Turns out, there were a lot of movies that were going to be showing this weekend. As I scrolled through the list, I kept sighing inwardly. A lot of these movies didn't line up with the criteria that were put before me.
What was the criteria? Well, I had asked Ashley if she wanted to go to the movies with us as well, and she had said yes. "I don't like horror movies, though," she said, shivering a little bit. "Anything that isn't a horror movie is fine."
"I don't know, man," Dick had said. "Anything that doesn't involve a romance."
"Dick," I said. "Almost every movie has a romance in it."
"Yeah, but not one that has a romance as its own central theme, as its own story," he said, rolling his eyes. "I want something that has romance as a subplot, and nothing more." I didn't push it, because I understood why he said no romance.
I sighed to myself. "This kind of sucks," I muttered. "I wonder if they're doing any research into this, or if it's just me." I scrolled some more, and then I found it: Ghost. It was the one movie that did not have any horror, and as far as I could tell, no romance that was the main central focus. "Bingo," I said. "Saturday, at 7:00 p.m. I won't forget about this."
I had forgotten about it.
I found myself late, rushing to the movies, driving at speeds that weren't quite breakneck speeds, but were still faster than the speed limit, nonetheless. "Shit, shit, shit, shit," I said to myself, as I sat behind the wheel, trying to get to the movie theater as fast as I could. "This isn't good." I checked my phone, seeing that it was almost 7:00. Then I looked up and saw that the light was turning yellow, and I had to brake, stopping behind the other car. "This isn't good."
I was on my way home after finishing my shift at In-N-Out, still in my uniform, when my phone buzzed. I picked it up, and it was a text from Ashley. It read, "Are you here, Chris?"
I was confused. I didn't know what she was talking about. I shot off a quick reply: "Where?"
A reply came back a few seconds later. "At the movie theater? We were meeting up, remember?"
I stared at the text, a bit of confusion in my mind, but then I remembered. "Oh, fuck," I said out loud, and I hurriedly typed out a quick reply. "Yeah, yeah, I'm omw." Then I drove like hell home, changed out of my uniform, put on some nicer clothes, grabbed my wallet and a jacket, told my mom where I was going, and left the house. She barely had time to say goodbye to me before I hopped into my car, which I had left running, and had driven very fast out of the driveway and to the theater.
At 7:03, I got there, and I ran to the ticket booth. "Hi," I said, panting. "One ticket to see Ghost at 7:00?"
The guy in the booth looked at me, a sort of bored look on his face. "A bit late, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I know," I said. "Ticket, please?"
He sighed. "Look, buddy, the theater is sold out. You're going to have to buy a ticket for the next showing."
I looked at him, and he looked at me. "I'm serious, dude," he said. "Better luck next time."
I sighed. "Alright," I said, and I turned and walked away, hands in my pockets. I was still breathing pretty heavily, and I wondered if Dick and Ashley were in the theater right now, wondering where I was. I leaned against the side of the theater, trying to slow my breathing down as best as I could.
But then I heard a voice say, "Chris!"
I turned, and there was Ashley and Dick, both of them waving at me. I smiled, and I walked over to them. "I thought you went in without me," I said, giving Dick a hug, still panting.
"Yeah, well," he said, getting out of it. "When you didn't show up, we decided that we were going to wait. You forgot about it, didn't you?"
"I mean, the panting makes it more obvious, but yeah, I did," I said, a little bit sheepishly. "I was working, alright?"
"You…you work?" Ashley asked me, surprise in her voice.
"Yeah," I said. "I work at In-N-Out. The pay's pretty nice, and the food is free. So I never really go hungry."
"Man, you've got to give me a discount one of these days," Dick said. "You work at the one on Grove and Madison, right?"
"Only one in this city," I said.
"We've got to visit you one of these days," he said, and he turned to Ashley. "Shouldn't we?"
She kind of blushed at the fact that Dick was talking to her. "Y-yeah," she said. For some reason, I felt a pang of jealousy. What in the world was Dick doing, talking to her like that? But then I remembered why she was blushing: Dick was handsome as fu-
"So anyways, we need to buy tickets for the next showing," Dick said. "There weren't many seats for the movie. Actually, which one are we watching? You didn't tell us."
Frick, I thought to myself. "It's called Ghost," I said. "It's a film based on a book. There's no horror, no main romance. Although, it is an action movie, and it's rated R, so we're all going to have to buy our own ticket."
Dick and Ashley looked at each other, then back at me. "Alright then," Dick said. "Let's go buy our tickets."
About five minutes later, we all had our tickets, and we were ready to go. "Man, the looks the guy was giving me," Dick said. "It's almost as if he wanted to sell the whole theater to me."
"I wonder why, Dick," I said, completely deadpan. "It's not like you're handsome enough that every girl within a five mile radius wants to hook up with you and get laid."
Ashley giggled. "You two are funny," she said. "But shouldn't we be getting inside the theater?" There was something new about Ashley that night. She was...happier, more animated, more expressive than she normally was at any other time. It was…well, it was kind of weird seeing her like that. But I liked this side of her.
"Yeah," Dick and I said. We looked at each other, smirked at each other, and walked with Ashley to the theater. For some reason, Ashley had slipped her hand into mine. I looked down at it, and I felt this weird, fluttering feeling within my chest. It felt nice, but it also felt kind of weird. I pounded my chest, to see if it would go away, but it didn't. What it did get me, however, were a bunch of weird looks from the people around me. Good job, me.
Dick and Ashley both looked at me. "You alright there, buddy?"
"Yeah, are you okay, Chris?" Ashley asked me, a little bit worried.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, my voice sounding a bit panicked. "No need to worry about me." They looked a bit unsure, but they didn't prod any further, and we walked into the theater.
Once inside, I looked at them. "So…what kind of snacks should we get?"
"I don't know, man," Dick said. "I don't really know what to get at the theater. Most of the stuff here is super expensive."
"Alright, buddy," I said. "Every snack that you decide to get will be on me." I took out my wallet, and before he said anything, I also added, "But don't go too overboard, okay? I know how you are with snacks and stuff."
"Fine," Dick said, sighing. He looked up at what they were offering. "I'll probably get a medium popcorn and a large drink."
"Nice, pretty basic," I said. "What about you, Ashley?" There was no response from her. I turned to look at her. "Ashley?"
She had seemed lost in thought, and she turned to me, startled. "Sorry," she said. "I wasn't paying attention. What were you asking?"
"Well…do you want any snacks? They're on me."
"Oh, no, it's okay,," she said, shaking her head. "I'll pay for my own snacks." She reached for her purse and her wallet.
"Oh, come on," I said, giving her a little nudge. "Live a little! Besides, you don't even have to pay a single penny in order to have some. And I also invited you, so I want you to have fun. So come on: what do you want?"
She looked up at the menu, hands leaving her purse, and her eyes seemed to sparkle a little bit. "Could I have a small popcorn, a medium drink, and some of that gummy candy?" she asked, her voice tentative yet full of curiosity.
"Your wish is my command," I said, winking at her. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dick looking a little bit uncomfortable, and I smirked, having some satisfaction of him being the one left out. I left them, heading up to the register. "Hi," I said. "Could I have two large drinks, a medium drink, two medium popcorns, a small popcorn, and two packs of gummies?"
The cashier raised her eyebrows. "Alright," she said. "Would you like to get our bundle? You could get all of what you ordered for a lot cheaper." She pointed to the cardboard sign in front of the register, and I looked at it. It had everything…except for the gummies. "Yeah, I'll get that," I said. "Could I also get two gummies on the side?"
She nodded. A few taps later, she said, "Do you have any rewards for membership here?"
"Uh, nope," I said.
"Would you like to have one?"
I thought about that for a second. On a whim, I decided, "Yeah, sure."
"Well, you can sign up now using the QR code on the sign over there," she said, pointing. I looked, and there was a QR code. I whipped out my phone, opened my camera, and scanned it. It led me to the theater's website, and I entered in my email and phone number and name and password, and boom: rewards account created. I looked at her. "Is there anything that comes with being a first time member?"
She nodded. "You could get a free small entree."
"Eh, I'll save that for later," I said, and I took out my wallet. "How much is all of this, again?"
"$58.29," she said.
Internally, I winced. That was going to take out a huge chunk of my allowance money, but hey: at least I was in their rewards program, and it will eventually come back and help me out. I handed over three twenties and a ten. "You can keep the change," I said, smiling at her.
She smiled back, and she rang it up. "I'll make sure to call you when your order is ready."
I turned back to face the two, and I gave them a thumbs up. Dick grinned at me, giving me a thumbs back, and Ashley also smiled at me. But I noticed something a bit different in her eyes: she seemed…jealous. Of what, I had no idea. I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, because the cashier had come back with all of the food that we had ordered. "Thank you," I said, smiling at her.
She smiled back. "Enjoy your movie," she said. I beckoned to the other two to get their food, and they both came over and grabbed their stuff. I looked at Ashley, but the jealous look was gone. I decided that it was nothing, and we all headed to our theater to watch the movie.
After the movie was over, which was around 10:28, we all walked out of the theater, quiet, not saying anything to each other. But when we were outside, I said, "That. That was one of the best movies I have ever seen."
"You're telling me?" Dick said, his voice full of excitement. "That movie was one of the best book to movie adaptations ever made. They kept everything that made the book so good and left out some things that wouldn't really be able to translate to the screen so well. The way that they portrayed Luke and Rebirth…" He put up his hand and kissed the air. "Perfection."
Ashley piped in softly, "I liked how the romance was handled. It was done really well."
"And can we talk about that ending fight scene-? Oh, my Lord." This was one of the few times where I could truly geek out about movies. "That was one of the best fights I have ever seen in all of the movies that I've watched. The way that it all came together…and the fact that Luke even lived after all of it-it's just icing on the cake."
"I know, right?" Dick said. "And his fourth wall breaks were perfect. They were done so that they didn't mimic Deadpool and yet were also original."
"There was this one line," I said, "where he was like, 'So. Anyone going to talk about the way that the main character of their own story has plot armor so thick that they don't even get a scratch?' And then immediately afterwards, he gets shot."
We all laughed, even Ashley. It was weird seeing her laugh, but I really liked it. "We should do this again sometime," I said. "I had so much fun.."
"Yeah-" Ashley said. Suddenly, a phone started to ring. Both Dick and I checked our phones, and ours weren't ringing. We looked up at Ashley, and it was her phone that was ringing. She looked at the caller ID, and something in her posture and face changed. She seemed worried…even scared. She looked up at the both of us, smiling. "Sorry, I've got to take this." Dick and I both looked at each other, and we reached a silent agreement to try and not to listen in on the conversation. So we both nodded, turned around, and walked a few paces away.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," I muttered to Dick. "Did you get anything from Ashley?"
He nodded gravely. "She's nervous…and she also doesn't want us to hear the call."
"I've got a really bad feeling about this," I said. "Maybe I should-"
"Chris, no," DIck said, grabbing my shoulder. "It would be very impolite to do that. So let's not."
"But-"
"No," Dick said firmly. "It's a really bad idea."
Then all of a sudden, we both heard her say, "So what if I went out?!!? So what if it was with two boys?!!?" We turned to see that she was shouting, and there were a few people that had looked at her, too, before moving on with their day (or night, whatever). "I told you I was, and you didn't even acknowledge me." All of a sudden, her entire demeanor went from defiant to fear. "N-no, I didn't-" She stopped, as if a voice over the phone had stopped her. "I-I'm on my way home, now," she said, her voice silent. She hung up the phone and looked at the both of us. "I'm sorry about that," she said, apology in her voice. "But I have to go now."
Dick nodded. "We understand. Goodnight, Ashley." He turned to go, but I stayed. "Where do you live, Ashley?" I asked her.
"N-not too far away," she said. "I was able to walk over here without too much trouble."
"Do you have a specific address?" I asked, before I realized that I was probably probing a bit too deep into this, and that it was rude. Inwardly, I thought, That was stupid. You haven't really improved in your communications skills. It also didn't help that Dick was staring at me, shaking his head. But I was pleasantly surprised when she said, "I…I live on Greenwood Avenue."
I was surprised. "That's the street where I live. You…you walked here from there?"
She gave a small nod. "Okay, nope. You're not walking back," I said.
"Chris, I have to!" she said. "My parents-" She stopped. "Well…they'd be mad if they saw me coming home with you."
"Well, then, I'll just drop you off a few houses away from where yours is," I said. "I'm not letting you walk home this late at night. So many things could happen to you." Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Dick mouthing the words, "Bad idea, Chris. Bad idea."
She tried to argue with me, but she gave in. "Okay," she said.
I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, and I looked over at Dick again. He had faced palmed, and I gave him a thumbs up. "Let's go," I said, and I slipped my hand into hers, this time, and we walked over to my car.