Page 14 of The Second Chance Cinema
Jen spun the bear butter holder around. “Right now, I would give just about anything to do something different.” She was begging for an adventure. There might be consequences, Ellie knew. Marc, practical as he was, might further convince Drake that the whole thing was dangerous. Jen might actually inflate and blow away out of pure shock. But the good that could come was bigger, she decided. Jen needed an adventure almost as much as Ellie needed the truth.
“Let’s go out,” she heard herself saying.
“Tonight?” Jen asked. She snapped her fingers and pointed them in Ellie’s direction. “Hmmm … I don’t know. I’ve gotDatelineto catch up on.”
“What happened to your need for a good story?”
Jen cracked a smile. She fanned her hands out under her face in mock mischief. “What did you have in mind, Miss Ellie?”
“Well, I know a place,” Ellie told her. “A place that outdoes dancing on any bar top.”
8
Ellie learned that night that Drake was a bad actor. When she paused their game to suggest taking their friends on an adventure, he bent over with a stomachache. She wrestled him into Marc’s car as he rattled off excuses to head home instead: work, then a possible power outage in their area despite nearperfect weather. Drake brooded as they strapped themselves into the backseat and listened to Jen and Marc debate which color to paint the nursery.
“I’m thinking sage,” Jen said. The car backed out of the driveway.
“Isn’t sage a vegetable?” Marc asked. His eyes flicked over to the rearview mirror.
“It’s an herb,” she explained. “And a color.”
Ellie had plugged the pin for the alley into Marc’s phone. They rounded a corner and slid past a small park that looked like it had never seen a person. The subdivision was asleep, except for a couple in matching reflector jackets walking a fluffy white dog. Knowing that they were sneaking out and breaking their friends’ curfew gave Ellie a tiny thrill, until she was interrupted by the chirp of her phone.
Seriously?Drake had texted. Ellie could feel the hostility from the other side of the car.
Three typing dots followed. Thinking, thinking.
You couldn’t wait?
Ellie typed:You wanted backup.
This is a bad idea,Ellie.
Three more dots.
A BAD idea.
You agreed to talk to the manager tonight, she replied.
We could go a different night.
You said we would do this.
Ellie was sweating. Marc was a temperature deviant, she’d noticed. He kept the heat too high in the winter and the air too cool in the summer. She rolled her window down as they flew past a flurry of big-box stores, relieved by a burst of air.
“I’m really glad we’re getting out,” Jen said in the front seat.
See?Ellie might’ve typed if they were still texting, but she didn’t want to start up a debate again, so she switched her phone to silent and tucked it inside her purse.
“Ice cream is a good idea,” Drake said.
Jen wasn’t good at hiding disappointment. “The mystery adventure is … ice cream?” she asked, twisting to face the backseat.
“No,” Ellie insisted. “No. The adventure is not ice cream.”
“I can always go for ice cream,” Marc said. With his free hand, he took a bite of the stale bread he’d packed for the drive. “We’re running low on good snacks.”
Jen pouted.
