Seems like a simple enough strategy, except you’d be amazed at how many times I’d left the theater with orange stains on my jeans before I started dating him.
The last life-lesson I learned from him was to never date a backstabbing selfish bastard.
I can hold it in.
The theater is dark, and the please-turn-off-your-cell-phone-because-it’ll-really-piss-everyone-off-if-it-rings announcement flashes across the screen.
How the hell am I going to find them in here?
I walk down the aisle and peer. I feel like I’m looking for Waldo.
No.
No.
No.
I arrive at the screen amid a chorus of “Hey, sit down!” and “Get out of the way!” and “What’s the matter with you?” God forbid they should miss the ads. So where are Sam and Marc? They’re probably sitting in the back. I must have passed them.
They’re not in the back. I turn around again, and make my way back toward the screen.
Sam waves from the front row. “Sorry, I forgot my glasses,” she whispers. “Hope you don’t mind.”
I wonder if it’s rude to sit by myself, in the middle of the theater like a normal person. What if a potential date is in the theater and sees me sitting by myself and concludes that I’m a complete misanthrope who has to go to the movies alone on a Saturday night to try to pick up men, or maybe not even to pick up men but just to get out of a cat-infested apartment for a few measly hours? What then?
I sit down next to her in the front row. I tilt my head eighty degrees and try to get comfortable.
This isn’t going to work.
“I’m going to find a seat in the middle,” I whisper to Sam. I’m a big girl. I can sit at a movie by myself. I scout for an empty seat. I spot one next to a blond girl about ten rows back and push my way through.
“Hey, sit down!”
“Get out of the way!”
“What’s the matter with you?”
I slide into a seat, trying to make room for my industrialsize purchases.
Jeremy and I always sat on the aisle. Correction: Jeremy always sat on the aisle. He liked the leg room. Of course he never asked if I wanted to sit in the aisle seat. I always sat near the weirdo who left his arm on the seat rest. I was always the one who had to feel the weirdo’s arm hair brush against my skin. Let me ask you this: if there’s only one armrest between the two of you, why does the other person always assume it’s his right to take it?
Oh, well. At least the girl next to me is giving me a lot of space. She’s snuggling with her date. I can’t see his face, but she’s all blond and shiny and I’m really trying not to hate her.
I have to pee. I really should have gone before the movie started.
Wow. Pierce Brosnan is really hot. Natalie says he’s too pretty, too good-looking. What does this mean exactly, too good-looking? She says she could never go out with a guy prettier than she is. She says she hates going to a restaurant and everyone looks at the guy instead of her. Such problems I should have.
Look at that bod. Maybe I should suggest we do spy books at work.
I really have to go to the bathroom.
I try crossing and uncrossing my legs. I’m not sure why, but I drink more of my Orange Crush.
Maybe I can convince the marketing people at work to put Pierce on the cover of our new spy books. Of course, I won’t be invited to the shoot, but Pierce will hate the fake-blond bimbo chosen to model with him. I, of course, will happen to be passing through the room, and he’ll ask “What about her?” in his husky British voice. “Her?” Helen will say (although she is only an associate editor, not a senior editor, so she won’t have a fat chance of being there, either). “But she’s just a copy editor!” The whole scene will unfold with perfect timing and I’ll say, “Me?” And he’ll nod enthusiastically, beckoning me with his wonderfully strong hands, and I’ll join his pose. And while the wind machine blows my hair, he’ll turn to me and say, “Will you be my next Bond girl?” And I’ll play a DNA expert who runs around the hospital in a tight white tank top and silver stretch pants.
Oh, God. It’s a waterfall scene. This isn’t going to work.
I have to use the washroom. Now.
“Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me…”
“Hey, sit down!”
“Get out of the way!”
“What’s the matter with you?”
I sprint to the ladies’ room and run into an empty stall. I carefully place a paper toilet cover on the seat. I’m not Sam, but I’m not crazy.
And then just when I’m minding my own business…swoosh.
What is wrong with these automatic bathrooms? Why do they flush while I’m still using them? How can I be a Bond girl when I can’t even figure out how to work a toilet?
I sneak back into the theater (“Hey, sit down!” “Get out of the way!” “What’s the matter with you?”) and despite the temptation, I don’t ask the blonde what I missed. After all, she might think I want to be friends with her, which probably wouldn’t be so bad since she probably can get any guy she wants and therefore has great castoffs. Forget that; I don’t want her to think I’m friendless as well as annoying—or, God forbid, desperate.
When the credits start to role, I leap up to make a quick exit to beat the refill line. Granted, I barely even ate a quarter of it. But I paid for a refill and dammit, I’m going to get it.
“Jackie?”
I turn to the seat next to me and see Andrew Mackenzie’s lightly freckled arm curled around the blonde.
I am never sitting by myself at a movie ever again.
The blonde is checking me out, most likely thinking, So this is what a person who has no friends looks like.
“Hey! Andrew. I know it looks like I’m here by myself, but I’m not. I’m here with friends. Really. But they’re sitting in the front row, and it was hurting my neck…” They both stare at me, expressionless.
Andrew is going to tell Jeremy I went to see a movie by myself on a Saturday night. I might as well just throw myself in front of Marc’s two-door Civic.
“How are you?” he asks. Smiling, he motions for me to exit into the aisle.
“No, really. I’m not here by myself.” I’m not exiting anything until Marc and Sam walk by so I can prove that I am not here alone.
“Jackie, this is Jessica. Jessica, Jackie.” I shake her perfectly French-manicured hand. She looks like a Jessica. She looks like how I used to picture Jessica Wakefield, the Sweet Valley Twin.
Who
