Tales From Customer Service:

The Movie Theatre

            by Megan Gaebler

 

*Author’s note: this is a fabrication of mostly true events. They may or may not have happened in this order, if at all, and certainly did not all occur on the same day. Please don’t go to my boss with the idea everything in here is true.

 

December 24, 10:03 a.m. – I was transferring popcorn from the popper to the popcorn bin when I heard it: “Concessions? Do you copy? Concessions, do you copy? Concessions?”

 I dumped the corn and grabbed the radio, “Megan? Do you copy? Megandoyoucopy?” issuing from it. It was like listening to a twelve-year-old boy on crack, recorded and set to “chipmunk speed.”

“Yeah?” I said, concerned, holding down the “talk” button too long.

“—eed you to cover Tiffany’s breaks today. Send her up to box. I’ll be down in a second, because Jeremy’s too lazy to open box himself.” Was I talking to Genna? Genna was my manager, or one of them anyway. “And he really should have done it earlier, when he was setting up the concessions banks,” she continued. Faintly, in the background, I could hear, “I’m not even working today!”

“Um…” I said, “Tiffany’s not here yet.”

There was a pause. “What?” came Genna’s muffled voice.

“She’s not here. She hasn’t come in yet.”

“Shoot. Um… shoot. Okay. Maybe she forgot. I’ll call her.”

 

11:03 a.m. – An hour had gone by since opening, and the lobby was a ghost town. No movies had been started, because, really, who wants to see a movie at ten in the morning on Christmas Eve? Smart people were still in bed, or eating a lazy breakfast, or doing some last minute Christmas shopping.

Tiffany still hadn’t shown up, and Genna was getting panicked. She’d called everyone available and no one had been able to come in. All gave some variant of “I don’t feel well,” (which was, of course, another way of saying “I’m too hung over”) as their excuse. Or so I heard. Genna complained to me whenever I was in earshot, which basically means whenever she was speeding through the lobby with Jeremy to get to the box office. Jeremy took pity on Genna eventually and offered to work.

Over the radio I was sent on my fifteen-minute break and headed upstairs, to the employee lounge: a locker-lined hole in the wall smaller than my bedroom with linoleum-tiled floor (reminiscent of a school classroom or hallway), a broken coffee maker, and an en-suite bathroom with “DO NOT USE TOILET” firmly Scotch-taped to the door. Pulling my cell phone out of my locker, I noticed a missed call from my friend Mandy. I dialed.

“Hello?”

“You called?” I sandwiched the phone between my ear and shoulder, trying to re-lock my locker.

“Yeah, um…” There was a strangely awkward pause, arousing my paranoia. Oh God. What could have happened? Did someone die?  “Would you… consider dating Ron?”

“Ron? Date him? Probably. Maybe one date.” We were already dating, but Mandy didn’t know that. His ex-girlfriend of seven months, Mandy still wasn’t over him. “But we both know he doesn’t really like me,” I said, hoping to throw her off the track.

“Um, that’s the thing. He does like you.” Mandy’s voice was deliberately urgent; she was holding something back.

I stopped messing with my lock. “What? No. What? How do you know?”

“He told me. Last night. Plus he’s been acting the same around you as he was with me before we started dating.”

“Wait, no he’s not. He doted on you before you two started dating. He barely talks to me. Well, okay, he does, but not the way he talks to you,” I said. “How drunk were you last night? That party wasn’t even that crazy. Plus,” I added, before she could start to protest, “doesn’t he already have a girlfriend? That girl Lia he’s been dating for about two months?”

Mandy scoffed. Apparently, my sub-par lying wasn’t working. “I’m not even sure she exists. Have you ever seen her? She never comes to hang out with us, she always has something Anyway—”

“But,” I cut her off, “he was pretty drunk last night, right? It was a Christmas party.” I looked at the clock: 11:17. “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

 

11:18 a.m. – When going back to work, everything gets put on hold: social life, schoolwork, and especially drug use. It was supposed to, at least. Now, I’m not saying that I do drugs at work, but the security guard has been caught dealing.

When I got back to the counter, there was a mother and her two daughters in the lobby. The mother was staring at me, tapping her foot, and giving her watch meaningful glances. The two girls bounced around the cavernous, maroon-carpeted room at an alarming speed.

“Hi!” I said brightly, my voice a little too loud.

“Yeah um hi. I guess we’ll get some popcorn,” the mom snapped.

“Candy!” one of the girls shrieked.

“No, no candy,” the mom said, looking at me expectantly, as though I was supposed to read her mind on what size of popcorn she wanted.

“Um, what size did you want? Of popcorn?” I asked, pulling out a medium bag to show what we had to offer.

“That’s huge!” she spat, disgusted. I pulled out the small bag. She made a disgusted sound. “Do you have anything, you know, kid-sized?” I pulled out a kid’s tray. She shuddered at the tiny portion of popcorn offered. “That’s so much food. I’ll just get two of those.”

“Okay, what kind of drinks?”

“Drinks?” She said the word as though she didn’t know what it meant in my language, but it was highly offensive in hers. Her graying eyebrows nearly disappeared into her too-short artificially red hair.

“It comes with the kid’s tray,” I said. She grimaced, pulling her already lined face into a mass of wrinkles. Her eyes almost disappeared in the folds.

“Can I just have water?”

“Not in the kid’s tray, no. Sorry.”

“Well…” She made a huge show of sighs and groans as she reviewed the drink options. “Is this all you have? Do you know how much sugar is in all of these? No, I guess not. I guess they should both be Hi-C. Can you fill it up with lots of ice, to dilute the fat?”

After I’d finished setting up the kid trays, I asked, “Will that be all? No combos for y—?”

“No, this is it,” she cut me off. “How much do I owe?”

“Nine-fifty, please.”

“Nine-fifty? How do you sleep at night??”

 

11:51 am – She was back. I could see the patch of too-fake red hair descending the stairs and I looked for something to duck behind. My options, a glass nacho case or my cash register, weren’t good. Short of throwing myself flat on the floor, she would see me no matter where I was. Her still flabby post-partum belly jiggled its way across the floor and towards me.

“There is something on your seats, and I don’t know what it is,” she accused as soon as she was within earshot.

“I’m sorry? I don’t know anything about that,” I responded.

“Well I sat down and my seat was completely wet. And now my pants are soaking,” she almost yelled, but it was in that I’m-a-mom-do-what-I-say voice that’s not actually yelling. Most moms, for some reason, expect this tone to work on every child, not just their own. Sometimes, as now, they use The Voice on everyone, no matter what the age.

“I’m sorry about that. Did you try moving to a different seat?” I plastered a look of true concern onto my face. She just looked more annoyed.

“No, why would I do that?” she snapped.

“Well, another seat may not be wet.”  I knew for a fact that there were unoccupied dry seats in that theater.

She raised an eyebrow, highly affronted. “But my pants are still wet,” she said slowly, as though I didn’t understand basic English. “Is there a manager I can talk to?” she demanded.

“Um, she’s busy right now. She has to start the movies,” I lied. There was nothing my manager could do about the seats being wet. Although she technically could have talked to Jeremy, there was nothing he could do either, since it didn’t look like she was going to get a refund. Her kids were still watching dancing penguins.

The lady made an annoyed grunt and stalked over to the wall-length mirror opposite me to inspect the damage to her pants. She stood backwards, twisting her head around to see her hugely generous fatty butt, lifting her hip as needed to maximize the wet area. I caught angry murmurs of “This is ridiculous” and “Disgusting” and “I can’t believe this” punctuated by scoffs and “tsk”s. Again I looked for something to hide behind, hoping my choices had changed, that maybe a huge piece of cardboard with an empty maroon-and-white concessions stand background painted on it had appeared. No such luck.

“Do you know where the nearest clothing store is?” she asked. I gave her directions to both Ross and Crossroads. She started to leave and got to the door before she came running back.

“Do you think you could watch my kids?” she asked.

I fought a sneer. “No, I don’t think I can leave.”

“Oh it’s just you and him, I bet,” she said, nodding towards the box office.

“That’s right. But they’re in a movie. What could happen to your kids? You’re the only people in the theater.”

She sighed and asked, “You’re sure you can’t go up to sit with them?” before half waddling back up the stairs.

 

1:04 p.m. – My hip buzzed, signaling a text message. While my first instinct was to whip out the semi-bulky flip phone, I had to wait. The customer I was serving had just ordered a number two combo: one large popcorn, two large drinks, and a kid’s meal. After preparing everything, I rang it up and said, “That comes to twenty-one fifty, please.” The man grinned maniacally, stuck his hand into his oversized coat pocket, pulled out a handful of quarters, and slammed them onto the counter.

They scattered everywhere, getting caught in the floor mat’s holes and even sliding under my register. I sighed, retrieved the stray coins and started the grueling task of counting them all. What kind of idiot only carries quarters, anyway? You’d think that he could at least have them in rolls of ten dollars. It would be more convenient for me.

It came to twenty-two dollars. I gave him back fifty cents and shoved the rest to the side of the counter so I could count it again. Three times later, it was still twenty-one fifty, so I scooped it into my cash drawer. My hip buzzed again. Oh yeah, I have a text. I flipped open my phone. The message was from Ron:

When’s your lunch break?

I texted him back with:

i’m not sure. soon, maybe

Minutes passed. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, even though there were things I had to clean, popcorn I had to pop, hot dogs I had to heat up. Well, not really those last two. Nobody buys popcorn in the morning, so the bin was still half-full. And I already had two hot dogs keeping warm in the heated drawer behind me, so I really didn’t need to make any more. There wasn’t really anything to clean, either. Not unless I wanted to wipe down my counter for the fifth time in an hour.

The vibrations from my pocket made it feel like my phone was sliding down my leg. I pulled it out and flipped it open. It said:

Do you want to have lunch with me?

I texted back a quick:

of course. i’ll let you know when i’m off

I leaned against the Icee machine, sighing, then remembered my managers’ collective warnings of “Don’t lean on the Icee machine!”  Jerking upright, I looked for another place to rest. 

Genna appeared down the hall from me, walking fast. Her short, dyed-black hair actually looked good on her, instead of that fake look most of the girls at my school had. I think it’s because she wasn’t trying to be “punk” or “goth;” she just wanted her hair to be black.

“Hey Megan,” she called, “you can go on your lunch break now. I’ll cover concessions while you’re gone.”

I left for my forty-five minute break, madly texting as I went.

 

1:30 p.m. – I snuck up on Ron as he played Ms. Pac-Man, snaking my arms around his waist. He jumped.

“Hey babe,” he said without turning around. I could hear a smile creeping up his face. “How’s work?”

“You know, the usual,” I replied, squeezing him briefly before letting go.

“Where should we go today?” he asked once we were outside. The sunlight caught in his wavy brown hair, reflecting slightly more golden brown back at me.

“Well, I really only have enough for Peking Express and that’s like eating grease on a stick.”

He laughed out a “Ha!”  which was all he ever managed. Despite these sparse results, I loved making him laugh. It was such a rare occasion. Not Ron laughing, but me making him laugh. Or anyone, for that matter.

 

2:10 p.m. – Seeing Ron (along with holiday pay) made going back to work easier. True, I still didn’t want to deal with stupid customers that thought I was a babysitter, but it was really only the one lady.

The first customer after my break wanted to know if there was any money on his credit card. I told him he would have to buy something for me to swipe it, just because my register is kind of dumb.

“Can I just get a hot dog?” He spoke with a slight accent that I didn’t recognize. I was never good with accents.

“Sure,” I replied.

“If it doesn’t work, then I’ll know there’s no money.” He looked a bit concerned, his dark, overgrown eyebrows connecting over wide eyes.

“Of course.” I rang up the three dollar seventy-five cent frankfurter and swiped his card. As though it was timed, the lights dimmed as the card went down. When I got to the bottom, the lights turned completely off. I glanced at the guy. He looked sheepish. I didn’t know if it was his card or just the power shutting off that caused the lights to go off, but either way he couldn’t get his hot dog.

“Sorry,” I said, handing him his card, “I can’t sell this to you unless you have exact change.”

“I don’t…” he said. “I didn’t really want it anyway.”

 

2:30 p.m. – the power’s out here, I texted to Ron. we can’t do anything. genna had to give everyone free movie passes. He was over in a matter of seconds.

“Where’s Jeremy and Genna?” he asked. I shrugged.

“I dunno, upstairs in the office maybe? Except that would be so dark. Probably they’re on the back stairs or just outside the emergency exit, having a cigarette.”

Ron looked concerned. Jeremy was, after all, his housemate and prone to panic attacks. It’s not like he had them all the time, though. Just more than the average person.

“Should I go back and see if he’s okay?” Ron asked.

“No, Genna’ll take care of it. She is his girlfriend,” I replied. “Is there another reason you came over? I could have just met you outside, although I don’t know if I’m still on the clock or what. The punch card system thing won’t be working; it’s electric. I should also probably check with Genna before I just take off.”

“Actually…” Ron said. I could hear the half-smile creeping up his face, even if it was hard to see in the dim light. “There’s nobody here, right?”

“Just Jeremy and Genna,” I said, confused. “But there shouldn’t be anyone here, they all got sent home with free movie passes.”

“I know, you told me,” he said. “Come on.” He stretched out his hand, expecting me to take it. I did and jumped over my counter. More like I attempted to: I landed hard on my hip, knocking over the straws and soda-cup lids. My feet crashed into the soda “fountain.”

“Ow.”

Ron laughed, at the same time asking if I was okay. I mumbled, “fine,” and was glad it was too dark for him to see my reddening face.

He led me upstairs. It was hard to see where we were going and we ended up feeling out way along the wall.  Our destination, I found, was theater five, where Happy Feet was supposed to be playing. I stopped moving my feet and tried to pull him back.

“Ron, no,” I said, shaking my head even though he couldn’t see it. “Not here. It’s too awkward.”

“But I’ve never done it! And it’s not like anyone’s here,” he pleaded. I could imagine his brown eyes mimicking a puppy dog.

“My managers—” I started.

“—Are outside in the emergency exit slash dumpster area and won’t notice anyway.” I couldn’t think of any argument to that, except…

“Wait!” I yelled as he started to tug on my wrist again. “What if the power comes back on?”

“It won’t,” he said simply. “It takes hours for the city to get the lights working again.”

I knew this to be true, but I was still wary. Sometimes it only took ten minutes for the city to respond to a power outage.

“Are other places out, too?” I asked.

“Yeah, I saw on my way over. I was going to get you a coffee from Peet’s but their power was out too.” Ron tugged again.

“Well…” I let him pull me towards theater five, “okay.”

“Hey Megan.”

“What?”

“Merry Christmas.”

He pushed open the door and pulled me in. The door closed, and we were enshrouded in complete darkness.

*    *    *    *

So what happened is this: Ron set me down on one of those fake folding chairs and slid his hands up my shirt. Within seconds it was off. Next went my pants. I fumbled around for the entrances to his clothes and soon he was naked too.

It was the most awkward sex I’ve had in my life.

First, since it was so dark, we had to do everything by feeling. Not as easy as you would think. We fumbled with… equipment and protection. It might have been sensual, except we rushed because the lights could have come back any second, despite previous statements to the contrary. Second, those seats are too small to maneuver comfortably. An armrest kept digging into the small of my back and the wool cushions were… well, they scratched. Half the time my leg was also tucked up under me, so I had a massive thigh cramp by the end. Ron had to either bend his legs or lean, so I’m sure he wasn’t comfortable either, even though he wasn’t in a seat. Third, partway through, a giant penguin with Elijah Wood’s voice appeared on the screen. Although I might have found Mr. Wood slightly sexy as the whiny Frodo from Lord of the Rings, him in penguin form was just not a turn-on.

“Wait,” I said, pushing Ron away. He was totally into it, or trying to be. “Stop,” I said.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he asked, concerned. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, that’s not it. But the movie’s back.” How had you not noticed? I thought. “People will be coming into the theater, namely Genna and Jeremy.”

“They won’t care…”

“Okay, but no. I can’t do it while looking at that furry penguin body. Sorry.”

I got up to find my clothes. Luckily, Happy Feet takes place in the Antarctic. The snow in the background lit up the theater like a thousand-watt light bulb, so the clothes were easy to find. Two feet away, Ron got dressed dejectedly.

We left the theater, not bothering to try and dry the seat.  

 

3:17 p.m. – As soon as the door closed behind us, Genna and Jeremy appeared, both looking slightly embarrassed.

“So, Megan,” Genna started, “if you could um, go back to concessions, that would be great. Don’t forget to wash your hands!” she added jokingly, in that tone of voice that said “I’m joking now but I know what you were up to.”

I shot her a look that said “I know what you were doing too,” before saying, “For sure, Genna,” and heading downstairs. Jeremy blushed, as did Ron. Jeremy mumbled something about needing to get back to box office. Genna blew him a supposed to be secret kiss as he left. The company is really harsh on that kind of thing, you know, inter-staff fraternization.

 

The rest of my shift went by without incident. Ron showed up at the end of it, as usual, to walk me home. Actually just to walk me to the bus stop. The mom, I never saw again, thank God. Probably the next time I saw her she’d be complaining about another wet seat that I didn’t want to call my manager’s attention to.