Page 66 of The Second Chance Cinema
“Yeah,” he told. “Yeah. Like … Okay, I used to think too much when I was younger, right? But Vanessa and I—we left that bachelorette party when it was over and drove off into the sunrise together. We stopped at this hole-in-the-wall burger place on the way home. I don’t think it had a name. The menu was, like, written on scratch paper. We ate one burger off the same plate. Fought over the fries. You learn a lot about a person that way,” he said.
“Which way?” Ellie asked, hovering off her chair.
Hudson set his fork down. “Doing something intimate right off the bat.”
They kissed. It happened so suddenly that it was hard to tell who started it. Ellie dragged Hudson forward by the neck of his weathered black shirt. He stripped off the shirt she was wearing, mesmerized by each button. Then they fought their way to the couch, hell-bent on tearing each other apart.
A couple of nights later, Ellie found the dress in the cabin’s spare bedroom.
She was rummaging around the closet to look for cupcake pans. There, behind all the coats and sweaters, Ellie spotted it—a pale Easter yellow with gold flowers running along the neck. Abandoned. Lonely, she seemed to think. Ellie’s pajamas dropped to the floor. She stepped inside the dress and pulled the zipper up right as Hudson moved behind her.
“Take it off,” he demanded, planting his hand on hershoulders. Ellie mistook Hudson’s tone and spun to kiss him. He jerked away from her. Why was she wearing his wife’s dress?
Ellie struggled to explain, as she did take it off, that she felt objects that were left behind deserved to be used. She’d done the same thing when she was younger. She tried to give things that reminded her of her brother away or push them to the back of a closet. But you could revive someone through their things and stories, she argued in her defense. She hung the dress back up, slammed the closet doors closed, and sat next to Hudson in the dark bedroom. Neither of them bothered to turn the lights on.
“What are we doing here, man?” Hudson asked.
“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “I like you. A lot. I haven’t been tempted once to sneak out your window, which is unusual for me—”
“I don’t think this is good for us, Ellie.” He hung his weight over his knees. “Good for me. You and me—this thing—feels like, the world’s most dysfunctional bereavement group.”
That night, after Ellie packed her things, Hudson drove her down Grief Mountain, parked outside of her apartment, and gave her a light kiss. When Ellie’s hand reached for the car door, he stopped it. “Two things,” he said.
“All right.” She was icy. Rejected.
“I lied about the hat.” Hudson was wearing it again. He took it off and dusted the crown with his hand. “Vanessa gave this to me. It was meant to be a joke. Because I was so far off from being a cowboy. But, umm. Hey, why don’t you take it? Something to remember me by.” He placed it onto Ellie’s head.
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“I insist. It looks good on you. I think it makes me sad.” Ellie offered a reluctant nod.
“One more thing.” He bit the edge of his fingernail. “The hat is kind of a gesture for what I’m going to say next. You told me that you write about these fascinating, tragic situations. And I’vegot this sense … I’m asking you not to write about anything I’ve shared the last few days. Please don’t drag all that up for me.” His eyes begged. “Please, Ellie.”
“Even if I did, it’s not like anyone would read it.”
“Ellie?” He turned her chin toward him. “I can trust you. I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course, you can.”
“Good. I’m glad. Really.” He brushed his hands off over his lap to mark something important had been cleared. “Okay, well good night.”
Ellie left him there and scurried up the stairs of her apartment. Without even taking the hat off, she sat down and started to write. It was a story about the importance of bringing back old things, she would tell people later, the one that began with a lonely dress tucked in a closet. It was the first story in her book, the one where she quoted Hudson. The one that dragged up ghosts.
The one that made her famous.
Ellie’s lie made Drake sick. She should’ve understood Hudson’s grief and respected it, considering her own. She spoke the lie so easily, without a care in the world about what the ramifications would be for him.
“Drake?” Ellie asked in the seat next to him. He was too upset to face her. He stayed focused on the movie, watching her younger counterpart type away, happily. Smug, almost.
Then, before he could dig deeper into what happened, the scene blurred and switched over.
The memory started in the high school hallway, as he’d remembered. With his mom’s silk blindfold shielding Melinda’s eyes, Drake steered her down the rose-petal aisle, past the dusty orange lockers, to eventually face the circle of candles surrounding the ring box. “Are you kidnapping me?” Melinda asked.
“Not a kidnapping. I promise.” Drake moved to grab the small music box in the middle of all the candles and landed at her feet. He cleared his throat, announcing Melinda could remove the blindfold and face the banner he’d strung from the ceiling. A question was suspended in the same space where streamers from school dances once decorated the halls.
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
Drake waited for her response. It was hard to gauge her reaction. Melinda’s hand went to her mouth, and a big breath filled her chest. She was surprised, but it wasn’t clear whether it was a good or bad surprise. Drake’s knee started to hurt; the hard floor pressed back on him as he willed an answer out of her.Yes, he thought. How difficult was it to say yes? They were so close to a life together above her shop. He had never wanted to stay in town, but with Melinda, it would be all right. Life would be good.
