• • • • •
I’m biking home from my afternoon shift. It’s about seven p.m. and still super hot out. When I get to the main street, I spot Jennifer Bennett halfway down the block with a couple of friends. They’re in a small line on the sidewalk to buy tickets to the movie. I’m hoping that she has forgotten all about when she saved me from the Ass Trio.
This is my chance. I could push through most of the steps of Mission Probably Improbable. I could play coy, go into the theater, and when they’re buying popcorn, I’d see them and be like, “Oh! Hey, girls. I didn’t know you were here.” They’d all look at one another with smiles on their faces, and then Jennifer would ask me to sit with them. We’d share popcorn and soda and laugh and cry, and I’d end the night with a kiss from Jennifer Bennett, my new girlfriend, because she’d realize how adorable and funny I am.
I don’t think she has actually seen me, as I’m pedaling slowly and am still fifty or so feet away. And I realize that (a) I stink like fryers and fried food and bleach, (b) I look gross from the heat of biking both to and from work, and, most important, (c) I am holding a book that no one should see me carrying, for various historical and contemporary reasons.
The girls are laughing as they head into the theater through the open doors.
I look at the old marquee to see what they’re going to watch. It’s a movie called Cain and is supposedly one of the biggest hits of the summer. Though, we got it two months after it was initially released across the country. We get all our movies late—if we get them at all.
When I reach the front of the theater, I stop riding.
I linger, seriously contemplating buying a ticket, before realizing how stupid an idea it is. Even if I saw them inside, they wouldn’t talk to me. If anything, Jennifer would feel more sorry for me sitting alone. I can’t date someone who pities me. I shake my head as I get onto my bike and pedal home, hoping that no one sees me.