He nods, impressed. “If you say so, kid. I’ll consider it. Not sure we have the funds to make it fancy, but come back to me with approval, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. Really.” I slip his card into the waistband of my shorts. “You won’t regret this.”
He cracks a crinkly smile. I shine one right back.
With newfound anticipation flapping through me, I sneak up behind Avery. One tap is all it takes for her to shriek piercingly loud.
“Okay, ILY, but how many times do I need to tell you not to scare me like that?” Her hands hold steady over her heart.
“Remember when we did that specialFriday the 13thscreening two summers ago, and we scrounged up Jason masks just to scare the piss out of this girl?” Youssef, a returner who runs the projection booth, asks. We got Avery good right as she was pouring herself a soda during the slow bout. When we jumped out from the walk-in fridge, she crushed the cup so hard that the Sprite shot up into her face. She was snorting bubbles out of her nose for hours.
“Hardy har har. You two think you’re the Impractical Jokers, I swear.”
Working the drive-in is a lot like going to summer camp, except instead of paying to kayak or do archery, we get paid to watch free movies and goof around in the snack-shack break room. Sometimes we see who can catch the most Skittles in their mouths or we do speed-stacking competitions with the medium-sized drink cups.
Though, I guess now that I’m a manager I can’t partake in the minute-to-win-it challenges where the loser is put on trash pickup at the end of the night, grabber tool and all. I need to be overseeing the lot, filling out forms, writing up the schedule. I hope this promotion doesn’t end up sucking the fun out of my summer.
Avery must see that dawning realization on my face. “You’re not going to be one of those managers who walks around with a stick up his ass, are you? I can’t handle another Hank situation. Bad breath, bad BO, and a bad attitude…”
“Wren only has one of those things,” Mateo mocks. The group snickers. He’s winning their affections already, which is great. I just wish he’d do it without undermining me. Even in a playful way. He goes to flick my name tag but misses and hits my nipple. I go to roughhouse him a bit, the catty play-fighting we do back at the apartment, but I want to set a good example for the newcomers, so I let it roll right off my back. For now.
Creak.Earl revs up the bullhorn and puts his lips to it.
“Gather round, folks. Welcome to orientation day for another season at Wiley’s Drive-In. You’ve heard the phrase ‘summer fun in the sun’? Great. We’re here to bring the ‘summer delight in the night’!” Not a single laugh or hoot can be heard. Earl’s deadpan never changes. I think he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s got a huge, tender heart under that raggedy polo. “Eh-hem, so…we’re here to work. Serious work. We’re here to bring this community another year of movies and memories. If that doesn’t sound up your alley, you can feel free to take a hike now.”
Nobody moves a muscle, and I mouth along to the rest of the welcome speech. I’ve had it memorized for at least three years now. Earl never deviates, probably because public speaking makes him nervous too. He prefers phone calls with film distributors and local vendors where he can let his business acumen and his love of cinema shine without having to be seen. Earl and I are cut from the same cloth that way—a modest, sturdy denim, perhaps? The pair of jeans you’ve worn so many times you could never part with even after they don’t fit anymore.
“Why don’t we get our managers up here to introduce themselves,” Earl offers. I join Veronica, a girl a few years older than I am with pink-tipped box braids and a congenial smile. We get along well, and we’ll be dividing up duties this season. I’ve learned a lot from her over the years.
Weirdness worms around inside me as I stand before the group. I’m usually just one of the smiling faces among the crowd. The view from here is frightening. Being in front of big groups has always made me nervous. I want to be a leader, but I’m not quite sure I know how.
Just as Earl is about to hand the megaphone to me, my nerves already shot, a shiny, fancy car barrels into the lot with a booming accelerator and a cloud of smoke.
Earl prompts me to continue, yet I devolve into a fit of embarrassing, phlegmy coughs when the sun spotlights Derick Haverford stepping out of his car.
Derick is wearing designer sunglasses, chinos, and a classic white T-shirt—French-tucked, of course. Like Marlon Brando circaStreetcar Named Desireif he shopped at Calvin Klein and met the Fab Five. A DSLR camera bag hangs off one solid shoulder, swinging in counterpoint to his stride. My heart lurches forward as I rock back on my heels.
At the restaurant, he was wearing his family-approved costume, but seeing him now in his old, patented attire flings me back to slamming lockers and high-school hallways. The memory of pushing our graffitied desks together for projects in Peer Leadership. His closeness always caused goosebumps.
I mutter my name into the mic and pass it along to Veronica, my shining moment dimmed.
I could be brazen over email with the security of the computer screen and a wasting liver between me and emotion, but now, since the restaurant, I’m physically vulnerable. He saw my face. He heard the hurt. He apparently didn’t care. That pains me way more than any missed movie marathon ever could.
Earl starts breaking the team up into groups. He’s going to send one returner to each station and rotate small groups of the trainees around to get a feel for the full beast.
I’m about to volunteer myself for concessions, Avery’s home base—action-loving masochist that she is—but like some cruel joke, Earl makes me stay behind as the rest of the pack ventures out into the expansive field.
“Mr. Haverford, that was quite the entrance. Glad you could make it. Didn’t want you to miss all the excitement.” Earl motions behind him where mostly teenagers are fiercely focused on proper register etiquette and traffic-control techniques. It’s not exactly thrilling stuff.
“Thanks for having me,” Derick says. He pulls off his shades and slides one of the arms through the collar of his shirt so they dangle from his neck like a medallion. They make me wonder what happened to the gold crucifix necklace that used to always hang there. The one he’d toy with whenever he was thinking extra hard, taking the chain between his lips to ponder a difficult test question.
Earl turns to me. “Since you and Derick are already well acquainted, I figured you could give him the grand tour. Show him the ropes around here.” I’d prefer to show Derick the door. The two of us walking next to each other through the site of what might have been feels oddly intimate and unspeakably one-sided, yet Derick’s gazing at me with those blue-gray eyes, and I’m trapped in a gridlock. Which side will win: giddiness or grief?
“He needs the lay of the land so he can go ahead and get started, since he thought our social-media presence was so lacking.”
“It was nonexistent,” Derick corrects.
“Whatever,” Earl grumbles. “Hey! Wren, maybe he can help you out with that project you were yammering on about. Work that out among yourselves.” Across the lot, two boys begin using the light-up traffic wands as light sabers. “Whoa! Stop that!” Earl yells something aboutthe Forcebefore jogging away.
