Then there was the man who ordered just coffee. Simple, straightforward, knows what he wants.
Bryan tapped the top of the plastic lid on his cup. “Coffee. Just coffee, nothing more. I like my coffee the way —”
I held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear one of those customary guy jokes. I like my coffee the way I like my women — hot, strong, with cream.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Oh. Sorry. How do you like your coffee then?” I turned away and slid the key into the lock.
He lowered his voice, and spoke in a dark and smoky kind of whisper. “The way they drink it in Paris. Black.”
It was a good thing my back was to him. Because something about the way he said Paris sent shivers up my spine. It was as if his voice was caressing my back. “Have you been?” I asked, because it had been my dream to go to Paris. To wander in and out of boutiques and shops and see all the necklaces and bracelets and jewelry. To be inspired by the designs.
To fall in love, by the river, under the lamplight.
“Only once. But the company I’m starting to work for has offices there, so I’m hoping go back,” he said. As I opened the door, I thought: take me with you, take me with you, take me with you.
We worked the morning shift together that first day, and we clicked with the customers. He’d chat up a pair of vacationing sisters about a coffee table picture book, then hand off to me, and then I’d do the same with a couple considering a serving plate. We had a sort of instant rhythm and sense of how to make a store like this work.
“We’re like a tag team,” he said after I rang up another sale, and I smiled in agreement.
Nate arrived in the early afternoon to take over. As I grabbed my purse from behind the counter, Bryan placed a hand on my arm. “Matinee and popcorn?”
My stomach flipped. I nodded a yes, mumbled a goodbye to my brother, and left the store with his best friend. We walked the few blocks to the six-screen cinema, picked a Will Ferrell comedy, and opted to share a medium popcorn. We went the next day to see a thriller, then the next for a sci-fi picture, and after that we saw a silly film with talking animals in it, laughing the whole time. When the movie ended, I told him it reminded me of a film I’d seen a few years back with my mom, then proceeded to rattle off how it compared to every other talking animal flick, as if I were a too-serious film critic opining needlessly. “But the pig in Babe did set the standard for linguistically-capable animals on screen.”
“You’ve pretty much seen every movie, haven’t you?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say every movie.”
“But most?”
I shrugged. “I see a lot of movies.”
“Why? I mean, besides the obvious. That movies are fun.”
“Isn’t that a good enough reason? Just for entertainment?”
“Totally. So that’s the reason?”
“Sure,” I said, but I was smiling the kind of smile that said there was more to it.
“All right, Kat Harper. What’s the story?” He motioned with his hand for me to spill the beans. “Tell me where your love of movies comes from.”
“I think it’s because of what movies have always meant to my family. All these big events in my life were marked by movies. When Nate was in eighth grade and won the election for class president, we all went to see the re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, because it was this great action adventure, and I gripped the armrest when Harrison Ford raced against the boulder. The time I was picked to design the cover of the junior high yearbook we went to see Ocean’s Eleven. That’s just how we celebrated things. I even remember when my grandmother died. We went to the memorial service. I was twelve and I read a poem at the service, and then we decided that we should see Elf. Which probably sounds like a weird thing to do after a funeral.”
Bryan listened intently. “No, it doesn’t. Not at all.”
“It was really the perfect movie to see, because I think we all just needed to not be sad every second, you know?”
“It actually makes perfect sense,” he said. I looked at him and the honesty in his face and his eyes. He understood. He got it. He got me. I kept going.
“But I guess it all started with my mom. She’s a huge romantic comedy fan, so she started showing me all the great ones. Sleepless in Seattle. Love, Actually. Notting Hill. You’ve Got Mail.”
“And do you still love romantic comedies?”
“I make jewelry. I drink caramel machiattos. I wear Hello Kitty to bed. Of course I love romantic comedies,” I said with a smile as we neared my house. But I didn’t just love them. I wanted to live within them. I wanted a love like in the movies.
Bryan cleared his throat. “I think there’s a romantic-comedy we haven’t seen at the theater. Do you want to go again tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I said, and I’m sure it came out all breathy sounding.
We saw the movie the next day, and it was the kind where you long for the hero and heroine to kiss, and when they do, near the final frame, you feel this tingling in your body, and you want to be kissed too. I stole a glance at Bryan only to find he was stealing a glance at me.
“Hi,” he whispered in that voice he’d used when he talked about Paris.
“Hi.”
He reached a hand towards me, slowly, his eyes on me the whole time, as if he were asking if it was okay. I nodded a yes. He ran his fingers through my dark brown hair, then his mouth met mine, and we kissed until the credits rolled, slow and sweet kisses. His lips were the softest I’d ever felt, and his kisses were of the epic kind, the kind that made you believe that movie kisses weren’t just for actors or for stories, that they could be for you, and they could go on and on, like a slow and sexy love song that melted you from the inside out.
When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against mine. “Kat, I’ve wanted to do that since I first met you in the driveway the other day.”
“You have?”
“Yes. You were so pretty, and then you were everything else.”
My heart skipped ten thousand beats. He was a movie kiss, he was the name above the title. He was the one you wanted the heroine to wind up with so badly that your heart ached for her when they weren’t together, then soared when they finally were.
“I think you’re pretty cool too,” I said.
“But we probably shouldn’t tell Nate. You know, since I’m his buddy and you’re his little sister. Not to mention the age thing.”