Sunday, December 22, 2021
I spent the first half of the movie sitting in the office with Sara. She took the spare keys from me and put them in her jeans pocket.
“Just for safe keeping,” she said. “How’s your secret project going?”
“What secret project?” I replied. “How’s yours?”
“I don’t have a secret project. You have a secret project.”
“No, I don’t. You have one.”
“You.”
“No, you.”
We went back and forth like that for a couple of minutes.
“Fine, neither one of us has a secret project,” I said.
“Or, both of us have one,” Sara replied with a smile. “Listen, the Christmas movie marathon was a good idea, lots of people came today, but maybe next year, we can plan it a little better? Do we even have movies for tomorrow and Christmas Eve?”
“For sure,” I said. I wanted to keep things vague because there was no reason for us to get into another debate about Die Hard. I knew we had Scrooged but no other traditional Xmas movies and Die Hard was my ace in the hole.
Pete had been up in the projection booth the entire movie – again. Well, almost entire movie. He did come down after the second reel change to get some coffee for Rexi.
And now again, which must have been the fourth change.
I walked casually back toward the door and stopped in a spot where I could hear Pete and Sofie, but they couldn’t see me. Sara spread her arms in a question.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
I pulled a Columbo and put my index finger on my forehead and pretended to have forgotten something while I eavesdropped on Pete’s conversation with Sofie. I wasn’t interested in what they were saying, I just wanted to hear the tone of the conversation, and from what I heard, things were running smoothly.
“Did I give you the keys? Yes, I did,” I said to Sara and walked out of the office and into the theatre. Ray, Egon and Venkman were busting ghosts, ridding the city of the hate and anger.
After the second show – a comic book movie – I, once again, offered to drive Pete and Sofie home, and once again Pete climbed in the back, and Sofie took care of the stereo. She put a black BASF in, and leaned back. She glanced at Pete, and I saw in the rear-view mirror that he smiled back.
“–n’t want your freedom, I don’t want to play around.” George Michael’s voice filled the Beetle. Sofia sang along, Pete’s head was bopping to the rhythm.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to spoil the moment, and a Moment it was. I just turned the volume up just slightly and enjoyed our drive through the empty town. We were at Jennifer’s building before Morten Harket and Co had finished “Take On Me.”
Sofie pressed eject and handed the tape back to Pete.
“This is yours,” she said.
“No, no. It’s yours,” Pete said and snuck a glance at me. I gave him the tiniest of nods.
“Thanks. I, um… I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sofie said to Pete when she got back in the car.
I grabbed a new tape and put it in. It happened to be my “Top 10 Songs that are better at night than during the day” with Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” playing.
“Hey, nice of Grandpa to post a photo of the poster on Facebook. I mean, that’s where people see it, not at the market square,” Sofie said.
“Oh, he did that?” I said. “Well, it’s good to cover all bases.”
We were silent again. The Boss was still on fire.
“That Pete’s a nice guy, right?” I said.
“I guess,” Sofie said.
“You know, I had a crush on his Mom way back when.”
“I thought you and Sara were high school sweethearts.”
“Not exactly. We went to school together, all three, all four of us, if you count Pete’s Dad, but Sara and I didn’t really meet until a few years ago,” I explained, keeping it vague.
“What happened between you and Pete’s Mom? Didn’t she like you?”
“Oh, she liked me. I think she still likes me. But … call it poor timing, and then, well, life got in the way.”
Still vague. I turned up the volume and let Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” take over.
When we got to my parents’ house, we found Mom watching TV in the living room and Dad hunched over his keyboard in his study.
I saw the Facebook blue on Dad’s screen.
“Hey, thanks for posting the photo of the poster,” I said. “Sofie told me.”
“It’s got 62 likes, Peter! And two shares!” Dad said. “I was thinking that maybe I could sell some of my drawings on Facebook. Or trade them for stuff. Need a tool set? Hmm…” he went on and clicked around the page while leaning on his left hand.
Mom waited for me in the hallway.
“I hope Tina can get here, I heard on the news that a storm may be on its way,” she said and handed me a gingerbread cookie.
On my way home, I cranked up the volume and let the bass line in Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” give the Beetle an extra boost.
➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)