Eli asked June out with a plan, which she liked more than she had expected to.
“Saturday,” he said over the phone. “Two programmes of short films at the other cinema. You pick one. I pick one. We are each allowed to be wrong once.”
“A whole allowance?”
“I’m generous on first dates.”
“Is it a first date if we’ve already kissed?”
“I hope so. I’ve done no planning for a second.”
June looked at the little list he had sent. There was a local short-film afternoon, with tickets that let you choose two programmes. One promised happy endings. One promised endings that would stay with you, which she distrusted on principle but chose anyway.
“Four?” she asked.
Eli paused. “I have to finish a job by eight. I’d rather do earlier, so I’m not thinking about the clock.”
For a moment June wanted him to say he would manage somehow. She could hear how childish that was before she said it.
“Two, then.”
“Really?”
“I want you to be thinking about my opinions. They require attention.”
“Two it is.”
He met her outside the other cinema with the tickets in his pocket and no difficulty finding a reason to touch her. He took her hand as they crossed the road. June squeezed it, pleased by the easy answer of his fingers.
“No badge,” he said.
“Day off.”
“You look different.”
“Don’t say happier. I like my job.”
“I was going to say you’re carrying a much smaller bag.”
She looked down. “I’m prepared for fewer emergencies.”
Inside, they chose seats where nobody would sit behind them. June couldn’t help noticing the scuffed paint and a sign she would have moved if she worked there. Eli held up their tickets in front of her eyes.
“No improving the cinema.”
She settled into the seat. “All right.”
His programme came first. Three films about people being given something they wanted, with increasing levels of difficulty on the way. In the first, a woman found a lost letter before the end of the opening credits. June leaned toward Eli.
“This is efficient.”
“Shh. We haven’t learned what the letter wants.”
She laughed, then stayed quiet. The last film was about a busker who couldn’t play in front of anybody he knew. At the end his girlfriend stood around a corner to listen, pretending she was still at work. June cried unexpectedly.
When the lights came up, Eli looked at her wet eyes without making a joke.
“That one?”
She nodded. “He doesn’t find out.”
“She wasn’t doing it for a thank-you.”
June pressed a finger beneath each eye. “You could have warned me.”
“I hadn’t seen it.”
“Very poor date service.”
He gave her a tissue from his pocket. It was creased but clean. She accepted it, then had no idea what to do with it afterwards. He held out his hand.
“No,” she said. “You aren’t taking my damp face home.”
He laughed. She put it in her bag with the two things she had claimed were enough for the afternoon.
They ate lunch between programmes at a café with tiny tables outside. Eli asked about the film that would make her angriest if somebody disliked it. She asked about the first performance he had done. He told her about being a tree in a school play and getting applause because he fell over too early.
“That can’t have been your choice,” June said.
“It was absolutely my choice. There were three trees and the others were getting all the wind.”
“Competitive forestry.”
“A brutal business.”
His sandwich began to fall apart as he spoke. He tried to catch the filling on his plate and knocked a leaf onto his trousers instead. June kept looking at him until he said, “Now would be a good moment to look away.”
“I’m choosing not to.”
She reached over to lift the leaf from his knee. He caught her hand after she had put it on the plate and kissed her knuckles, quickly, as if surprised he wanted to.
June looked at the other tables. Nobody was watching.
She had marked two later screenings in the short-film programme. Eli asked to borrow it to look at the times properly that evening. She gave it to him, saying he was allowed to disagree with the notes in the margins but not write over them.
Her programme contained one film she found irritating, one she couldn’t understand, and one about two women spending their last afternoon as neighbours. Nothing dramatic happened until one took a plant back that she had given the other, then brought it over again in a better pot.
Eli didn’t laugh at it. June was grateful. The film ended with the remaining woman carrying her chair onto the pavement where they had always sat together. There was nobody in the other chair.
For a little while after the lights came up, June stayed in her seat. Eli held her hand without asking what she was thinking.
Outside, Eli said he wanted to borrow the actress’s expression when the plant was handed back.
“For what?”
“Clients who say a sentence was better before they made me change it.”
June tried the expression herself: smile, pause, dawning offence.
“Too much,” he said, laughing.
“I work with the public. I have more to express.”
She held the smile until he laughed again and kissed her forehead.
They walked slowly. Eli bought a packet of roasted nuts from a little stall and discovered June didn’t like them. She ate two anyway, trying to decide whether these were better than the ones she remembered. They weren’t. He accepted the packet back without persuading her.
“Good date?” he asked.
“I’m not writing a review halfway through.”
He turned to her. “Halfway?”
She felt her face warming. She could have pretended she meant another walk.
“I don’t want to go home yet.”
“You could come to mine.”
“You have the work.”
“Not until later. You could stay while I do it, if you wanted.”
June considered that: being in the room while he was busy, neither abandoned nor entertained every minute. It seemed more intimate than the invitation itself.
“All right,” she said.
He stopped in the next quiet street and kissed her. She held his arm, letting him feel how glad she was they had chosen the earlier time.