The Last Days of Video (33 page)

Jeff had class, too. But his thoughts were too scattered to even consider it.

He entered the five-story yellow-brick library, which was one of the newer buildings on campus, and he quickly made his way up the elevator to the glitzy computer lab. He wished that he'd been able to upload the pictures from Celia Watson with the ancient laptop he'd inherited from his cousin, but the machine had a terribly slow Internet port, so he knew he could only get the important work done at the library's computer lab.

He walked around a corner, saw the long bank of IBMs, several of them attended by tired-looking students who had probably been working all night. He found an empty station, sat down.

The photos of him kissing Celia Watson were undeniably real. He had not dreamt it. You could see her face, clear as day. His hands clawed at her white dress. Her tongue was in his mouth. Her perfect little breasts were pressed into him. Her tanned arm, stretching out to hold her phone, constituted a quarter of each frame.

Now, sitting in the computer lab, he couldn't help laughing. He doubted that anything so amazing would ever happen to him again, and fortunately, he had photographic evidence to back it up.

He quickly uploaded the photos to his Facebook page, along with the tag: “Yep, this is me and the beautiful Celia Watson, living the dream.”

Then he opened another window, and he signed up for a Twitter account. He had no idea what Twitter was, or how it worked, because it had only been around for a few months. But he'd heard all the kids on campus talking about it. So he created a profile, uploaded the photos, and waited for the world to take notice.

A few minutes later, Jeff logged off the computer, walked out of the library into the cool autumn air, and headed toward Star Video. He was scheduled to work later that morning.

Jeff crossed Star Video's
parking lot—lost in thought, lost in another replay of Celia Watson's body against his—and he stepped up to the shop's front door. The white sun hung like an amulet, low in the sky, and it reflected brightly against the shop's front windows. But when Jeff pulled at the door, it rattled stiffly, immobile.

The shop lights were dark, and a sign in the window written in Waring's scrawl read: “Closed, Staff Development.”

Using his key to enter the dark shop, Jeff saw bluish light emerging from
The African Queen
's flat-screen TV. He ascended the spiral staircase, and on the couch he found Alaura and Waring watching an old black-and-white movie.

Waring's arm was draped over Alaura's shoulder.

Jeff realized he had never seen them touching.

“Jeff!” Waring said with a baffling, toothy smile. “Now
this
is a movie you should watch while you have the chance.” He pointed at the screen. “
Sunrise
by Murnau. I know it's a silent movie, and that it's black-and-white, and that it doesn't star Tom Cruise or Meg Ryan or whomever you kids watch these days—”

Alaura burst into laughter. “Meg Ryan?” she said.

Waring grinned. “Are my references no longer culturally relevant?”

“I like Meg Ryan,” Jeff said, feeling a little defensive about it.

“And here, Jeff,” Alaura said. “If you want a real giggle, give the old
Buried Mirror
a read.” She handed him the screenplay. “It's a yuck-fest.”

“I thought it was a romantic thriller.”

“In the sense that
The Room
was a romantic thriller,” Waring said, “yes,
The Buried Mirror
is a romantic thriller.”

“It's awful,” Alaura clarified.

“Awful awful,” Waring seconded.

Jeff set the awful screenplay on the loft's cluttered table and said, “Are you guys drunk?”

“Actually, no,” Waring said.

“I wish,” Alaura said, “but I haven't been drinking for almost a month.”

“Is that true?” Waring said, and he seemed truly surprised. “Shit, I hadn't noticed.”

“I'm actually thinking of laying off booze for a while longer.”

“Did you fall and hit your head or something?”

Alaura shook her head, smiling, and she patted Waring good-naturedly on the thigh.

To Jeff, they both certainly seemed drunk.

Finally Alaura, wearing a sarcastic smile the whole time, explained the reason for their bizarre behavior—how all was lost because of everything that had happened with Match Anderson, the Hitchcock hallucinations, that the executive had found out,
that Match had quit the movie, and that the film crew was leaving Appleton, thus ensuring the cancellation of the celebrity auction.

“Oh my God,” Jeff said. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Alaura said, who immediately seemed to notice that his reaction to the news was more intense than it should have been.

Jeff sat down on the top step, where he had been standing. He couldn't breathe. He glanced again at Waring—for whom he had kept the stupid secret about the bicycle gang. And Alaura—to whom Jeff had never worked up the courage to confess his feelings.

His body felt tight, pressured. He didn't need to say anything—they would probably never find out—

“It's my fault,” Jeff blurted.

“What?” Waring said.

“I . . . I overheard you guys talking about the Hitchcock thing. Up here in the loft, day before last. And I told Celia Watson about it. Last night.” Jeff looked guiltily at Alaura. He winced in intense pain. “She kissed me, I'm sorry, and I was drunk, and it sort of . . . flew out.”

Silence.

Waring stood up in
The African Queen.
His face flushed red. His scraggly black hair shivered atop his head.

Sitting behind him, Alaura leaned forward and gave Jeff the nastiest look in the history of the world.

“I didn't mean to,” Jeff said, almost crying now, and he stood as well, terrified, took a few steps down the stairs. “I'm sorry, Waring. I'm
so
sorry—”

“You're sorry?” Waring said. “You're sorry?”

“Waring . . .” Jeff whimpered.

Then, with frightening calmness, Waring said: “Jeff, you've ruined Star Video. Which means you've ruined my life, and Alaura's life, and—”

“Waring, I'm sorry!”

“—and if you don't leave right now—”

“Waring! I really didn't mean to! I'm so sorry!”

Alaura knew how ugly
she appeared. She knew her expression was twisted with anger and disdain, and that her face looked even worse now than it had in Match's hotel room mirror earlier that morning. She knew she looked like a monster. But she didn't give a shit. She didn't give a shit that Jeff worshipped her, that he looked up to her, that he was probably in love with her. Jeff had ruined everything. How had she ever, even for a moment, considered kissing him? Match had only needed to make it a few more days, and Jeff had blabbed like the stupid little teenager he was. So she scowled at him. She felt her lips ache and her jaw clench painfully. Jeff cowered pathetically in front of her. The moron. The tears on his face only solidified her fury.

She glanced at Waring, whose countenance was bent into Waxian attack mode. Alaura wanted him to attack. Everything had been leading to this point. If they'd just made it to the celebrity auction, then everything that had happened might have been worth it. She looked at Jeff and thought of Pierce, her shitty ex-boyfriend, who had used her for an entire summer and then dismissed her like a servant. She thought of Thom and Karla, those culty weirdoes, who'd implied that everything Alaura had ever done with her life was a waste. And she thought of Match—that Match was insane didn't relieve him of his responsibility to be a good person, to be compassionate, to help her.

She hated all of them. And she hated Jeff.

“Fuck you, Jeff!” she spat out.

The kid was crying, and she was glad.

“Tell him, Waring,” she said. “Tell him he's fucking fired.”

•
  
•
  
•

But what was going
through Waring's mind now? Yes, he was infuriated. Jeff deserved every awful thing that would ever happen to him for the rest of his life. And this was a perfect opportunity to scream, because how often do we actually have a chance to act in
truly
righteous anger? To let our rage explode? The kid needed to suffer. He needed to understand the extent of his inanity. When people do awful things, they
must
be punished, or the world will devolve into chaos.

But Waring realized he couldn't do it.

He looked down at Alaura, whose normally beautiful face was cinched into disgust—it was a magnification of the look she had given Waring many times. Though he'd always acted like he didn't give a shit whenever she was angry at him, he did give a shit. And Jeff, the dumb young kid (emphasis on
young
, Waring thought), was in love with Alaura, or whatever passed for love with dumb
young
kids, so Waring knew what that look must feel like to Jeff, how it must be burrowing like a steak knife into the middle of Jeff's stomach.

So instead of yelling, Waring sat down next to Alaura.

“What is it?” she said angrily, twisting on the sofa, craning her tattooed neck toward him. “Aren't you going say something? Aren't you going to fire him?”

Waring reached for the remote and pressed pause, silencing the silent movie's score.

“For fuck's sake, Waring,” Alaura snarled. “Jeff fucked everything up. We should be getting ready for the celebrity auction. I should be with Match
right now—
”

At the mention of Match's name, however, Alaura's voice seemed to leave her. She fell back into the couch, looked off into space.

“We're going to need Jeff,” Waring said flatly, to both of them, to neither of them. “I can't fire him because the store is closing, so he won't have a job anyway. But we're going to have to sell off all the movies and—”

“No,” Alaura said weakly, and her body folded. She collapsed downward onto her own knees, as if preparing for her plane to crash.

But Waring nodded—his mind was made up. “You knew this was going to happen,” he said softly to her. “I knew it, too. And if we didn't know, we were idiots. Jeff might have done the stupidest thing in twelve years of stupid Star Video moves, which is saying something. But it doesn't make any sense to fire him.”

Waring looked at Jeff.

The young man's hands had dropped from his face. He now donned a wet, hopeful expression.

“You didn't do it on purpose,” Waring said. “Did you, Jeff?”

“I'm really sorry,” Jeff said, his voice shaking.

Waring nodded. “Apology accepted.”

And Waring watched his two employees gasp, as they considered the many implications of this unprecedented act, and as they both comprehended that, in the end, what his apology really came to was . . . a final admission of defeat.

Star Video was finished.

Alaura said in a weak voice, “But Ehle County needs an independent—”

“No, Alaura,” Waring said gently. “Thank you, but it's time. We weren't going to make it anyway. Maybe a few more years, but that would have been it. People want different things now. And yes, Jeff made a stupid mistake. But look at him. He can't help himself. He's stupid.”

Long silence.

“I still think we should fire him,” Alaura murmured, and she shot Jeff another piercing glare.

“Well, I think it's still
my
store,” Waring said—lacing the comment with more of his old-fashioned cockiness, hoping to calm her down.

“But Waring,” Alaura said. “What are
you
going to do? What the hell does Waring Wax do without Star Video?”

He looked at her, and he thought about making another snarky joke. Ten possible comments filtered in front of his eyes, each snarkier than the last. But he didn't say anything. He just sat there, his big idea now bobbing through his mind, forming and reforming and bifurcating and taking on nuance. He visualized his future. But instead of saying anything, he just looked at Alaura, beautiful Alaura, the girl he loved.

She shook her head.

A mischievous smile flitted on his lips.

A dream blazing in the darkness.