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“Good lord, did you put Willy Wonka on again?” Arthur asked Delia, squinting at the televisions around the store.
She laughed. “I only do it to scare you.” She asked if he’d heard about the all-day film festival that was going on in Brookline, all weird and scary children’s movies like Willy Wonka and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. He had. They were doing The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, as well. Arthur had always found that one pretty disturbing. Delia said that she wished that she could convince someone to go with her.
“I’ll go with you,” Arthur said, toying with an axe-shaped keychain that had been used to promote some horror film and hoping that he had said what Delia had wanted him to say. When he saw her expression, he was thrilled that he had.
Constance agreed to look after the store on the Friday of the film festival, confident that she could handle the weekend rush, such as it was, all on her own. So Arthur went to the city with Delia and cowered and whimpered through yet another viewing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He did it mostly to make Delia laugh.
“That was great!” She said as they left the theater. It was getting late and the sky was streaked with the pinks and oranges of the summer sunset. The day had been gray with scattered showers when they disappeared into the theater hours ago, but the sun had come out while they sat in the dark. Arthur asked her if she was hungry, scanning the street as they stood under the old theater’s lighted marquee. Droplets from the afternoon’s rain spattered onto the sidewalk in front them.
“Definitely,” Delia agreed, beginning to search the surrounding area herself. Then she took Arthur by the wrist, tugging him down the street toward a restaurant with a neon pizza slice in its window.
“What would you say is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?” Delia asked once they’d been served a large pizza with green pepper.
“Surprisingly, not any of the ones we watched tonight,” Arthur offered. He paused and thought a moment, wrinkling his brow. He said that he’d seen The Shining at too tender an age, so it had always freaked him out. But it was too hard to choose just one. He chuckled. “A guy I went to film school with was afraid of E.T.”
“The cute little alien E.T.?”
“The very same.”
“Why?”
Arthur shrugged. “Just something about it. He used to be afraid of finding it hiding in his stuffed animals.” He shook his head. “It’s only the weirdest people who become filmmakers. Truly.” His lips curled mischievously. “Ever think of studying film?”
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About Victoria Large
