Eli was early on Saturday. June found him in the foyer reading the invitation she had written for next Friday.
“You haven’t promised that nobody will cry,” he said.
“I couldn’t promise that at the box office either.”
“Good copy.”
“You’re obliged to say that. I invited you.”
“You offered me a film. Criticism costs extra.”
He was wearing a dark green jumper instead of the jacket from Monday. June noticed that his hair was still damp at the back. She had spent ten minutes deciding whether to change after her morning shift, then put on the same shirt with different earrings. It annoyed her that damp hair could accomplish so much.
Nina came through the doors of the small screen.
“They’ve left,” she said. “You have twenty minutes in here before the next audience arrives. I’m upstairs if you need rescuing.”
“From an empty room?” June asked.
“Empty rooms can be vicious.”
She went upstairs. June led Eli inside. The lights were still up, and the screen was a white rectangle with a crease of shadow at one corner. She had stood in this room hundreds of times to pick up abandoned cups or tell people which door led to the toilets. Today she stopped at the front and couldn’t decide what to do with her hands.
Eli sat in the middle of the third row.
“Why there?”
“Enough distance to be respectful. Close enough to hear you abandon the plan.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I haven’t started.”
The afternoon film was April in the Wrong City, a comedy about a woman taking a job meant for somebody else. It was neither June’s favourite nor a film she disliked. She thought it would be easier to begin with something she didn’t feel obliged to protect.
“Good afternoon,” she said.
“Good afternoon.”
“You don’t answer.”
“I do.”
She tried again. “Good afternoon, and welcome. Today’s film is about getting somewhere you never meant to go.”
Eli raised a hand.
“No questions.”
“I’m in the wrong screen.”
June laughed and lost the next sentence completely.
“That’s good,” he said. “Now you look like a person.”
“I was a person before.”
“A person holding herself hostage.”
She put her hands on her hips, then took them off again. “What would you say?”
He stood up and came to the front. June took his seat.
His voice carried without becoming much louder. “Welcome to April in the Wrong City. If you’ve ever gone into the wrong room and stayed because you were too embarrassed to leave, you’ll find much to enjoy. Especially those of you who thought this was the café.”
June pictured an actual customer standing up, red-faced, while the room laughed.
“I don’t like that last bit.”
Eli looked down at her. “Why?”
“Someone might be in the wrong screen.”
“It’s a joke.”
“They’d still have to get up.”
He leaned against the edge of the stage. “Most people would laugh.”
“The person getting up would have to laugh.”
“You think I’m making them the joke.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the empty seats behind her. June waited. She didn’t want the little frown on his face to mean the rest of the afternoon was going to be difficult, but she wasn’t going to pretend she liked the line.
“All right,” he said. He straightened again. “If you find you’re in the wrong screen, I recommend staying. The seats in this one are better.”
June smiled. “They aren’t.”
“You’re a demanding collaborator.”
“There’s a spring in row five that can end a marriage.”
He laughed. Then he made the welcome again, leaving the café out. It was better. June could hear him choosing to make it better rather than trying to persuade her the first version had been fine.
“Your turn,” he said.
“I have a proper introduction.”
“You had a proper introduction when I came in. Let’s try an improper one.”
They swapped places. Eli crossed his legs and raised his chin, becoming somebody prepared to be dissatisfied.
“You look like the man who complained about the black-and-white film,” June said.
“I’m furious about the lack of colour.”
“It’s an optional upgrade.”
“I want a refund.”
She put on the pinched voice Ruby had used eight years ago. “Of course, sir. Would you like the money in black and white as well?”
Eli laughed so abruptly that she stopped being the woman.
“That’s not a real line,” she said. “Ruby did the first bit once, when we met.”
“I’m appreciating the new management.”
“I’m not doing that in front of anybody.”
“You just did.”
“You’re not anybody.”
His smile changed. June looked down at the seat numbers.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m deciding whether to.”
She picked up the programme she had brought in and held it in front of her chest. “Another audience member.”
He uncrossed his legs. Now he was a man who desperately wanted to help but didn’t know the answer to anything.
“I’m very pleased to be here,” he said. “Is this the one with the little dog?”
“No.”
“Will there be a little dog?”
“I can’t promise.”
“Do you know at what point there won’t be one?”
June tried to answer in her ordinary cinema voice. She couldn’t. She had to sit on the edge of the stage until she stopped laughing.
Eli came down the aisle and sat beside her, leaving a few inches of wood between them.
“You laugh at the wrong bits,” he said.
“Those were the right bits.”
“I’ll have to trust you.”
She looked at him. From this close she could see a tiny nick by his jaw where he had shaved. She wanted to put her finger near it, an impulse so simple that she felt embarrassed before doing anything at all.
“Why a dog?” she asked.
“Because once a person has decided something is missing, every scene is another chance for it to turn up.”
“You’re still waiting for the man to get on the bus.”
“I am. The dog could bring him.”
“That would ruin two endings.”
He turned his head toward her. “I look forward to disagreeing with you next Friday.”
She looked away first. The side door opened, and Ruby came in carrying her work bag.
“Oh,” she said.
June stood up. Eli got to his feet more slowly.
“I asked Eli to come,” June said.
“I can see.”
Ruby looked from him to June. She was still wearing her shop badge. She removed it, caught a strand of hair in the clip, and winced.
June took it from her and freed the hair.
“There.”
“Thanks.” Ruby put the badge into her bag. “How’s the rehearsal?”
“Bad impressions,” Eli said.
“June has one excellent impression. Of a woman who thinks she can’t do impressions.”
“We’ve expanded the range,” June said.
Ruby set her bag down. For a few seconds nobody seemed to know where to stand. Then she looked at the programme in June’s hand.
“April in the Wrong City. Have you told them it’s autobiographical? Every time I try to find this cinema, I walk toward the other one.”
“There’s a sign.”
“Yes, I see it as I pass it on the bus.”
June laughed. Ruby’s shoulders relaxed.
“What are you saying?” Ruby asked.
June gave her the opening. Ruby listened without interrupting, which took more effort than it should have. Then she asked June to try it once as if she were telling her about a film over lunch.
June did. Halfway through, she forgot the exact sentence she had written and said what she meant instead.
“That,” Ruby said. “The bit about wishing you’d taken the wrong job. Keep it.”
“It’s not polished.”
“You’re talking to people, not varnishing them.”
Eli nodded. Ruby glanced at him, then at the rows of seats.
“I’d begin with the coat,” she said.
“What coat?” June asked.
“In the film. She spends half of it wearing somebody else’s coat because that’s where the office key is. Anyone who owns a coat without pockets has already been preparing for this tragedy.”
June laughed and touched the useless little stitched slits in her trousers.
“Exactly,” Ruby said. “The women will come in wanting comedy, and you can give them solidarity.”
Eli stepped forward and tried the line in a solemn voice. “Ladies, I recognize your struggle.”
It didn’t work. June felt the joke sitting there, asking for a laugh nobody wanted to give it.
Ruby shook her head. “No. It sounds like you’re opening a campaign. And leave ladies out.”
“My range includes untrustworthy politicians.”
“Leave that out too.”
She walked a couple of steps, thinking. June knew the look: Ruby hearing a different shape for something, trying it before she would let anyone else hear it.
“Start ordinary,” Ruby told him. “Today’s film contains mistaken identity, romance, and a coat with proper pockets. Something for everybody.”
He said it back, too brightly.
“Less sales,” Ruby said. “You genuinely admire the pockets. You’re worried the romance won’t measure up.”
Eli tried again. He let the last part fall almost flat. It made June laugh.
“There,” Ruby said, pleased. “See?”
June tried it too, beginning in her own voice. Ruby stopped her only once, to say she didn’t have to hurry through the word romance as if she were ashamed of it.
“You like love stories,” Ruby said.
“I like good ones.”
“Then tell them.”
For a minute it was the best version of an ordinary Saturday. Ruby making something out of nothing; June feeling she could join in; a new person understanding where to laugh. June wanted to hold the minute still without having to decide what it meant.
Then Nina put her head through the side door.
“We have four,” she said. “One has brought a flask. Your audience awaits.”
June’s stomach tightened. Ruby squeezed her arm.
“Take the good sentence. Lose the rest if you need to.”
Ruby and Eli went to sit down. They left a seat between them. June watched the real audience come in: a couple, a woman alone, another man who folded his coat over his knees. Nobody looked particularly eager to be introduced to anything.
She waited until they had settled. The woman with the flask had arranged its lid and a biscuit on the seat beside her.
“Good afternoon,” June said.
The woman looked up. “Good afternoon.”
June glanced at Eli. He was already looking at her, fighting a smile.
She kept going. She used the coat line. The man with the folded coat laughed, perhaps because he had an excellent one. She told them why she liked the film: the heroine took the wrong job, then discovered she wanted to stop being good at the right one. She stumbled over the title once and had to say it again.
Nobody minded.
When she finished, Nina lowered the lights. June went to the row where Ruby and Eli were sitting. For a second she could have chosen either end. Instead she sat in the space they had left.
Ruby leaned over. “You were good.”
June whispered, “I remembered to be a person.”
“Very advanced.”
The film began. June had seen it three times, yet she noticed new things with the others beside her. Ruby laughed before a door opened because she knew who was behind it. Eli laughed afterwards, when the wrong woman came through. At the coat scene, all three of them were silent, waiting.
The woman with the flask gave a loud, delighted laugh.
June bent her head. Eli’s sleeve brushed hers on the shared armrest. He moved enough to give her space. A few minutes later she let her arm rest there again.
Afterwards, the man with the folded coat told June he had never thought about the heroine’s job that way. They spoke for a little while about the last scene, with Ruby adding something and Eli disagreeing. The room gradually emptied around them.
June stayed where she was until Nina called from the foyer that they should come out if they wanted the last of the coffee.
Ruby picked up her bag. Eli held the door and waited for June to pass. As she went by, he murmured, “Not bad for somebody who isn’t anybody.”
She looked up at him. “That was poor wording.”
“I liked it.”
June went out smiling before she could stop herself.