Chapter 13
THE STARLIGHT IS THE ONLY place in Seaside that hasn’t changed at all.
The teenager working the ticket booth is pretty, with expertly smudged purple eyeliner that matches the lavender streaks in her hair. She smiles at Barb warmly from behind the plexiglass and talks into her microphone.
“Um, you’re kinda early?” Through the speaker, the girl’s disembodied voice makes the statement sound like a question. “You can buy your tickets now, but we don’t open the gates until an hour before showtime. So you’ll have to come back?”
“I’m here to see Julie?” Barb says, unintentionally mimicking the girl’s tone. “She’s expecting me.”
“Oh, you’re from the Chronicle?” The girl picks up her cell phone, her thumbs typing out the fastest text Barb’s ever seen. She then hits a button on the counter and the gates begin to swing open. “Julie says she’s running a bit behind. But you’re welcome to come in and look around?”
Barb drives slowly into the empty parking lot and past the base of the huge sign announcing the Starlight’s current lineup.
Admission to the drive-in always includes a double feature, and each screen offers an animated film paired with a Marvel movie, a thriller, or a rom-com.
She pulls into a spot closest to the refreshment stand and cuts the engine.
This place was pretty popular during the lockdowns.
In the comfort and safety of your own vehicle, the Starlight was one of the few places in town where you could almost pretend like things were normal.
There are better ways to watch movies, of course.
Portland is less than thirty minutes away and has theaters with IMAX screens and surround sound.
But folks come to drive-ins for the nostalgia.
They come to sit on their tailgates and drink the beer they snuck in and watch their kids play on the swing sets during intermission.
As the name itself tells you, people come here to watch movies under the stars.
This summer marks the Starlight’s diamond anniversary—they’ve been in business sixty years—and they’ve bought eight full-page print ads in the Chronicle to run every weekend until September. In return, Greg has tasked Barb with writing another puff piece.
“A thousand words about the Starlight?” she’d said when she received the assignment. “What will I even write about? The drive-in’s barely changed in sixty years.”
“Then write about its history, which is what you couldn’t do with Wonderland,” Greg told her.
He means what he wouldn’t let her do. “You remember all that kerfuffle with Hot Dog Gate? You would have been in high school during all the brouhaha between the Dunns and the Millers. You should include it in the piece, it’s a good story. ”
“I’m sorry, my ears died when you said the words kerfuffle and brouhaha. What are you, a hundred years old?”
“I know you’ll write it well, whippersnapper,” Greg said. “Now quit your lollygagging and get over there.”
Barb starts murmuring notes into a voice memo as she takes it all in.
The Starlight is located just off a two-lane highway unimaginatively named Rural Route 3, which is within Seaside boundaries near the southernmost tip.
Other than the drive-in, there’s nothing much out this way other than farmland.
Barb cranes her neck, squinting into the distance beyond the perimeter of the Starlight.
The Millers, sixth-generation farmers, own more than two hundred acres of land behind and around the drive-in, a good chunk of which grows cranberries.
At this time of the year, the bogs are green, and dry enough to walk on in regular shoes.
But come September, when harvest begins, those fields will be intentionally flooded with water. Millions of cranberries will rise to the top, creating an eight-inch-deep man-made lake of vibrant red.
Barb snaps a picture of the dry bogs, even though there isn’t much there at the moment.
But what her eyes can’t see, her mind is more than willing to envision.
While neither she nor Nicolette was present when the Millers’ farm workers discovered the remains of Lorelei’s body floating on the surface with the cranberries, it must have been a hell of a sight to see.
* * *
Julie Dunn is younger than Barb expected, in her late twenties, with a tanned gym-toned body and light brown hair pulled back into a slick-back bun.
Dressed in Lululemon leggings, a fitted T-shirt, and Hoka running shoes, she looks more like an Instagram fitness model than the manager of her family’s drive-in.
She’s also bright and cheerful, all of which makes Barb feel drab in comparison.
After a short tour of the premises, she follows Julie back out of the refreshment stand, though the word stand would imply it’s a hut or a kiosk of some kind.
The building is actually the size of a house, with a fully equipped kitchen and a menu that offers everything from popcorn and soda to hamburgers and sundaes.
The food is actually pretty great, and twenty-five years ago, Julie’s grandfather decided they needed to draw more attention to it.
And thus began the Great Hot Dog War that lasted the entire summer of 2001.
The two women look up at the giant ketchup-and-mustard-covered hot dog that spans the entire width of the refreshment stand’s roof, and then some.
“You either love or hate that thing,” Julie says with a grin. “My grandma thought it was the tackiest thing she’d ever seen. But you can’t deny that Pa was right—on a clear day, you can see it from the Wonder Wheel.”
“The Millers really hated it, didn’t they?”
Julie raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “They despised it so much, they burned it down. Pa caught it before the fire could spread too far, and after that, all negotiations about getting rid of it were off. This one here is the second version, and it’s even bigger than the original.”
Barb stifles a laugh. “How big is it exactly?”
“This one is sixty-one feet by eleven feet. Pa had an old friend whose son worked for Disney World, and he created the entire thing out of spray foam—expanded polystyrene, or EPS. Once it cured, it was molded and painted, and then sealed with fiberglass.”
“It’s probably the biggest foam hot dog in the world.”
“Second biggest, actually. The world record holder is at a place called Wienerlicious in Mackinaw City, Michigan.” Julie points straight ahead.
“When the Starlight was first built, the Millers’ farmhouse was right there, not far from the road at all.
They had a clear view of the hot dog from their porch, living room window, and primary bedroom.
I don’t blame them for hating it; imagine waking up to views of this eye sore every morning?
After the town council finally ruled that my parents weren’t violating any zoning laws, they physically moved their house farther that way, behind the trees and closer to the cranberry fields.
Five generations of farmers—six, now—and they were forced to relocate the old family farmhouse because of a damned hot dog. ”
Her editor was right; Barb has to admit she’s enjoying the story. “How’s the relationship with the Millers now?”
“Fine.” Julie waves a manicured hand. “A couple months after Hot Dog Gate, there was a body found in the cranberry fields. A teenage girl, murdered by the Carnival Killer, and buried there about a week before harvest season. When they flooded the fields—”
“Right,” Barb says, not wanting to hear her say the words.
“I was only four back then, but I remember how horrible it was. My grandma and Mrs. Miller bonded over the trauma of it, the girl being found on their farm, but so close to our property. Pa and Mr. Miller continued to hate each other, but they did stop fighting. The hot dog drama seemed kind of trivial compared to a dead body.”
Barb says nothing.
Julie claps a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening. “Wait a minute. That girl was . . . she was your friend, right? Oh my god, I feel like an idiot, rambling on like this—”
“Don’t be. You’re not the only one talking about it these days.” Barb turns her voice memo off, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Thanks for your time. Okay if I use your bathroom before I head out?”
Julie nods, but it’s clear the younger woman feels terrible. “Just around back of the building.”
“Thanks, I remember.”
Because she does. The Starlight bathrooms were where Lorelei was killed.