We'll Always Have Parkville

"Final chapters are always hard to write."

"Wait. Are you breaking up with me?"

"Please. I don't like to use those words."

"I'm sorry. I mean . . . are you writing me out of your life? I mean, life story!"

"Let's say, I'm moving you off camera for a while. But don't worry. I have plans to bring you back."

Amber rolled her eyes. She knew it was tough going out with a movie buff, and she was willing to buy into his special lingo—why not, right? It sounded like fun. But this was going too far. Worse, he didn't have the guts to do it before they sat through another showing of Rear Window for, what, the twelfth time? There was something Hitchcockian about being dumped right after watching a Hitchcock movie.

"Don't bother!" she shouted defiantly. "I'm going to branch off into my own spin-off!"

He looked askance as if he saw right through her feeble attempt to play his game. "Spin-offs almost never work. Remember W*A*L*T*E*R? Or Gloria?" There was a lilt in his voice when he spoke of obscure TV pilots, something that played into her fantasies of starring in her own drama. The twinkle in his eye spoke volumes. There was much more to him than endless trivia. There had to be.

"Look, Simon," she said, gauging her words carefully. She stopped as they walked along the city street of the old part of town, a place of quaint shops and on-street parking. "I've put up with your movies and your endless knowledge of TV shows and all the other CRAP you spew at me, and this is all you have to say?" She was burbling. She didn't mean to, but it hurt to be dumped. "Where's the romance? Where are the candle lights? Where's the wooing?"

She looked up into his eyes, hoping for any sort of reaction. He stood there in front of the gutter and the streetlight as if waiting to for something to click. She should have turned and walked off, but something in his demeanor indicated she had gotten through to him. He opened his mouth and choked several times before speaking.

"I didn't know that's what you wanted."

It wasn't much, but it was something. The first honest exchange they ever had.

"Hello! I'm your girlfriend, for crying out loud. Of course, you're supposed to woo me!" Her reaction surprised her as much as it surprised him. Yes, she expected to be wooed. More, she demanded it. This was the 21st century, when women didn't have to rely on men. When she could be anything she wanted. Yet she wanted to be told she mattered. She wanted the flowers and the wedding. Instead, she settled for endless reruns of Cagney & Lacy.

Simon looked lost, and, for a moment, she feared he might slither down the gutter or run away. The traffic sign across the street started blinking WALK. For a moment, she thought she should take it. But she wanted to give him one last chance to respond. Besides, she needed to know more. Why exactly was he breaking up with her?

The white WALK sign flashed to a gold DON'T WALK before he spoke.

"Well, if that's the way you want it," he said with a half-shrug.

That's it? That was all of it? How dare he pin this breakup on her! Disgusted, she turned away from him and stepped into the street. The blaring of a car horn alerted her too late. When she came to, she was lying in the roadway, Simon and another man—the driver, she assumed—leaning over her. There was silence and dizziness. She couldn't feel her body.

She looked into Simon's eyes. She was on an unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar part of town, and he was her only tether to reality. She hoped for something, anything to keep her grounded. All she could do was scream, "Help me!"

"Don't worry." She read his lips more than she heard his words. "I'll keep you safe, like Bogie and Bacall."

The next words came from her. "I take that back. I don't want to live forever."