The Last Days of Video (27 page)

“They're beautiful. You're beautiful.”

“Um,” she said, and she couldn't help cringing a little. Thankfully he was now staring off into space and not at her. “You remember we used to talk about getting tattoos?”

“Beautiful,” he repeated. “That one on your arm is from
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
, right?”

“That's right.”

“Any guys in your life?”

“Um . . . occasionally? Nothing that stuck.”

Match looked toward the ceiling. “I think it sounds like a great life. Working in a video store. Ordering movies, watching movies, talking about movies. You get the best part of the movie business: the movies themselves.”

She didn't know what to say, and wishing she could direct the conversation in some other direction, she needled him with a playful elbow. “Shut the fuck up. It is
not
a great life.”

“I'm honestly envious.”

“All we do is sit around and bitch that
Parker Louis Can't Lose
isn't on DVD.”

He sighed. “Sounds like heaven.”

All she could think to say was: “But Match, you're famous.”

He chuckled amiably. “I don't want to be famous. I really don't.”

Again he stared off into space, and she wondered if he was seeing Hitchcock—she looked toward the center of the room, half-expecting to find the fat director sitting on the bed.

“Match?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You asked for my help.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of help do you need?”

“Oh. I don't know.”

“You're seeing things,” she said.

“That's true,” he said. “I am seeing things.”

“I'm your friend,” she said. “I want to be here for you, for whatever you need. It's . . . sort of what I do for my friends.”

Match looked at her, nodded. “That would be nice.”

“Is there any way you can, I don't know, take a break? A short vacation?”

“No way,” he said. “With only twelve days left, I can't leave now. Just a bit more shooting. Then we'll be done.”

She nodded. Twelve days. Could they make it twelve days?

“Alaura?”

“Yes?”

“I've thought about you a lot over the years. You're very pretty.”

“I . . .” she stammered. “Match, I just got out of a relationship. I'm not really looking for anything, you know, new?”

Match flinched. His eyes seemed to cloud over.

“Nothing romantic,” she said quickly. “I'm sorry. I hope that's okay.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, that's fine. But could you, I don't know, stay here with me?”

“Here? In your hotel room?”

“There's a roll-out bed in the closet. I could sleep on that.”

She looked toward the closet door, which was huge, nine feet tall, like she was visiting in a giant's lair.

“I really do need your help,” he said.

She smiled. He was looking at her now. But his forehead was sweating again. He scratched at his beard with his fingernails.

“Of course I can stay,” she said. “Whatever you need.”

Then she remembered. If she didn't say something now . . . this was as good a time as any to bring it up . . .

“Match, there's something else. I wish I didn't have to.”

“What?”

“I hate to ask. I really hate to bring this up.”

“You can ask me anything, Alaura. You're helping me, after all.”

“Okay,” she said, and she took a centering breath. “The thing is—my store needs money. Star Video, where I work. The video store industry is really struggling, as I'm sure you know. We really need to raise some money, or we might go out of business.”

Match frowned, confused, like she'd just spoken in Chinese.

“No,” she said quickly, realizing it hadn't come out the right way. “I don't want money
from you.
I'm not asking
you
for money. I just thought, I don't know, with you in town. With Tabitha Gray and Alex Walden and Celia Watson, I don't know, maybe we could organize some sort of . . . fundraiser? A benefit? For Appleton's struggling independent video store.”

She buried her head in her hands. She couldn't believe what she was saying—that she'd found herself in this insane situation, that her old friend was on the brink of madness, perhaps
over
the brink, that a fundraiser was her big plan to save Star Video, and that she had handled it all wrong.

Then she felt his shoulder press against hers.

“I have an idea,” he whispered.

Y TU TABITHA TAMBIÉN

Four days later, Waring
authorized the purchase of a small but theater-worthy popcorn machine for Star Video. It was a dingy old monster, and it made a ton of racket—essentially, it was the concession stand equivalent of Waring's Dodge. Jeff had found the thing on Craigslist being sold by an old movie theater, three towns over, that was going out of business. Jeff had driven in the Dodge to pick it up that morning, and he'd paid for it with funds raised from selling some of Waring's least-damaged posters on eBay, including the autographed
Apocalypse Now
poster for four hundred dollars.

Now the red, yellow, and faded-chrome device was sitting on Star Video's counter next to the Cashier du Cinéma. It hissed and burbled, and white starbursts of popcorn tumbled out of the metal pot suspended at its center. To Waring, the popcorn smelled incredible. Like his youth—like every movie theater he'd ever gone to with his mother, who had always, without exception, bought them a large popcorn to share.

Waring looked at Jeff and Alaura, who were both watching the machine and smiling like it was the Narnia wardrobe.

Highlander
played on the store's central television.

“This movie reminds me,” Waring said in their general direction.

“Huh?” Jeff said.

“I'll go ahead and say it: I don't believe in global warming.”

Alaura rolled her eyes immediately, but Jeff frowned in confusion. Waring suspected that the pimpled peon had been raised by his conservative mountain family to be skeptical of global warming, but that now, as the recipient of two months of a liberal Ape U education, he had converted to a staunch believer.

“No way!” Jeff said, confirming Waring's suspicion.

“Don't take the bait, Jeff,” Alaura said after a brief chuckle. “He's just yanking your chain.”

“Nope,” Waring said. “Doesn't seem much hotter.”

“But levels of carbon in the atmosphere?” Jeff said. “And heat waves? And ice caps melting?”

“Just a hoax, I think,” Waring persisted. “Last winter was maybe the coldest for a hundred years. How do you explain that?”

Jeff could not explain, as Waring had anticipated, but the kid eventually stammered that major weather fluctuations might be triggered by global warming.

“So now
cold
temperatures are caused by global
warm
ing?” Waring countered. “That's loco, homeslice.”

“You're obviously in a better mood,” Alaura said to Waring, her lips now protruding in that sexy, annoyed pout of hers, but with a hint of a smile. “What got you onto this?”

“You mean besides my general distaste for ideological Hollywood fads spurred by flavor-of-the-month liberal documentaries?
Highlander II. Highlander II
got me thinking about it.”

“
Highlander II
?” Jeff said, bewildered.

“It's an awful movie, obviously. Truly awful. I caught it on Spike the other day. There's a scene where the Highlander, and I've never understood why they cast Christopher Lambert, who sounds about as Scottish as Kevin Costner sounds British in
Prince of Thieves
, anyway, there's a scene where the Highlander uses the great power
thing he won in the first
Highlander
movie,” and Waring pointed to the television, “
this
movie, to save the world from the destruction of the ozone layer. The sky is red, and people are all but bursting into flames in the street. Just got me thinking.”

Alaura was ignoring him, and she started unwrapping the classic red and white popcorn tubs that they'd be using to hand out free samples to customers.

“But the ozone layer was a real thing,” Jeff said to Waring. “Wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Waring said, smiling at his flustered employee. “Remember, I was cognizant while all that ozone business was going on. You were a wee baby, Alaura. And you, random extra from the town in
Footloose
, you weren't even sperm.”

“But what does that prove about global warming?” Jeff said, his voice cracking slightly—the kid seemed totally at a loss, which of course had been Waring's intention.

The front door of Star Video opened, and Match Anderson entered.

The man gazed wide-eyed at the store and stroked his beard, Waring thought, like a dazed wizard.

“Match!” Alaura said, rising from her stool.

Match's eyes widened, Waring saw, as if he was surprised to see her. “Oh, hello there!” the young director said.

Waring watched Alaura sprint around the counter. She was smiling like an idiot. She hugged Match, kissed his cheek. Waring sneered. He didn't like the cut of this guy's jib, not one bit. Match's clothes looked like he'd spent last night in a bus station. His beard grew unevenly on his drooping face. He was not, in general, nearly attractive enough for Alaura, and on top of that, an offensive arrogance oozed off of him. If his nose were raised any higher, he'd fall backward.

Alaura had supposedly been sleeping in Match's hotel room for the past few days, though she'd been pretty tightlipped about the whole thing. Like usual when it came to men.

“I came here to see you,” Match said after a long pause, looking around at Star Video's high ceilings and tall shelves and nodding authoritatively. “This place is really great.”

“Thanks!” Alaura said.

“Smells good, too. It's cool you have a popcorn machine.”

Alaura grinned at Waring, who forced a smile back at her like a haunted mirror.

“Are you done filming for today?” Alaura asked.

“No. Waiting for magic hour. A few more shots on campus. Tabitha running across the quad. Jimmy Stewart running after her.”

Alaura looked at him quizzically. “Jimmy Stewart?”

“No,” Match said, shaking his head and laughing at himself. “I mean Alex Walden. Alex Walden running after her.”

Waring's director's chair groaned as he stood to escape to
The African Queen.

“Oh!” Alaura said. “Let me introduce you to the guys. Waring!”

So Waring submitted to introductions and hand shaking, as he knew he should. He knew he had to play nice, just like he was reluctantly polite at the Open Eye Café in order to secure his daily red eye.

“I'm supposed to thank you,” Waring said, remembering that Alaura had instructed him to thank Match profusely at his first opportunity. “What you're doing for Star Video. I appreciate it.”

“Doing?”

“The celebrity auction?”

Match swiped his index finger through the air between them, scrunching his face and laughing. “Dumb Match! Of course, the celebrity auction!”

Waring studied the bizarre bearded man, who had directed one excellent independent film and two awful Hollywood abortions. Match seemed, to Waring, brimming with that numb-brained smugness he'd always expected of filmmakers. Or was it worse than that? Match's mouth hung open as he gazed again around the
store, now totally disengaged from the conversation his entrance had initiated. Glossy bloodshot eyes. And from the expression on his face, it almost appeared that Match hadn't at all remembered that only four days earlier,
he
had suggested the celebrity auction to Alaura as a fundraiser for Star Video—auctioning off dinner with his lead actors, as well as discarded props from the set of
The Buried Mirror.

“Anyway,” Waring said, straining behind his mandatory smile, “like I was saying, please thank the actors for us. We've set up a display, right over there, to feature all of their films. And your films, of course. We'll also be auctioning a bunch of these old posters I have. And of course, mmm, it's great that, you know, the studio is willing to rent out the Siena for the event and to match the bids—”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Match interrupted. “Good PR for everyone. We've had issues with the local government, which has ticked off the studio. Anyway, I'm hoping that a few hours of the actors' time will buy us some community support.”

“Mm,” Waring said, nodding and still smiling furiously.

“Actually, I just remembered,” Match said, now looking at Alaura. “I came here for two reasons. First, do you have aliens?”