Tonight the Streets Are Ours

When Arden asked Veronica what her dreams were for the future, Veronica answered, “Being the manager at a movie theater.” Which wasn’t exactly Arden’s or Lindsey’s dream, but after talking it through, they decided it was wisdom about appreciating what you have when you have it, rather than wishing your life away.

Arden always had to do the asking. Lindsey was too intimidated.

When Arden asked Veronica how you knew when you were in love with somebody—because this was when she was thinking of saying it to Chris, but she wasn’t quite sure whether she meant it—Veronica leaned out of the ticket booth and said, “I have a question, too. Why do you guys always ask me such weird things when you come here?” When they didn’t say anything, Veronica said, “Never mind,” and she sold them their tickets.

The film that night was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a classic from the sixties. It was depressing, about a long-married couple who just tore each other down and tore each other down, using everything they knew about the other to hurt them, just because they could.

After that movie, Arden and Lindsey didn’t speak at all on the car ride home. And they never went back to the Glockenspiel again, either.





Sometimes, people aren’t who you want them to be

Chris was biding his time. He had confided in Arden that he felt high school plays were—no offense—beneath him. “I’m not saying that I have nothing left to learn,” he’d explained. “You can always find something to learn from every experience, if you look for it. But let’s be honest, Mr. Lansdowne is not a top-tier director, and the people I’m playing opposite … well, enough said.” A sigh. “I’m worried that I’ve plateaued.”

Chris had big dreams, dreams that could never be realized in Cumberland. He wanted to be a Hollywood star. He resented his parents for raising him in a small town so far away from the movie industry, and for their complete lack of interest in helping him find an agent, get professional headshots, or attend audition coaching. Chris’s father’s hardware store had previously been managed by Chris’s grandfather, which meant he considered it basically written in stone that it would someday be managed by Chris.

Arden knew it was hard to make it in Hollywood. None of her other drama club friends even imagined it. Kirsten thought maybe she would audition for some musicals in college, or maybe she wouldn’t, but that was as far as her theatrical ambitions went. But Arden thought that if anyone from her town could manage a professional career as an actor, her boyfriend would definitely be the one. He had a deep voice, he could cry on command, he had a dimple, his arms were just the right amount of muscular, and he was tall—though she’d also read that most movie actors were surprisingly short, so maybe that wasn’t actually a point in his favor.

Chris kept an eye out for auditions and open calls held anywhere remotely nearby and, now that he had his license, too, he drove to them whenever he could. That’s why he was spending sixth period on Thursday, two weeks after that stupid letter came from Arden’s mother, running lines for a film audition that he was going to on Saturday. The film was a very, very small-budget production about coal miners, which was going to be shooting some scenes on-site in nearby West Virginia.

“Gretchen,” he said to Arden, squeezing up his eyes as he tried to remember the rest of the line. “I can’t help but think that you and I—”

“Me and you,” interrupted Arden, glancing at the audition script. “Not ‘you and I.’ Remember, the character left school when he was twelve to become a miner and support his family.”