Someday Jennifer

by Risto Pakarinen

  Dad clapped his hands and did some slow upper-body dance moves, his eyes closed as he swayed to the sounds of “You Can’t Hurry Love.” I was astonished to hear he had chosen the Phil Collins cover from the eighties, not the Supremes’ original.

  “I like this version,” Dad said.

  I laughed. “Is that what you wanted to show me? That you’ve developed better taste in music?”

  “Ha! No—this.”

  He pulled the hammer from his utility belt and then drew a few nails from his breast pocket. He got down on his knees and hammered a row of nails across the seam of the carpet, to stop it from bunching at the bottom of the slope, as it had been doing since we first arrived at the Atlas. He then stood up, gave a little wiggle to check it was holding firm, and put the hammer back into his utility belt. I watched all this with quiet intrigue.

  “GREAT SCOTT!” Dad shouted. “We’re done!”

  There he was, a crazy-haired man in white overalls, doing a little dance and pumping his fists in the air.

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  “That’s it. That was the last thing. That bit of carpet—it’s been annoying me since we got here. I mean, maybe you need to stock the fridge or something, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re done,” he said.

  “But what about ‘Great Scott’?”

  “What? Who?”

  “You just yelled ‘Great Scott!’”

  “I did no such thing,” Dad said with a laugh. “I don’t think I said anything.”

  It occurred to me that maybe I had been exposed to paint fumes too often over the last few weeks. But I knew what I had seen. I had seen Doc Brown.

  I had seen Doc Brown! I didn’t need Christopher Lloyd; I had my very own Doc.

  “Anyway, I’m proud of you, you know.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “I’ve always said, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

  I said nothing.

  I was speechless.

  I KNEW THAT putting up the sign was like turning on the Bat-Signal. It would tell the whole town that the Atlas was back, and because I wanted to savour the moment, I decided to wait until Tuesday—the day before the screening—before I let it shine. I closed the side door, and Dad and I drove home.

  In the darkness of the car, with Sade playing in the background, Dad and I chatted about the little things we still had to do.

  “Rexi is important, because without a film, there’s nothing,” I said.

  “Right, but he’ll be there.”

  “Are you sure? He seems a bit unreliable.”

  “Rexi is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call him unreliable.”

  Dad must have phoned ahead and told Mom the news, because when we got home she had a surprise waiting. My favourite food for dinner—meatballs with smashed potatoes. And once I’d eaten that, Dad got up from the table and walked off into the study. He came back with something behind his back.

  “You can tell me if you don’t like it.”

  “He’ll love it, dear, of course he will.”

  “Nonsense. Peter, this is your project, and I for one know how important these things are. Perhaps the most important thing of all, because if nobody comes there’s no point even having the reels and the seats and the candy.”

  “Just show him!”

  “Yeah, Dad, just show me.”

  “Okay.”

  He pulled from behind his back an A3 sketchpad. He set it in front of me and opened it up.

  There, in faint pencil sketch, with sharp ink lines over top, was a rendering of Marty McFly, looking at his watch and holding open the gull-wing door of the DeLorean DMC-12. The picture was drawn in Dad’s own style, and looked like something from a DC Comics graphic novel. Emblazoned across the top, in lettering true to the original film poster, was He’s BACK! Under the image, in smaller font, Dad had neatly written out the date and time of the showing. At the Atlas Movie House, it said along the bottom. For a limited time only.

  I wasn’t sure what to say.

  I didn’t know how to . . .

  Dad had . . .

  “I copied the poster, you know, from the internet.”

  “Do you like it?” asked Mom, but I couldn’t reply because I couldn’t speak.

  “Hey,” she said. “Be careful you don’t drip tears on it!”

  She gripped my shoulder tightly, her other hand on Dad’s. By our family’s standards, it was pretty much a group hug.

  WHEN I’D BRUSHED my teeth, I went back downstairs. Dad was sitting in his TV chair, but the set was quiet; he was reading a sci-fi novel. Mom was in her chair, working on a crossword puzzle. Dean Martin or Bing Crosby or someone (I found it hard to tell them apart) was crooning softly in the background.

  “Dad?”

  “Mm?”

  “Can I ask you one more favour?”

  “Wow, you don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “Will you be my Doc Brown? I invited him—the actor—but I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

  “Is he the hero?”

  “Yes, very much so. Without him, there’s nothing.”

  “Then yes, I will.”

  “Fantastic. And I was thinking, maybe Tim could be Biff.”

  Mom looked up sharply. “Are they coming?”

  It wasn’t anxiety in her voice. It was hope.

  “I hope so, Mom. I think so. Maybe.”

  “And who can I be?” she asked.

  “Actually, I was hoping you’d run front-of-house. Selling tickets, you know? Only Dad’s given most of them away to his friends, so I’m not sure there’ll be much for you to do. But you can definitely dress up. You and Tina.”

  “That would be nice,” she said.

  BACK IN MY room, I took out my plan. I grabbed my BBB pencil.

  1. Get Atlas.

  2. Fix Atlas.

  4. 3. Open with a sneak preview of Back to the Future.

  3. 4. Invite Jennifer

  “You have cleared seventy-five percent of the adventure,” I said in my computer voice.

  So why did it feel like I still had so much to do?

  Chapter 38

  Manic Monday

  ON MONDAY MORNING, I got in the Beetle and drove to the library. Mom had phoned ahead and spoken to her former colleague, who smiled secretively and pointed me toward the photocopier. It was a huge white behemoth, with in-trays and out-trays and all the latest scanners and features.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know how . . .”

  She sighed and left her little book trolley parked at the end of a row, and then came over to help. She was a tall lady in her fifties, I guess. She wore lots of natural fibres and smelled nicely of mint. I stood back and twiddled my thumbs.

  “So, movie posters, right? How many?”

  “Is twenty okay?”

  “Are you sure?” she said severely.

  “Ten?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. How are you going to tell the whole town? I’ll do you fifty. But don’t tell anyone. Our budgets are being slashed left, right, and centre, and they make us use these cards so they can track who uses the machines the most. Who knew Big Brother cared about copier budgets?”

  She slid three different cards from her pocket and chose which one to use. “I think the town planning department can pay for these,” she added with a smirk.

  Ten minutes later she shoved the pile of posters into my arms and shooed me away, heading nonchalantly back to her book redistribution task.

  “Oh, Peter,” she called as I neared the exit. I turned. “Your mother said something about putting me down for a couple of tickets.”

  I grinned and left, stopping only to stick up my first poster on the library notice board. As I did so, I noticed that Dad had added a little something over the weekend. In the top corner, set in a bold star, were the words: Meet the superstar: DOC BROWN.

  I sighed. I couldn’t have that on the poster. What if people turned out to see him? What if they got angry that the Hollywood star wa
sn’t there?

  I thought of heading back into the library and telling the nice lady I’d dropped all my posters in a puddle and could I have some more please. And then colouring in the star so it just looked blank on the next batch of copies. But that was all a bit far-fetched. Besides, it wasn’t even raining.

  Surely nobody would notice.

  Next stop, the supermarket. I stocked up on juice, water, and soda. We didn’t have a soda machine, so we’d have to sell it out of bottles, by the cupful. I bought the biggest cups they had. We also didn’t have a booze licence, so I rolled the trolley past the beer section without a second glance. I figured if people wanted to bring booze, they would just sneak it in like people have always done at cinemas. I threw in candies of all shapes and sizes, filling the trolley with stuff. I knew I was being reckless with money, but I was so close to my goal that none of that mattered anymore. Besides, cinemas tend to charge about quadruple what shops charge for candy, so as long as people showed up, surely I would make my money back.

  I put a couple of posters up around the parking lot at the supermarket and then, with the Beetle fully loaded, I headed back to the Atlas to unload.

  On my way there, I stopped at Kim’s to leave a poster for him to put in his window.

  “Can’t I have two? One for the window, one for my memorabilia collection? This is history in the making, dude.”

  The market square was half deserted. Some of the vendors had already left, and the ones still there had started to pack up their tents and caravans. On the same side where the taxi drivers wait was a big notice board, and I taped up two posters there.

  I was on my knees with a roll of tape in my mouth, about to stick another poster on an electric utility box, when I felt somebody tap my shoulder. I struggled to get up, but before I could see the person behind me, I recognized her voice.

  “Drop everything! You’re in violation of the town code, paragraph forty-one, subsection twelve.”

  It was Sara, in her police uniform again. I took the poster down with the hand that was behind my back, away from her.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Not many days left now. I saw the story in the paper. No mention of you being a time traveller, though.”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to elaborate.

  “Let me see the poster,” she said, and grabbed the one in my hand. I didn’t struggle, given that she was a cop.

  “This is awesome. Did you draw this?”

  “Dad did.”

  “But you never told me Doc Brown is going to be here. That’s huge! It’s probably the biggest thing that’s ever happened to Kumpunotko,” she said. “A real Hollywood star—are you kidding me? You might even get the network channels here!”

  I swallowed. Sara noticed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “Doc Brown is Dad.”

  “What?”

  “The Doc Brown that’s going to be at the premiere is my father. Not Christopher Lloyd, the award-winning actor. I wrote to him, but he never responded. It’s Dad. My dad,” I said, with enough panic in my voice for Sara to pick up on. “Let’s hope the networks won’t be here.”

  “I’d kind of like to see that: your father giving interviews, signing things, waving to crowds, kissing babies.”

  Sara paused.

  “Look, the poster doesn’t say that the actor, what’s his name—”

  “Christopher Lloyd.”

  “—Christopher Lloyd is going to be there, just that Doc Brown will be. And he will!”

  “But if the networks come . . .”

  “So what?”

  “Then when he’s not here, they’ll go away again.”

  “So? You’re not doing this for the fame, are you? It’s not even about the money, as far as I can tell, is it?” Sara looked me straight in the eye.

  I cleared my throat and started to fiddle with my backpack, hoping for a change of subject. Sara gave me one.

  “Listen,” she said. “I just came from the Atlas because I was looking for you. I wanted to give you this, as a good luck charm—or something.”

  She handed a small red box to me. It had a golden ribbon around it. I opened it quickly.

  “I wasn’t sure if you already had it but . . .”

  “I don’t! I actually never owned this,” I replied and took the Back to the Future soundtrack cassette from the box.

  “Something for you to listen to on your headphones while you ride . . . although as a police officer I should warn you that riding on the road without due care and attention—”

  “I love it! It’s perfect, thank you.”

  “So . . . friends?”

  “Of course,” I said, stunned by her question.

  “I know I said some harsh things over at your place, and that was probably stupid. Sorry, but it’s part of the training; I don’t really do small talk and tend to just get to the point. So I’m sorry for calling you crazy,” Sara said. “Even if you clearly are,” she added with a grin.

  “No harm done. I know you mean well. And I probably do need to be told. I appreciate it, I really do.”

  “Good luck with the show. Truly. I hope you get whatever it is you want. And, well, I’ve enjoyed bumping into you around town . . .”

  “We can still . . .” I started. “Wait, you’re not coming?”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a great idea.”

  “You have to be there. I’ll give you two tickets, on me. Please come?”

  She smiled.

  “Well, if you insist . . .”

  “I do.”

  “Great! See you there.”

  I waited until Sara’s cruiser had disappeared around the corner before I taped the poster on the box. I was lightning quick with them, taping one on La Favorita’s door, two outside the bookstore, several on the various bus stops around the town centre, and a few on the posts holding up traffic signs. The man at the appliance store wasn’t interested, he told me, in promoting other interests, but the lady at the coffee shop was happy to put one up, as long as I bought a hot chocolate. I put two up in the movie poster frames outside the Atlas, on either side of the door. I unloaded the drinks and candies into the foyer, and spent a while writing up a price list on a large sheet of paper.

  No Rexi.

  I drove around Kumpunotko, stopping here and there and wandering around neighbourhoods, putting posters up on community notice boards and bus stops. I went and knocked on Rexi’s door. No answer. I went around the pubs of Kumpunotko, and though the staff were all happy to put up my posters, none of them had seen Rexi.

  As it got dark, and I ran out of posters, I headed home.

  I lay in bed that night, pondering the imponderable: if Rexi didn’t show up to teach me how to work the projector, would I compromise everything and use a digital projector, laptop, DVD?

  It was an agonizing decision, but I knew the answer.

  The screening must go ahead.

  THE NEXT MORNING I woke up early, too early, and felt like I hadn’t slept. I tried to get back to sleep, chasing the slumber deep under the pillows, but I couldn’t find it.

  I showered and dressed and left the house quietly, Dad’s snores punctuated by the tick of the kitchen clock.

  There was barely anyone about as I rode along the cycle path, through the town, and up the hill to the hospital. I barely had to change down a gear now, and I made it to the hospital parking lot with my heart thumping but not trying to explode out of my chest. I stood on the wall and looked down at my sleepy little town, delivery vans chugging about, the earliest commuters heading out of town for jobs elsewhere.

  I got back on my bike and rolled down the hill.

  First job: investigate digital projectors.

  I walked my bike around the corner to the Atlas’s side door. A man was standing there, leaning against a car, his hands in his pockets, bald head shining in the sun.

  “Okay, kid, let’s do it.”


  “Let’s,” was all I could say. I opened the door and followed Rexi up to the projection booth.

  Chapter 39

  Everybody Wants to Rule the World

  REXI WALKED IN with an air of authority, as if he owned the place. He took off his coat and hung it on a chair, and then rolled up his sleeves. He closed his eyes, spread his arms, and took a deep breath.

  “Can you feel it in the air?” he asked me, his eyes still shut.

  “What’s that . . . sir?”

  “Movie magic,” he said, and exhaled. “Movie magic.”

  Rexi opened his eyes and clapped his hands. “Okay, enough of that claptrap! Let’s get to work.”

  He looked at the film reels on the round table and then walked around the projector, flicking switches and opening compartments I hadn’t noticed and then slamming them shut. He made “doo-be-doo” sounds, and snapped his fingers, and then, with a sniffle, turned to talk to me.

  “I love this machine,” he said, and slapped the projector. “I don’t care what anyone says about the printing press, the telephone, the modem; this machine changed the world.”

  I tried to look suitably impressed.

  “Anyway, I have good news and bad news,” Rexi said. “Which one do you want to hear first?”

  “The . . . the bad news,” I stuttered.

  “Okay. The bad news is that you’ll never be able to put these reels together.”

  I sighed and buried my face in my hands.

  “And the good news?” Rexi said quietly. “The good news is that you’ve come to the right guy. Well, that and the fact that some genius decided to invest in a platter system, even though this wasn’t a multiplex.” The volume of his voice went up with every word toward the end of the sentence.

  “Would that genius have been you?”

  He waved away my praise.

  “And what exactly is a platter?”

  “That large pizza plate over there,” he said, and gestured loosely toward what I’d thought was a large table.

  “See, back in the old days, I had to be here in the projection booth and make the reel and projector changes, and there was no margin for error. If I missed a change, the audience would have been left gawping at a white screen.”