Page 84 of The Second Chance Cinema
“Now, that was my kind of movie,” Drake said. He tossed the remote off to the side. “Hey, have you seen this lead actress in anything else? I hate to tell you this, but she’s my hall pass.”
“Yeah, the lead actor is really something, too,” Ellie teased, putting her fuzzy socks up on the ottoman.
Drake gave her a playful nudge. “Want to watch it again?”
“No,” Ellie said. She tossed a handful of popcorn in her mouth. “I think I’ve watched enough memories now.”
“What do you want to do then?”
Ellie wrapped the blanket tighter around them, then reached to pet Nancy, who had curled up at her feet on the floor. “I want to just be here,” she said. “To be right here, in this moment with you.”
SECRET SCENE
Stephanie was obsessed with Ellie’s book the moment she spotted it. She plucked a hardcover copy off the Staff Picks table at All Novel Things, toted it up a perilous spiral staircase to the cookbook section, and sank into the persimmon armchair pushed against the window. Stephanie sat there so often that the shop workers called it her chair. Reading at home came with challenges. Lucas would interrupt her, midsentence, to ask what they should watch—as if she would want to trade whatever imaginative world she was wrapped up in for a syndicated crime show.
The spine made a beautiful creak when she opened its glossy cover.
As a high school English teacher, the classics were supposed to be her go-tos, but Stephanie was looking for something different. She wanted to devour stories about rodeo clowns in love or espresso bars that stayed open late to teach their beloved customers calligraphy. Ellie’s writing brought back her own past like a subtle fragrance. Her book carried notes of the time before Stephanie was a teacher, before she struggled to keep track of what was happening with denim, before she spent all her extra money on crafts she never finished.
A time before Lucas, even.
Stephanie brought the book home with her, along with an extra copy for Lucas’s birthday gift. His copy remained unopened, but the pages of Stephanie’s were dog-eared. Every time she read it, new discoveries and questions surfaced about her own life. How could she reconcile who she used to be with the current version ofherself? Would Lucas understand who Stephanie was in the past? Would he have loved her back then?
She set those questions aside for years. The two of them fell deeper into their routines. She stopped going to the bookstore so often.
Then, everything shifted on the crisp fall night of her friend Katie’s birthday happy hour. After two rounds of house red and one depressing birthday cantata, Stephanie wandered past her favorite bookstore on the way to the car. A poster in the window caught her eye.The Compendium of Magical Places, it teased. Ellie had written a new book, and her laminated headshot was marked with a reading date. Serendipitously, it wasthatnight’s date. Stephanie checked the time. The event was just beginning. All of her friends had gone home to the kids and responsibilities waiting for them. Not Stephanie. Not tonight.
“Hi,” Stephanie greeted Ellie after the reading. She had waited in line for thirty minutes to get her book signed. A waterfall of red hair tumbled around Ellie’s shoulders; she wore a creamy button-down shirt with a studded leather jacket thrown over it. Ellie looked the same in person as she had on the adorable holiday home renovation series.Holiday Home, with Ellie and Drake, it was called. Over a twinkly soundtrack, Ellie encouraged people to share heartfelt stories about their homes, while her husband, Drake, rebuilt them to better fit their daily lives. Ellie and Drake would walk each homeowner to the door, pull a bright red blindfold off their eyes together, and reveal the remodeled house draped in over-the-top Christmas lights.
For such a simple concept, the show was irresistible. Lucas had rolled his eyes during an episode when Ellie announced her pregnancy at the family condo they renovated for Drake’s parents. He could be so cynical.
“Hey.” Ellie motioned to Stephanie at the signing. Her bump was bigger now than on the show. “It’s …” She pointed at Stephanie asif they’d met before and waited for her to fill in her name. Stephanie gave herself permission to think she was special, that maybe she’d earned a different introduction than the other readers.
“Stephanie.”
“Stephanie,” Ellie said. “I’m Ellie. Marshall. I wrote that thing you’re holding.” Her crimson lips parted, poised to make an observation, then hesitated. “If you like it, tell everyone you know.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “If not, it’s great for stopping doors or murdering bugs.”
“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Stephanie gushed. Her eagerness embarrassed her.
Ellie tapped her pen on the edge of the table. “What should I write in this thing?”
Stephanie shrugged. She hadn’t considered the inscription. “Write something honest?” she asked.
Ellie weighed the request for a second. Then she nodded, beginning to jot a note down on the blank page that hugged the front cover.
“We love your home show, by the way,” Stephanie mentioned to make conversation. “You and Drake are amazing together. Not that we’re not—Lucas and I—but …” Ellie finished what she was writing, closed the book, and met her eyes with a sly smile. Had Stephanie gotten too personal? She overtalked when she was nervous. What she was trying to say was that the chemistry between Ellie and her husband was unmissable on-screen. She wanted to know how they kept that spark alive after years together. “All I meant was that you’re the opposite of a boring married couple,” she said. “I’m curious how you keep things feeling … fresh.”
Ellie slid the book over across the table. “Drake and I weren’t always this way, if I’m being honest,” she admitted. “I mean, we were right for each other, but we still had to work on ourselves before we got married.” Stephanie nodded. “First, we looked at our past. We shared where we had been and what was holding usback. And then we worked to build the life we wanted together. But to do that, we had to make space for the parts of ourselves we had been ignoring or hiding—the dark parts, the grief, the creativity. All of it.”
Ellie had barely looked up to acknowledge the rest of the line forming behind Stephanie. She had the uncanny ability to make the rest of the world fall away. Still, Stephanie realized she’d stood there long enough and took the book back in her arms. “Thank you,” she said. “For this, the advice, everything. And congrats on the baby, by the way.”
“Oh, thanks,” Ellie said. “We’re excited. I miss wine. Just don’t ask me about ginger chews.” Stephanie wasn’t sure what that meant, but she nodded and started to walk off. The next person in line stepped up. Still, moments later, Ellie called her back over. “Stephanie,” she said. Stephanie turned around. “Feel free to skip around my book. In fact, I think you should start with the piece about Mae’s Famous Scoops.”
A few nights later, Stephanie and Lucas ran out of ice cream. Lucas offered to head to the store, but Stephanie had a better idea. “Let’s go out and get some,” she suggested. “I learned about this place the other night. It’s in the city.”
At Mae’s Famous Scoops, they ordered sundaes. Lucas led them to a pink booth with its own jukebox. The table shook a little when Stephanie threw her purse down.
“What do you have in there, exactly?” Lucas pointed to her bag.
