Page 32 of The Second Chance Cinema
“I … yeah.” Drake’s hands dove into his coat pockets. “Hey, Melinda.”
Melinda sat next to him without asking this time. She took a puff of a professor’s pipe and tried to pass it over. Drake shook his head no. “Are you here for the weekend?”
“I moved back after college,” he said. “I’m kind of figuring things out. And working a lot while I do that. I pick up shifts at the hardware store. I work in construction. I’m also starting my own construction business.”
“Wow.” She nodded. “How’s all that going?”
“Oh, I mean, I haven’t done it yet,” Drake clarified. “The business part. Eventually, though.”
“Why construction?”
“I don’t know … Umm … A house is, kind of, where life happens,” Drake said, his eyes alight. He leaned forward onto his knees. “Couples fall in love. They learn to live with each other’s quirks. They bring home kids from the hospital and watch as those kids grow bigger, learn to drive, and move out.” He cleared his throat and looked over at her to make sure he still had a captive audience. He did. “Years later, everybody comes back together under that same roof for holidays and birthdays to reminisce.” Drake was in a trance, picking up speed. “So many of their important moments stay in one space. I think the rooms where we spend our lives should be special.”
“That’s pretty profound,” Melinda said. Her lips sent another plume of smoke into the air.
“No. I …I’ve just been watching my parents’ struggle with their space. They kind of bump and collide through the rooms.” Drake made a motion with his hands meant to signal chaos. “I’m going to change that for them someday.”
Melinda offered the pipe again. “Live on the edge, Drake,” she said. “It’s not going to bite.” Drake accepted this time. It was clear he had never smoked by the way he coughed, but Melinda didn’t call him out on it.
The two of them peeled apart little bits of their lives like the skin of a fruit. Melinda had never left town. She admitted that staying in one place had helped her feel the most like herself. “Speaking of which,” she said, “are you busy right now? I want to show you something.”
The snow fell faster as they went for a brisk walk, each flake in a race with the others to find its landing. Melinda and Drakepeeked inside the windows of a candy store, a produce shop, a soda counter. Eventually, she pointed to a purple sign above an antique store.MY MOTHER’S SHOP, it read.
“You worked here in high school.” As soon as the words came out, Drake pretended not to know them as fact. “Right?”
A parade of dresses brightened the window. Melinda unlocked the door to the shop, removed aBE RIGHT BACKsign, pulled Drake inside, and went through the motions of making herself at home. She yanked the cord of an onyx floor lamp, tossed her coat on a wood hanger, then pressed the button on a hot-water kettle. Her knees found the top of the front counter as she shuffled for something on a high shelf. They were surrounded by antique wares.
“Hot chocolate,” she said, snapping her fingers. She located some cocoa powder and emptied it into two chipped mugs. “Yes, to answer your question. I worked here in high school. And this is my store now.” Melinda shimmied off the counter. Her feet plopped back on the ground. “It used to be my mom’s. She named it for her mother’s love of antiques, and well, the name still works.”
“Where’s your mom now?” Drake asked, looking around to see if they were alone.
A black cat crawled out from the corner of the room and gave a pathetic roar. Melinda bent to pet the top of its head. “She passed a few years ago. She was sick for a while. People always say the grief fades, but I find it just evolves. Changes its medium.” She stood back up and tried to shake the sadness out of the room.
“I’m sorry,” Drake said.
Melinda handed him a cocoa mug and moved closer. “Have you ever lost anyone?”
“My grandma. But not a parent or anything.”
“That’s a big loss,” she acknowledged. “I’ve noticed this thing where, when someone dies, you start to lose who you were with them. Maybe that’s why I stay in town. My mom built our whole life around this place, you know? Our family friend, Clara, fromClara’s gifts, actually paid the first month’s rent here. The store started with nothing. Just a few pieces of furniture. And my mom turned it into a magical place I love.” The cat got up and sulked back toward a hidden lair. “Anyway, that’s Pasta.”
“Pasta?”
“She came with the name when I adopted her. I think she’s more of a Martha, though.” Melinda darted back behind the counter and grabbed a flowy white shawl to wrap around herself. “It’s freezing. Can you shove the door?”
“Huh?”
“It sticks. Shove it. Like it hurt your feelings.”
Drake pushed on the door with a certain amount of strength, and they were sealed into the warmth. Melinda explained the stories behind some of the relics she’d picked up. In the center of the room, there was a vanity where a woman might sit and admire herself in a dress before bringing it home.
“I don’t know anything about antiques,” Drake said.
“That’s not why I brought you here. I wanted you to see it and be proud.”
“You did?”
“Isn’t that what we all want from people we used to know? To see us and be proud of us?” Melinda took a sip of cocoa. “To say, ah, how great she ended up there! That fits.” She made the motion of connecting dots with her fingers as she sat down on a blue Persian rug that lined the floor.
