THE LAST SHOWING

           THE LAST SHOWING

At eleven forty-seven on a Thursday night, Annie turned the key in the front doors of the BellWeather Cinema and listened to the lock click into place.

The sound echoed through the empty lobby.

For the first time all day, there were no children racing toward the arcade machines, no teenagers arguing over which movie to see, no couples whispering while waiting in line, no elderly patrons complaining that the popcorn was too expensive.

There was only silence.

Annie smiled.

She had always loved the cinema most after dark.

During the day BellWeather Cinema belonged to everyone.

At night, it belonged to her.

She walked slowly across the lobby, her shoes tapping against the polished floor. The golden letters above the ticket booth caught the dim light.

BellWeather.

The sign above had been there for seventy-three years.

Annie knew because her grandmother had told her so many times.

“You grandfather and I saw it go up,” Grandma Rose would say. “We were young. Stupidly young. And completely in love.”

Grandpa Henry would always pretend to be offended.

“We weren’t in love yet.”

“You were.”

“I was considering it.”

“You bought me popcorn.”

“I was being polite.”

“You gave me the last piece of caramel corn.”

“I was being foolish.”

And then Grandma Rose would smile.

“You’ve been foolish ever since.”

Annie could almost hear their voices.

She looked toward the old ticket booth.

He grandparents had met there.

Not exactly there of course.

Grandpa Henry had been standing in line one rainy Saturday afternoon in 1958, holding two tickets to a movie he didn’t want to see.

Grandma Rose had been standing behind him.

She had wanted those tickets.

There was only one pair left.

Henry had turned around, seen her, and offered them to her.

Rose had refused.

Henry had insisted.

Rose had finally accepted.

Then according to family legend, Henry had waited outside in the rain for two hours waiting for the next showing so he could see the movie with her.

Grandma Rose claimed it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done.

Grandpa Henry claimed he simply didn’t own an umbrella.

Annie laughed softly.

She continued through the lobby.

Past the concession stand.

Past the framed movie posters.

Past the old photographs mounted along the walls.

Those photographs were Annie’s favorite part of BellWeather.

The cinema had started displaying them years ago.

There was one of her grandparents sitting in the front row, young and impossibly serious.

Another showed them standing outside the cinema on their wedding day.

There was one of her mother and father.

Her mother, Emily was wearing a ridiculous red scarf.

Her father, David was wearing an even more ridiculous hairstyle.

They had met in BellWeather in 1987.

Mom had been working concessions.

Dad had been working projection.

According to Mom, Dad had flirted with her terribly.

According to Dad, Mom had flirted with him.

According to Annie’s grandmother, they both had been flirting neither had realized.

Their first date had been a movie.

Their second date had been a movie.

Their third date had been a movie.

By the fourth date, mom had finally told dad they should probably do something else.

So, they went bowling.

Dad had bowled a gutter ball.

Mom laughed so hard she nearly fell over.

They had returned to BellWeather for their fifth date.

They never really left.

Annie stopped in front of their photograph.

She reached out toward the glass.

Her parents were smiling.

Young.

Hopeful.

Unaware of everything waiting ahead.

Marriage.

Children.

Bills.

Arguments.

Christmas mornings.

Family vacations.

Hospital rooms.

Birthdays.

Ordinary Tuesdays.

The thousand little moments that make up life.

Annie wondered if they had known.

If Grandma Rose and Grandpa Henry had known.

If anyone ever knew when they were standing inside a moment that would someday become a memory.

She walked toward Theater One.

The largest auditorium in BellWeather.

The doors creaked when she pushed them open.

Darkness swallowed her.

Annie reached along the wall and switched on the aisle lights.

One by one, tiny golden lamps appeared.

Rows of velvet seats stretched toward the enormous screen.

She walked down the aisle.

Seat 12.

Row G.

She stopped.

That was where Grandma Rose had sat on her first date with Grandpa Henry.

Seat 8.

Row J.

That was where mom and dad sat on their first date.

And seat 14.

Row F.

That was where Annie had watched her first movie.

She sat down.

For a while, she simply stared at the blank screen.

The cinema was quiet.

But Annie had never believed BellWeather was truly silent.

The walls had heard too much.

They had heard first dates and marriage proposals.

Breakups.

Laughter.

Arguments.

Apologies.

Children asking questions their parents desperately wished they wouldn’t.

Teenager whispering secrets.

Friends making promises.

Strangers sharing armrest and popcorn.

People crying at sad endings.

People cheering at happy ones.

And every once in a while, someone had fallen in love.

Annie closed her eyes.

She remembered being six.

He father had lifted her into the seat because she couldn’t see over the person in front of her.

She remembered being eight, sitting between her parents while watching a princess movie.

She remembered being thirteen and sneaking candy into the theater.

She remembered being sixteen when her best friend Clara had confessed, she had a crush on a boy from school.

“Which one?” Annie whispered.

“The one sitting three rows ahead.”

Annie had looked.

“He’s eating nachos.”

“I know.”

“He had cheese on his shirt.”

“I know.”

“He’s kind of cute.”

“I know.”

Annie smiled at the memory.

Clara eventually married that boy.

They had met in BellWeather.

Just like so many others.

Annie opened her eyes.

She looked at the empty seats.

How many people had sat there?

How many stories had begun in this room?

She thought about the family photographs.

The old wedding pictures.

The faded snap shots.

The polaroid’s.

The handwritten notes people had left over the years.

BellWeather wasn’t merely a cinema.

It was an archive.

A living scrapbook.

A place where generations had come to watch stories on a screen while unknowingly creating stories of their own.

Annie stood.

She walked toward the stage.

Behind the screen was the old projection room.

She climbed the narrow staircase and opened the door.

The projector was still there.

Older than Annie.

Older than her parents.

Almost as old as her grandparent’s romance.

Her father taught her how to operate it.

“Movies are more than pictures,” he told her when she was seventeen.

“What are they?”

“Memories waiting for somewhere to happen.”

Annie rolled her eyes.

“You’ve been working here too long.”

Her father had laughed.

“Probably.”

Now Annie placed her hand on the projector.

It was cold.

She looked through the small window toward Theater One.

The screen was empty.

An idea suddenly came to her.

She left the projection room and walked downstairs.

At the concession stand, she made herself a small bag of popcorn.

Then she returned to Theater One.

She sat in the middle.

She ate a handful.

She remembered her grandfather saying that popcorn tasted better in a movie theater.

Her grandmother always said it tasted better because Grandpa bought it.

Annie laughed.

Then she heard something.

A soft clicking sound.

She turned.

The projector had started.

A flicker of light appeared.

Then an image.

Old.

Grainy.

Black and white.

Annie stood.

On the screen was BellWeather Cinema.

Not as it looked now.

As it had looked decades ago.

There was her grandfather.

Young Henry.

Standing beneath the marquee.

Then Grandma Rose appeared.

Young Rose.

She was laughing.

Annie watched Henry approached her.

The film had no sound.

But Annie knew the story.

She knew every detail.

She watched Henry had Rose something.

Popcorn.

Of course.

The image changed.

Now her parents appeared.

Mom and dad.

1987.

Dad was behind the concession stand.

Mom was laughing.

The picture changed again.

Clara appeared.

Then her husband.

Then Uncle Michael.

Then Aunt Susan.

Then the neighbors.

Then people Annie barely recognized.

People she heard about but never met.

Generation after generation.

The cinema’s history unfolded across the screen.

And then Annie saw herself.

She was five years old.

Sitting between her parents.

Her father was holding a box of popcorn.

Her mother was whispering something into her ear.

Annie remembered that day.

She had been afraid of the monster in the movie.

Her mother had told her, “The monster isn’t real.”

Annie had whispered back, “But what if he doesn’t know that?”

Her mother had laughed.

The image changed.

Annie at ten.

Annie at fifteen.

Annie at eighteen.

Annie working behind the concession stand.

Annie cleaning theaters.

Annie laughing with friends.

Annie standing beside her father.

Annie hugging her grandmother.

Annie hadn’t realized anyone had been filming.

The projector stopped.

The screen went dark.

Annie stood alone in the theater.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She finally understood.

Her family hadn’t simply worked at BellWeather.

They had belonged to it.

And BellWeather belonged to them.

She walked back to the lobby.

On the wall beneath the photographs was a small brass plaque.

Her grandfather had helped install it.

Annie had read it a hundred times.

Tonight, she read it again.

For everyone who ever sat in those seats,

May you leave with more than a movie.

May you leave with a memory.

Annie smiled.

She understood now.

The movies came and went.

Actors aged.

Stories changed.

Posters were replaced.

Technology evolved.

But the seats remained.

The walls remembered.

The marquee continued to shine.

And people continued to walk through the doors hoping to see a good movie.

Sometimes they did.

Sometimes they saw something terrible.

Sometimes they fell asleep.

Sometimes they cried.

Sometimes they laughed so loudly everyone else complained.

Sometimes, without realizing it they met someone else who would change their entire life.

Annie switched off the lobby lights.

One by one, the cinema disappeared into darkness.

She stood at the doors.

Before leaving, she looked back.

The empty lobby glowed faintly beneath the emergency lights.

She could almost see her grandparents there.

Young Henry offering Rose his tickets.

Her parents laughing behind the concession stand.

Her friends whispering in the theater.

Her younger self holding her father’s hand.

All of them.

Every memory.

Every beginning.

Every ending.

Every person who had ever walked through Bell Weather’s door.

Annie turned the key.

The lock clicked.

She stepped outside.

The marquee remained glowing above her.

BellWeather Cinema.

She looked up at it.

Tomorrow, the doors would open again.

People would arrive.

Families would but tickets.

Children would beg for candy.

Couples would share popcorn.

Friends would argue over what movie to see.

Someone would probably spill a drink.

Someone would laugh too loudly.

Someone would cry.

And somewhere perhaps in the dark of Theater One, two strangers might sit beside each other.

They might reach for the same piece of popcorn.

They might laugh at the same joke.

They might exchange phone numbers.

They might fall in love.

Years from now, their grandchildren might walk through the same doors.

And maybe one of them would stand in the empty theater after hours, looking at old photographs and wondering how many lives had begun here.

Annie smiled.

She knew the answer.

More than anyone could count.

Because BellWeather Cinema had never really been about movies.

Movies were only what played on the screen.

The real stories had always been happening in the seats.

Annie took one last look at the glowing marquee.

Then she walked home beneath the stars carrying with her every story BellWeather had given her.

And behind her the old cinema stood quietly in the night.

Waiting for tomorrow,

Waiting for the lights to come on.

Waiting for the doors to open.

Waiting for the next story.