Page 22 of The Second Chance Cinema
Snow fell onto the railroad tracks as Drake walked home after school. A train whistled in the distance. As he ventured onto Main Street, the yellow awning of his building, The Edison, stuck out in the frozen white world. Drake flung the door open and pounded up the carpeted brown stairs to his second-floor condo. His parents were playing dominoes at the old kitchen table where one of the legs was always breaking.
“What’s wrong?” Beth asked when she noticed his defeat.
Drake tossed his backpack on one of the kitchen chairs. “Not talking about it.”
“Sure,” Robert said, tapping a domino and debating his next move. “We don’t have to talk about it—”
“The Valentines were a huge mistake.” Drake sulked over to the table and picked up one of his dad’s dominoes, setting it back down on the wrong train. “The whole school is making fun of me.”
“Bet they wish they thought of it first,” his dad said, sliding the rogue domino back in its place.
Red and yellow LEGOs dotted the gray carpeting inside Drake’s bedroom, and posters from Spielberg movies lined the walls. He launched onto his bed, tucked himself under the race car sheets, and ignored the knock on the half-open door.
“Inside-out,” Beth whispered.
Drake rolled over in her direction. “What?”
She tiptoed in the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s what they called me in school. I put my gym uniform on the wrong way one time, and … well, that was that.”
Drake scrunched his nose up. “That’s dumb.”
“It was.” Beth nodded. “But it was still embarrassing. And then, it was over. That’s the good thing about bad things.”
“What is?”
“They pass. All of them, they just—whoosh.” She pressed her thumb onto one of the cartoon race cars. “Zip on by.” Beth gave her wisdom a second to land before getting up and moving back to the door. “Why don’t you take a nap before dinner? Dad’s heating up a frozen pizza—”
“What if I’m Sarah?” Drake asked.
Beth turned back to him. “Sarah?”
Drake smashed a pillow over his face. The cushion muffled his woe. “What if nobody ever wants a Valentine from me again?”
Beth pulled the face pillow off. “We all feel that way, at some point or another.” She kissed Drake’s forehead. He pretended to hate it. “But, hey. You’re going to find someone who alwayswants to be your Valentine, and who you love more than anyone. And when you do, don’t let her go.”
“You have to say that,” he groaned. “You’re my mom.”
“I’m saying that because it’s true.” She pulled his blanket to his chin. “You’re a good egg, Drake.”
“I don’t like eggs.”
“It’s an expression, sweetie.”
As Drake drifted off to sleep, the bedroom door clicked shut. A little snore landed in an instant, then the world around him got blurry. The colors in the image turned into moving spots. The elephant night-light distorted and became a faraway star, and then Drake’s young dreams switched over to a new character in the movie.
Ellie.
The prep school, with its bleak white walls, was a good place to be bored. Ellie had lost track of the teacher’s words. Her focus turned to a sprinkler ticking its way across the lawn out the open window. She wanted to be down there, stomping through the grass and ruining the lace dress her mom picked out that made her look like a pastry.
The wardrobe fit the occasion, at least. She was stuck in a baking class.
“Ellie!” her teacher snapped. Parents liked this teacher. She was a matriarch of summer school who enjoyed her authority over her students a little too much.
“Sorry,” Ellie said. She set the pen down.
“All right, ladies.” The teacher tightened an apron around her cream, A-line skirt. “Let’s get baking!”
Sandra Marshall insisted that baking was one of the more useful life skills, despite rarely doing it herself. In her mother’s mind,conflict could be resolved by a well-orchestrated floral display, an afternoon high tea, or a rhubarb pie. The teacher had just explained that rhubarb was a vegetable. Spending her birthday making a pie out of vegetables seemed like a tragedy to Ellie.
