Alex, Approximately
Page 18

“I’m Bailey,” I say, then decide to add, “I’m new in town.”
“Cool. Nice to meet another movie aficionado.” He slides the film festival brochure toward me. “We have a summer film festival every year. This year’s lineup is so-so. A few good things, like the Georges Méliès shorts and North by Northwest.”
Heart. Pounding. So. Fast.
“I would love to see all of those,” I squeak out in a voice higher than Grace’s.
“Right?” he says, grabbing his keys and gesturing toward the festival brochure. “Keep that. It’s hot off the presses. Anyway, gotta get back to work. I’m at the whale tours up on the boardwalk—Killian’s. Orange and blue, down by the big gold Ferris wheel. Can’t miss it. If you ever want to have coffee and talk about Cary Grant, come by and see me.”
“I might take you up on that offer.” I hate coffee, but whatever. It sounds so adult, so romantic. This is not a boy who’d get me fired or embarrass me in front of dozens of people. This boy is sophisticated. Whale watching! That sounds so much nicer than surfing.
He raises a hand, a triangle of toast clamped in his mouth, and jogs out the front door.
I’m reeling. Seriously, truly reeling.
“Who was that?” my dad murmurs over my shoulder, watching Patrick get into what appears to be some sort of red Jeep.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” I say. “But I think I’m getting warmer.”
LUMIÈRE FILM FANATICS COMMUNITY PRIVATE MESSAGES>ALEX>NEW!
@mink: Anything new in your life?
@alex: Like . . . ?
@mink: I don’t know. Something happened recently that made me have a little more hope about the future.
@alex: Me too, actually, now that you mention it. Maybe. For your future hope . . . how far ahead are we talking? Tomorrow? Next week? (Next month?)
@mink: I’m a one-step-at-a-time kinda gal. So I guess I’ll try tomorrow and see where that leads.
@alex: You definitely don’t dive into anything, do you? (I was hinting.)
@mink: I really don’t. (I know you were.)
@alex: Maybe sometimes you should. Take a chance. Do something crazy. (Are you going to ask your dad about the film festival?)
@mink: Is that what you would do? (Maybe I already have.)
@alex: With the right person? Yes. (When will you let me know?)
@mink: Interesting. (He’s thinking about it. And so am I.)
“You’re a good man, sister.”
—Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon (1941)
9
I’m standing behind the Hotbox with Grace and Mr. Pangborn. He lost his key. We’re holding our register tills, waiting for Porter to come back from the cash-out room and unlock the door. I’m not even sure if Porter’s made it through the lobby yet, escorting the other ticketing agents we’re supposed to be replacing. Heck, I don’t even know if Porter knows we’re locked out. I do know that it’s a few minutes past noon and the line is pretty long. Freddy, the guy in charge of taking tickets at the turnstile, keeps peeping around the corner at us, the look on his face progressing from Antsy to Dismayed.
Mr. Pangborn sniffles and rubs his nose. “We’ll give him another minute to make it to cash-out before I buzz him. No sense in making him panic. He’s got to get the tills to the room first.”
Grace and I look at each other, shrug, and both make he’s got a point faces. What are we going to do? There’s no one at the information desk right now. The lady who’s supposed to be stationed there, who also has a key to ticketing, is outside in the parking lot, schmoozing with a tour party. Mr. Cavadini is on an extended lunch break with the shift supervisor. Besides, Mr. Pangborn doesn’t like to bother him, and who am I to argue?
He leans back against the booth’s door, a little breathless, and crosses one ankle over the other, revealing a pair of white-and-black striped socks. I sort of love them. And I sort of love Pangborn, even though his eyes are slits and he reeks of weed. Grace says she caught him vaping up in his car before work yesterday. He’s got to be in his seventies. Let the guy have a few bad habits, I say.
“Next month will be my fortieth anniversary working at the museum,” he muses in a soft voice. He’s got a gentle way about him that makes you want to listen to what he has to say. I’m not sure why Porter gets so frustrated with him. He’s just an old man. Have a heart.
Grace’s lips pucker. “That’s nuts.”
“You must like it if you’ve stuck with it this long,” I say.
“Eh, I like talking to people. And I don’t have any college or training, so what else am I supposed to do? This is all I know.” He scratches his head and his crazy white hair sticks up in different directions. “They tried to make me retire about ten years ago, but I didn’t really have anything to do at home. I never married. I’ve got a dog, Daisy, but she gets tired of seeing me all day. So even though they didn’t pay me, I just kept showing up for work.”
“What?” Grace says, unable to hide her disbelief. “For how long?”
“Oh, about three months or so. Mr. Cavadini finally got sick of telling me to go home, so he officially rehired me and put me back on the schedule.” He smiles, big and wide, lifting his shoulders. “And here I stand. It hasn’t killed me yet. I think Porter should be in the cash-out room by now. Cover your ears, ladies. He’s not going to be happy.”
Grace knocks shoulders with me while Pangborn radios Porter. “Glad we’re finally scheduled together again.”
“Me too,” I say, genuinely meaning it. “Team Grailey, taking care of business.”
“Team Baice, dropping the hammer.”
We both laugh until Freddy peeps around the turnstiles again and Grace makes a hissing sound at him. He leaves us alone now. “Got plans this weekend?” she asks me.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“There’s a bonfire on Saturday after work. Party on the beach.”
I grip my till harder, thinking of Porter’s friend Davy. “Is this the one at the Bone Garden?”
“Yeah. You’ve heard about it?”
“Only in passing.”
“The core of it is a surfer crowd, but other people show up, too. They’re usually every Saturday night in the summer. Sometimes they’re boring, sometimes they’re fun, but I thought it might be a good place to meet people from Brightsea, since you’re new. I can introduce you.”
The evader in me cowers, readying an excuse to turn her down, but the weird thing is, I think I want to go. Especially with Grace. So I say, “Sure, why not?” And before I know it, I’m telling her where my dad lives, and we’re making plans for her to pick me up in her car. What do you know? I guess I’m a social butterfly. Must be all this fresh air and sunshine.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m feeling more hopeful about life in general after finding out my dad has a new girlfriend. A kickass cop girlfriend. “We’re just friends. Taking things slow,” he assured me on the ride home yesterday. That was all he offered, so that’s where we left it. As long as he’s happy and there’s no weirdness, I’m fine with it.
And speaking of fine, there’s the other more important thing buzzing around in my brain: bumping into Patrick at the Pancake Shack. Patrick, and only Patrick, I remind myself for the millionth time, who may or may not be Alex. But I decided last night that I’m going to muster up the gumption to go talk to him again. I’ve been daydreaming about it off and on for hours. Epic sigh.