It Only Happens in the Movies

by Holly Bourne

  “I told you.” LouLou grinned under her new blue hair. “We need more fecking lesbians.”

  Now that our cardboard cut-outs were individually constructed, we had to attach them all to the stand. It was a huge faff, the set was a full-on 3D grand-scale display. We paused for a while to swear and bitch at each other, shouting “No no no, Iron Man’s foot goes HERE” and “Ouch, you just poked me in the eye with Captain America’s finger”. When we were finally done, we stepped back and admired our work. Apart from a slightly saggy Iron Man from where Harry had leaned on it, it looked okay.

  “Thanks, guys,” LouLou said. “If we weren’t already sold out, we would be if they saw this. Now, we just have to spend every evening stopping crazed fans from nicking it. Or making the Scarlett figure do nasty things in photographs.”

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  She nodded grimly. “Seriously. Last year Ma found actual ejaculate on the back of a Princess Leia cut-out. She took three days off work to recover. Ma! Taking three days off work. Speaking of which, you two still okay to lock up tonight? I have to go meet Her Highness this evening to ‘explain why there is a discrepancy in my use of time rotas’.”

  Harry and I nodded. “We’re fine,” he said. “This spunkathon isn’t out for another two days, and most people have seen The King and Me now.”

  “Thanks, thanks.” LouLou retreated back into the office, swearing under her breath.

  Harry and I looked at each other for a moment – me trying to keep my blushing under control as I kept getting unwelcome flashes of us kissing in the rain.

  “I guess we’d better make some guacamole,” I said and we both walked to the kitchen.

  “So, what other kisses have done well?” Harry picked up the conversation where we’d left off as we became a two-man factory line of avocado mashing. We’d worked together so much over the last few weeks we didn’t need to communicate when it came to the making of guacamole. He would half them, I would squish them. Half, squish, half, squash. Our hands touching every time he passed me one, and him not making comments any more like, “Audrey, I know you can’t keep your hands off me, but using avocados as your wingman is a little bit weird.”

  So now, of course, I missed it.

  “Grand gesture kisses. Ones where they hire out a baseball field, or stop a party to make a huge speech or something. Essentially kisses where there is applause from random members of the public.”

  “Eww.” Harry pulled a face. “That’s actually something I properly despise. How couples these days are all about publicizing their love, rather than enjoying their love? The way I see it” – Harry washed his hands under the tap and moved away to start on the cinnamon dust – “is the more you’re trying to prove to people you’re happy, the less happy you actually feel.”

  I watched his arms as he started shaking up the ingredients and my stomach did this annoying flip-flop.

  “Agreed!” I said. “Milo was like that a lot actually. He always made us pose for couple selfies.”

  “Because he’s an idiot,” Harry mumbled, before apologizing.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I think I’m starting to get over him.” The moment I said it out loud I knew it was true. It had taken half a year, but I didn’t hurt so much any more, I just felt…embarrassed. About the whole sex thing. But seeing him and Courtney flaunt themselves down the hall, holding hands, loudly practising their lines in the sixth-form common room so everyone could be reminded daily that they were the main parts…well, I felt cringe-y for them. Embarrassed that I’d behaved like that when I was Milo’s golden girl. And, though I was reluctant to admit it to myself, the stirring in my tummy I got when I thought about Harry may have had something to do with that. Is that how hearts work? Is love just a parasite that jumps bodies? It always exists, you always have to yearn for someone, and the only way to get over somebody is to obsess about someone else…? “And I’m glad I’m not in Guys and Dolls. It sounds like a nightmare. Our new Drama Head is a crazy perfectionist and is making everyone rehearse until gone eleven most nights. I actually have more free time working here.”

  “And time to do my movie.” Harry’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I watched some scenes back last night. The ones where you turn.” He put down his shaker and turned to really look at me. Our eyes properly boring into each other. “It’s…exceptional, Audrey. The most flawless take I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously… You’re exceptional.” He coughed. “You’re an exceptional actress,” he corrected himself, and I saw a hint of blush climb up the neck of his black shirt.

  His blush made me blush and, to cover myself, I turned around and started clanking glasses about, mumbling about how I needed to mix the special salt for the artisan flatbread.

  We worked in silence for a while. LouLou came in to taste-test the guacamole, which inevitably led to us needing to make another batch. The atmosphere felt chilled out. We knew our shift would be quiet. Once all the food was prepped, Harry went to go fiddle with the projector and I cleaned up. I thought about what he’d said, about love and publicizing it. Was he right? Do we project to others how we want our love to look to cover up the fact it doesn’t feel how we want it to feel? Do we cover our relationships with mirrors, so all people get are cutesy projections rather than the truth?

  Dad had uploaded yet another album of him and Jessie last night, entitled We got a babysitter. The album could’ve easily been made by two teenagers, apart from the deep wrinkles around Dad’s eyes. They’d posed for selfies around London – proving their existence, their love, with St Paul’s as a backdrop, Tower Bridge, the OXO Tower. We are in love here, and here and here and here… He’d taken Jessie up to the Sky Garden and taken so many photos of her. Some of her looking at the camera, some of her deliberately looking off into the blinking skyline of London. Pretending she didn’t know the camera was there, though I’m sure she would’ve helped negotiate filters and sharpening techniques and the best way to crop it. Instructing him to take it again if she didn’t like it, until they found one that reflected “Them” to “Us” perfectly. Each photo was diligently commented on, with Such a lucky man and How gorgeous? People robotically clicked like because they knew they were supposed to.

  But what they didn’t realize was there were so many depths to those photos they’d “liked”. Depths that you couldn’t see. Moments Dad had chosen not to share. Where was the photo of Mum, coming back from the lawyers last week, and sinking to the floor before she’d even closed the front door behind her? Where was the screengrab of the abusive message Dougie sent to Dad’s phone, accusing him of being every explicit swear word in the English language? And, most importantly, what about the other photos that existed? We had album after album stacked in the cupboard under our stairs. And Mum still tortured herself by poring over them and littering them around the living room. Dad and Mum in Rome, on the grand romantic holiday that resulted in their proposal. Photos of Mum dressed up for classy surprise dinners. Photos of the four of us, in different incarnations of ageing and growing up, beaming into the camera, the sun on our faces, reflecting the veneer of our perfect lives. Their perfect love.

  Until love, the parasite that it was, jumped from Mum onto Jessie.

  The door opened and an assortment of customers trickled in for the early showing. I had to come out from behind the till to take at least four photos of people with our new cardboard cut-outs. The films started, the foyer quietened, disrupted only by the noise seeping under the doors. Harry reappeared from the projection room and helped me clean up. LouLou said goodbye in a stressed flurry of putting her coat on and carrying a giant stack of important-looking papers.

  “If you get a call from me later tonight, it’s because I killed Ma and I need help burying the body.”

  “Torture her first!” Harry called after her. “Tie her up and show her spreadsheets that don’t quite balance.”

  The double doors swung shut behind LouLou and I seeped onto my chair. Harry groaned, clutching his neck a
s he lowered himself onto his stool like an old man. “I swear I’m too tall for that projection room.”

  “I still haven’t been allowed into it,” I said. “Is everything in it that breakable?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence floated down between us, and for some reason, it was awkward. Neither of us looked at each other. There was nothing left to mop up though, no jobs to do until Screen One finished throwing popcorn into their mouths, missing, and decorating the floor.

  “So, any more extra insights into what makes a great movie kiss?” Harry asked after a while. “What’s the conclusion you’ve come to?”

  I’d been trying to figure this out myself. “Well, actually, there was this one thing I noticed,” I admitted. Staring at the till rather than his eyes. “Some of the winners weren’t what I thought they would be. One of the most popular kisses was actually in this film called 10 Things I Hate About You. Lots of our older customers here voted for it. It wasn’t a huge movie, but I looked up the kiss on YouTube and, it’s just really simple! All he does is smile at the girl, tuck her hair back and then go in for the kiss. It’s the same with the other high-hitters. The common link was just how…normal the kisses were. And just how obvious it was that the characters NEEDED to kiss each other.” I made myself look up at him. He was staring right at me, his hair all standing up on end, looking like he was hanging onto every syllable. I felt myself go hot. “The ones where people kiss each other just because they can’t not…” I trailed off. Silence descended once more. My stomach twisted in on itself, my heart thud-thudding. I looked down at Harry’s hands and he was gripping the counter.

  There was something there. I felt it. I could feel it coming off him. Off me. Quickly, like a fucking idiot, my love parasite had jumped. Did I not learn? Was I the most stupid person in the world? But Harry wouldn’t do anything. Not now. Not since I’d screamed abuse at him and scared him off. Which was good, I told myself. He would just hurt me; I’d been warned about him enough.

  Our heads whipped up as we heard the loud music of closing credits from Screen One. The doors squeaked open, throngs of customers piled out. I sighed, stood, ripped off a bin bag.

  “Audrey?” Harry called after me, as I walked towards the screen.

  “Yep?” I stopped and turned around.

  “Umm…do you want to see the best kiss scene of all time? Later, I mean? I feel you need to see it. For your project.”

  I smiled and raised my eyebrows, in what I hoped was a jokey enough way to make it clear there wasn’t anything between us.

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “It’s good. Trust me.”

  I didn’t trust anyone any more…

  “Sure,” I said.

  It was half eleven by the time the last customers staggered out – leaving the normal trail of devastation in their wake. I was a popcorn-sucking machine by now. Able to clear an entire screen by myself in twenty minutes. But Harry pitched in, and we collected empty glasses and popcorn boxes, leaving the glassware in the kitchen for the cleaners who came in at six every morning to deep clean.

  We worked in silence, a weird atmosphere floating between us. I kept wanting to look at him but I fought the urge. Trying to tell myself that I didn’t like him, I just didn’t like the fact his attention had been withdrawn. Because that’s how power and lust worked. And Harry knew that. That’s why I’d been so warned off him. The one time I did look up, he wasn’t looking at me. Rather staring down the nozzle of the Hoover, checking it for a clog. I blushed and got on with stacking artisan pizza plates.

  By midnight, the place was free from kernels and discarded Coke bottles. We took out the rubbish bins together, and, once he’d slammed down the top of the skip, Harry broke our silence.

  “So, you ready for the best kissing scene of all time?”

  “That’s quite some statement to make, Harry.”

  “I told you to trust me.”

  I followed him back into the cinema, the cold night air making me take short breaths. Harry vaulted over the counter, his long legs only just clearing it, and took two bottles of Coke off the shelf. He added a tub of chocolate buttons and scooted them towards me. “How late can you stay tonight?”

  I prodded the chocolate packet, confused. “Mum’s usually asleep by now, so as late as I want I guess. Though I’ve got college tomorrow. How come?”

  Harry vaulted back over the counter, landing way too close to me. He grinned, all his teeth showing. Like a wolf…a sexy wolf… Stop it, Audrey. “The film’s quite long. But it’s worth it, and I’ll have you home by three.”

  I ran through the maths in my head – weighing it up. If I didn’t get home until three, I’d only get four hours sleep before I had to get up for college. Who was I kidding? There was no way I was saying no. For some unknown reason, I was ignoring every red flag I’d been given about Harry. For some stupid reason I was entertaining stupid thoughts. Thoughts like, Maybe he would be different with you. Thoughts like, Maybe you are just the girl who changes him. Thoughts that were everything I’d tried to teach myself weren’t true in real life. It was like someone had held me upside down and shaken me until all the wisdom had fallen out.

  “I’m suitably intrigued. But if you’re going to make me stay up that late, it better be good.”

  His smile revealed even more teeth, if that was possible.

  “It will be.”

  He turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, like the children who came here waaaay too excited for the new Pixar offering. I sighed, smiled and followed him. I saw only the swinging door leading to the projection room. I climbed the steep stairs with apprehension, guided upwards by the glow of a blue light. When I got to the top, I was…underwhelmed.

  “I expected it to look more magical than this,” I complained to Harry’s arse, which was sticking out of a box.

  He straightened up, his teeth glowing blue. “It’s not what you imagine, is it? Were you expecting rolls of films on reels?”

  I looked around what was essentially a cupboard, with two big humming boxes emitting the blue light. “Umm, yeah. I at least expected a flickering noise. Why are we here?”

  Harry was rooting around in a giant box in the corner. “I’m looking for a film reel. I know it’s here somewhere.” He actually climbed into the box, lifting his long spindly legs over the edge. “It must be here,” he muttered to himself. “We played it on Classic Sunday just the other week…hang on…” His head vanished into the box, and he re-emerged with a smile, holding a greyish box above his head like it was the FA Cup. “Got it! Right, let me set this up. I’ll meet you in Screen Two.”

  I crossed my arms. “What is it? What are we watching?”

  “The best film about cinema ever made.”

  “Quite a claim.”

  “Not a claim. The truth, Audrey. Now, I want it to be a surprise. I’ll meet you in Screen Two.”

  I climbed back downstairs, collected up our snacks and pushed through to the cinema. The screen was blank but the curtains had been wound back. I plonked myself in the middle and put my legs up on the seat in front. The lights went down and the screen kicked into life. No trailers, just the film certificate came up.

  “Cinema Paradiso?” I muttered. “What?”

  Harry scuttled down the aisle. He picked the seat right next to me, and grabbed the chocolate buttons out of my hand. I felt like if I hadn’t had a huge go at him, he would’ve made a joke here, like the age-old yawn-and-put-your-arm-around, while I batted him off. But he didn’t. He just chucked some chocolates into his mouth.

  “You ready?”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Prepare for an education, Winters.”

  I was about to ask more questions when the opening music started. So I settled back in my seat.

  The film was subtitled, which I didn’t like at first. I kept trying to look at both the movie AND the words at the bottom but found I couldn’t. I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable and sli
ghtly ashamed. I’d never watched a subtitled movie before, and Harry certainly didn’t comment on it. It was set in Italy, years and years ago and, from what I could make out, it was about this young boy who was obsessed with the local cinema and became friends with the old projectionist who worked there. Then, after ten minutes or so, something just clicked in my head and I found I didn’t notice I was reading subtitles.

  The movie was amazing. It was beautifully shot, and charming, and so, so funny. The cinema was how I imagined cinemas to be before I started working at Flicker. The projectionist worked with giant reels of old film, where the new releases were biked in, often being carried miles and miles. There was this hilarious scene at the beginning, where the local priest watched all the movies before the town was allowed to, and rang a bell whenever anyone in the film kissed each other. The projectionist had to mark up every single kiss and cut it out – censoring the town from even the most innocent of kisses.

  Soon even Harry melted away as the movie bewitched me. I watched in horror as the cinema couldn’t cope with modern life, how it stopped becoming the epicentre of the town’s community – as video games and technology peeled people away from each other like Cheestrings. I bit my lip as the little boy grew up and left the town and his beloved projectionist friend. And I wept when it cut to many years later, the young boy now a grown man, and he heard the projectionist had died. He returned to his old town and found the cinema in disrepair, about to be demolished. When he was given an untitled film reel, gifted to him in the projectionist’s will, I was close to crying. Harry leaned over, his breath tickling my ear, jolting me out of the film slightly.

  “Are you ready for it?” he asked. He gripped my hand, really quickly, before withdrawing and tucking it back into his pocket. My hand fizzed from where he’d touched me.

  I watched as the man picked up the reel of film and fed it into an old projector. Then he turned off the lights and watched what his old friend had left behind for him.