorrow.”
Winnie met him at the door with a roll of pennies in her fist. “Which one, Grandpa?”
“Parent Trap. The newer one.” He asked me, “You got an opinion on that one?”
An opinion? I begged my parents to buy a vineyard complete with horses after we saw it.
“It was good, especially for a remake,” I said. “I’d say four stars.”
“That good?” He rubbed his chin. “Better than Hayley Mills?”
“Way better. But my mom—”
I left the words hanging in midair. My mom loved the original.
Carl pretended to be interested in checking the feed on the projector.
“That’s where I got my middle name—Hayley,” I said.
He winked. “Pretty name.”
Marty called me back into the snack bar. She was stirring gallons of unnaturally yellow cheese in a pan on a warmer. She handed the ladle over to Deja. “Don’t let it scorch,” she told her.
“Andie, we’re going down to open the gates. You want to work the admission booth or stay here in the snack bar?”
I looked around. “I’ll stay here. But what do I do?”
“You man the cash register. The prices are posted on the counter by the cash register. Grandpa will take care of the pizzas, and Deja will do nachos. Everything else is self-serve. You just stay at the counter and take their money. Dad, can you show her how to work the register?”
“Sure can,” he called.
Deja turned, dripping cheese from the ladle onto the cement floor. “But I do the cash register. Why does she get to do it? She’ll probably screw it up.”
Marty paused with her hand on the doorjamb, looking stern. “Deja.”
Deja backed down a little, slashing me sideways with her eyes.
“Stay where you are,” Marty told her. “She’ll be fine. You watch the flame. The cheese is hot.”
Marty glanced back at me, watching me arrange the candy, tapping her nails on the wood. “Andie, after the rush, you can have some nachos or popcorn. Or candy, if you want.”
I felt my cheeks burn. She probably remembered the Walgreens incident and had second thoughts about letting me handle the money after all. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
The old-fashioned register had rows of buttons like stepping stones and a ding when the drawer opened. Carl practiced with me a few times, pretending to buy pizza, sodas, and a couple of homemade brownies that Marty had brought from the house. When he was satisfied that I knew what I was doing, he took the brownies with him.
The first car pulled in and parked at the front speakers. I dug in behind the candy counter, flexing my knees so they wouldn’t lock. Carl cut up the hot pizzas and put two more into the oven. Deja ladled hot cheese onto boats of chips and lined them up, all drippy. I started to sweat, just waiting for the first customers to come in. Math was my worst subject.
A funny feeling cinched around my chest and slowly squeezed the breath out of me while I stood there waiting. It wasn’t only the math. What if people saw me? People from school. I’d look like even more of a loser when they found me in this loser place. The cinder-block wall across from me looked like a giant dirty thumbnail had scraped away paint, digging through layers of color. The metal trash can near the pizza ovens had dribbles of cheese and other stuff that hadn’t quite made it in. It looked like somebody had used the NO REFILLS sign for a target.
Carl tuned the radio to a country music station. I hate country music. The songs are always about married people cheating on each other or somebody dying.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to shout that I didn’t belong there. My family had nice clothes and wore college rings and drove new cars, not dinged-up Toyotas with taped-on taillights. They didn’t own run-down drive-ins. They had real jobs. We went fun places together and after dinner we played Uno and Clue, and I always got to be Mrs. Peacock. Our family had a dad.
Not only did my knees lock up; so did my throat. Tears stung the backs of my eyes. Oh, no, I thought. Focus. Not here. Not with Deja watching.
I blinked and glanced over at her. She was busy with the nachos. I could see people through the window getting out of their cars headed toward the snack shack. Little kids running for the door with money in their fists. Focus.
I flexed my legs and tried to take a couple of deep breaths. I gripped the counter two-handed and studied the price list taped down in front of me. CANDY BARS, 75 CENTS. EXTRA LARGE POPCORN WITH BUTTER, $4.00. PIZZA, $3.50 A SLICE. Gradually I felt myself get more in control. I could see the road ahead. Just breathe.
By the time the first kid slapped his money down I was steady enough on my feet to add together popcorn and a soda.
I sold a steady stream of nachos, sodas, pizzas, candy, and beef sticks for twenty minutes before the first feature. It went so fast I didn’t have time to think. Everybody had tens and twenties, so I had to be careful making change.
Some kids looked over at me, whispering. At least, it seemed like it. I turned my back on them. Don’t look at me, I wanted to yell. I’m not really here.
When the movie started, people went back to their cars and things slowed down. Most people sat in lawn chairs or on blankets spread on the blacktop instead of sitting in their hot cars. One lady set up a portable crib for her baby. I could hear him fussing all the way from the register.
It felt like someone had released the pressure valve, draining away my nerves. This wasn’t so bad. I even smiled at a little kid using his red licorice for a straw in his Mountain Dew. Godzilla roared from the screen outside, flashing dry lightning at the window. A few people hovered around the snack shack, bees lingering over what’s left of a picnic.
Winnie and Marty came back from the gate about thirty minutes into the movie. There was another rush of people in the snack shack during intermission before the second feature, right after Carl announced that we were closing the snack bar.
When the last customer left, we closed down the snack shack for the night. We scrubbed the counters and the pizza and nacho pans, and emptied the trash cans. The trash cans were gross, and I heard Carl say he’d hose them down in the morning. People are animals.
“Do you want to watch the rest of The Wedding Singer?” Marty asked me while she counted out the bills in the register.
I shook my head, although I had never seen a PG-13 movie. Since I’d moved in with Grandma, I was lucky to go to the movies at all.
“Okay.” She paused in her counting, but said without looking at me, “Why don’t you take Winnie back to the house, and you two can go to bed. You must be pretty tired. Here, wait.” She counted out five dollars into my hand. “This happens to be payday.” She smiled as I stared at the cash.
I followed Winnie back to the house in the dark while Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore exhaled from the speakers. It was 11:45, way past my bedtime. My feet hurt, and I wasn’t used to staying up late, and I wondered if Marty would take back her five dollars when she figured out how much money I’d lost making change.
Back in my room, I found Cyclops sprawled on my bed like Superman in flight. I got so mad I dragged the bedspread off the bed, crash-landing him on the floor. I carried it to the porch to shake off the cat hair, and when I shook it out, the bedspread connected with the wind chimes over my head and they all clanged together. I almost had a heart attack. Maybe I was a little creeped out by being there alone with only Winnie.
The house echoed with Winnie’s brushing and flushing, until she showed up in the doorway of the bedroom holding a ratty blue blanket and a stuffed Pooh. She curled up at the foot of Deja’s bed like a little dog.
“You’re brave,” I said. “Deja will kill you.”
“It’s okay. Mom will get me when she comes back.”
“Whatever.” I put away my copy of The Door in the Wall and reached for the blinds at the window.
“Leave them open,” she whined.
I pounded my pillow into a cloud and settled in, covering my face with the sheet to shut out the lights from the drive-in. I was almost asleep when somebody pulled Winnie’s string.
“The drive-in’s cool, huh?”
“What?” I backhanded dribble from my mouth. “Oh, sure. Great.” I turned my back to her and snuggled into Grandma’s blanket.
“I think it’s fun, ’cept we can never go anywhere in the summer. And then we can’t go anywhere after Thanksgiving because of the trees.”
“The trees?”
“After the drive-in closes we sell Christmas trees. And wreaths and garlands and mistletoe. Grandpa sets up this big tent where he sprays them with fake snow, and he plays Christmas music all the time.”
“When does the drive-in close?” I asked, hoping she’d say next week.
“The day after Halloween.”
“People go to the drive-in on Halloween?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.” I heard her shift and yawn really big. “Last Halloween somebody climbed up and threw a dummy over the screen. People ran into the snack shack yelling, ‘9-1-1! 9-1-1!’ It was great.”
Winnie’s words slurred together, and the next thing I heard was puffy breathing from Deja’s bed. Then I dreamed that I opened the door of my old house on Evergreen, and Godzilla—the black-and-white Godzilla—said, “Trick-or-treat!” wearing a wedding dress and holding out his treat bag, but I was all out of beef sticks.
Marty never asked me for the money back, so the next time we went to Walgreens I used it to buy some pretty stationery to write to Grandma and Grandpa. The notepad had birdhouses on it, and the envelopes were blue with a birdhouse on the back. I knew Grandma would like it.
When I got back to my room, I propped my pillow against the wall behind my bed and sat with an extra pillow on my lap like a desk and a book on top to make a flat place to write. I peeled off a piece of birdhouse paper and took the cap off my pen. The paper was decorated around the edges with trailing vines and tiny bluebirds. It smelled like the strip of glue that held the notepad together on top, all fresh and new.
I wrote Dear Grandma and Grandpa, then sat back and tapped my pen against my chin, waiting for inspiration. I continued, How are you? I’m fine.
Well, that wasn’t really true. I rubbed the side of my head with my pen. I scratched out fine and wrote okay. This could be tricky. I didn’t want them to worry, but I didn’t want them to think I was having a great time, either.
What now? I looked around the room. My backpack leaned against the wall under the window. I told them how I was back at school with little kids, but then I added that my class was in a different part of the school. I read the sentence over silently, and continued. My first day was … Hmm, it had been a no-good, very bad day, but I couldn’t let them know that. I finished the sentence with okay. So I lied, just to protect them.
I added Marty bought me, then I scratched it out. I didn’t think they wanted to hear about her. Instead, I wrote I got Lisa Frank stuff, then I frowned. They didn’t know who Lisa Frank was. I sat back and tapped the pen on my bottom lip. School picture day is next week. I will send you one. I work at the drive-in.
Uh-oh, big mistake. I scratched it out. I forgot they didn’t approve of movies, and they still thought I was ten years old. Even though they watched movies on TV, they said it wasn’t the same. The only time I remembered hearing Mom argue with Grandma was over a PG movie that only had one bad word in it. Grandma didn’t think Mom should let me go to see it. I went, but we kept it a secret from her, and here I was, keeping secrets from her again. Bigger ones, this time. Sometimes you have to protect people.
Just then the bedroom door flew open and slammed against my dresser, and I scribbled a big zigzag across my paper. Deja came in laughing and rolling her eyes. I turned my shoulder a little so she couldn’t see that she’d made me ruin it, even though I didn’t really expect her to get that close. She turned on her CD player and jacked up the volume until the walls vibrated. Then she started singing along. It was really bad.
I tried to concentrate, but it didn’t work. I fished around for the cap to my pen and took my notepad outside to the porch, which is probably what she was hoping for.
I stretched out on my stomach on the porch so I’d have a flat surface to write on. The coolness of the cement soaked through my shorts and T-shirt. No wonder Cyclops camped out like that on hot days. A faint breeze lifted the wind chimes and brushed them together. Blue jays dove for yard snacks. An ant crawled onto my paper, following along the border of vines—clearly confused—and I flicked it away.
What could I tell Grandma? I put my pen to the paper trying to force the words to come, but felt only grit between the paper and cement. I couldn’t think of anything. I was Frankenstein’s monster, caught between different worlds, unable to put two words together.
I wrote Does anybody want to buy the house yet? and Is Grandpa watching his sugar? Grandpa had diabetes and wasn’t supposed to have sweet stuff, but sometimes Grandma felt sorry for him and let him have it anyway. He got really grumpy if she tried to stop him, but he’d already had some toes removed because he wasn’t taking care of himself. He had to wear special shoes to help him keep his balance.
My elbows got sore on the hard cement, so I sat up and brushed off the dirt. I smoothed out the letter and took a closer look at it. Practically every other word was scratched out. Some scratch-outs were so bad that my pen had gone through the paper. It was a mess. Not even the cute little bluebirds could make it right.
Disgusted, I copied the letter over, but it ended up being only a half page long. It didn’t say what I wanted to say. Everything sounded too normal. But my life wasn’t normal. It wasn’t going the way I wanted at all. And I felt like I was slowly being smothered by my cat allergies.
The shadows of the tall bushes grew longer, erasing my written words with darkness. I wandered out into the parking lot, tore the letter into specks as small as lint, and left it behind in a trash can. Before I climbed into bed that night, I took out a new sheet of notepaper and wrote without giving myself time to think, Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I love you. Please let me come home. Andie.