Chapter 7
JACK
Shit.
I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve let Nell get into my head and now there is this monumentally awkward situation where the two of us are stuck in the same place, her knowing I’ve asked her out, and both of us knowing that she has shot me down.
And if someone asks you out for a drink, and they don’t come back with a positive response, then the writing on the wall is pretty clear, isn’t it, even for me. What the hell was I thinking?
Despite Nell’s insistence that I should move on, I know I’m not ready.
A year ago, I was ready to stand in front of my family and friends and commit to spending the rest of my life with Vicky.
I still wake up expecting her to be next to me, or hear her in the shower; I swear I can still sometimes smell her perfume.
And now here I am asking a stranger out on a date.
But there is something different about Maggie – a familiarity.
I’ve read about this feeling, that certainty of knowing someone with one look. But reading about this feeling and experiencing it are two very different things. I’m trying to explain this to myself as she approaches the fire escape to the right of the screen.
My sister, Charlotte, wrote her dissertation on the love at first sight phenomenon; if I recall correctly, she had described it as our brains creating a perfect storm.
We see someone, something ignites, and our brains flood with chemicals that cause an addiction: a need to be closer to that person.
Ironic. In the short space of time I’ve spent with Maggie Wright, I have come to understand that she is fiercely protective of her personal space.
I get it. I’m a stranger to her, even if she feels nothing like a stranger to me.
Maggie meets my eyes, her pink gloves on the fire escape door, which has refused to open more than a few centimetres.
There is another jolt, deep in the pit of my stomach.
She has eyes the colour of moss and hair that hasn’t quite made up its mind whether it’s curly, straight, blonde, brown, long or short.
She makes a small grunting noise and pushes the bar again, but it doesn’t open any further.
She looks at me over her shoulder: bright pink fur coat, purple boots, and feline eyes.
‘There must be something parked in front of it,’ she explains. Even the tone of her voice is appealing to me. Or maybe I’ve had another stroke and this attraction is nothing more than a new symptom.
‘Maybe if we both push?’ I suggest, walking slowly towards her.
I’m careful with my steps, keeping a good distance, especially given my recent confession.
If we can’t push the door open any further, we might well be trapped in here for the night.
Although, if I’m honest, there are worse fates to be had.
‘It’s no use.’ She crouches down, selects the torch app, and looks through the small gap, her voice dampened. ‘There’s something blocking it.’
She stands back up and yanks the door closed.
‘So’ – I lean against the front row of seats – ‘what now?’
‘Well, I’m not Jack’ – she grins at me, walking in front of the blue screen, dimples forming in both cheeks – ‘we could try calling for help, but—’
I wiggle my phone at her. ‘No signal.’
‘No signal and the Wi-Fi is down. Must be the storm.’ She scoops up her hair then lets it fall back on her shoulders. ‘There’s a landline in the projection booth though. I’ll go and try calling Romy or Colin from there.’
* * *
‘Sorry about the smell,’ she warns, scrunching up her nose as she leads me along the corridor above the auditorium.
‘Colin’s diet consists of Pot Noodles and pork scratchings, but he’s a sweetie.
He’ll come and let us out, or Romy will.
Fear not.’ She grins as we come to the end of the corridor, a door with two words on it in gold glitter:
I don’t bother trying to take the time to sound out the letters like my speech and language therapist encourages me to do.
Sounding out letters in the same way as my five-year-old niece is not something that raises my mood.
I used to read Shakespeare. Now I can barely read the word ‘sit’.
I managed the ‘s’ sound after following the letter six times with my fingers first. Reading is beyond exhausting.
At first I was determined to find my way back: to books, to me; I’ve never quit a thing in my life, but after Vicky left and after months of endless failures, it all seemed…
pointless. I’d rather focus my energy on something else.
Besides, I consider, as I watch Maggie switching on the light and looking at the small room; stories can be found in places other than books.
‘Here we are!’ Maggie’s excitement at the inside of the small room is infectious and I find myself feeling lighter than I have in months despite the embarrassment of my earlier confession.
‘This is where the magic comes from.’
On the walls are more film posters.
‘So how long have you worked here?’ I ask, leaning in at the original Jaws poster: red letters, the shark’s mouth pointing upwards beneath blue water, a woman swimming across the surface.
Maggie steps over the boxes on the floor towards a desk at the back of the room.
‘Three years. I came here for a late-night showing of Before Sunset. There was an advert for a cleaner and the rest is fairy-tale, popcorn and lemon-scented history. Are you a fan?’ she asks.
I realise I’m squinting and drop the muscles in my forehead, focusing instead on her as she begins lifting magazines and coffee cups on the desk.
‘Of Jaws?’
She nods.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.’
‘You’re joking?’ She stops searching briefly and laughs, shaking her head. ‘Everyone has seen Jaws.’
Our eyes meet and I try to ignore the electric charge currently climbing up my spine. ‘I’ve read it though,’ I rush on, looking back at the picture.
‘I didn’t know it was a book. I don’t think a book could ever beat the film version.’
I laugh quietly. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone say that.’ I run my finger down a stack of boxes piled on top of each other. ‘What are these?’
She frowns. ‘They’re the films… The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink…’
‘Ah, Mr Hughes?’
‘Yep.’
‘The films are played from here?’
‘Yeah. You load the film into the DVP, type in the passcode on the PC and away we go. Ha! Success!’ she announces, revealing a phone from beneath a pile of discarded McDonald’s napkins.
She lifts the cradle to her ear and taps the button on the base.
‘Nothing.’ She lands her hands on her hips before tugging the phone line with her finger and following it around the edges of the room, finally crouching down in the far-right-hand corner, holding up the end of the line, which is three wires without an adapter.
‘Guess calling for help is out then?’
She drops it, blows her hair from her eyes and stands. ‘Yep.’
‘Windows?’
‘All top-opening.’
We’re quiet for a moment before I speak. ‘It’s not the worst place in the world to be trapped though.’
‘No. No it isn’t.’ She pulls her earlobe.
‘And I came to see a movie, which, I’m told, is dreamy.’
‘You were told correctly.’ I don’t let my eyes drop to her lower lip, which she tugs with her incisor.
‘And, it would be a shame if I didn’t find out if the mechanic chooses the drummer or the mean girl.’
‘It would. A real shame.’ Maggie’s on the verge of a smile, but it’s guarded.
She wraps her arms around herself. ‘If we’re going to do this, I need to explain something, Jack.
You seem like a good guy and’ – a small smile – ‘everything, but I’m not…
available. And it’s not that I don’t think you’re hot, because you definitely are. ’
‘Good to know.’
‘But when I say I can’t be around people? It’s not like I don’t like people or anything, on the whole people are pretty great but I can’t be physically close to them. I have this… thing. It’s hard to explain but the upshot is—’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ I interrupt.
‘No, it’s fine, I want to, and if we’re going to be together all night then you need to understand.
’ She lets out a long breath, eyes on the ceiling.
‘I can’t touch anyone.’ She meets my eyes and holds up her hands, still inside a pair of gloves.
‘It’s a… a germ thing. I’m not saying you look like the kind of guy who is, you know, germy or anything; you actually smell really, really good.
It’s nothing personal; it’s just the way I’m built. ’
I meet her eyes directly. ‘Understood. And I apologise… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable earlier.’
‘You didn’t.’ Maggie tucks her hair behind her ear, but it takes seconds before it falls back along the curve of her cheek.
She looks to the floor, then back at me through her eyelashes.
I continue. ‘Maggie? Tonight, I’m supposed to be somewhere I didn’t want to be, surrounded by people I didn’t want to talk to.
I do, however, very much like talking to you.
And seeing as we have no choice, how about we grab some popcorn and watch a movie.
I can keep my distance. We can be alone. But, together.’
Alone but together. Did I actually say that? I’m about to try and retract the whole sentence but her face softens.
‘Alone, together?’ She pulls at her bottom lip again. My eyes drop to her mouth then correct themselves.
‘Yeah. Well, you, me, and Ted Hughes.’
‘John Hughes,’ she corrects gently.
‘We can have your vacuum between us if it’d help?’
‘Henry.’
‘No.’ I place my hand on my heart but I’m smiling. ‘Jack.’
‘I meant… Henry’s my hoover.’
‘I know,’ I say softly, tucking my hands into my pocket. ‘And you have my word, Maggie.’ I meet her eyes, keeping my focus steady and sincere. ‘I’ll respect your space. I know you have nothing to base this on, but you can trust me.’ I wait for her to process my words.
‘You can’t even share my popcorn,’ she says, pulling at the tips of her gloves.
‘I don’t share my food, either. Seeing people share their food gives me the ick.’
‘The ick?’
‘Yep. I needed counselling after watching Lady and the Tramp when I was six.’ I shudder. ‘I can’t even eat spaghetti.’
She laughs then narrows her eyes, mock serious. ‘Are you a noisy eater?’
‘No. Are you a loud slurper?’ I lean against the wall and cross one foot over the other.
‘No. Wrapper crinkler?’
‘Only during loud action scenes.’
‘Phone checker?’
‘Nope.’ I wait as she looks around the room, hand tapping against her thigh then laughs to herself, shaking her head.
‘What’s funny?’ I ask.
‘I was wondering, why?’
‘Why?’
She puts on an American accent. ‘Why in all the cinemas, in all the towns, in all the world, you walked into mine.’
‘Guess, I’m just lucky.’
And for the first time in almost a year, I feel it.