Page 63 of The Second Chance Cinema
On-screen, Melinda rolled the car windows down and Drake turned up the stereo. They were belting along to Whitney Houston; both of them were terrible singers. Melinda punched her fists into the air as the song transcended into a new octave. Therewas a naive twinkle in Drake’s eyes. They weren’t singing. They were serenading each other with the lyrics of “I Will Always Love You.” This was it, the moment in the movie when the audience realizes the leads are supposed to make it.
Only, Drake had shared this same movie moment with Ellie a few weeks ago at Finn’s.
What was she thinking as she moved around in her seat? Why did he keep repeating moments he had experienced with Melinda all over again? Here he’d thought he was building something that would last through unique gestures, everything tailored to their life together. All along, he’d been on rinse-and-repeat mode, relying on song suggestions or restaurant ideas that were no more original than the homes in Wakeford Heights.
He’d first brought up the Whitney Houston song on an early date with Ellie. Drake asked Ellie’s favorite song, and she mentioned “Built to Roam” by a singer named Shakey Graves.
“Okay. What do you like about it?” Drake wanted to know.
Ellie pursed her lips. “It’s a modern song, but it makes me feel like I’m in high school, about to sneak out a window,” she said. “And, I love his voice. It’s got scrapes in it. What about you?”
“ ‘I Will Always Love You’ is my favorite,” Drake admitted. He rattled off the next part quickly, so it didn’t seem like he was making a declaration that would’ve scared her. “By Whitney Houston.”
“You mean Dolly Parton.” Ellie set her head on her hand, so sly.
“Yeah.” Drake nodded. “Okay, right. But the Whitney Houston version.”
“The Whitney Houstoncover.”
“Whitney …” He laughed in disbelief. “You call that acover?”
Had they been at a vodka bar that night? No, it was a gin bar. The bar specialized in gin and had all-pink walls. Drake had never heard of a gin bar. He didn’t even like gin. It tasted like soap to him. He downed the tiny glass of soap cocktail. Ellieasked something about why that song was special as she spun around a seashell-shaped chair. What did he say?
What he said was that Whitney had the best voice ever.
No, it wasn’t that. He said the song was catchy as all heck.
No. Drake said something like, the song had a lot of great memories attached to it that he never wanted to lose. Why the hell did he admit that? Hopefully Ellie had forgotten that part.
In the memory on the screen, the song finally ended. Melinda pulled the car into her spot directly in front of her store. They were home again. Her apartment was Drake’s home, even though he didn’t technically live there. She didn’t need a reserved parking spot because that spot was her spot, and everyone knew better than to park there. Melinda was the entire town’s sweetheart.
“You coming up?”
“You know it,” Drake said.
She turned off the car. Drake hopped out and opened her door for her. Once they were inside the empty shop, he swept her in his arms and carried her up the stairs that made too much noise. It was dark inside the attic apartment. Pasta slinked her way across the floor, brushing Drake’s leg as he moved Melinda toward the bed. When he set her down, she lit one of the many candles he’d given her on the bedside table with a matchbook from their first date. His hands were in her hair, on her dress, pulling on its cold zipper. She kicked the fabric away and the dress fell onto the floor, like a mouth open in disbelief. Were they about to do this for an audience?
Yes, they were. Is that what Drake looked like getting things started? He hadn’t known himself to make those sounds. Maybe, hopefully, he didn’t always make those sounds. Why was he seeing this night, and why was he here, in the audience, analyzing himself? How could he possibly stay seated as his pants came off and he kissed the softest place on Melinda’s neck behind her ear? Did he look the same way with Ellie? He wanted to leave, buthe was too miserable to move. They stayed there and punished themselves until the lights turned on again.
Ellie locked eyes with the ground as they walked down the stairs and back into the lobby.
“I’ve always loved Whitney Houston, you know,” Drake told her. She was a few steps ahead of him. “Before that particular night. And lately, I love her even more. After that moment we had at Finn’s—”
“It’s a Dolly Parton song,” Ellie said. It wasn’t a repeat comment. She was letting him know she remembered everything he’d admitted on that date where he mentioned it was his favorite song.
Drake played dumb. “What?”
“Drake.” Ellie gritted her teeth. They had just pushed the lobby’s doors open and were hit with a wall of cold. “Damn it, Drake. You keep saying it’s a Whitney Houston song. It’s a Dolly Parton song. Dolly Parton, she wrote this song. She never gets the credit for it. And just because Whitney Houston is also a powerhouse doesn’t mean that we should run around not crediting the writers. Okay? Writers are doing important things. Writers deserve to have their work remembered.”
“Okay,” he said, even though they weren’t talking about Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton. They were talking about Melinda and Ellie, of course, but Drake wasn’t sure who was who, and he wasn’t about to ask.
The timing of the movie was terrible—it made the tension that had been developing between them worse. They couldn’t start the next year, the year they were getting married, on this note. So he would go home and plan something for tomorrow night. He would beg on hands and knees for a last-minute dinner reservation if needed. This called for a grand gesture, and there was no better time for beginnings than New Year’s Eve.
28
There were two hours until midnight.
Drake had found the perfect place for dinner. According to the internet, an heiress had met her demise in the banquet room of the steakhouse and spent her afterlife waiting for a dance partner. Their booth with a white tablecloth and wraparound stained glass windows could’ve belonged to a ship on the edge of the Atlantic.
