“Isn’t sixty seconds very short?” she asked.
“No, that’s the usual length. Some are even shorter. Thirty seconds, some of them.” He looked up from where he was threading the film. “You don’t have to hurry back or anything, do you?”
“No, no,” she said. “As long as I’m back before dinner.”
“What time is that, usually?”
“Seven-thirty, usually. But I have to be back before then. My husband gets home at seven, you see. And he likes to have a drink first. So I should be home around six-thirty, seven. Not that I have to account for my time or anything, you understand.”
“Well, even if you did,” Frank said, “there’s nothing wrong with two adults having lunch together.”
“If I thought there was anything wrong with it, I wouldn’t have accepted.”
“In fact, it seems entirely prejudicial that a man and a woman can’t enjoy each other’s company simply because they happen to be married to other people — you didn’t tell your husband, did you?” he asked.
“No. Did you tell your wife?”
“No,” he said. “I never even told her I’d met you on the train.”
“It’s really silly, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” he said. “But you know, the truth of it is that most people just wouldn’t understand. If I told my wife... or anyone, for that matter... that I’d taken you to lunch...”
“And to a motel later...”
“To show you a film...”
“Who’d believe it?”
“There,” he said. “Let me just close these drapes.” He pulled them across the rod, darkening the room, and then snapped on the projector. As the leader came on, he adjusted the throw and the focus, and framed the film on the center of the towel. “Here goes,” he said, just as a heraldic blast of trumpets sounded from the projector’s speaker. The film appeared on the towel. There were two ten-year old children in the film. The children were singing.
“Hot buttered popcorn,” they sang,
“We like it, you like it.Б”
“Hot buttered popcornБ”
“From Pike, it’sБ”
“Great!”
The children were digging into a box of popcorn now. One of the children asked, “Do you like popcorn?”
“I love popcorn,” the other child said.
“Me, too.”
The children fell silent. On the screen, there were close shots of their hands digging into the box of popcorn, other close shots of the popcorn being transferred to their mouths. The camera pulled back to show their beaming faces.
“Good, huh?” the first child asked.
“Delicious,” the second child said.
“What is it?”
“Popcorn. What do you think it is?”
“Yeah, but what kind of popcorn?”
“Hot buttered popcorn.”
“I mean, the name.”
“Oh. I dunno.”
“Is this it here on the box?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
The camera panned down to the front of the popcorn box, and the words PIKE’S POPCORN printed on it.
“Pike’s!” one of the children shouted. “That’s the name!”
Together, they began singing again.
“Hot buttered popcorn,Б”
“We like it, you like it.Б”
“Hot buttered popcornБ”
“From Pike, it’sБ”
“Great!”
The screen went blank. Frank snapped off the projector, and then turned on the room light. Millie was silent for what seemed an inordinately long time. Then she said, “I didn’t realize it would be in color.”
“Yes, we shoot everything in color nowadays,” he said. “What’d you think of it?”
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Did you write the song, too?”
“No, just the dialogue. Between the kids.”
“Oh,” Millie said.
“It was very easy and natural for me,” he said. “I have three kids of my own, you know.”
“Yes, you told me that. On the train. Two boys and a girl.”
“No, two girls and a boy,” he said.
“Yes. How old are they?”
“The boy’s nineteen. The girls are fifteen and thirteen.”
“That’s older than my girls,” Millie said. “Mine are eight and six.”
They looked at each other silently. The silence lengthened. And then, into the silence, the telephone suddenly shrilled, startling them both. He moved toward the phone, and then stopped dead in his tracks. The phone kept ringing. Finally he went to it, and warily lifted the receiver.
“Hello?” he said. “Who? No, there’s no Mr.... oh, yes! Yes, this is Mr. McIntyre. The what? Yes, the Mercury is mine. In what? In the parking space for seventeen? Oh, yes, certainly, I’ll move it. Thank you.” He hung up, and looked at Millie. “I parked the car in the wrong space,” he said.
“Is that the name you used? Mclntyre?”
“Yes, well, I figured...”
“Oh, certainly, what’s the sense of...?”
“That’s what I figured. I’d better move the car. It’s supposed to be in sixteen.”
As he started for the door, she said, “Maybe we just ought to leave.”
“What?” he said.
“Well... you’ve shown me the film already. And since you have to move the car, anyway...”
“Yes, but we haven’t discussed it yet,” he said. “The film. In depth, I mean.”
“That’s true. But we could discuss it in depth in the car on the way back to the city.”
“Yes, I guess we could do that,” he said. “Is that what you’d like to do?”
“What would you like to do?”
“Well, I thought I’d move the car to number sixteen, and then maybe we could discuss the film afterwards. In depth. If that’s what you’d like to do.”
“Well, whatever you want to do.”
“Well, fine then.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll move the car,” he said quickly, and went out, and closed the door behind him., She debated sitting on the bed, and decided against it. She debated sitting in one of the chairs near the windows, and decided against that as well. She settled for leaning on the dresser. She was leaning on it when he came back into the room, blowing on his hands.
“Whoo, it’s cold out there,” he said. “I can’t remember a January this cold, can you?”
“You should have put on your coat.”
“Well, I figured just to move the car...”
“Did you move it?”
“Yep,” he said, “all taken care of. Room sixteen in space sixteen.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“Mine? Oh, you mean room seventeen. A big black Caddy. With a fat old man behind the wheel.”
“Alone?”
“No, he had a girl with him. A frumpy blonde.”
“Probably has a film he wants to show her,” Millie said, and smiled.
“Probably,” he said, and returned the smile. “So... what’d you think of it?” Without waiting for her answer, he said, “I got quite a bit of praise for it. In fact, the Head of Creation called me personally to...”
“God?”
“No, Hope. Hope Cromwell. She’s the agency’s creative head. That’s her official title.”
“What’s your official title?”
“Me? I’m just a copywriter, that’s all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say just a copywriter.”
“Well, Hope’s a vice president, you see. I’m just...” He shrugged. “Just a copywriter.”
“Michael’s a vice president, too,” she said. “My husband. He’s a stockbroker, did I tell you that?” She paused, and then said, “Is Hope attractive?”