“Ah.”
She nods. “When I asked Spence about the reel key a few weeks ago, he said you would get it eventually. In the meantime, we’ve just been using digital stuff. Not as fun as the 35-mm reels, but it works and not many people are coming in to shows anyway.” We reach the door to the office, and she opens it, flicking on the overhead lights.
She pushes some buttons on a white cube on the wall just inside the door. “This is the thermostat if you need to adjust it. We’ll push it up a bit since you may be spending your days in here.”
I glance around the office. Four gray metal filing cabinets line one wall. In the center is a small desk with an ancient computer surrounded by a few tan-colored chairs. Mail, pens, paperclips, and notebooks litter the desktop, despite a few organizers with some papers and folders haphazardly thrown into them.
Daphne walks around the desk and motions for me to follow. “I’ll show you the password to log in and where everything is stored and filed.”
While the computer boots up, Daphne swivels in the desk chair to face me. “Okay, basics first,” she says, tapping the desk with a pen. “Tickets. People can buy them online through the website, but most folks around here still like the old-school version. They can purchase starting a week before the showtime.”
I grab one of the notebooks and a pen and flick to a blank page to take notes.
“We’ve got a little ticket printer behind the concession stand. I’ll show you how to use it later. It prints out those old carnival-style ones. People love them. Half the town saves them as bookmarks. If they buy online, we just check their name at the counter. No fancy phone scanners or anything like that. Beverly refused to upgrade the system when they tried to sell her one.”
“Why?”
Daphne shrugs. “Costs. Seats are assigned,” Daphne continues, pulling up a seating chart pinned to the corkboard behind the desk. “Customers can pick them online, or we do it at the counter. The love seats in the back rows go fast for date nights. Right now, though, we’re only running one show a weekend.”
“Just one?”
“Staffing.” She sighs. “It’s mostly me right now. Jack helps out a bit, and we hire teenagers to usher and run concessions on an on-call basis. For a while, it was just Beverly and me, but after she got sick, she had to scale way back, so it’s been . . .”
“Just you.”
“Just me,” she confirms. “I’ve been able to run one movie, Friday or Saturday night, depending on staff availability. We open concessions an hour before, show the film, clean up, repeat the next week.”
The computer finally finishes loading with a soft chime.
Daphne perks up and leans forward. “Okay. Now for the fun part.”
She clicks open the accounting program and rotates the monitor toward me.
Spreadsheets fill the screen, color coded with rows of numbers, charts, and expense columns.
“At the moment,” she says, “the theater isn’t exactly covering its costs.”
“How much is it not covering?”
“Well, there’s no rent or mortgage, which is great. Beverly’s family has owned the building for decades. But we still have property taxes, insurance, utilities, equipment maintenance, and the occasional emergency repair. Heating this place in the winter costs a small fortune because the front of the building is basically one giant glass wall. Then there’s maintenance. Oh, and film licensing,” Daphne continues. “Even classic movies cost money to show. Plus concession inventory, cleaning supplies, website hosting, the occasional plumbing disaster . . .”
Daphne scrolls further down.
“With the limited ticket sales and only one showing a week, the income from tickets and concessions just isn’t enough to keep up with everything.”
Silence settles between us for a moment as the reality of the numbers sinks in.
It’s always about the money. At least Daphne has been managing the funds responsibly, from what I can tell.
Past experience has taught me that when money is involved, people lose any sense of morality. Old resentments flare to life. My own mother cared more about looking like we had money than anything else. She was my manager until I turned eighteen, and to this day, I don’t know how much of my money she took for herself. I know she invested it, and that’s what she and Audrey live on, and they live well, so it must have been a lot.
A few years ago, I reached out to the firm that manages my funds, trying to get more details, but they sent over a million pages of documents full of legalese and statements. I put it aside because it was overwhelming.
I was going through a lot at the time, mentally and emotionally grappling with my childhood trauma.
Eventually, I decided it doesn’t matter. Money isn’t important. I would give it all up to have a mother who loved and supported me and didn’t expect anything in return.
But it’s something I should review again when I have time. Maybe I could hire Spencer to do it for me.
