Matinees with Miriam

by Vicki Essex

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHANE COULDN’T BELIEVE his luck—if anyone could call it that. He’d expected a brief visit, maybe a door slammed in his face. But now he was sitting comfortably next to Miriam, eating microwave popcorn and watching her favorite movie.

  It was true he’d never seen the whole film beginning to end, though he was certainly familiar with the classic lines. But watching Humphrey Bogart on-screen wasn’t half as interesting as watching Miriam out of the corner of his eye.

  She was rapt. She must have watched the film hundreds of times—she lip-synched the lines, and yet still laughed at all the jokes. She had an odd laugh, a guffaw that came out in little chuffs, as if she were trying to suppress the real mirth bubbling up from beneath that dour facade.

  When the film got sappy, her eyes grew dewy. She chewed her nails as the Nazis invaded Paris, and Bogart and Ilsa had to part ways. He hadn’t thought Miriam the romantic type, but she actually sighed and put a hand over her heart. He didn’t know people really did that, but maybe that was the cynical New Yorker in him.

  As the film ended, with Bogart and the French police chief strolling off into the unknown, Miriam turned to him. “Well?”

  “Fantastic. Loved it.” It was a genuine sentiment. “Makes me wonder why Hollywood hasn’t done a remake.”

  “Sacrilege!” Her eyes burned. “You could never remake this movie. No one has Bogart’s gravitas or cool. And you can’t imitate the feeling of helplessness that 1942 inspired, with everyone steeped in World War II.”

  “What about a modern remake? Change Casablanca out for... I don’t know, Kabul...”

  Miriam shook her head and launched into even more reasons why it wouldn’t work. Shane was baiting her, of course. He knew she’d defend her position and the sanctity of Casablanca with her dying breath. He’d read enough of her essays to know she would. She’d probably break out singing “La Marseillaise” in a few minutes.

  She wasn’t sanctimonious about it, though—he bandied possibilities for modern-day dream casts, and she considered each one thoroughly, citing roles that were similar or pointing out why his chosen actors weren’t worthy of the vaunted roles.

  “You just don’t mess with the classics,” she said definitively, then paused thoughtfully. “Although, a remake might work if it were an international story. I’d like to see a version of Casablanca set in North Korea. Wouldn’t that be cool?” She grinned.

  “You really know your movies,” he said.

  She lifted a shoulder casually. “It’s what I do for a living. I write reviews and critical pieces for a bunch of blogs.”

  He knew that, too, but getting her to open up about her life was a huge accomplishment. “I would think you’d have to live closer to New York to attend all the advance media screenings.”

  “I’ll go for the big movies if my gas and accommodations get covered. I’ve even been invited to some Hollywood premieres. I went to the Infinite Destinies premiere last year in LA, and that was insane. But I mostly get copies of indie and international films couriered to me. Quiet, short-run films that have critical praise, but no marketing budget.”

  “Where do you watch the more popular stuff?”

  “Here.” She nodded at her projector. “But everyone does reviews for those, so I don’t have to stay too current. I’ve got a niche in indie film and film history.”

  He’d gathered as much from her portfolio of work. But even if he was pretending, he found himself drawn into her world. “Have you met any celebrities?”

  She laughed. “No one likes to meet their critics. Although, I did meet Riley Lee Jackson briefly at his premiere.”

  His head popped up. “Really?” The Infinite Destinies star was a household name these days. “What was he like?”

  “Meh.” That ambiguous shrug said a lot more about Miriam than it did the A-list actor. “I didn’t talk to him much. He’s just a guy. Has a kid, a girlfriend. I know what you’re going to say,” she said with an admonishing look. “‘I thought all women threw themselves at his feet?’” She rolled her eyes. “He’s not really my type.”

  And what is your type? It was on the tip of Shane’s tongue to ask, but that was a line he might’ve used on a woman at a bar. Miriam wouldn’t appreciate it, and this rapport had been hard-won. He wouldn’t risk ruining it. “I really liked Infinite Destinies.”

  “You and about $1.8 billion worth of worldwide viewers.” She smirked. “I mean, it was all right, but if you really want to talk superhero films...”

  He let her continue, studying her animated hands, the way her blue eyes glowed as she spoke. Movies were her passion. It was hard to reconcile this Miriam with the black-clad wraith who’d warned him off with a fierce glower and a loaded paint gun, or the small, panicked animal who’d scampered out of the high school gym. It wasn’t just her articulation and critical knowledge that captivated him; her enthusiasm was infectious. He didn’t have a whole lot to add, but he wanted to engage her in more verbal sparring—which might have been why he provoked her into defending her positions on several classic films, which she claimed all others were derived from.

  They talked for a long time. He glanced at his watch and was shocked to find it was close to midnight.

  “Holy cow, it’s late.” He gave her an apologetic look, though he didn’t feel all that sorry. “I didn’t mean to keep you up.”

  She ran a hand through her shoulder-length bob, brushing it away from her slender neck. “Don’t worry. I’m a night owl.” Her heavy-lidded eyes cast downward. “And a bit of an insomniac.”

  He studied the angle of her chin, the way her lips were slightly parted. Damn. If this were anyone else, he’d be brushing a fingertip along that plump lower lip and proposing they spend the rest of the night together working on her sleeping problem. She was primed for seduction—at least, that was what her body language told him. But Miriam Bateman was not a conquest. He wouldn’t put the moves on her as if she were some casual fling.

  “Would you join me for dinner tomorrow?” he asked.

  She blinked. “Dinner?”

  “You do eat, don’t you? Something other than popcorn and burned soup, I mean.”

  She shriveled like a wilting flower in a time-lapse video. Her expression went from open and bright to closed and cold. “I don’t really eat out much.”

  He’d said something wrong. Maybe she couldn’t afford to eat out. “My treat. Nothing fancy—you like Chinese? I’ve been jonesing for some sweet-and-sour chicken balls from the Good Fortune Diner.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, turning slightly away.

  “What, are you a shut-in or something?” He chuckled.

  The daggered look she sent him stopped his laughter as effectively as another paintball in the nuts.

  “I’m not a shut-in,” she snapped. “I’m just busy. And I have to keep an eye on things here. You saw how easy those kids got in.”

  So she felt as though she had to guard the place like a dog? “Guess you haven’t replaced that lock on the back door yet.”

  “You know I haven’t.” Bitterness rose in her voice, the lines in her face growing more pronounced the more he irritated her.

  “All right, then. No problem.” He backed off reluctantly. “I’ll bring dinner to you. In fact, I’ll swing by the hardware store tomorrow and see what we can do about getting that fixed.” He nodded at the rig.

  She blinked at him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Sure I do,” he said, though he had no idea how he was going to get up there. It didn’t look that high from the ground, but nothing ever did. He’d hated that Miriam had seen his one real weakness, but he also realized he’d won points by exposing his vulnerability to her. It wasn’t intentional—his only concern at the time had been to help her. “I can’t just leave your stuff dangling
and broken like that.”

  “Well, if anything needs fixing, it’s the roof. I have to find out where that water is coming from before it rains again.”

  The roof. Great. “I’ll get a bucket of tar and some supplies,” he said through a tight smile.

  “You know how to patch roofing?”

  “I know the basics. It’s not that hard. That’s what YouTube’s for, right?”

  Miriam’s lips pursed. She looked ready to argue but then nodded. “All right. But bring me the receipt for anything you buy. This is my building, after all.”

  Shane quirked his lips. He was well aware of that.

  * * *

  “YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE who I just ran into.”

  Janice looked up as Arty burst into the florist’s shop. He was already breathless from hurrying over to see her, but now his heart stopped. She was never prettier than when she was at work among her flowers. For a moment, he forgot what he was going to say. She prompted, “Well?”

  He cleared his throat. “Shane Patel’s back in town. He’s staying by the lake for a few weeks. Bumped into him at the hardware store. He was getting supplies to—get this—help Mira fix the roof.”

  “The roof of the Crown?”

  He nodded, giddy. “Was all smiles, that one—more so than usual. He was obviously happy to be helping her. I got the impression they’ve been spending quality time together.”

  Worry lines appeared around Janice’s delicate mouth. “You think he knows what he’s doing?”

  “Judging by what he was getting and what he was asking for? Not a foggy clue. Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Herman straightened him out. He and Mira will do fine between the two of them, I’m sure.”

  The concern didn’t disappear from her face, though. “What’s wrong, Jan?”

  “I’m not sure I feel right about this. It all sounded fine in my head when we were just talking about her having sex—” Arty squirmed. He’d never heard Jan say S-E-X before, and it made him feel self-conscious “—but you know Mira’s a softy at heart. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “If anyone does any hurting, it’ll be her.” Mira could be anxious and cranky, but she was resilient. Arty believed she’d bounce back from anything. “Besides, our part in this was tiny. We just gave things a little nudge.”

  “I hope our nudge doesn’t make either of them fall on their face,” Janice murmured.

  “Mira’ll be fine,” he said again, and reached out to grip Jan’s hand. His arm tingled as her fingers curled around his. “They’ll both be fine.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “You’re right,” she conceded. “They’re adults. Perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.”

  A golden slice of sunlight peeked through the thin cloud cover, making the whole shop glow. Nothing was as radiant as Janice, though.

  * * *

  THIS WAS SUCH a bad idea.

  Why had he volunteered to help Mira fix the leaky roof? Hadn’t the word roof told him everything he needed to know about what he’d face? He’d humiliated himself last night on the catwalk above the stage—why had he thought this would be any better?

  Because you’re a manly man and you’re too stubbornly male to acknowledge your weaknesses. Years of being teased for his fear of heights might have played a part in his show of heroics. He was a winner, after all, and hated that gravity and distance could reduce him to a quivering mess.

  Shane had had a hard enough time looking down from the theater balcony as he’d carried the supplies to the fire escape. Now, as he stared up the ladder to the roof, he thought he might throw up. There was nothing to keep a person from slipping and falling to their death.

  How old was the fire escape, anyhow? He scanned the black wrought iron for a clue. The theater itself had been built in 1900, but the fire escapes had to be slightly newer than that, right? Orange rust spotted a few joints and bolt heads, and he noticed a touch of corrosion on the bottom rung. Miriam stood on the landing without any concern as she rearranged the supplies.

  “I’m not sure I can carry this bucket of tar up the ladder,” Shane said.

  “Not to worry. I have something for exactly this purpose.” She scaled the ladder quick as a squirrel. Shane watched her nervously, then made the mistake of glancing down through the slats of the wrought-iron landing.

  He clutched the door frame and breathed deep, eyes closed as he fought vertigo. It was a long way to fall.

  “Heads up,” Miriam called a minute later. Shane pried himself away from the door and cautiously leaned out. A shallow square wood box measuring about four by four feet was rapidly descending on a series of ropes and cables, which were threaded through a pulley hanging from an arm over the edge of the roof. He caught the box as it reached eye level and gently guided it down.

  “Homemade elevator?”

  “For the stuff I can’t carry up,” she replied. “Not for you, though.” She notched her chin at him. “Load the platform, but try to balance everything so it sits straight. Use the bungee cords inside to strap things down if necessary.”

  Shane braced himself as he stepped onto the fire escape landing. The ground below seemed to loom up through the thin metal strips of the lattice, threatening to smash into him. He shut his eyes and muttered, “It’s just carpet,” before focusing on loading the platform.

  He didn’t know when or how his fear of heights had developed—he’d simply never enjoyed being high up. He remembered a particularly aggravating family trip to a country fair when he was thirteen—his sister and cousins went on all the roller coasters and high-flying spinning rides, and had made fun of him when he’d absolutely refused to go with them. They’d called him a chicken, but Shane had reasonably told them he didn’t trust any ride that could be dismantled and reassembled in less than two hours.

  Shane had preferred to play the midway games, both feet firmly planted on the ground. He’d gotten particularly good at Whack-A-Mole, though it had cost his father quite a bit of cash.

  “Shekhar, it’s perfectly safe, I promise,” his father had cajoled, hoping his son would join the others. “A little risk is okay in life. You think I built my business and life here without risk?”

  “What’s the point of all that, though?” Shane had argued, upset that his father was trying, yet again, to force him into something he didn’t want to do. He’d pointed at the roller coaster his family was lined up for. “Half hour lineup for a two-minute ride that costs five bucks each? I call that a rip-off.”

  “Meanwhile, you’ve spent twenty dollars to win a plush elephant.”

  “At least it’s a thing I can take home. All I have to do is win.” And he did. He just had to figure out the trick, the angle, the right combination. Every game could be won, and in the end, he’d had enough prizes to hand out to his nauseated cousins and sister to shut them up.

  His father hadn’t had the same point of view. “Son, there are some things that are worth experiencing, even if they end badly. Life isn’t all about the payoff. Sometimes, you just have to live.”

  Shane finished loading the box, thinking about that long ago lesson. He still didn’t do roller coasters, though he had learned to take more risks. Not that many, though—he preferred sure bets. He liked to win. That was why he was one of Sagmar’s top agents. Risk meant a greater opportunity for loss, and Shane hated to lose. Still, he knew his father was right—and maybe this rooftop experience, however it turned out, would also lead to a practical, tangible reward.

  “All set,” he called up.

  “You need to come up here,” Miriam called back. “I can’t pull that full box up on my own.”

  Up. Right. Gripping the railing hand over hand, he made his way to the ladder. His head spun as he looked up to where she peered over the edge of the roof. It was only about eight or ten feet up, but it felt farth
er. He focused on the look of concern on Miriam’s face.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “Good,” he grumbled back.

  “Ladder’s perfectly safe, I promise.” And yet, she hovered as if he were a child taking his first steps, ready to catch him if he fell.

  That image irritated him. He was a grown man, for God’s sake. He couldn’t let her see how much he was shaking.

  He set his foot on the first rung. The ladder creaked ominously.

  “C’mon,” Miriam said, her tone neither impatient nor encouraging. “I can’t do this without you.”

  On the ladder last night, the stage had been dark, the ground below much harder to discern, the interior of the theater like a cocoon that ensured some modicum of safety. But out in the open, it was different. The ground four stories below was lethally horizontal. The afternoon sun beat down on his neck, and sweat beaded on his forehead and dampened his palms. As he grabbed the next rung above him, he snapped his hand back with a hiss.

  “Oh, the ladder might be a bit hot,” Miriam said. It was then that he noticed she wore fingerless work gloves.

  Great. A hot metal ladder high up in the air and he was climbing it with bare, sweaty palms.

  “Hang on, I’ll throw you some gloves.” Mira disappeared. A moment later, a pair of flowery pink gardening gloves with bright pink rubber nibs all over the palms fluttered down. He grimaced—was she making fun of him?

  “Sorry, they’re the only pair I could find that might fit,” she said, grinning.

  Wordlessly, he pulled them on and went for the ladder again. Frilly and pink as the gloves were, they did help with his grip. Now all he had to worry about was that rickety ladder collapsing under his weight.

  Just keep moving, he told himself firmly, keeping his focus glued to the next rung. She got up here fine; you will, too.

  Finally, he was peeking over the top of the roof. Miriam stood back, arms akimbo, an expectant look on her face. She’d donned a pair of clip-on sunglasses which hid her eyes. The corner of her lips twitched. “You did it.”