My nerves get the best of me during the walk to the car, so I’m grateful when Seeley offers to drive. She keeps the radio off the whole ride over, and her slow, steady breaths keep me grounded no matter how many times my head starts to spin out.
Current status: excited, nervous, nauseous, hungry, happy, and scared.
Basically, I’m a little bit of everything that I possibly can be, and things I never thought of too, a bundle of nerves so twisted up I can barely think. I love it. Or maybe I hate it. I can’t even tell the difference anymore. Is there a difference, really?
“It’s only a movie,” Seeley says, her voice soft and delicate.
“I know.” I cross my arms tighter over my chest. I’ve never felt like such a fraud, such an invisible fraud, as I do sitting next to my best friend in the whole world, pretending to pout when really I want to cry. She’s making this impossible. I mean, yeah, maybe she’s right, maybe this will all blow up in my face but, still . . .
It’s not supposed to be like this.
This is supposed to be fun, something we’ll giggle about when we’re old and boring. The first of the never-gonna-die, live-forever moments to kick off our impossible summer.
Seeley looks over at the next red light, her lips a flat line to match the irritation in her voice. “Don’t do this.”
I sigh and go back to looking out the window. “You said you would. We’re almost there.”
She pulls into an empty parking space and turns off the car. “It’s your funeral.”
I take a deep breath and stare up at the looming theater in front of us. The Grand Marquis is the only movie place we have here. I love it, even if it is kind of a dump. The big nice theater with the new movies is almost an hour down the highway, a trek reserved for only the most special of shows. Here we only get second- and third-run stuff, months after they’ve left other theaters. But hey, when you live in the mountains, you take what you can get.
I pop open my door and slam my feet onto the pavement. Seeley’s parked nearly on the line, a huge pet peeve of mine. I can’t help but wonder if she’s done this on purpose. She slams her own door and turns toward me, waiting. I can see it in her eyes. Nothing to wonder about, then; definitely intentional.
I open my mouth but snap it shut, smiling instead and refusing to take the bait. “Ready, darling?”
“Absolutely, sugar,” she says, but the word rolls off her tongue like venom.
Seeley trails behind me as we make our way around the front of the building, mumbling something I can’t make out. It’s probably better that way.
I yank open the front door, the air-conditioning a welcome reprieve as I make my way to the concession stand. The popcorn here is always stale. God knows how long it’s been sitting under the warming lights, waiting for someone desperate enough to come in and start snacking. I order it anyway, like I do every time, along with a Sprite, because I’m too cool to ask for Diet Coke even though that’s what I want. Diet Coke is for parents or librarians or senior citizens. It’s not something a cool kid drinks on a fake double date with her long-suffering best friend and the pirate of her dreams. Except, on second thought, maybe I should double check with Seeley to be sure.
“Sprite?” I ask, because we always, always share. But I can tell when she looks at me that something is off, like somehow the whole world shifted a bit when I wasn’t looking.
“No.” She smirks. “Let’s have Fanta tonight.”
I try to cover up my groan, clearing my throat as I turn back to the cashier. “Fanta it is,” I say, despite the fact it’s literally the only soda I can’t stand.
“Hey, lovebirds,” a booming voice shouts from behind me. “What’s good?”
“What’s good?” Seeley raises her eyebrows. “Really, Nick? No. You can’t pull that off. Please don’t ever say that again.”
“Seeley,” I shriek, because he hasn’t even been here a full minute and she’s already ruining everything.
“Nah, it’s cool.” Nick shoves his bleached hair out of his eyes. “I appreciate the honesty. If there’s one thing I know I can count on with Seeley, it’s that.”
Seeley kinda sighs and glares at me, and okay, okay, I get it. “Where’s Jessa?” I ask sweet as can be, all the while hoping she suddenly found herself coming down with a bout of the plague or something.
“She’s running late,” he says, looking down. “Had to do a last-minute rehearsal with Ari.”
I peek at my phone. “Still? It’s like nine o’clock at night.”
“It happens.”
I take my popcorn from the counter and walk over to the saltshaker. “That’s a little weird.”
“It’s fine,” he grumbles, but I can tell I’ve struck a nerve.
“Hmm,” I say, with tiny butterflies forming in my stomach, because this is something I can work with. This could be the hint of gold at the end of my very long treasure hunt. I look at Seeley, but she rolls her eyes and looks away.
“You guys are adorable,” Nick says, simultaneously mocking us and misinterpreting everything.
I grab a wad of napkins and shove them in my pocket. “Should we find our seats?”
Nick’s mouth twists up in a half smile. “I should probably wait for Jessa. She’ll be here in about ten minutes.”
“Can’t she text you when she gets here?” I ask. “I mean it’s not like this place is huge. She doesn’t need you to guide her inside or anything.”
Seeley snickers behind me, and I stomp her foot to shut her up.
“I guess,” he says, only it sounds more like a question than an answer.
“Great.” I smile. “Let’s go, then.”
The floor in theater two is sticky, but then again it always is. I’m pretty sure the last time anybody cleaned the floors here was sometime around 1955. Maybe. And probably just the once. The seats are hard, the fabric faded to various shades of red and pink, lighter on some than others, and you can sometimes even feel the coils inside them when you sit down.
I don’t care. I love this place, warts and all.
Seeley leads us to her favorite seat, just slightly left of center in the eleventh row. It’s the seat she’s been sitting in since we were kids. It’s where we saw Captain America for the first time, where we sit for The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Halloween, and where we’ve watched every movie in between. This is where the magic always happens for us, and hopefully where it will happen again.
She takes her seat first and I drop down beside her, which leaves Nick kind of awkwardly standing in the middle of the aisle. He glances back at the door, a faint frown pulling at his lips before he sits next to me.
I shove my popcorn in his face and accidentally spill some in his lap. “Popcorn?”
“Uh, no, I’m good.” He pushes the bag away. “I hate popcorn.”
Seeley leans across my lap and pulls the bag from my hand, shoving handfuls of popcorn into her mouth and chewing loudly. I look at her and sigh, wishing I could drag her outside and freak out on her in a not-so-obvious way. I twist back toward Nick, pointedly ignoring her and her ridiculousness.
“What’s it like diving on the school team? Is that really different from doing it at Magic Castle?” And I feel ridiculous, because oh my god yes, Elouise, I’m sure diving competitively is a little bit different than dressing like a pirate and jumping into a pool.
He scratches the side of his nose. “Pretty different.”
“I figured,” I say, trying to backtrack.
“What’d you do to your chin?” he asks, gesturing to my face.
“I fell out of a tree.”
He squints his eyes. “You fell out of a tree?”
“It’s a really long story. Can we not?” I’m already bright red and embarrassed and we’re barely five minutes in. This is going so swell.
“She was trying to be all Romeo and Juliet and scale a tree to my window. It was super romantic,” Seeley says. I kind of sit there stunned because she’s being nice again, and I did not see that coming at all.
“That is fucking adorable.” Nick laughs and looks down at his phone. “Oh shit, Jessa texted me a few minutes ago that she was parking, I gotta go grab her.” He shoots out of his seat and doesn’t look back. He reappears a few minutes later, his beloved princess in tow.
They slide up the aisle in unison, with their own popcorn and soda now, and it’s like she’s the planet and he’s her moon. Gross. Jessa plops into the seat next to me, all full of eager greetings and too-tight hugs. I can’t help but be disappointed; so much for leaning my arm against his when the lights go down.
Jessa offers him popcorn, and I smirk. How do I know something she doesn’t? Nick grimaces but takes it, dutifully shoving a bunch in his mouth. Wait, what?
“I thought you hated popcorn?” I ask, the words tumbling out of me before I can swallow them.
Jessa cranes her neck, looking quickly from his face to mine. “Nick doesn’t hate popcorn.” She laughs. “He’ll eat anything. Which is perfect, because if my mom finds out I even ordered this, she’ll kill me.” She scrunches up her face. “Two handfuls for me, and the rest is his.”
I look back at Seeley like Did you just hear this? but she’s leaning back in her seat with her eyes shut. I can’t tell if she’s sleeping or just trying to meditate her way out of here. Either way, I’m not messing with it.
“How was your rehearsal with Ari?” I ask, but then Nick kind of stares at his shoe, biting his lip, and I feel guilty.
“Oh, it was the best. He learned this kind of old-timey waltz, and he couldn’t wait to show it to me. We’re going to waltz through the park a few times a day now. It’ll be so much fun.”
“Awww, that sounds great.” Which is true, it kind of does, but mostly I just want to encourage her to continue flirting with Ari as much as humanly possible. I mean, I don’t know for sure that she’s actually flirting with Ari or anything, but Nick seems to think she is, which is close enough.
“Ari is the best! He takes this very seriously.” She grins. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner, really.”
Nick clears his throat, choking on a popcorn kernel until his face goes all red and watery.
“Arms above your head.” Seeley cracks her eyes open wide enough to peek at him. “Can’t go dying on us. It’d be the worst double date ever.”
Jessa turns toward him, whapping him on the back, but he brushes her off. “I’m fine,” he rasps when he catches his breath.
“Did it go down the wrong pipe?” I ask and instantly regret it.
Nick raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, Grandma, it went down the wrong pipe.”
Jessa looks back at him with a confused look, and then turns back to me, mouthing the word “Cranky.”
I shrug and smile at her, because keep your friends close and enemies closer and all. I’m just following protocol.
“What animal are you again?” Jessa turns back toward me. “Are you the bunny this year?”
“No.” Nick grabs another handful of popcorn. “Elouise is the hot dog.”
“Yep.” I sigh. “I don’t know why Mr. P keeps doing this to me.”
“Well, bright side, I guess you won’t be the hot dog next year,” Jessa says. I can tell from her voice that she truly means it, that she really thinks there is a bright side to the park closing.
I scowl. “I’d rather be the hot dog forever than have the place close.”
“Oh,” she says, probably trying to figure out exactly where she went wrong. “It was a joke, sorry. A bad one, clearly.”
Her apology sounds so sincere that I sort of feel like I should apologize back now, but she’s being so polite tonight that it would probably kick off this never-ending cycle of “No, I’m sorry” until we both run out of air. No thanks.
I give her a half smile. “Magic Castle means a lot to me and Seeley. I’ve been trying to think of a way to get Mr. P to keep it open, but so far I got nothing.”
“Yeah, I think it’s a done deal,” Jessa says. “It’s been on the news and everything.”
“It was?”
She nods and reaches for a single kernel of popcorn. “Yeah, they were doing all these man on the street interviews about it.”
“What were people saying?” I lean forward in my seat, hope blooming in my chest. Maybe someone has an idea how to keep the park open.
Jessa shrugs. “It was mostly people sharing memories from the park, nothing major.”
I roll my eyes. Leave it to the adults to waste time reminiscing instead of taking action. I guess this is going to be up to me to fix after all.
Jessa rests her chin on the palm of her hand. “Hey, how long have you and Seeley been together, anyway? I always thought you guys were just friends.” Thankfully, before I can embarrass myself any further or answer with another lie, the previews kick on.
“A little while,” I whisper. I mean, it’s not a lie. It has been a little while. An extremely tiny little while. Like a twenty-two-very-fake-minutes kind of little while.
I slouch back in my seat, flicking my eyes over in time to see Nick drape his arm around Jessa and give her a kiss. They didn’t even make it to the second trailer. This is going to be one long-ass movie. Seeley slides over next to me, dropping her head on my shoulder. It’s heavy and warm, and keeps me from totally flipping out.
When the movie is over and we’re shut back safely in my car, halfway back to her house, I thank her for being so cool about everything. She hesitates before answering, fumbling with the dials on my old radio until she finds a song she likes.
“You’re welcome,” she says, but her voice comes out a little quiet.
“We’re good, right?” I ask. We’re parked outside her house, her fingers already tapping on the door handle of my car.
“Yeah, Lou,” she says, letting the door bang shut behind her. “We’re fine.”