Page 26 of The Second Chance Cinema
Drake nodded to indicate the spot was open. The girl slid her back against the wall and got comfortable beneath a framed photo of a high school basketball hero who went by Mike the Machine. She was inches from Drake, which made him squirm inside his coffee-brown suit, fit for a wedding singer.
“I’m Melinda,” she said. “I’m a senior.”
“I know.” Drake struggled with where to put his hands and settled on his lap. “I’m Drake. Sophomore.”
“Drake Sophomore.” Melinda’s legs tumbled out in front of her. She seemed not to fear the ugly tile. “So, what, Drake? You don’t like cookies?”
“Huh?” He was putting in great effort not to stare at her.
Melinda nodded toward the gym. “They’ve got cookies in there.”
“I like cookies,” Drake said. “I don’t like dancing.”
Her hand searched for something inside of her small black purse and located a napkin-wrapped cookie. She split it into two halves and handed one of them to Drake, squishing her gum into the empty napkin. “Why hang out at a dance if you don’t like dancing?”
Drake took a bite of the cookie. “It wasn’t my idea.” She motioned for him to fill in the gaps. “My mom,” he said. “My mom thought this would be good for me. She used the phrase ‘rite of passage’ a lot on the drive over.”
“Right.” Melinda ate her cookie half in one bite. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m a bad dancer.”
“You look good,” Drake blurted. “At dancing, I meant. You look like you know how to dance.” It seemed his strategy for avoiding eye contact was making mental notes of the surroundings.Doorway. Science Lab. Cork board thing.
“I’ve got no rhythm,” Melinda admitted. She shot the napkin into a nearby trash can with surprisingly good aim. “Plus, I have two left feet.” Suddenly, one of her hands found his. “But maybe together we’ve got a pair?” Without waiting for his answer, Melinda helped pull Drake to a stand. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
He followed her into the gym. As they swam through the lights to the sound of Dido’s “White Flag,” royal and baby-blue streamers tangled in their hair. Melinda set her wrists over Drake’s shoulders. All around them, the auditorium brimmed with summer longings. Yearbooks split open and ink on nervous hands would soon be replaced by frozen soft serve and kisses on picnic blankets.
“What were you doing in the hallway? Before I sat down?” Melinda asked.
“Oh, uh. I fixed this leak in the ceiling,” Drake admitted. “Just a small one. It’s temporary, but it’ll hold for a while.”
Melinda’s eyes narrowed. “You fixed a leak?”
“I keep tools in my locker,” he said. “My dad says you should always carry tools.” Drake shrugged, growing a little more comfortable. “I guess I can’t help fixing things.”
“Well, as my mom would say, it sounds like you’re a good egg,” Melinda told him. “I’m not actually too sure what that means.” Before he could commiserate about the saying, a sky-high, teen heartthrob butted in to dance with her. This was her boyfriend, it appeared. Of course she had a boyfriend. But Melinda held off on switching partners until the song played its final note.
“Come on, Melinda,” the large square-shaped boy called. “Let’s get out of here.”
Melinda gave Drake a kiss on the cheek. “Nice to see you, Drake Nielson.”
He’d never mentioned his last name.
When Drake’s parents picked him up, he thanked his mom for making him go to the dance. Back in his bedroom, the memory caved in on itself. The images turned into a fuzzy soup as they had with the first two movies, which meant Ellie and Drake were about to switch places.
Yellow headlights slashed a dark mountain road. Inside the car, Ben spun the volume knob. Classical music poured from the speakers; violins and creeping keys were trying to spook each other. The steep ascent pressed Ben, Ellie, and their dates against their seats, holding their breath for a fast drop that never came.
“What is this place, anyway?” Charlie asked from the backseat.Charlie, Ellie’s first boyfriend. He looked the same as she remembered, like a golden retriever of a quarterback. Hearing his voice brought back the sweat smell of him under her sheets. Despite having almost nothing in common, their attraction had been undeniable.
“It’s a house,” Ben said. “Of the haunted variety,” he added, with the appropriate amount of theatrics.
Charlie’s buy-in was instant. “Whoa.”
“I have this old friend who is a paranormal expert. He says this place gets more activity than anywhere in town.” Ellie nodded along in solidarity. She loved Ben’s stories, even if they strayed from the truth. Hours earlier, the two of them had heard about an abandoned “eyesore” from their dad’s friend on the board of the historical society. Now, they were driving out to the—probably not haunted—eyesore to explore it. “You want to hear the whole story?”
Ben’s girlfriend tensed in the backseat. Her French manicuredfingers clung to the edges of her cardigan. Ellie could remember so much about this girl. She wore small daisy clips in her hair and intentionally pronounced certain words with an English accent because her family had summered in London. What Ellie couldn’t remember was her name.
“You’re going to love this one, Marnie,” Ben said. He drummed his hands on the steering wheel.
Marnie.His girlfriend’s name had been Marnie, and she wasn’t his type. Ben had a thing for theater girls, weird girls, and girls deeply invested in fringe causes outside of their control, like nearly extinct bugs or rare types of household mold. Ben had broken up with Marnie a few weeks after this. Ellie had dumped Charlie around the same time, before his homecoming game. She really didn’t want to attend a homecoming game. “Sorry, Charlie,” she said. Ellie wondered, in the aftermath, how many women would say that to him throughout his life.
