Free EnjoytheShow by Erika Almond Page A

wrong, wasn’t
what I needed. I didn’t know what, exactly, I might need, but that surely
wasn’t it. It was a tad early in the day for a cocktail, and that struck me as
something of a cliché, getting shitfaced over a bust-up with a cad. And anyhow,
I didn’t want to be hit on. A woman alone in a bar in the middle of the day was
catnip for no-accounts, and I’d just gotten rid of one of them. I couldn’t hang
out with any of my friends who worked regular jobs, and besides, I wasn’t in
the mood to admit that I’d been had.
    What I needed was to cool off. I was hot from anger and from
this first of summer’s heat waves, the kind that made everything down the road
shimmer like a mirage. But my oasis was not in my imagination. There, just at
the end of the hill, was the Hawthorne Cinema Palace. I made a beeline for it,
my cowgirl boots drumming a determined beat on the pavement as I walked.
    The town’s only movie theater was my haven as a kid. It had
barely changed since then, or since my folks were taken by their parents to
shows on Saturday nights, or when they spent hot summer afternoons at matinees.
That’s one of the things I like about Hawthorne. My town doesn’t always see the
need to keep up with the times. Aside from desirable updates like
air-conditioning, the ornate brick theater was an Art Deco beauty mostly
unchanged since it was built in the nineteen-thirties. I got a lift just
looking at it.
    I also liked the way the bored-looking guy with the pencil
mustache at the ticket counter perked up as I walked to his booth. This bit of
male attention was a balm to a recently dumped female. I smiled and was about
to tell him to give me a random ticket ’cause I didn’t care what I saw when I
heard someone say, “Interested in a free movie?”
    Just to the side of the ticket counter stood a woman about
my age, mid-twenties, with short-short blonde hair and dressed all in black.
She didn’t look as though she was from around here, maybe from New York City,
downstate. “Beg pardon?” I asked.
    “Phoenix Films is screening a new movie called Cabin
Fever ,” the woman explained. “Free ticket if you’ll just fill out this
opinion card afterward.”
    That sounded like a deal to me. So, being hot and very
recently, involuntarily rendered single due to my boyfriend being a cheating
bastard, and therefore not really in the mood to choose a film, I said yes.

Chapter Two
     
    All I’d wanted was an air-conditioned place to sit in and be
left alone for a while and I got my wish. There were only two other souls in
the theater, an elderly couple in the second row. Well, who else would be at
the movies at noon on a weekday? School wasn’t out yet and most people work
during the day, unlike me, who works whenever. That’s one of the reasons being
a web designer suits me. I can do it when the creative urge strikes and then I
can do my paintings when I want too. Lately the web business was booming, which
was what got me thinking about a bigger place, especially if I was to share it…
    Damn him to hell. Flushing with anger all over again, I
stormed up the stairs to the balcony. Maybe up there I could be alone.
    The balcony was empty; good. Having a mild fear of heights,
I went to the third row from the overhang to the seat at the very farthest end,
next to the wall. I dropped my maroon fringed leather bag in the seat next to
me. I hoped this would be clear enough a message to anyone else who might come
in not to sit near me. I didn’t want to talk or be bothered.
    I scootched down in the chair, grateful that one of the few
renovations the theater had made was to install plush new seats that leaned
back like recliners. The rest of the movie palace was a true atmospheric
theater of the thirties, made to look like a magical garden by a mash-up of
decor. Plaster reproductions of Greek statues stood by Roman columns flanking
the movie screen. Stuffed peacocks were nestled in silk ivy that curled around
candelabra lit