Page 38 of The Second Chance Cinema
Snap.
Drake sat on the small bench behind them and pulled Ellie onto his lap. “Why don’t we give them a show?” he said. She could taste the salt on his lips.
“There aren’t any photos left,” she said.
He pulled her closer. “Even better.”
After dinner, they walked past a familiar street corner. Drake guided Ellie beneath the pale blue sign forLOVE YOU A LATTE. It was the exact spot where he’d kissed her at the end of their first date. Ellie had felt like the high-rise building nearby was cheering them on, all those illuminated windows chanting, “You’ve got this!” After the kiss, Drake drove her home and walked her to her door.
But this time, Drake didn’t wait to kiss her in front of the coffee shop, and he didn’t stop kissing her when he walked her to her door. Their door. He pressed Ellie against it, her hair already tangled in his hands as the key slid in, then against the railing and onto the stairs. Her tights peeled down and off each foot, her lips still warm with tequila on his neck.
And then, as they bumped their way up the stairs, flung the door to the bedroom open, and climbed on the bed, something unfortunate happened.
Another person popped into her head.
Melinda.
Ellie swore Melinda’s eyes blinked right in front of her. She was stunning, wasn’t she? It was the ease of Melinda’s beauty that was unsettling, Ellie decided. The ease that magazines and movies so often attempted to portray.I simply wake up this way, the beauty proclaimed.I scoff in the face of makeup and skincare. Life is so good. Did Drake ever miss her rosy outlook? As he’d mentioned earlier, it was hard to see him with someone else. On-screen, he was having a true romance. Ellie’s memories, meanwhile, played out like violent B-roll footage from the filmTrue Romance.
Then, something that had been at the back of Ellie’s mind demanded her focus. It was startling how wrong she’d been aboutherself. Before the first movie, Ellie had thought she was above jealousy. She’d held her head high and perhaps even judged other people for feeling such a human thing. The past was the past, she believed, and nothing Drake had experienced before her could change what they had.
But Ellie had been wrong. What she could easily handle was astoryabout the past—a skewed retelling with certain details left behind, where genre and tone shifted. Engaging with Melinda in person had only made things worse, Ellie decided as Drake went to light a candle. The visit had brought Melinda even more into their present. She needed to pull the story she’d already written and leave Melinda to the past. Nolan had the draft, but nothing was in print. Besides, there was no guarantee he would even like it. She would call it off before Drake ever found out.
“Ellie?” Drake said. He was beside her again. “Hey. Where are you right now?”
“I’m with you,” Ellie told him, getting up to close the door and shutting the rest of the world out with a single click.
18
Ellie hated to break bad news over the phone. Any lull in the conversation made her wonder if the other person was processing what had been said, or if they’d dropped their phone in the toilet. Since she didn’t want to wade through that ambiguity with Melinda, she suggested they meet up for drinks.
“I’m actually seeing a friend in the city this afternoon,” Melinda said on the other end of the line. “Is tonight good?”
“Tonight is great,” Ellie told her, even though it was terrible. She collided with her desk as she slid around her home office, forcing her glass mushroom lamp to wobble. Nancy tucked her wet nose under the door and sniffed at the chaos. Ellie would need an excuse to go out. Thursdays were their Thai food and monster movie night. She and Drake tended to get into character, smashing the plastic cartons of noodles with their fists and raising their utensils high above their heads like they were ready to fight.
“Are you headlining a pop tour or something?” Drake asked when Ellie came down the stairs later. She’d spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to pick the right outfit and had landed on a funky silver jumpsuit she’d never worn.
“I’m getting a drink.” Ellie’s hair was having a tantrum. She pushed it away from her face and hoped it appeared dramatic.
“What, do you have a big date?”
Ellie angled herself away from him when she used Jen as her alibi. “She keeps wanting to party with mocktails now that she’s pregnant.”
Sometimes, it amazed her how easy it could be to lie.
Inside Strange Alchemy, the smell of craft spirits kissed her. The bar was one part mixology, one part sultry cavern, with a dash of Jim Henson whimsy. At the back of the room, a bartender slid a cocktail menu Ellie’s way while pouring a sky-high gin fizz.
“Ellie?” Melinda called. The sight of her, otherworldly in a green silk dress, made Ellie question her jumpsuit. Melinda’s carefree air was now overtaken by a polite glamour. The look felt like the aftermath of a high school movie makeover where the lead actress was always beautiful: glasses off, hair down,now she’s got it! If Drake saw both of them for the first time tonight, who would he have spoken to?
Ellie was overthinking things again. Where was the confidence that was her superpower? “Well, come on,” Melinda was saying as she reached for a hug. Ellie wasn’t usually a hugger. “I found us a booth.”
Melinda took her time ordering a rose gimlet. She asked the waiter an encyclopedic number of questions about the drink with a kind, slow affectation, as if to underline that she was still a small-town girl, despite the dress. Ellie got the Dragon’s Lair. It was her favorite drink on the menu. The cocktail came with a yellow Szechuan flower rim that caused invisible lightning bolts to strike the inside of her mouth.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Melinda said. She seemed energized to be out with a potential new friend. Ellie regretted not getting this over with on the phone. “And I’m grateful you’re doing the story.”
“You don’t have to be grateful. It’s a story, not a kidney.”
“Can I be honest?” Melinda asked. Ellie offered a quick nod. “I thought this would be awkward at first.”
