quickly up the aisle. We pass behind the mom who’s bitching out some poor guy who only knows how to scoop cold stale popcorn into thin cardboard boxes.
We escape into the cool night air. They’re laughing. I’m not.
Holly says, “That was mean.”
“Then stop giggling,” Declan says.
“I’m not giggling. And I didn’t say it wasn’t funny. I guess I’m a bad person.”
“Not as bad as Mel!” He holds his arms up to protect Holly from me. “I think we need to call an exorcist!” He drops his arms and laughs. “Man, what was that in there? I can’t even get you to raise your hand in class when you know the right answer!”
“Yeah,” Holly says, looking sideways at me. “Is this what you’re like when you’re bored and we’ve just never seen you this bored before?”
“The movie didn’t bore me.” I try to sound more casual than I feel. “It offended me.”
“It’s just a fantasy,” Holly says.
“She didn’t love him,” I say. “Being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back is a tragedy. A fantasy is having someone understand the real you and love you anyway.”
“Yeah,” Declan says. “And having someone be exactly what you want every single moment is a perverse fantasy … like dating your English butler.”
Holly thinks about this until Declan says, “Forget it, Holly. Your life isn’t a movie.”
She sighs. “Sure isn’t.” Then she stops his reply with a quick kiss. “Okay,” Holly says to me. “I didn’t know you had it in you, but maybe you saved lives in there. A much-needed wake-up call.”
“Maybe,” I say, starting to come down from the adrenaline of my outburst, getting my head back, and feeling the first pangs of regret. “But it’s not nice to go to someone else’s church and make fun of them. I knew the movie would be like that. They didn’t force me to come.”
Declan says to Holly, “I guess it’s our fault, then.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Holly says firmly. “Movie Roulette. Whatever starts next, no exceptions.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Except we made that rule.”
“You made it,” Declan says to Holly. “It’s your fault.”
“Fine,” she says. “Want me to go back and apologize, or drive us to get frozen yogurt?”
“I don’t feel like yogurt,” I say, hoping to bail out early. Even on normal days I can only socialize for so long without recharging. Although that wasn’t always true. I never needed to recharge when I was with Zumi.
“Something else, then?” Holly asks. “I’m not going home till midnight no matter what. There’s no way I’m going back before curfew just to get stuck between Angie and Vicki’s never-ending argument.”
Declan says, “You don’t know how good you’ve got it. I wish I had siblings to reduce my time under the microscope and my parents’ questions.”
“I can’t remember the last time someone at home asked me a meaningful question,” Holly says. “With sisters who’ve been fighting since before I was born, I’m ignored like dining-room furniture.”
“I could use some ignored time,” Declan says. “Apparently I’m an only child on purpose. My mom says it’s because they couldn’t improve on perfection. My dad says I was a terrible mistake they didn’t want to repeat. What about you, Mel? Why didn’t your parents have any other kids?”
The question catches me off guard. I hope I don’t look startled.
“I don’t know,” I manage to say. “It’s not a conversation we’ve ever had.”
* * *
I ask Holly to drop me off at work so I can check on something, which is true. They know it’s a 24/7 kind of place, and not a long walk from my house, so they aren’t surprised.
Standing outside the Silver Sands makes me think of Grandma Cece. I wonder if Holly invited me out tonight to make up for what Declan said yesterday about stealing cancer brownies. Grandma Cece died around the time I met them. I only mentioned it to Holly once but her superpower must be remembering stuff.
Inside the Silver Sands, most of the residents are in their rooms. I walk down the hall to Room 108. The crack under the door is glowing. I knock lightly. Ms. Li said she wasn’t hard of hearing.
Her muffled voice says, “Hello?”
“It’s Mel,” I whisper. “Just checking on you.”
Shuffling footsteps. The door unlocks and opens. Ms. Li wears a floor-length red-and-black floral housecoat.
“Sorry to bother you this late. I wanted to see how you’re doing. Need anything?”
“Please come in.”
A game of solitaire is laid out on her otherwise bare desk. The room is decked out with her own furniture but the open cardboard boxes scattered around are still filled with all sorts of other stuff. New residents often take a while to unpack. Dr. Jordan told me that even those who are glad to be moving in don’t rush because they realize it’s possibly the last time they’ll ever do it.
“Not tired?” I say. “Me neither. You like solitaire?”
“I like gin rummy better.”
I smile.
She doesn’t, but her eyes crinkle at the corners.
After no more than ten minutes of playing, three hands at most—and she wins them all—I say something about how long we’ve gone without rain.
Ms. Li flaps her hands, face puckering like she’d bitten a moldy grape. “I’m too old to waste time talking about things we both know! Tell me who’s who and what’s what around here.”
And so it goes. Hours later it’s clear she didn’t just want some orientation. She really has no patience for small talk. Nothing we discuss is trivial, and somehow, around two in the morning, when she finally starts nodding off and I say good night, I head for home fully recharged despite having had no time to myself. It’s something I haven’t felt in over a year.
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