Page 49 of This Love
“It’s actually a big surface where they project the image. There were movies like this before there were televisions.”
“Really? They shrunk the screens? Why don’t we have something this big at home?”
He passed me. “Some people do.”
“I want to do that.” I followed him up a few stairs to a row of big, cushioned chairs.
When I sat on one next to him, it was like settling onto my sofa. “This is great!”
“It gets better.” He pushed a button next to my arm, and the back moved down, and my feet moved up!
I gasped. “You could sleep on this!”
“You might if the movie gets boring.”
I pushed the button again and again, moving up and down, until someone sat in the chair next to me and frowned.
I giggled and moved closer to Tucker, not that I could reach him. The chairs had wide arms. “I think I annoyed her,” I whispered.
“It’s all right,” he said.
The screen was flashing images of various businesses, but then suddenly, music came on, so loud I had to cover my ears.
A woman filled the screen. “I’m Maria Menounos,” she said. “And this is Noovie, your pre-movie entertainment.”
Tucker leaned over. “You’ll get used to the sound. It’s startling at first.”
“Why is it so loud?”
“Some people are hard of hearing.”
I tried to parse that phrase. Hard to hear, maybe he meant? But he was right. As Maria kept talking, asking us trivia questions about movies I’d never heard of, I was able to uncover my ears.
Everyone around us had drinks and popcorn, rattling wrappers. The smell was heavenly.
Tucker noticed me staring. “What if we shared? Then it would be like half-price. You love popcorn.”
I did. I was drawn to the boxes in my cabinet. Harry showed me how to microwave them. When we ran out, I replaced them the first time Harry took me to the store.
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you want to wait here? I’ll be right back.”
I glanced around. “Yes. I will be all right.”
He crossed in front of me. I watched the huge screen flash colors and light. Maria was beautiful, and I kept wanting to shift my shoulders like she did to angle my head and chin. The only person I’d seen as beautiful as her was Alexis on Schitt’s Creek.
Tucker returned. “Here you go.” He handed me a bucket of popcorn and set a drink in a holder between us.
“Oh, that’s a lot of popcorn!” The smell of the butter and salt made me want to shove my face into the kernels.
“Wait until you try it. There’s no popcorn like movie popcorn.”
I picked up a few pieces and popped them into my mouth.
Oh. Oh! Tucker was right. The flavor was so much more intense. More salt. More butter. I wanted to scoop up huge handfuls.
“Good, right?” he said.
