Page 81 of Not You Again
A high school-aged girl waved. “I’m Gemma. I worked here with Bruce. He talked about you all the time.”
Carly swallowed down her shock. She hadn’t considered that her dad might have told anyone about her. Gemma had said something that she probably didn’t realize was so profound—or maybe she did.
“Thank you for telling me that, and for coming,” Carly managed to say.
“And I’m Maeve,” a twenty-something with a short purple mohawk and a vest covered in Pride flag buttons reached out their hand. “Nice to meet you. Bruce was such a cool guy. He used to tell us all these stories about being a cameraman. My favorites were when he’d spill on which celebrities were nice and which weren’t.”
“Oh my God, yes,” Gemma said with a smile. “I told everyone at school about theNight Avengersstory.”
“Ah, and the actress who got bit by a rattlesnake in the middle of nowhere, sohehad to suck the venom out of her leg!” Maeve bit their lip. “What I wouldn’t give to suck poison out of some famous person’s leg.”
“Oh.” Carly laughed, digesting all the information.
While she’d been in Burbank living life as usual, her dad had been here, meeting new people, sharing his history, building this theater and starting a new life. Carly had been so convinced that he’d made a mistake and isolated himself, that she hadn’t considered coming here had given her dad the opportunity to grow new roots. These two sharing stories about him was proof of that.
“The movies won’t start for another four hours, though,” Carly said.
“We came to help,” Hank clarified. “No one knows the theater better than us, and it’s the least we can do for Bruce.”
“No,” Carly said. She needed the help, but wanted to at least offer an out. “You don’t have to do that.”
“How do you plan to run three movies simultaneously, cover the snacks, take tickets and handle any maintenance issues that come up?” Maeve asked the rhetorical question.
“Okay, help accepted,” Carly gratefully replied.
“Also,” Gemma said, “we wanted to come to the funeral, but we didn’t even know it was happening. It feels weird that we didn’t get to say goodbye. This would be a cool way to do that.”
The breath Carly didn’t realize she’d been holding released, and her body suddenly felt about a hundred times lighter.They’d wanted to come to the funeral?News to her. She’d wondered why Hank hadn’t attended. Though, had she told anyone about the funeral, other than the people he’d worked with in LA who couldn’t make the trip in such a short time? They’d planned to hold a memorial for Bruce later in the month, back in Burbank where he belonged. But maybe what her dad would’ve wanted was a funeral in Julian, too, where he also, apparently, belonged.
“I’m so sorry,” Carly said. “When I came into town, I didn’t know anyone, or how to get the word out. It was just me.”
No one said anything, but Hank’s hand landed on her shoulder and he squeezed to acknowledge that that must’ve really sucked. And indeed, it had.
“We really want to help,” Maeve reiterated. “And we’d love to do this for Bruce. He was the best.”
He really was the best. Carly knew she was lucky. Despite becoming a single dad when Carly was a baby, he hadn’t sent her to live with a great-aunt in another state. He hadn’t impulse-married someone so that she’d have a mother figure in her life. He hadn’t forced her to go to the batting cages becauseheliked baseball and needed her to like it, too. Well, hehaddone that once, but Carly had been so scared of the balls careening toward her that Bruce treated her to an ice cream sundae afterward and promised to never take her back again.
No, Bruce had tried his hardest to fill the mom-size hole they’d both been left with. He only took jobs that filmed in town. He hired an older, reliable nanny to pick Carly up from school if his shoot was going to be running late and, when possible, he brought Carly to set so she could do her homework while he worked. Even though they both knew she spent most of that time watching the actors perform, listeningto the scene and taking mental notes for how she’d rewrite something.
And this little team he’d hired was right—Carly was only one person. With three open screening rooms, and the possibility of people actually showing up, she needed help. So they got to work making sure everything was set for when the doors opened at six.
At six o’clock on the dot, when Carly went to the front of the theater, she wasn’t surprised that no one was there waiting to be let in. From what she could tell, the theater was sparsely attended when her dad was alive. But then she stepped outside to place the chalkboard sign on the sidewalk,Free Movies and Snacks!When she did that, there was a line of people pressed against the side of the building, trailing all the way down the street.
Her gaze stopped on Shireen and Dean, who stepped out of line to meet Carly.
“They’re all here for your dad,” Shireen said. “Once we told people this was in memory of Bruce, there was no question. People stopped what they were doing to come.”
“They came for my dad?” Carly eyed the line. She’d assumed Bruce was barely remembered here, but now... “I don’t know if we can fit this many people.”
“It’s okay, we told them if they don’t make the first showings, we’ll hand out tickets for the next ones and they can come back without having to stand in line,” Shireen explained.
“Smart. Wow. I am...” Carly was speechless. Bruce hadn’t been able to bring the town out like this when he was alive, but now they wanted to show support? There were so many emotions swirling in her gut that she started to feel uneasy on her feet.
Dean grabbed on to Carly’s elbow before she even had time to sway. “This is amazing, Carly. Look at what you and your dad were able to do.”
Talking about Bruce like he was here felt so much more important than Dean probably even knew. It wasn’t that CarlylikedDean as a person, but she felt less inclined to kick him in the shin.
This was the kind of moment Bruce had envisioned when he first bought the theater, Carly realized. He’d pictured a space to build community. Where parents could bring their kids to spend quality time together, watching someone else’s art (sometimes his). She only wished he was physically present to see it.
