Movie Night

The tiny bookstore smelled of old leather, moth balls and stale coffee. Two small chandeliers were the only sources of light; which added to the inhospitable feeling this place invoked the second you crossed the threshold.

A young man walks in and immediately regrets ever doing so. He decides against his inner voice and starts to meander in and out of the cramped bookshelves. The tiny eyes of the shop owner follow his every move behind thin, metal frames.

“Young man, is there something you are looking for?” He asked in a low growl.

“No sir, I’m just wasting time. Waiting for my mom to get off work.” The man said without even giving the slightest glance to the shop owner.

“Hmm. Well in that case, I am sure that there might be some things that'll catch your attention over on that shelf.” He lifted a shaky hand and pointed to a bookshelf in the far back corner of the store.

“Oh…okay. Thanks?” The young man said with a questioning uncertainty. I don’t even like books. Why did I even walk in here? He thought to himself.

He took a glance at the bookshelf the shop owner had pointed at and realized there was a single book on the self; a small, black notebook with a cardboard cover and about an inch worth of dust layered on top. He blew off as much as possible before reaching to pick it up. Expecting some miraculous story or drawings to pop out at him; his heart sank when he realized it was just empty pages. Nothing at all. Empty. A waste of time.

“You can keep that if you’d like.” Gurgled the shop owner.

“Um okay. Thanks.” This was all too weird so he decided it was time to leave. As the door closed behind him, he stuffed the little book into his jean pocket. He glanced down at his phone. "Crap! I’m late!" He huffed as he took off in a jog down the sidewalk.

“Seriously James? It’s freezing out here. You told me you were just going to hang out in town and wait for me to get off…what happened?”

James stopped in front of his mother and took a moment to catch his breath. “Sorry mom! I ended up at that weird, little bookstore and the old man let me take this empty book.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you’re late.” She let out in a huff.

“I know. It won’t happen again.” With a slight kiss to her cheek he turned around to walk beside her.

“How about we get dinner to go from that shake place?” James asked.

“Mhm. That sounds good to me.” She said weakly.

James closed his bedroom door behind him as he slid out of his jeans and plopped down into bed to enjoy his milkshake. His eye caught sight of the black book laying on the floor. Why did he just give this to me? Weird, old dude. He slid off his bed and sat on the floor as he flipped through the pages. He flipped to the back and noticed that a small pocket was attached to the inside cover. He stuck in hand in, not expecting it to house anything; until his fingers brushed across something.Shaking the journal quickly, a folded pice of paper fell into his lap. As if he was a child on a secret adventure; James’ heart started to pick up pace. He slowly opened it and quickly realized someone had made a big mistake. There in bold writing was a check written out to the amount of $20,000. It also hadn’t been signed to anybody. He spewed out the sip of shake in his mouth. This has to be a joke? He thought to himself. There is no way this is real! I wonder if the old man knew about this? Nah. There’s no way. He wouldn’t have just let me take this book if he had known.

He held the check in his hands for what seemed like an eternity. His eyes drilling a hole into the large number that was written. What does someone even do with this much money? He thought. He pulled himself up off the ground and reached for the doorknob. Should I tell her about this? Why wouldn’t I? I bet if I told her she’d want me to go back to the shop and give it to the old man…or she’d want to use it on bills or something like that. He walked over to his desk and pulled out a pen from the top drawer. He found the spot that said Pay to the order of: and wrote his name...James Allen. He quickly flipped it over and signed the back of the check. I’ll just deposit it and then decide what to do with it later. It’s not wrong because the old man wanted me to have it. James thought to himself. He slid his jeans on and put the check into his pocket.

“Mom!” He yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “I’m running out real quick. I’ll be back in time for dinner though.”

The walk to the bank only took about fifteen minutes and with the nice breeze it felt even quicker than that. His whole body was shaking with anticipation. Or maybe is was nerves.

There’s no way they’ll let me cash this. They’ll definitely think I stole it and then the cops will get called and it’ll just be a mess. Then again, maybe this happens a lot and they won’t think it’s suspicious at all. These thoughts kept spinning around in his head all the way up to the counter.

“Hello sir. What can I do for you?” Asked the clerk.

“I’d just like to deposit this into my account, please.” He slid the check across the counter to her; along with his ID. After a few moments of her typing away she handed him back his ID.

“Alright sir. It’s all in there for you. Is there anything else I can do for you today?” She says with a smile.

“No, that’s it. Thank you.” He replied with a smile back at her and glanced down at her name tag...Penelope.

“You have a beautiful name, by the way.” He says shyly.

Her cheeks started to turn a subtle pink. “Thank you.”

As he started to head for the door; a voice from behind spoke up shyly.

“Hey James!”

He turned around to let her finish whatever she was about to say.

“If you’d ever like to go out and grab a drink sometime, give me a call.” Her hand extended with a business card in between her fingers.

“Yeah that sounds nice!” He reached for the business card while trying not to smile creepily at her.

Two days passed before he summoned the courage to pick up the phone and call her. “Hey Penelope, it’s James from the bank?” He pauses briefly to give her a second to respond.

“Yeah! I was wondering if you’d like to join me tonight at that shake place in town?”

“Mhm. Yep, that’s the one! How does six sound?” A brief pause.

“Great! I’ll see you there!”

Her eyes gleamed at him from across the little diner table. His eyes never meeting hers, but a pink tint on his cheeks gave away his thoughts. Neither one of them said much, but instead enjoyed their milkshakes in silence. One might think it would have been awkward, but they felt nothing except complete peace just being in each other’s company. Nine o’clock rolled around way too quickly and their waitress kindly let them know they were closing up.

Penelope chuckles a bit, “Well, I guess that’s our cue.”

James pulled out his small black wallet and slid the money to the waitress. “Thank you ma’am.”

“Of course! Now you kids have a wonderful night!” The waitress said with a little wink. This time James’ cheeks turned bright red as he tried to avoid Penelope’s longing stare. They walked through the glass doors and out into the crisp air.

“Hey, so this may sound really abrupt,” Penelope says as she turns to look at James “but would you like to come back to my place for some popcorn and maybe we can put a movie on?”

“Sure. That sounds nice to me.” He says with a grin.

Her apartment was about a ten minute walk from the diner, but in that time they were both shivering quite a bit. “It’s nights like this that make me wish I had a fireplace, ya know?” She said while pulling out her keys to unlock the door. Her place was a cozy little one. Everything had its spot even though there wasn’t much. The walls were painted a light green color and more plants were lying around than James had ever seen in one room. “I’ll put the popcorn on if you’ll go pick a movie out.” She said with a finger pointed to the stack of movies by the tv.

An hour passes by and the sounds of action fighting are coming from the tv. A car chase, gunshots; things of that nature. Turning towards James she says, “So how did you come about that much money?” James paused with a mouth full of popcorn “Huh? Oh, the check I deposited. Well someone gave it to me. No way I could ever make that kind of money on my own.”

“Well that was mighty generous of them!” She said in complete disbelief. “Do you have any big plans with it?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know yet. I had thought about buying a car since I don’t have one, but hadn’t really decided yet.”

“I think that’d be a smart move.” She said as she dropped a couple pieces of popcorn into her mouth. “Oh, this is the best scene!” She said as she turned up the volume. Gunshots could probably be heard from outside, but no one cared; they were enjoying their time together and that’s all that mattered.

James’ heart dropped and his palms started sweating. “Penelope…what…what are you doing?” He didn’t move a muscle.

“I hate to do this James, but I need it.” Her hand shook as she started to consider that maybe she didn’t have the guts to go through with it.

“You don’t have to do this…” He said nervously.

“You don’t understand. I do…”

The movie scene reached its climax at the same moment her finger tightened against the trigger.

“I’m sorry James. I truly am.”