It was the tropics that summer in Seattle, and most days I skated around the city in basketball shorts and a beater, letting the sun peel skin off my shoulders and looking for ways to stay cool. I was broke and Caroline was taking summer classes, so I got work flipping burgers part-time at Dicks. I roasted behind the grill, so on my breaks I’d run over to the gas station and stick my head in the outdoor ice chest. That’s where Penny found me, that afternoon in July, the day she told me about Cinema 17.
Penny worked the milkshake machine at Dick’s; we all liked her because she was liberal with employee samples. She came out of the gas station that day carrying an Arizona Iced Tea, watching me with those big mournful eyes as I struggled out of the ice box.
“The walk-in’s better,” she said, so that’s where we wound up, Penny sipping on her drink and me cross-legged in my sports bra eating chips, blocks of American cheese and burger buns cooling beside us. I had planned to go to the lake later, and with Caroline in her class that afternoon, I asked Penny if she’d like to come.
“I have weed,” I said, but Penny said she didn’t smoke or drink or have sex with women, in case I was trying a come-on, but she understood why I assumed as much, because of the whole black-hair, black-lipstick thing.
“I have a girlfriend,” I said.
Penny shrugged. “My boyfriend is married.”
I had no response to that, so I ate three Doritos and patted my face with the t-shirt in my lap.
“You still hot?” Penny asked. “Try the movies, they’re always over air-conditioned.”
I told her I couldn’t afford it, and Penny suggested a place called Cinema 17 for their two-dollar matinees.
“You can bring your girlfriend,” she said. “Like on a date or something.”
I tried to remember the last time Caroline and I had been on a date. We’d parked her car outside a drive-in once, but we’d been new and hot for each other and hadn’t seen much of the film. And there had been the trip to Chicago, where we’d planned to suck down $20 cocktails at some fancy river bar but had opted for pizzas in our hotel instead. We hadn’t wanted to leave the bed. That was last summer, before Caroline’s classes began. We’d taken the trip to celebrate three years together.
“Anyway,” Penny said as I looked up at her. “It’s in your part of town.”
Gay, she meant the gay part of town, the square mile of dive bars and sex shops where I’d spent my late teens smoking cigarettes and flashing my fake, trying to meet girls. The next day I took my skateboard and rolled over its rainbow sidewalks, past pride flags and the last-standing girl bar on Pike. The Wildrose was another place I’d taken Caroline on a date. Our very first, her yellow hair nearly pink in the red bar lights. I had forgotten that.
I knew the area well, but I had never heard of Cinema 17. How could I have missed it after all those years looking for date spots? I found it down an alley, just a flat building of faded brick with a small marquee that read the name of the matinee in red letters.
I flipped my skateboard into my hand and approached the box office window.
“One ticket, please,” I said.
The ticket taker, a boy with blue hair, raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you’re going to wear?” he asked.
I looked down at my beater and basketball shorts. “Was I supposed to dress up?” I asked, but the blue-haired boy just pursed his lips.
In the lobby, a woman in a red knit hat added garlic salt to her popcorn. A middle-aged man in earmuffs and a long wool coat waited in line for concessions. I stood behind him, amused by his attire. At the counter I ordered a box of Milk Duds and, when I saw it in the cooler, an Arizona Iced Tea.
“Would you like a complimentary hand warmer?” the cashier asked. It was a strange question, and I laughed, shaking my head.
The auditorium was one of those giant single screens with rows and rows of velvet chairs. It smelled of popcorn and dust. The screening was poorly attended, and I found a seat in the center, feeling small under the ornate, vaulted ceiling.
Penny was right; Cinema 17 was certainly cold, and my body, still prickling with heat, relaxed into it. I thought of the old man with his earmuffs and looked around. He sat several rows behind me. The woman in the red knit hat was a few seats to his right. There were others, too, all dressed strangely in warm coats and blankets. I thought of the cashier’s offer and felt suddenly exposed with my bare shoulders and knees.
The movie was a thriller, campy but clever—the kind of film I normally liked—but I couldn’t concentrate. Twenty minutes in, the cold was no longer comfortable. After forty minutes my toes went numb, and at the hour mark my fingers were so stiff I could barely pick the Milk Duds from their box. The Arizona was too cold to drink. When the credits rolled, I hurried out into the lobby, rubbing my arms.
“A bit chilly in there,” I said to the blue-haired boy who stood waiting with a broom.
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “No one else has complained.”
As I stepped back out onto the sidewalk, the heat felt thick and close. I closed my eyes as feeling returned to my toes. I checked my watch; Caroline would be out of class soon. She’d be hungry. On my way home I picked up tofu and a bag of lettuce.
Our apartment was small and didn’t have AC. I opened all the windows and turned on the fan. I chopped a cucumber in thin slices and crumbled feta, Caroline’s favorite, over the top of the romaine. I set the table and lit two taper candles, but at 5 Caroline texted that she was going out for drinks with her cohort, and that she’d be back late. I looked at the table, then boxed up the salad and snuffed out the candles. Then I took an edible and ate popsicles and watched TV.
By 9, Caroline still wasn’t home. I love you, I texted before I went to bed. She responded with a blue heart.
*
At work the next day I went straight for the walk-in. I sat in the cold alone, eating my leftover Milk Duds. When I came out Penny was just arriving, an Arizona in hand.
“Hey,” she said. “How was the 17?”
“Cold,” I replied.
“Well, what did I tell you?”
I leaned against the doorjamb. “Yeah, you called it.”
One corner of Penny’s mouth rose slightly. “What did your girlfriend think?”
I scratched my elbow and looked away. “She couldn’t make it.” I asked Penny about her boyfriend. He had fought with his wife, she told me, and now he was staying at hers until he was allowed back.
“That must be nice,” I said, “to have him around.”
Penny shrugged. “He’s pretty messy.”
“You get used to each other’s rhythms,” I said. “Caroline and I have lived together for three years.”
Penny made a face. “Sounds boring.”
I had to think if that’s what Caroline and I were. Boring. “It’s domestic,” I replied. “And I guess I’m a little traditional.”
Penny narrowed her eyes. “So no other women?”
My skin felt hot again, and I shifted against the doorjamb. “I’m monogamous,” I said.
Penny popped the top of her iced tea and looked thoughtful. “Me too.”
*
The rest of the week was cloudy and cool, raining over the weekend. But by Monday, the temperature was back up, and I was back to sweating through all my beaters. I decided to give Cinema 17 another try. This time I pulled on jeans and a sweater before leaving the apartment and threw a pair of mittens in my bag.
My skate to the cinema was uncomfortably warm. By the time I arrived, my face burned, and peas of sweat rolled down the back of my legs to mush in the creases behind my knees. I longed for the Arizona that awaited me inside.
“Back again?” said the blue-haired boy when I stepped up to the ticket booth. He was wearing shorts and a mesh tank top. “What are you wearing?” he asked.
The cool of the theatre again felt like a relief. But during the previews, my sweat began to dry, and I started to shake. The theatre seemed even colder than before. I looked to see if others felt the same and was somewhat reassured to see the woman in the red knit hat with a matching scarf. The man with the earmuffs had brought a blanket.
The film that afternoon was a black-and-white French noir, a movie I’d wanted to see for months, but I had an even harder time focusing as my eyes teared from the chill. My breath fogged in front of me, and frost weighed down my eyelashes. I could have left, but I had a strange desire to tough it out. Eventually I remembered the mittens in my bag, and I found that they made it easier to hold my iced tea. I had again refused the hand warmers.
“You must really like movies,” the blue-haired boy said on my way out.
*
I tried to tell Caroline about Cinema 17 later that night. She was in bed, reading, and I stood and watched her from the door of the bathroom.
“You should come with me,” I said. Caroline made a small noise but didn’t look up. I was in boxers and my sports bra, Caroline in the large white T-shirt she always wore. “Matinees are only two bucks,” I said.
“I have class in the afternoons,” Caroline replied. She turned a page of her book. Her hair was wet from the shower, and it made tiny curls on her arms. I felt a sudden need to tell her how beautiful she was, which I did.
“You’re sweet,” Caroline said to her book.
In bed, I reached for her stomach. It would not lie flat, no matter how many diets she tried, and she would not stop dieting, no matter how many times I told her I loved the rise below her belly button and the way it dipped down into the warmest parts of her. I told her she was beautiful again, but Caroline lifted my hand off her stomach.
“I’ve already taken my Ambien,” she said.
“I miss you,” I said, which made Caroline laugh. She set down her book and leaned away from me to switch off her bedside light.
“I’m right here.”
It took me a long time to fall asleep. Despite the open window and ceiling fan, my boxers stuck to my body, and I thought of my breath made visible in the air of the 17. I decided to ask Penny the next day how to make it through a movie without risking hypothermia.
“Bring a change of clothes,” she suggested. Penny jammed the malt cup up the blending rod of the milkshake machine. “But it sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.” Several flecks of chocolate ice cream splattered Penny’s uniform. Her cheeks were pink from the heat. She turned her head for a moment, and I saw that the back of her neck was damp. Wet hair clung to it.
“How’s it going with your married boyfriend?” I asked.
Penny shrugged. “His wife let him come home. I kind of miss him.”
*
The next day, I stuffed warm clothes in a bag. I wore shorts and a beater on my skate to the 17; I was warm when I arrived, but not dripping like before. The blue-haired boy was silent as he sold me a ticket, but after I paid, he said, “Enjoy the show.”
In the bathroom I changed into my down coat, snow pants, mittens, hat, and scarf. At the concessions stand, I ordered a hot chocolate.
“Would you like a complimentary hand warmer?” the cashier asked.
I hesitated, but I was already uncomfortably warm. “I think I’ll be ok,” I said.
This time I was certain that the theatre was at least ten degrees colder than it had been on my first visit. I looked around at my fellow movie-goers and saw that they had come prepared for this dip in temperature. The woman in the red knit hat and scarf now spread a matching blanket over her legs. The ear-muffed man had brought a hot water bottle, and two men in mink coats were striking up a portable fire pit. I huddled in my seat, still violently cold, but also vindicated by my preparedness.
When the movie was over, I helped the two men carry the fire pit out of the theatre. The blue-haired boy watched me as I passed through the front doors, his chin propped in his hand.
“Thermals help,” he said.
*
I planned to take the blue-haired boy’s advice the next day, but Caroline surprised me. She had the day off, so we struggled through the bushes at Seward Park to find a quiet spot on the lake. We laid out towels and drank beer on the beach. Caroline had just turned in a paper, and she seemed more relaxed than I had seen her since her program began. Her hair glittered in the sunlight, and in the water her skin felt slick and cool.
“I want you,” I said, and Caroline laughed. I scooped my thumb under the fabric of the swimsuit at her hip. “I really want you,” I said.
“Later,” Caroline said.
Later we got stoned and looked at the stars. I thought of Penny, of what she’d said back in the walk-in about boredom. “Do you remember the summer we drove to Chicago,” I said, “and made love in every hotel along the way?”
Caroline laughed. “Somehow I got wet in that shithole near Eau Claire.”
I rolled onto my side and looked at her. “Remember Chicago?” I asked. “Our hotel?”
Caroline rolled to face me, too. “I didn’t even care that we never saw the Sears Tower.”
“You mean the Willis Tower.”
“Don’t make me regret not going on that tour.” We both laughed.
“We should do that again,” I said. “Drive to San Diego, or Montana.”
Caroline shook her head. “You have a job. And I have school.”
“I’ll quit.”
“Then how could we afford it?”
“We could camp,” I said. “Make love in every KOA from here to California.”
Caroline was quiet. She rolled away from me and onto her back. In the moonlight her face was so white that for a moment she looked dead. But then she raised her hand as if reaching for the stars. “It’s so far away,” she said.
*
Two nights later Caroline got home late with a salad from the deli. “I thought you had already eaten,” she said.
“The camping trip,” I began, but Caroline cut me off.
“I’m going up to my moms,” she said, “just for a couple days.” She needed to get out of the city, she explained.
“Do you want me to come?” I asked, but Caroline shook her head.
“I know you have to work,” she said. She shifted on the couch and looked out the window. “It’s just so hot.”
*
I covered extra shifts at work. I was opening now, so that when Penny arrived, I was already at the grill.
“What’s up with you?” she asked after a week of this. “Why aren’t you home with that girl of yours?”
“Caroline’s at her mother’s,” I said. I flipped a patty on the grill. “And I’m trying to save up. We’re road-tripping to Montana soon. Or San Diego.”
Penny raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
I called Caroline every day that week. She told me how her mother had bought them a membership to a community pool. Her mother also had air conditioning and a fridge that made ice. When we spoke, we didn’t talk long. Caroline usually had to study.
“I was going to order food tomorrow,” I told her, the day before she was due back. “Chinese or Thai, your choice.”
“Oh,” Caroline said. “I’ve actually decided to stay a little longer.”
“Just another week,” she said.
“I miss you so much,” she said.
*
I asked my manager if I could go full-time. I found if I worked more, I thought less, so I stopped taking my break. I no longer had time for matinees, so I began attending the evening show at the 17. I went every other day now, hurrying over from my dinner shift, my skateboard cutting through the hot night.
To my great frustration, the theatre remained impenetrably cold. I had added thermals to my repertoire, and they helped a little, but it felt that the more warmth I packed, the colder the theatre became. Two weeks after Caroline left, I found ice covering the red velvet seats. The ear-muffed man pulled out a scraper and took it to the armrest. When he saw me watching, he let me use it, too. But by the next week, the ice was too thick to scrape from the seats, and I gathered with a group by the fire pit. The woman in the red knit hat offered me some of her hot tea, and during the opening scenes of the film, I smoked them all out. This briefly made us forget the cold, but only until an icicle fell from the second tier and nearly speared my foot.
At work, I spoke with Penny only briefly; if she missed me, she didn’t say. I watched her sometimes, wrestling with a malt cup at the milkshake machine, her expression indecipherable. Once I ran into her in the alley behind Dick’s when I was taking out the trash.
“You look like shit,” she said.
I shrugged, but I knew Penny was right. With my longer shifts and my nights spent at the 17, I was sleeping less and less. I had lost weight, and there were deep bags underneath my eyes.
“I’m just tired,” I said.
Penny was quiet for a moment. “Caroline still at her mom’s?” When I didn’t answer, she asked, “How’s it going with your movie theatre? Any warmer?”
I shook my head.
“Maybe it’s time to let it go.”
I heaved the bag of trash into the bin. “I’m not giving up,” I said.
I still called Caroline every day, but she was answering less and less. When I couldn’t reach her, I became so anxious that nothing could calm me. I couldn’t be in the apartment, the heat too constrictive. But I couldn’t be outside either, where the world suddenly felt too big for my racing mind. The only place where I could stop thinking was Cinema 17. I went every night. I stopped drinking with the others around the fire pit, instead sitting alone in the back of the auditorium, piling more and more blankets over my legs, and shivering so hard I shook the seat.
At the end of that week my manager cornered me by the grill.
“You have to take your break,” he said. He looked apologetic. “Restaurant policy, to cover our asses.”
I went to the walk-in. Penny was sitting against the boxes of lettuce and tomatoes. I sat across from her and without speaking, she offered me some of her Arizona. I took a sip, but it was too cold, and handed it back. Everything was too cold.
“You’re shivering,” said Penny.
“I’m fine,” I said, but my teeth knocked against one another involuntarily.
Penny shifted towards me. She touched my arm and then pulled back as if in surprise. “You’re freezing.”
I tried to shrug her off, but Penny stood and crouched over her bag, removing a cardigan. “Put this on,” she said quietly. Again, I told her I was fine, but she told me to shut up and do as I was told, so I let her direct my arms through the sleeves. Then she put her hand behind my elbow and tried to pull me up. I pulled away.
Penny straightened, looking angry. “What are you doing?” she asked. I touched the spot on my arm where she had touched me. “I can’t help you,” she said, and turned and left the walk-in. I stayed and watched the refrigerator mist drift down around a box of mayonnaise. After five minutes, I called Caroline. The phone rang and rang. I hung up and tried again, but again it kept ringing, like somehow Caroline had learned to take a cell phone off its hook.
*
I left my shift late that night. I skated back to the apartment, then stared at the door for ten minutes and skated away. I could have gone to a bar; I could have skated down to the water and lit up and watched the lake waves. I could have rented a car and driven up to Caroline’s mother’s, banged on the door, refused to leave until Caroline came out. But soon I was standing in front of Cinema 17. The marquee listed one more showing. I approached the ticket booth, but the blue-haired boy wasn’t there. Instead, a sign instructed me to purchase a ticket from the kiosk inside.
The lobby was deserted. A sign at the concession stand said Be back in 5, so I stuffed a pair of complimentary hand warmers into my pocket and made my way into the theatre. The auditorium was also empty. The previews hadn’t started; the screen was blue, and as I looked over the seats, the ice glowed like an ocean at rest. I made my way to the center of the theatre and sat in the middle row. The ice was hard against my legs, and I realized, both suddenly and as if I’d always known, that I felt no cold.
The movie began. A woman stood at a stove in a sunny kitchen, preparing food. Snow began to fall from the ceiling of the theatre. It padded down around me and stuck to my sleeves and the arms of my seat. Caroline had been gone for five weeks.
The woman on the screen put the food on a plate, but instead of taking it to the table, she opened a door and went down a narrow staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, a hallway ended in a single door. The woman walked to the door and slid aside a window, looking into the room beyond. Inside was a man, chained to the wall.
I felt fear rising inside of me, snaking up out of my stomach. The man pulled at the chains, but they went nowhere. “Please,” he said, “tell me what you want.” The woman stared at him, saying nothing. Then she took a bite of the food. The man started crying. “Please,” he said. The woman remained silent, eating the food. Then she closed the window.
“Wait!” the man yelled. He pulled hard against the chains. “You have to let me go.”
I tried to stand, but ropes of ice had wound around my forearms and shoulders, binding me to my seat. I looked down, and to my horror I saw that my legs and feet were frozen under half an inch of glassy ice. And then the cold hit me, all at once, like it had been waiting for me the entire time. My body felt like it had been plunged into a frozen lake, and I lurched and bucked in my seat. My thighs strained. I tried to call out, but my lips wouldn’t part, and the realization that I was all alone flooded my brain with fear. The woman walked back towards the stairs, the man’s screams following her. I closed my eyes and pulled with all my strength.
I wrenched a foot from the floor. Gasping for breath, every part of my body screaming with cold and pain, I yanked the other foot free. I struggled to my feet, but my muscles screamed in protest, so torpid they could barely bend or support my weight. I fell to the floor. I couldn’t think clearly, everything muddled, nothing in my body working, the man still begging for release on the screen, but then I thought of the lake and the sun. I thought of sweat on the back of Penny's neck. I thought of the warmth on my arm left from Penny’s touch.
I began to pull myself towards the door. My fingers dug into the snow and cold shot up under my fingernails. My arms shook uncontrollably. I could no longer feel my nose or my ears, and every breath pulled the freezing air into my lungs. But I forced every muscle to drag me forward. Behind me the screams continued, and just when I thought I couldn’t go any further, couldn’t take the sound of the man’s cries another second more, I reached the door. Fumbling with relief, I reached for the handle. But my fingers could not turn it. They were too cold and numb to grip and twist the knob. I was going to die in this theater. I began to cry, or at least my body shook, but my tears froze as soon as they touched my skin.
And then I remembered the hand warmers. I thrust my hand into my pocket and felt the plastic wrapper. With my teeth I ripped them open, then clenched the packets in my fists, trying to block out the sobs. Please, I thought. Please. And then heat shot into my palms. It sped to my fingers, and with the last ounce of energy I had left, I grabbed for the handle. My fingers closed around the brass, and it turned. I was out.
I lay in the hall for what felt like hours. My body was slow to thaw, the feeling returning in violent shocks of pain. On the carpet I thought about Caroline, about Penny. I counted the cracks in the ceiling’s plaster. When I made it out into the night, the air smelled like rain.
*
I texted Penny the next day and asked if she would cover my shift; she said yes, but only if I would do her a favor. I spent the morning boxing up Caroline’s things, labeling them with her mother’s address before taking them to the post office. Then I lay in the sun by the lake for three days, grateful for the warmth.
Finally, I texted Penny. What’s this favor?
Take a walk with me, she texted back.
I met Penny after the end of her closing shift. The sun had already set, and as she walked toward me in the parking lot, I felt warmth pool in my chest. The air was cool and comfortable, nudging us toward fall. Penny’s legs were bare under her skirt. When she reached me, she handed me a can of Arizona Iced Tea.
“You look tan,” she said when I tried to thank her.
We walked out into the neighborhood behind Dick’s. The houses in this part of the city were old with large lawns and green elms. We passed a house with a swing in the front yard; another whose gardens smelled of lavender. We were only a few blocks off the main road, but the sounds of the city felt far away.
The neighborhood sloped down towards the lake. As we walked toward the line of houseboats along its edge, we barely spoke, just drank our teas and watched the lights from across the lake blink back at us.
“You were right,” I said eventually. “It was time to let it go.”
I thought Penny would say “I know” but she nodded and said, “It’s the hardest thing of all.”
We finished our Arizonas sitting on a patch of grass. Penny stood and crushed her can with her foot. I half expected her to leave it, but she picked it up and put it in her bag.
“I don’t litter,” she said, then she crushed my can and slipped her underwear down over her boots. She moved towards me, her eyes as large and mournful as I had ever seen them. She sunk her knees into the grass on either side of my hips and I touched the back of her thigh.
She told me to use three fingers minimum, four if I could get the angle right.
“What about your boyfriend?” I asked, but this was only cursory, because by then I was already up to my knuckles in her.
“I missed him too much,” Penny said, “and also not at all.”
When she was done, she pulled her underwear back up under her skirt. The air was wet and smelled sweet and tangy. I touched her hair. She looked at me, a hard look, and for a moment I was afraid she was angry. Then she said, “Now tell me exactly what you like.”
On the way back she threw our cans in someone’s recycling bin.
Madeline Furlong is a lecturer at the University of Illinois, from where she holds an MFA in Creative Writing. Her work has received support from the Taleamor Park artist residency, been a finalist for the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, and won the Hobart L. and Mary Kay Peer Fiction Prize. Madeline’s stories are published in or forthcoming from failbetter, Hobart Pulp, and Oyster River Pages. She is originally from Conway, Washington and can be found at www.madelinefurlong.com
Photo by: Lucian Dachman