Chapter 3
E llie and Drake did not try something different that night; they went to The Garlic Bread Place.
By the time they started looking up new restaurants, they were too hungry to choose another option.
Ellie ordered the same Eggplant Parmigiana at their usual four-top with a white plastic tablecloth.
What had happened to her? She was supposed to be in the field of rare discovery.
This repeat eggplant business had to be part of the problem.
“Bring wine, too,” she begged the young, pretty waitress. “You can bring a bottle out. Your pick.”
The waitress glanced up from her square yellow pad and moved closer. “Don’t I know you?”
Drake brightened. He was eager to brag. “She has a book,” he gushed. “And a show! The Compendium of Forgotten Things —”
“It’s not a big deal. You probably just know me because we come here a lot,” Ellie deflected.
Recognition spread across the waitress’s face. Slight recognition. It was minuscule. “Right!” she said. “Oh, wow. I loved your show.”
The same Dean Martin playlist Ellie had memorized refreshed another loop.
“There’s no way you loved my show,” Ellie said.
When Drake gave her a look, she realized she had been rude.
“I just meant, you’ve probably not seen it,” she added, which certainly made things worse.
“It’s hard to find the show on streaming.
There’s actually a rip-off of The Goonies that appears when you type it in.
” A warning flashed in Drake’s eyes as he started to stress eat the bread that came before the garlic bread.
“I’m going to put the order in,” the waitress said, backing away from the table.
She attempted a smile that came out twisted.
Drake gave Ellie a second to pull herself together.
Then, he leaned over the table and said the right thing.
“People can love you and your work. You know?” His hands reached out for hers.
“You’re pretty damn lovable. Even though figuring you out takes a little sleuthing. ”
The timing of this line landed perfectly with the gift he handed her next.
Ellie tore open the newspaper-covered package to find a hardcover Nancy Drew book.
The title had been crossed out and replaced with The Case of the Girl at the Bar , which was the same title as her story about Finn’s that he’d framed and hung on the wall of their living room.
“Thank you,” Ellie said. “Thanks. I’m pretty lucky I get to marry you.” She brushed Drake’s hair out of his face. The waitress dropped off their wine and the garlic bread Drake had ordered, then scurried away before she could be pulled back into their conversation.
“Yeah, about that,” Drake said, tearing off a piece of the hot bread and popping it in his mouth.
“Are you sure you want to marry me?” It was a joke, of course.
“I mean, a renowned writer like yourself, a television-show host, and a goddamn detective.” He pulled his hands away and slammed them on the table for emphasis. The condiments jumped.
“Yes,” Ellie told him. She opened the book.
Inside its cover, Drake had occasionally crossed out the name Nancy and replaced it with Ellie in his youthful scrawl.
Her engagement ring sparkled on her finger as she navigated the pages.
Drake had managed to find the exact ring she would’ve chosen for herself.
It was an oval, teal sapphire that reminded Ellie of a doorknob to a beautiful place—feminine, but not flashy, with tiny diamonds set on each side of the stone.
Drake’s gifts showed he was listening. Even a few dates in, he’d given her a vintage music box with a spinning dancer inside that reminded her of one she had growing up.
“Of course, I want to marry you,” Ellie added.
If she was being honest with herself, that was the only thing she was sure about.
“Well, that’s a relief. That wedding photographer I just hired is going to be expensive. I was channeling Milburn Pennybags when I sent the check.”
“Milburn—”
“Mr. Monopoly. Get with it.”
Ellie laughed. She noted the relief on Drake’s face.
He’d managed to alleviate her frustration or at least put a bandage on it.
He kept the conversation silly while they ate their food, performing a classic tarantella dance on the table with his fingers.
The eggplant was perfect, and every bite made Ellie’s mouth water more.
Sometimes, familiar and comfortable things were nice, she had learned when they moved in together.
Familiarity could look like a movie night routine or a bedtime ritual of reading in shared silence.
She didn’t blame Drake for the way she’d fallen into patterns.
It was her role to shake things up and drag them to new places.
Now, she sensed, it was time for her to do it again.
“How about a walk?” Ellie suggested after the check came, along with a complimentary tiramisu. Ellie wondered if the free dessert was on account of her being recognized, the weird energy, or something else entirely.
“Where were you thinking?” Drake asked. He split the dessert in half and took a bite. “I can disappear this dessert and we can get another one. We could go to The Gelato Fairy? Or that French bakery around the corner. What’s it called?”
Ellie reached her fork out for her portion of the tiramisu. “Let’s just get a little lost,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You know how I feel about being lost.”
“Not lost lost.” She knew by now that lost was a frightening word to Drake. “What I meant was,” she said, “let’s just see where this night takes us.”
Ellie felt the tension of the evening melt away as she and Drake traced the neck of the city.
They paused to admire the neon signs that bloomed in the window of a palm-reader shop.
Drake didn’t smoke but mused that, if he did, he’d want to look like the hipster with pompadour hair they passed nursing a cigar.
Ellie held her hand out to spin Drake when she heard a saxophone pouring from the window of a high loft.
This night was giving her the adventure she’d craved.
“What was all that about, at the restaurant?” Drake finally ventured to ask. “With the waitress?”
Ellie pulled her jacket tighter. “I’m sorry. It sounded rude as soon as it came out. But I’m fine.”
“Okay. Well, you didn’t seem fine,” he said.
Here was the picking apart Ellie loathed.
She had allowed Drake into her thoughts and life more than she’d thought was possible.
She’d told him everything that happened with her parents, and most of what happened with her brother, Ben.
She’d even mentioned that she had struggled to commit in past relationships.
But right now, she didn’t want to open the scary vault of the day and take stock of her mental cobwebs.
If she pried herself open, her pain might all tumble out and refuse to disappear.
Drake was everything to her, but sometimes she wondered if she’d be able to give him enough of herself—the intimacy and vulnerability he deserved.
Drake paused to get his bearings. Ellie swore she could hear his thoughts. They didn’t walk without aim anymore, and they’d never walked this far from the car. “I’m thinking we should head back,” he suggested. “It’s getting kind of late.”
“No.” Ellie urged them forward. “I want to keep going.”
“All right. Well, while we walk, you can tell me what you’re feeling. You don’t have to bottle it all up, you know.” He squeezed her into him, maybe to coerce a confession.
Ellie led them through the main square of Chinatown, around a few corners, and onto a new street filled with a row of boutiques.
Windows housed oven mitts midwave, needle-felted snowmen, and boxes wrapped in quirky patterned paper.
It was only the last weekend of October, but Big Christmas was on a mission to start the holidays earlier every year.
Luckily, Ellie still had a few weeks before her mom’s five-course dinner happened—and her dad’s grain-free cookies arrived by mail.
“It was just a bad day,” Ellie said, finally filling the silence. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure. Okay. Like what?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me about work?”
“Work?” Drake sighed. “Work is …boring.”
He was always saying: “Work is boring.” For someone who pushed her to open up, Drake also stored parts of himself she couldn’t access.
He was sentimental and romantic, unafraid to cry when moved.
His disappointments, though, were kept to himself.
“Pretty street, isn’t it?” Drake asked. He was nodding to the trees and shops spread out in front of them.
A cold gust made the branches shiver. It was a pretty street, but Ellie noticed something unusual ahead of them.
A small gap was set between two of the stores, outlined by a brick archway. Ellie moved toward the opening.
“Ellie?” Drake asked, following behind her.
The doorway led to an alley. The opening in the brick marked the beginning of an adorable little alley that would’ve been so easy to walk right by.
A fog hovered above the steps. Pastel-hued storefronts on each side of the cobblestones were lit by the glow of lampposts fit for casual strolls and Gene Kelly spins.
The alley felt much more like a film set than a real place in a big city.
Ellie expected someone to leap out and call “Cut!” but the quaint detour remained silent.
A static fluttered around her, the knowingness of a place drawing her closer.
This was how it always happened when she was on the brink of discovery.
A building, or a bar, or a haunted taqueria would summon her and become an entry in The Compendium of Forgotten Things .
Finally—yes, finally—it was about to happen again.
Beyond a sprinkling of cafés and bakeries, a sleepy Irish pub, and an ice cream shop, with a rose-colored awning, called Mae’s Famous Scoops, the storefronts were empty.
Their footsteps echoed up the walkway. The streetlamps flickered out one by one until Ellie and Drake were left standing in the near dark.
“Well? You ready to head back?” Drake asked.
Ellie wasn’t ready. Drake had missed something up ahead, but to be fair, she almost missed it herself. Faint light glazed the cobblestones at the very top of the alley. Drake threw his hand above his eyes and squinted. “What is that?”
The light grew brighter as they moved toward it and came upon the thing Ellie would’ve most wanted to be in this place.
They were standing at the entrance of a glamorous vintage movie palace.
A circular gold ticket booth adorned with Greek gods and goddesses, her old friends Poseidon and Artemis and Ares, made the first impression, and a marquee lined with flickering, Broadway-style bulbs spelled out the title of a film she’d never heard of before.
Ellie turned her hands into binoculars against the cold glass doors of the cinema.
She gasped at what was inside. Luxurious red carpet led the way to twin stairwells that curled up both sides of the lobby like ribbons on a gift. Clinging to the rounded ceiling was an enormous chandelier. It was as elegant as an opera house—one of those fantastic cinemas that were nearly obsolete.
“ The Story of You ,” Drake read off the marquee. “Must be an art house thing.”
A voice cracked from inside the ticket booth. “Will it be two for the midnight movie?” Ellie hadn’t realized a person was in there. A galaxy of red acne dotted the teenage ticket boy’s cheeks. He was too tall for the confined space, a giant manning a tollbooth for dolls.
Ellie grabbed Drake’s wrist and looked at his watch. The seconds hand crept closer toward 11:55 , as if they’d planned it that way.
“Hey, no thanks,” Drake said. “We’re good.”
“No, we’re not,” Ellie insisted. She forced a casual tone. “I mean, yes. Yeah. We would like two tickets, please.”
Drake pulled her away for a sidebar. “It’s late,” he reminded her. “These theaters play experimental stuff at midnight. The Story of You sounds like a movie where somebody cries too long in their shower.”
Ellie felt herself huff. “Who cares what the movie is? I’ve got to see the inside of this cinema.”
Drake yawned to make his point. “It’s just, by the time we get back—”
“I need this!” Ellie unintentionally stomped her foot.
Drake took a step closer and lowered his voice. “Ellie?”
“I haven’t seen a movie in forever.”
“We do Monster Movie Thursday every Thursday night.”
“I mean, in the theater. In a theater like this. Drake, this is an architectural wonder. You love this stuff.”
The ticket boy stared at them, either waiting for a decision or wishing for them to leave.
“You’re right.” Drake ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do it.”
Delighted, Ellie asked for two tickets again.
“So, this will be one ticket each, of your …” The ticket boy ran his finger down a white piece of paper in front of him.
“Your ten total tickets,” he said. He grabbed two metal boxes from the back of the desk and set a small spool of the pink paper tickets, like the ones Ellie had been given at raffles or carnivals, inside each lid.
“We limit admission to the Saturday midnight movie,” he said.
“And each of you will get a spool of only ten tickets.”
“Why?” Drake asked. “Seems like a weird policy.”
“Very weird. Very specific,” Ellie agreed.
“How do you even stay in business here?” Drake interrogated. “I mean, isn’t that the point? To get people to come back?” He was right, Ellie thought. The cinema didn’t even have a name on its marquee. Forget a social media presence—this place barely had the chance to build word-of-mouth business.
“I just do the tickets,” the ticket boy said.
He shuffled around for something on his desk and located two blank nametag stickers and a marker, which he passed over through the slot.
“Write your name on those.” Drake wrote on his sticker first, then handed the marker to Ellie.
They passed the marker and stickers back through the small slot, which the ticket boy slapped onto each of the metal boxes.
“Five dollars each,” he said. “Ten total. Cash only.”
Drake pulled some cash out of his pocket, and they traded the money for their tickets.
Participating in something spontaneous felt so satisfying. Everything else Ellie had done in recent months was predictable. Even the shoes she was wearing were sensible. She tried to recall the last time she’d worn a clever pair of heels and made the least sensible choice possible.
It didn’t matter. Because, right then, she could feel a forgotten part of herself coming back.