While he’s gone, I look at some of the CDs he has lying around and realize from the pictureless covers that they are DVDs of Zach’s past films.
He returns, bringing with him the aroma of buttery popcorn. “Here you go,” he says, and he sets a big bowl down in front of me. And then he’s moving to do something else,movingsomething else. It almost seems like he’s afraid to be alone with me; I don’t know whether to be hurt or flattered.
“Can I watch some of these while we wait?” I ask, holding up a DVD.
“Good idea,” he says. He turns each of them over, trying to decide which one to start with. Then I realize he’s looking for one without Lindsay, and I wonder if it really was a good idea.
Apparently, he finds one, because he pops it into the DVD player. Before he starts it, he says, “It’s one of the very first ones we did.”
“Okay.”
“And,” he says, remote control still in hand, “thematically, it’s a little all over the place. Also, my older brother Rob is in it. He’s not all that comfortable with cameras.”
I giggle. “Okay.”
“And,” Zach says, stalling, “the music is shit. It’s Raj’s.”
“Anything else?” I ask, and Zach is about to answer before he catches my sarcasm, grins, and plops down next to me.
“Don’t judge me,” he says.
“I won’t.”
Zach’s older brother appears on the screen, walking down what appears to be their street in a suit that is three times too big for him. He is swinging his briefcase a little too aggressively to be normal, and he looks right at the camera as he walks.
Zach and I laugh.
There’s a bang, and all of a sudden a younger version of Kevin falls from a tree. Lifeless and soaked in ketchup.
“Oh my God,” I say.
I glance at Zach and he is watching me, a small smile on his lips.
It takes all my effort to face the screen again.
“Oh no!” Rob cries, and leans over Kevin, trying to resuscitate him. Suddenly someone is screaming, a girl. I hold my breath, thinking that maybe it is Lindsay after all, but a girl who looks just a little younger than Kevin runs into the frame, pointing at Kevin’s lifeless body.
“No! Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!”
“Why not?” Rob asks, his expression lifeless and flat.
I laugh.
“I told you it was bad,” Zach says, chuckling too.
“Shut up, I’m watching the next Ciano,” I say. The movie is about twenty minutes long and includes a cameo by a couple-years-younger Zach. When it’s done, I break into a rousing round of applause.
Zach laughs at my response, and my stomach twirls. Is it that easy? If his smile will stay put, I’ll keep clapping until it fills the room.
“Your hair was so much shorter,” I say.
He self-consciously touches it.
“No puff,” I add.
“Puff,”Zach repeats, like it’s the first time he’s heard it. He laughs, still touching his hair. “It’s kind of a pain.”
I sit up straighter, surprised. “I like your hair.”
