Page 136 of ClickBack

“Marla, this is Jarrett.”

“I see that. I asked something else.”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m her guy.”

Giselle looks up at me. “You were waiting to say that.”

“Been trying to get it on a shirt.”

Marla laughs and takes Giselle by the arm. “Come on. Brenda got us seats. Malcolm tried to put us all the way in the back like we came here to do something.”

“Brenda agreed to the back,” a man says behind her.

“The bathroom is closer,” the woman with him says. “That was my reason.”

Malcolm shakes my hand while his wife hugs Giselle. Brenda keeps hold of her when they separate.

“Good to see you out,” she says. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

A woman passing with a tub of popcorn slows beside us. “Giselle? I thought that was you. Girl, you have been all over my phone. Is it true that you and...”

“She came to watch the movie, Rochelle,” Brenda says.

“I was only asking.”

“And I’m telling you.”

Rochelle looks at me. I keep my hand at Giselle’s back and let her look. She moves on without finishing the question.

Giselle straightens beside me. “If she needs something to report, tell her I bought the matinee.”

Marla laughs. “Full price. No coupon.”

“Now don’t start lying on me.”

Brenda squeezes her arm before letting go. “Come sit with us.”

Malcolm glances at the poster, then at me. “You seen this before?”

“A few times.”

“Then you know Frankie caused all that.”

Brenda turns around. “Can we get through the opening credits before you start?”

Giselle takes my hand and follows Marla through the doors. It’s Saturday afternoon, three days since I came back to her house, and this is the first place she has asked me to go with her. When she sent the listing, I bought tickets before she could decide she was only passing along information. She made me cancel mine. She had already bought two.

Inside, she introduces me to Yvonne, who joined the group a few months after Giselle’s divorce. They met arguing over the ending of another movie, and Giselle says they still haven’t settled it. Yvonne slides a coat off the seat next to her. Malcolm and Brenda take the row behind us. Marla settles on Giselle’s other side and immediately holds out her hand for candy.

“You know she brought some,” Marla tells me.

“I’m learning.”

Giselle opens her purse. “Everybody who has something to say can buy their own.”

I get the first handful. She doesn’t even look at me while she pours it.