Plan B: Chapter III

Chapter III Movie Club

Lizzie stood outside the library door Friday night wondering how this could possibly be her life now. Instead of a hip New York club she was waiting for someone to open the library, the li-bra-ry door of all places. On a Friday night. “Someone sure hates me,” she said and glanced upward. As soon as she did though, the thought occurred to her if she was still back in New York she would probably be working and still wouldn’t be at a hip New York club unless she was waitressing there. “Fine,” she mumbled to no one in particular. “I get it, I get it.”

Matt opened the door and dramatically bowed as she walked in. “Welcome to movie club.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “The first rule of movie club is no one talks about movie club.”

“Ha,” he said and stood up straight. “Actually, the first rule of movie club is to talk about movie club. The more we have join the better. For some reason though, no one wants to join us.”

She looked at him a little worried.

“It’s the time thing. It takes time to watch movies and most people are into binging tv shows nowadays.”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“Follow me,” he said and walked toward the stairs. “Ike works at the library so we can use one of the meeting rooms downstairs after hours. It really works out well since most of the places that are open tonight are not really conducive to our vibe.” He turned back and looked at her. “Too noisy.”

She nodded. “I imagine.” She followed him down the stairs to the lower level. “Listen,” she said noticing they were approaching a room she assumed the club was meeting in.

He stopped and looked at her.

“I want to apologize for the other night at dinner. I was still processing all the news my dad told me and adjusting to the move. I wasn’t on my best behavior.” That night at dinner she had remained very quiet. She was afraid if she did say anything she would circle it back to the same topic of her dad not sharing information. Then she would get upset and raise her voice. And if she was upset, she wouldn’t be able to assess Sharon and get an adequate impression of the woman who was dating her dad. And that seemed to be the priority so she remained pretty quiet the whole dinner and only spoke when someone asked her a question.

Her quiet demeanor was not lost on her dad and after their guests left, they did circle back to the elephant in the room. But neither position advanced and they went to bed upset with each other. She was upset with him for withholding information and he was upset with her for not being more polite to their dinner guests.

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Sharon and I talked about it after dinner and we both decided the best thing was to give you and your dad some space. For a little while anyway. I miss my dinners at his place. I have been eating way too much take out this week.” He gingerly patted his stomach. “It is starting to show.”

She smiled. “I appreciate it but I think it’s safe to resume your routine. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you needing to join Weight Watchers or anything like that.”

“Thanks for that!” he said.

They walked into the small room and four men were already in there. One was at the snack table. Two were hooking up a big screen monitor to a computer. And one was arranging the chairs.

“Ah,” chair arranger said. “Matt said he invited new blood. Welcome.”

“Ike,” Matt said, “this is Lizzie Carter.”

“Lizzie Carter?” one of the monitor workers asked. “From school?”

Oh boy, Lizzie thought. Here we go. “The one and same.”

“I think we had band together,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I wasn’t in band.”

“Really?” he asked and turned to the monitor again. “I could have sworn that was you.”

“Never played an instrument,” she replied and shook her head slowly.

“Huh,” he muttered. “Dude, what are you doing?” He asked his fellow helper. “That is the wrong connection.”

Matt continued the introductions. “That is Patrick but we all just call him Goldie.”

She looked at Matt and then at Goldie.

“His last name is Goldman.”

“Ah,” she said and pointed at Goldie. “Goldie it is.”

“Helping him is Parker. And really the reason we call Patrick Goldie. It was too confusing have to P’s in our group.”
“Makes sense.”

“Already in line at the snack table is Forest.”

“Hey,” he said. “This is my dinner.”

Matt held out his hands and smiled. “Sure, sure.”

“Okay,” Lizzie scanned the room. “We have Forest taste testing our snacks.”

“Hey,” Forest said sitting down in a chair with a loaded plate. “I like her.”

“We have Parker who is making sure we will be able to watch our movie.”

Parker nodded back.

“Goldie who I was not in band with,” she continued. “And Ike who furnished this lovely place for us to meet in.” The fluorescent light flickered. “When are the others coming?” she asked.

“What others?” Goldie asked.

“Are there more coming?” Ike asked.

Matt smiled. “This is it. This is our movie club. I told you the time thing was an issue. Everyone is too busy to watch a movie.”

“Yet book clubs continue to thrive,” she mumbled.

“Mostly due to Audible. People can listen to books and do other things,” Parker said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She didn’t come to argue so she let it go.

“You went to school here though?” Ike asked.

“She graduated a year before us,” Matt said.

Ike studied her. “I don’t remember you and I usually remember people. That’s kind of my thing. I never forget a face.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said uncomfortable with having to talk about high school. It was not her favorite time in life and she didn’t like to think about it. There was also the fact she didn’t remember any of them either.

“Who did you hang out with?” Ike pressed.

She shrugged. “I was mostly a loner. But I did go to junior prom with Tad Wilkins.”

“Tad Wilkins?” Goldie gushed. “Tad Wilkins the football player? No way!”

Parker nodded. “Tad is awesome!”

“He graduated with us, didn’t he?” Ike asked Matt.

“Yes,” Lizzie said. “He was a year behind me in school but we were neighbors.” She didn’t bother to tell them their date was planned by their mothers. “But he is a good guy, you’re right.”

Matt nodded. “Hey, how about we get started?”

“Joe Versus the Volcano, right?” she asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve watched it so I might just listen while you all discuss. I will help myself to some snacks.” She headed toward the snack table.

“Oh, there’s been a change of plans,” Matt said.

Lizzie stopped. Something about his tone made her regret coming.

“We are saving Joe Versus the Volcano for next month,” he continued.

“Classic!” Goldie called out.

“Amen,” Matt said. “But tonight we are going to do something a little different.”

Oh no, Lizzie thought.

“We are going to watch a movie together.”

This is not going to be good, she thought.

He smiled and took out a DVD from his bag. “I present to you, New York Knight!”

The others in the room turned and looked at Lizzie.

“Oh,” she said slowly. “How did you…Where did you…A DVD?” she grabbed it out of his hands and looked at the cover. Even though she was well aware of the cover. And the movie. She knew a lot about the movie she was in.

“I looked up your IMDB page,” he said proudly.

“I have an IMDB page?” she asked.

“Well, sort of. By IMDB page I really mean your dad. He told me about the movie. I tried finding it on a streaming service and couldn’t…”

“Yeah, it didn’t do very well when it came out.”

“So, he loaned me his DVD.”

“Here,” Parker said and took the DVD. “My old laptop still has a disc drive.” He put the DVD in the drive and closed it

Lizzie looked at the men. “We really don’t have to do this,” she said. “The movie wasn’t that great.”

“But you were an extra in a movie,” Forest said. “That’s pretty exciting.”

“Well,” she said. “Technically I was a little more than just an extra.” She paused because she never told her dad this part so there was no way Matt would know. “I actually had a role.”

All eyes were on her.

“I was Girl On Elevator.”

“Oh,” Forest said. “That’s cool.”

“No, not really,” she said. “The only part of me that made it on screen was my elbow. I just told my dad I was an extra because that was…” she looked for the right word “easier.” She looked down at the DVD case. “I did not know he bought a copy of it.”

Matt smiled. “I’ve only known your dad for a couple of years but there is one thing I know about him and that is he is one proud papa bear. I mean, I feel like I already know you since he has told me so many stories.”

“Oh,” she said slowly. She didn’t like the sound of that.

After a moment, Goldie asked. “How did you get your part in the movie?”

“I got it because Jason Fields was in my acting class and he got me the part.” Usually, when she told people this part of the story she got a reaction. Jason Fields was a relatively unknown actor when this movie came out. He had a small part as the delivery man riding up in the elevator. They stood next to each other in the scene but he was fully visible because he actually had a speaking line. His character talked to the lead.

Shortly after this movie came out, he was in another movie that did better. Since then, his star was on the rise and he even stopped coming to class. His name was starting to be tossed around and Lizzie even dropped it a few times. Usually, people were impressed that she knew Jason Fields. Not this crowd though.

How was it possible that her prom date name was a bigger name drop then her movie star acquaintance? What kind of weird vortex did she fall into when she moved home?

“Huh,” she said. “Seriously though, we do not have to watch this movie. I don’t really want to subject anyone to this.”

“Oh, we have to watch it now,” Goldie said and grabbed the DVD case out of her hand. He studied the case a bit. “I can tell just by looking at the case that it is going to be epically bad.”

Parker cleared his throat loudly.

Goldie looked up at Lizzie. “No offense.”

“None taken, it is epically bad. I bet we won’t even get halfway through it.”

But she was wrong. Sort of. Goldie, Forest, and Parker all fell asleep at various parts. She was on her phone scrolling most of the time.

She looked up at the screen. “This is it,” she said.

“What?” Matt asked.

“My part is coming up.”

They watched as the lead actor ran into the elevator and started talking to the delivery boy.

“See?” she asked. “That elbow right there? That is mine.”

Matt paused the movie and looked at the elbow then at her. “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you sure?”

She rolled her eyes and changed her hand position to match the position on the screen.

“Oh, my goodness!” Matt said in a mocking tone. “We have a movie star in our midst!”

“Shut up,” Lizzie giggled. “I actually had a speaking part but it was cut.”

“What?” Matt said. “Get out of here. Really?”

“I did,” she said.

“What was it?”

“Excuse me.”

“What was the line?” he asked again.

“That was it. Excuse me. I say it to Jason because he gets pushed into me.”

“Oh! Oh, well, now I have to hear it. Say it in character.”

“No,” she rolled her eyes.

“C’mon,” he said. “Say it.”

She cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said with a hint of New York accent.

Matt dabbed at his eyes. “Beautiful. I felt it. That was Oscar worthy. You would have stolen the scene if they left it in. It would have been too much for this movie.”

“Shut up,” she said and tossed some popcorn at him.

“Seriously,” he continued. “You would have stolen the whole movie with that one line.”

“That’s kind of what Jason did,” she said looking at the paused image of Jason on screen. “They say it was this short scene that impressed the director so much that he hired him for his next movie. And that changed his trajectory while mine stayed the same.”

Matt looked down and resumed the movie.

“We really don’t have to finish watching this,” she said.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “This is movie club. We finish the movies we start.” He looked at the other three who were sleeping. “Even the bad ones.”

A few minutes later he asked, “how is the job hunt going?”

“Ah,” she said. “The job hunt. The game on this hunt is remaining somewhat elusive.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just that, I can get a job as a waitress. I mean, I have been doing that pretty steadily the last ten years in New York. But there, I was an actress who waitressed on the side to make ends meet. Here? Here I would just be a waitress. And I don’t know if I want that to be my life.”

“Gotcha,” he said.

“But my agent back in New York left me a message to call him today.”

“Oh,” Matt said. “What for?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m kind of scared to call back. I haven’t heard from him in 6 months so I just assumed the agency was done with me.”

“Would you move back to New York?” he asked.

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think so. This is probably nothing.”

“But you are going to call back to find out for sure though, right?

“Probably?”

“Are you asking me?” he asked.

“No,” she said and lowered her tone, “probably.”

“Well,” he said. “Good luck. I hope it’s something good.”

She nodded. Everything in her life felt like it was in flux with nothing steady. Her dad was living a life unknown to her. Her career was up in the air. There was nothing she could hold onto. She was merely caught in a current and being swept downstream.

They watched the rest of the movie in silence. When the credits finally started to roll all Matt said was “Wow.”

“I told you,” she said.

The others started to wake up.

“I mean, I watched the whole thing and I’m not even sure I can tell you what it’s about.”

“It’s bad,” she said.

“So bad,” he agreed.

The credits continued to roll. “But here we are at the end. Is your name listed? Is Girl On Elevator in the credits?”

She looked at the screen. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “But it’s under my screen name.”

“You have a screen name?” Goldie asked groggily.

“I do,” she said.

Matt watched the screen intently and fast forwarded to the end of the credits. He watched each name. “Girl On Elevator!” he said excitedly when it finally came on screen. “Lisbeth Cartier?” he asked.

“It sounds more professional than Lizzie Carter,” Lizzie defended herself. “Cartier is actually our original family name so really, I’m just going back to the original family name.”

“Lisbeth Cartier,” Matt said again. “Does your dad know about this?”

“He would have if I had made it past Girl On Elevator. If I had an actual IMDB page.”

“So,” Matt said. “It sounds like you didn’t tell your dad everything either?”

“What?” she asked.

“I mean, you had a speaking part that was cut from a movie and you told him you were just an extra.”

“But…” she started to defend herself.

“And,” he continued, “there is the matter of your name change. Name change. Don’t you think that would have come up in say, weekly conversations with your father?”

The other men three looked from Matt to Lizzie.

“I can see why you’re a lawyer,” Lizzie said getting a little red in the face.

“Look,” Matt said and held out his hands in peace. “I’m just saying, maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree so give your dad a little slack.”

It was late. She was tired. They had just watched a horrible movie. She didn’t have enough energy to argue with someone who was not a part of the family. Plus, there was the slight nagging feeling that he was right.

“Lisbeth,” Matt said. “A fine name. But I prefer Lizzie.”