Me, Me & You

Chapter 11

The movie theatre in town was a renovated cinema from the sixties. "Renovated" being that they added additional screens and paper towel dispensers. The typical marquee lights, posters displayed in frames along the front wall of the building, and a single box office before you entered, all from the olden days. Removable lettering spelled out the latest blockbusters on a glowing white canopy. With it being a weekday and the inclement weather, there weren't many people in line but with only one person working the ticket booth, there was still a wait. Movie goers stomped their feet and cupped their hands over the noses to warm up as they chatted with their companions, and snow lofted down from above, coating us like powdered sugar.

Electricity buzzed up and down my arm where Luna stood next to me. Her nearness overloaded my senses. I wondered if she could feel the energy, too, but when I looked down at her, her eyes were blank and distant, focusing on nothing in particular.

"Is everything alright? Are you cold?" I asked.

"I can't feel anything," she said with a shake of her head. I laughed and hugged her shoulders, bringing her closer to me.

"I'm cold, too." I shivered.

At last, our turn at the booth arrived. The ticket operator, a student I recognized from a math class, sighed when he saw me paying the total with quarters. After counting out the coins, my backpack weighed significantly less. Luna helped me group the quarters in groups of four on the narrow countertop.

"You know I have a right to refuse all forms of payment, right? Legal tender or not?" The kid moaned as we shoveled the coins through the gap below the glass window.

"Just give us the tickets, man," I sassed back. "Pretend you won the jackpot at the casino."

He pushed out our tickets and half-jogged inside the building to get a break from the snow. Inside, the atrium smelled like coconut oil, popcorn, and rubber, probably from the floor tiles they used as flooring. I stamped my feet on the entry mats to knock the snow from my tennis shoes.

"Since we are a little early, let's play games at the arcade. I have a few quarters left."

I nudged Luna over to the arcade, which glowed and pulsed neon blues, greens, and pinks lights. Most of the machines were older rail-shooters with blocky graphics from the early 00s, but there was also a Ghostbusters-themed pinball machine, racing game, and old DDR machine. All of their screens flashed and blinked to entice players.

On one machine, CarnEvil, rolled the high score roster. Luna and my joint initials scrolled across the screen in eighth and twelfth place for co-op mode.

"Feel like some CarnEvil today? Think we can get to the Freak Show level again?" I asked dropping my backpack to the floor with a thunk. Luna took up her favorite position, the red handgun as player two, and I joined her on the left with a blue gun. We plugged in our coins, and the machine's speakers blasted eerie calliope music.

"It's always so loud!" I shouted over the noise. "Get ready."

The first level, a haunted house, loaded. We already knew the sequencing by heart, having spent many hours and quarters trying to pass it. Zombies with exposed ribs leapt at us, clawing at us for damage. Flesh-eating bats flew from broken shingles of the mansard roof. They were small, fast, and frustrating to kill.

While my score was high, Luna's remained low. Her reaction time was absolute crap. There were times I had to remind her to reload because she was pulling the trigger and firing nothing. She could at least put in some effort...

Organ music blasted as we entered the boss fight—a large ghoul, presumably the lady of the manor. Usually we could make it to this point unscathed, but Luna's health was below fifty-percent.

"C'mon, Luna. We got this!" I said, trying not to get annoyed with her.

The ghoul pelted green clouds at us. It struck Luna first.

The screen flashed "Continue?" but I only had three quarters remaining, not enough to keep playing.

"Crap!" I groaned and holstered the weapon, giving up. "We really need to get in here more. We used to be much better at this."

Luna returned her gun but didn't say anything.

I frowned. "Is everything alright? You're looking down."

She shrugged and looked away. I sighed; she sometimes got like this.

"What's wrong, Luna?" I said, trying to sound chipper. I took the knuckle on my index finger and rubbed it into her hair part. "C'mon, Luna!"

"Stop it," she shook her head to repel my hand.

"I know what we gotta do: we gotta retune you."

I grabbed her wrist with my right hand and and pulled her back into my chest.

aligned the pads of my fingers to the slender bones along the bottom of her arm. They reminded me of guitar strings a little. I tugged on her arm.

"Hey!" She called out. Her ponytail brushed against my lips as she twisted to get a look at me. "Stop, this is embarrassing."

"Nope, gotta tune you." I wrapped my hand around her left waist and held her arm like a guitar neck. My fingers found the delicate bones under her wrist. They felt a bit like guitar strings beneath the pads of my fingers.

"Now, let's hear an E." I lightly pressed down on the appropriate string/bone. With my left hand, I pretended to hold a pick and tickled her midriff. As I strummed her, she gave a shriek and tried to double-over, but I pulled her back against me.

"Oh, no! That wasn't even close to an E! That was more like an A!" I twisted her finger as if rotating a tuning peg. "There. That should do it. Let's try that again!"

"No!" She squealed as I tickled her again. With a gleeful shout, she squirmed in my arms, trying to break free. I wrapped my arm around her waist, lifted her up, and, leaning back to support her weight, spun her around. Her legs kicked the air, and her hair tickled my nose.

"Put me down! Put me down!" She repeated.

"What's the magic word?"

Although I couldn't see her face, I felt daggers of exasperation.

"Archie, put me down. Please. We're going to miss our movie. We're gonna miss the movie!" She burst into laughter again as I set her down and started poking her sides. "Stop! That's not how you tune a guitar anyway!"

"It's how you tune a girl, though!" I said without thinking. She looked up at me. We were so close that I could see the mascara on her eyelashes and feel the heat radiating from her chest. Her laughter abruptly stopped. I stepped back.

Before I could make a decision, Luna already made that for me. With a wide smile and rosy aura, she looked up to me. With relief I saw the glimmer returned to her eyes.

"C'mon. I want to watch the trailers," Luna said as we walked into the theatre together.