Page 17 of People We Meet on Vacation

“No one,” I answer. “They just liked the name. But again, not the point.”

“All your names start withP,” he says. “What are your parents’ names?”

“Wanda and Jimmy,” I say.

“So notPnames,” Alex clarifies.

“No, notPnames,” I say. “They just had Prince and then Parker, and I guess they were on a roll. But again, that’s not the point.”

“Sorry, go on,” Alex says.

“So we’d bike to the theater and we’d just each buy a ticket to something playing in the next half hour, and we’d all go see something different.”

Now his brow furrows. “Because?”

“That’s also not the point.”

“Well, I’m not going to justnotask why you’d go see a movie you didn’t even want to see, by yourself.”

I huff. “It was for a game.”

“A game?”

“Shark Jumping,” I explain hastily. “It was basically Two Truths and a Lie except we’d just take turns describing the movies we’d seen from start to finish, and if the movie jumped the shark at some point, just took a totally ridiculous turn, you were supposed to tell how it actually happened. But if it didn’t, you were supposed to lie about what happened. Then you had to guess if it was a real plot point or a made-up one, and if you guessed they were lying and you were right, you won five bucks.” It was more my brothers’ thing; they just let me tag along.

Alex stares at me for a second. My cheeks heat. I’m not sure why I told him about Shark Jumping. It’s the kind of Wright family tradition I don’t usually bother sharing with people who won’t get it, but I guess I have so little skin in this game that the idea of Alex Nilsen staring blankly at me or mocking my brothers’ favorite game doesn’t faze me.

“Anyway,” I go on, “that’s not the point. The point is, I was really bad at the game because I basically just like things. I will go anywhere a movie wants to take me, even if that is watching a spy in a fitted suit balance between two speedboats while he shoots at bad guys.”

Alex’s gaze flickers between the road and me a few more times.

“The Linfield Cineplex?” he says, either shocked or repulsed.

“Wow,” I say, “you’re really not keeping up with this story. Yes. The Linfield Cineplex.”

“The one where the theaters are always, like, mysteriously flooded?” he says, aghast. “The last time I went there, I hadn’t made it halfway down the aisle before I heard splashing.”

“Yes, but it’scheap,” I said, “and I own rain boots.”

“We don’t even know what that liquid is, Poppy,” he says, grimacing. “You could have contracted a disease.”

I throw my arms out to my sides. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

His eyes narrow. “What else?”

“What else...”

“... do you like?” he clarifies. “Besides seeinganymovie, alone, in the swamp theater.”

“You don’t believe me?” I say.

“It’s not that,” he answers. “I’m just fascinated. Scientifically curious.”

“Fine. Lemme think.” I look out the window just as we’re passing an exit with a P.F. Chang’s. “Chain restaurants. Love the familiarity. Love that they’re the same everywhere, and that a lot of them have bottomless breadsticks—ooh!” I interrupt myself as it dawns on me. The thing I hate. “Running! Ihaterunning. I got a C in gym class in high school because I ‘forgot’ my gym clothes at home so often.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth curves discreetly, and my cheeks heat.

“Go ahead. Mock me for getting a C in gym. I can tell you’re dying to.”

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