Chapter 30
Carly
When it came to asking for help, Carly certainly wasn’t above that. She loved group projects and had no problem with someone
else holding a door open. Which is why she knew that in order to make good on the plans she’d written out, she’d need help.
At the reset, she hurried to find Shireen. While Shireen drove them into town, Carly told her about the idea for a free movie
day—a way to honor her dad. The help she needed was in getting the word out, which Shireen offered to do, along with the daily
drive to visit Adam’s parents.
So Carly would spend the day prepping the theater and hoping that someone showed up when they opened. Her high school summer
job had been at the movie theater in the Burbank mall. The job was great because she got paid, it was air-conditioned, she
ate concession snacks and, most important, she saw new movies. So when it came to reopening her dad’s theater, Carly knew
the mechanics.
There was the storage closet with movies, but Carly also found boxes of 16mm and 35mm movie film canisters in her dad’s office.
Mixed in with the newer releases, there was a collection of what her dad considered, “the classics,” which he must have regularly screened.
Since she wasn’t entirely sure who in town would show up to the free movie day, Carly decided to stick to films that would take the viewer out of the real world and into a fantasy: Wicked, Coco, and E.T.
Holding the copy of E.T. in her hands, she remembered when Bruce had taken her to see a re-release in their local theater for her seventh birthday.
They’d watched it regularly on Friday nights at home, and they’d driven to watch it screened in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
when she was in high school.
Because of all those things, she had to show the film for her dad. If she was going to introduce the town to who Bruce was,
this movie had to be part of that. If her intention was for everyone to meet the man they barely knew, then she had to be
vulnerable, too.
Carly carried the three film reels out of storage when a knock at the front door made her stop. There was Hank the janitor,
flanked on either side by two people Carly had never met. She set the reels down on the snack counter and unlocked the door.
“Hey there,” Hank said with his easy voice. “We heard from Mayor Franco that you were planning to open up the theater for
a free movie day and we wanted to help.”
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 the Night Avengers story.”
“Ah, and the actress who got bit by a rattlesnake in the middle of nowhere, so he had 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 because he liked baseball and needed her to like it, too. Well, he had done 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, listening to 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 Carly liked Dean 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.
“How are you feeling?” Shireen asked, maybe sensing her thoughts.
“I really wish my dad was here.” Carly gave a sad smile. “And Adam.”
Dean looked off, but Shireen held Carly’s gaze as she said, “Don’t forget what I told you—Adam will come back.”
Movement on the ground caught Carly’s eye, and just beside her were shadow bands flitting erratically, as if trying to get
her attention. She could almost hear Adam telling her that shadow bands don’t exist without the eclipse. But maybe this wasn’t
a shadow band at all. Maybe what she saw was something else. Before she could tell Shireen to look, they were gone. And she
knew it was silly, but she felt like this was a sign telling her to keep going.
Carly unhooked the velvet rope, and one by one, the crowd trickled into the theater.
Maeve and Gemma were stationed at the concessions stand.
Hank served as a kind of usher, showing people to the screening rooms and directing them to the restrooms. And while Carly should’ve been helping, too, all she could do was take in the crowd admiring the framed posters and every little whimsical detail her dad had added.