I breathe in butter, sugar, and stale popcorn.
Dust motes float like glitter in the sunbeams pouring in from the glass doors behind me. I rub my arms through my coat. The lobby is chilly. They probably turn the heat down to save money.
I move slowly across the red carpet, my boots crunching faintly over grains of salt someone must have tracked in during the last storm. The carpet itself is faded and worn down by a thousand footsteps, earned over decades. A few stains linger, ghosts of spilled sodas and late-night movie mishaps.
The walls are textured panels of gold and turquoise, which shouldn’t go with the red carpets, but somehow, it works.
The popcorn machine in the corner is empty. The concession stand racks are half full of Milk Duds, Junior Mints, and M&M’s.
Behind the concession stand is a kitchen with a large fridge, oven, and microwave for heating up pizzas, pretzels, hot dogs, and nachos.
My gaze drifts to the framed posters lining the walls, sticking on my favorites. It Happened One Night. The Apartment. The Philadelphia Story.
I head deeper into the theater.
The lobby curves into a hallway that leads to the bathrooms, the reel storage room, and then beyond that a narrow staircase to the projector booth, and finally the office.
The bathrooms are like I remember, very old Hollywood. An attached carpeted room has a few red velvet chaise lounges. The sinks have Hollywood vanity mirrors. Most of the bulbs are burnt out.
The reel room door is locked. There was a special key for it, a gold skeleton key.
The projector room is unlocked, and I turn on the bulb overhead before making my way up the stairs to look out into the darkened theater.
On hot summer afternoons, when the rest of the town baked in the heat, I used to sneak up here with a book and a soda. The little square window looked out over the screen, and I’d watch the movies backward from the beam of light shooting across the room. It was like having my own secret balcony over another world.
Halfway back down the steps, I stop and crouch down by the baseboard, running my hand along the wood until I find the little knob.
I pull it back.
It’s still there. Hidden behind a tiny baseboard door, a tiny picture of Marilyn Monroe in a bright pink dress and diamonds, men passed out on the bright red dais behind her. Her smile is bright and wide, her gloved hands pressed against her chest.
For some reason, it makes me want to cry.
I keep going.
The office door is down the hall on the right. It’s dark and small, a single desk and an ancient computer with a few chairs and filing cabinets.
I circle back and push open the double doors to the auditorium.
Dim aisle lights glow along the steps between the rows of seats, casting soft amber halos on the worn red velvet. The ceiling stretches high above me, disappearing into shadow.
The seats are old but sturdy, their fabric faded in places from years of moviegoers sliding in and out. Toward the back, the rows shift into little two-seater love seats. Beverly always said they were for couples who wanted to pretend they were in a 1940s date movie, and she loved to move people around and force them to sit together. Always the matchmaker.
I wander down the aisle, running my hand over the tops of the chairs and picking up dust.
On my fourteenth birthday, we sat right in the middle of the empty theater with bowls of popcorn and a lopsided cake from the bakery down the street. She programmed a whole lineup of classic movies with birthday scenes: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Harold and Maude, The Birds. That last one was slightly traumatizing when all the birds attacked the kids’ party, but still cool.
I’ll never forget the flicker of the projector, the smell of cotton candy, the way the huge screen made everything bigger than life.
Beverly always said The Palace was like a person. We generalize people, think of them based on the things we see on the surface. But when you dig a little deeper, that’s where the good stuff is. That’s when it gets interesting.
Beneath the dirt and scuffs and faded carpet, the magic is still there.
I want to breathe it back to life. Purpose flows through my veins. I can totally do this. First, I want to find the secret passageway. It runs from the projection room into the theater. There’s a chair near the back that swivels open.
Before I can find it, distant laughter catches my attention.
Must be Daphne.
