Page 25 of The Second Chance Cinema
Ellie waited for some kind of wayward shoe—an ugly, out-ofseason shoe—to drop.
“Are you ticklish?” Drake asked instead. And before she said yes, he was on top of her. Their giggles were out of control. It was the untamed laughter specific to childhood, laughter that felt like freedom.
12
Before the third pink tickets were off their spools, Ellie was asking about her gloves. “They’re white,” she described. “With beaded roses on the wrists.” The ticket boy showed no sign of recognition. “You know, the decorative type of gloves that quiver in the face of cold weather. Did you find any gloves last week?”
He shrugged as he passed the tickets through the slot in the booth. “Not sure.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Ellie tried to curb her annoyance. The ticket boy could restock snacks for guests who never came and vacuum already clean carpets, but he couldn’t give a second thought to her favorite, special gloves.
“Do you have a lost and found or something?” Drake asked.
Inside, Natalie confirmed that they did. The lost and found was near the entrance of the lobby. Individual items, each with their own descriptive plaque, rested on four tiers of dusted shelves, like a small gallery exhibit. Ellie’s gloves were waiting in the top left corner of the bright glass case:Ellie’s Good Luck Gloves.
Drake crouched for a better view. “What is all this stuff?”
“It’s the lost and found,” Natalie explained. She slid behind the case to face them. “Actually, notthe.It’syourlost and found. Things you’ve lost track of or left behind.” A closer look revealed that Natalie was right. The lost and found consisted entirely of their forgotten items. Here, their memories seemed to take on a different, more physical form.
“This case isn’t always here, is it?” Ellie asked. She hadn’t noticed it on their first two visits.
“It’s like any lost and found,” Natalie told them. “You have to ask for it.”
Ellie bent down next to Drake and peered inside the case.
On the top shelf, next to her gloves, was a preserved red rose left over fromDrake’s Valentine’s Day Fiasco.
Ellie’s mint-green spiral notebook was split open on the next shelf, which allowed a glimpse into her messy handwriting onThe First Draft of Ellie’s Book.She liked to write things by hand when she could, but her penmanship, which she called “drunk chicken,” made it challenging to follow her own train of thought.
“I think I lost this thing on purpose,” Drake said. He was in a staring contest with a plush fox head. Its knowing eyes were pushed up against the glass.School Mascot, the plaque read.
Ellie laughed. “This was your mascot costume? It’s terrifying.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” Drake said. “They gifted it to me because it was terrifying. The school replaced the costume after my stint.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Parents were complaining.”
Several more exhibits lined the bottom row. ADo Not Disturb— Writing in Progresssign from Ellie’s childhood bedroom. A piece of silver hardware from the time Drake and his dad first fixed the kitchen sink together—Drake’s Early Inspiration.A handdrawn map of the abandoned mansion Ben brought Ellie to when they were teenagers—Midnight Map. Then, Ellie’s focus moved to something more damning on the bottom shelf. The plaque caught her eye first, followed by a familiar object. If the lost and found indicated what they might see on film, this devastating tiny item had confirmed her suspicions. The reasons she had insisted they go to the cinema would present themselves.
Witness to Ellie’s Accident.
Drake didn’t notice when Ellie jerked away from the glass.“How many things can we take?” she asked Natalie, eager to escape the situation.
“Just take what you need—”
“We need the gloves,” Drake snapped with urgency. Had he noticed her unease? He must have been more tuned in than Ellie realized. Only when she met his eyes, the truth revealed itself. He was looking at the red carpeting and shifting his weight back and forth. Something inside the lost and found case had rattled Drake as much as it had her. Ellie tried to figure out what it was as Natalie passed the gloves over, but he was too quick to pull her toward the right-side stairwell.
With the gloves safely on her hands, Ellie and Drake returned to the balcony seats they chose on their last visit. “Looks like this movie is kind of a hot ticket tonight,” he said.
He was kidding. They were the only customers, as always. The lights lowered and they settled in. Nerves swirled in Ellie’s stomach while the Charleston played and the hot dogs danced. Eventually, the screen went black and a new title surfaced.
TICKET THREE:TEENAGERS
A school gym had been done up for a dance. The soaring disco ball made the nautical-themed decorations sparkle. Kids danced in groups, their arms anemone in a sea of heavy bass. An archway of blue and white balloons marked the portal to an evening of fun.
Teenage Drake was sitting on the hallway floor next to a cardboard welcome sign at the dance’s back entrance:SHIP’S AHOY. He was so fixated on something above his head—was it the ceiling?— that he barely noticed when a trail of navy crepe paper slithered past his feet.
“Oh, shoot,” the girl said. She bent and peeled the fallen decor off her delicate black sling heel, then nodded to the spot next to him. “Is anyone sitting there?”
Thewowin Drake’s head was almost audible. The girl was impossibly tall with dark hair pulled into an elegant updo. Fallen wisps framed her heart-shaped face and expressive brown eyes. She had a natural self-confidence, Ellie could tell—a person oblivious to the usual pitfalls of being a teenager. “I could use a break from all the Top Forty,” she admitted, pulling at the tulle on her peach cocktail dress. “It’s a lot of vocal runs and lofty commitments.”
