First Snow

Chapter 11: The Movie

Chapter 11: The Movie

“Alex, get off of me!”

“Not until I’m done with you.”

“Oh? Well, two can play at that game.”

“What? Woah!!”

“FATALITY” went the speakers. I think this may have been my first win today. It felt wrong somehow, sitting there with Alex, her not knowing about how I felt about Halley and what had just happened. And then it occurred to me that if Alex were to somehow develop psychic powers, I’d be so screwed.

“Hey, Char... Luke?”Okay, now I think I should be scared. “If someone had a deep dark secret that they didn’t want to see the light of day...” Crap, I’m dead. “...they’d tell their best friend, right?” Ummmmmmmm “And that person’s best friend would accept it, right?” Ummm... right? “Because, you know, that’s what friends do.”

Now, I had been confused many times before in my life, most notably during my math exam last year, and a few minutes ago when I was holding my best friend’s little sister close to me. So, naturally, I said the first coherent sentence that came to mind.

“Huh?”

Okay, so maybe not so coherent.

“You know, like when I dated that jerk of a guy, and I told you it was only to make your friend Tommy jealous, and then decided to stay with the jerk” I still didn’t understand her planning there. She had randomly gone up to Tommy and told him she was going out with some guy (I’ve forgotten his name). Real smooth. And that guy she dates was, well, a jerk.

“I remember that. Oh, then there was that time I was walking in the park and that dog attacked me, and to this day, I will never go near a chihuahua.”

“No, I still think you’re an idiot for that.”

“Those teeth were sharp. Another couple of inches to the left, and we would have had a real problem.”

“Anyway,” she said, stifling a shudder, “I think it’s nice to know that there are people who accept their friends, no matter what.” Okay, what did she do?

“Yeah, I guess.” I was pretty confused. Alex was never very sentimental or gushy or anything like that, so what was bringing this on now? “Ummm... Hey, Alex, what brings all this up out of nowhere.”

“Hm? Oh, nothing. I was just...” She just trailed off, as if she’d forgotten what she meant to say, or remembered something more important. “Hey, wanna go see a movie later? Just you, me, and Halley. I figure since you’re going home soon, we should do something all together. What do you think?”

“Sure. This afternoon?”

“Well, unless you want to force a good student such as myself to skip school just to watch a movie.” She’d done that a few times before already, but I decided to let it slide.

“Sure. Let’s see if Halley’s up for it.” We went to her room to ask her, but it looked like she had left for somewhere. Maybe she’s meeting up with her friends. “Well, looks like it’s just us today.”

“Call over some of your friends from work, then. How about Jim and Michelle?” Jim and Michelle were two college students, cousins, who’d been working at the studio for as long as the studio’s been around, which, admittedly, wasn’t very long, but still. Michelle was a tall, slender blonde with ivory white skin, curves, bright green eyes, and a cheerful, bubbly personality. Basically, the dream girl of half the guys in my class. Jim was basically a male Michelle, at least physically.

“Sure. I think Julio’s free today, too. I’ll give him a call.” I called them over, and we met up downtown. That’s where the movie theater in the town was, as well as everything else. I often questioned the intelligence of whomever planned out the town, since absolutely everything was downtown. Groceries? Downtown. Movies? Downtown. Library? Downtown. Arcade? Downtown. The only thing not downtown was the school, and that was about ten minutes from what you’d consider, you’ve guessed it! Downtown.

“Hey, you two!” I shouted from across the street, calling the college students’ attention. Michelle was busy looking at some clothing store. If ever there was a  stereotypical girly-girl, it was Michelle. Jim looked like he was busy not looking at the clothing store. The two of the were really close, since they grew up together or something like that, and Michelle always - and if you believed Jim, since they were kids - managed to talk him into buying her stuff.

“Hey, YOU two!” Michelle responded. “Are you guys finally together?” I think she’d been trying to get us together since the day I introduced Alex to them a year ago. I believe the proper way to say it is that she ‘ships us’. Severely. And constantly. For some reason, this made Alex seem uncomfortable. Maybe she had some guy she liked or something.

“Ha ha, very funny as always. What’s up, guys?” Jim was always a bit sarcastic and snarky, but he meant well.

“Not much. I’d been crashing in Casa Jacobson for the last week, since my parents are out of town,” I said, instantly regretting saying that out loud and within earshot of Michelle, who had taken Alex aside for a while, probably to insist they go shopping or some such one day.
“Really, now? So you ARE together! So, Alex, when did it happen?”

“It- It’s not like that!” Alex was blushing and looked like she was totally in over her head.

“I’m staying with them just until my parents get back from Europe. Our parents know each other from high school. That’s all, I swear!” Michelle actually looked disappointed. To her, pretty much everything was gossip-worthy, but this seems to be too boring for her tastes.

“So, are we going to watch a movie or what?” Jim said, fed up with our shenanigans. He walked towards the theaters without a word, even though we had a good half-hour before the movie started.

“What’s with him?” Alex asked, finally having recovered from her shock.

“You’ll see,” giggled a more-excited-than-usual Michelle.

When we got to the entrance of the theater, it was fairly empty, with just a couple of people standing about. Julio was waiting there, leaning against the wall of the building. He waved at us and sauntered over.

“You guys really messed up your schedule, you know,” he said. I checked my watch against the movie times and noticed what he meant..

“Alex, you said the movie was at 3:30! It started fifteen minutes ago!” She’s really out of it today.

“Oh, shit!”

“Great, now what do w-” All of a sudden, our little dilemma paused, because we saw something we never thought possible: Jim was smiling, grinning like a moron! And chatting with some girl! And holding her hand! “Oh, shit is right,” I mumbled to myself.

“Nice to meet you all. I’m Alice, Michelle’s classmate.” She was a tiny thing, this girl, and she had an air of sophistication around her. She seemed pretty well-dressed, too. She had a quiet voice, but she didn’t seem shy in the least. She greeted us with a big smile and hugged Alex and myself when we introduced ourselves. Michelle had set Alice and Jim up on a date a few months back, and well, to say they hit it off would be a drastic understatement.

“Well, now that introductions are done, what do we do about the movie? We’ve already missed the start of the last one,” I said, trying to find some normality in all of this.

We decided to watch this other movie, basically a chick-flick. I wasn’t too keen on these, normally, but it was pretty good: funny, romantic, not too sappy, occasionally really witty and intelligent, great soundtrack and overall, pretty enjoyable. Naturally, though, I ended up thinking about Lee. She’d like it, I think

Maybe I’ll see if she wants to watch it after school tomorrow.