“At your uncle’s place?” She liked to picture him there, somewhere away from the mess she’d made of their relationship.

“Sort of,” John said. “I can explain.”

“You know the Matador?”

John laughed. “See you at two thirty.”

#

JOHN PARKED IN THE small lot next to the run-down movie theater. He’d thought of Anna immediately when he saw there was a Hitchcock revival at the theater this week. The old movie house was a glamorous artifact from long ago.

John grabbed the external hard drive. Not much of a gift, but he wasn’t going to wrap it.

At this point, he was stalling, not exactly sure what to say, not exactly sure how this day would end. But she had called. She’d blackmailed her ex-husband, fought back against the powerful man, and won. In Anna’s world, that translated as: “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

John crossed the parking lot. The white paint peeling from the building revealed layers of gray underneath. The garish neon sign stood at odds with the small sub shops and secondhand stores lining the streets around the theater.

No reason to put it off any longer. He bought a ticket from the bored teen behind the glass of the old-fashioned ticket booth and pushed through the double doors.

In the dark of the foyer, Anna stood waiting for him, holding a bucket of popcorn and staring up at the ceiling. John was a writer, but he didn’t have the words to say how it felt to see her there, anxious but not leaving, giving him time. He’d missed her, along with those early mornings and late nights. He missed the way they would argue about movies and agree about how to handle the shoot in Rome.

“I got butter, which I wasn’t sure you liked,” Anna said, as if the snacks were the most important thing about this conversation. She handed him a soda.

Where do I start? ‘You were kind of a bitch, but I lied to you, so we both screwed up.’ It wasn’t the most romantic of speeches. Hard to picture a movie ending this way.

He took a sip of his soda. “Let’s get seats.”

They walked side by side into the large theater. The house lights hadn’t gone down yet, but it was a dim, hushed kind of feeling. He loved this place. It was a cathedral to the past, with its carved balconies and elaborate art nouveau scenes painted on the walls, bright pastel colors fading to a muted hue. There weren’t many patrons on a weekday afternoon for one of Hitchcock’s lesser-known films. They were the only two people in the theater. They got seats, Anna sitting stiff and unnatural. Whatever she had to say, he would wait. He owed her that much.

“Look, I was a huge bitch to you,” Anna said, a little too loudly. She turned to him.