Chapter Text
November had kept the East Village busy. Along East Tenth Street, taxis idled and jerked forward, their exhaust settled into the air with the smell of garbage and the roasted nuts being sold by vendors down the block. Storefronts like Life Café and the corner laundromat displayed neon signs that dimmed beneath the overcast sky. The neighbourhood moved at its usual pace, indifferent to the calendar. Though signs of winter had begun to appear: strings of lights and the occasional electric menorahs gleamed from inside the shops, and a few hand-lettered Black Friday banners boasting large savings were taped clumsily to the glass of the corner stores below.
Robin wiped a small spot on the fogged window with her sleeve and leaned closer, watching the street below. The green and red glow of the Christmas lights she had strung inside lit up her face. Robin heard the kitchen faucet drip as Vickie spoke on the other end of the line. She sat on the arm of the couch, refusing the seat cushions that were somehow still damp from where Steve had spilled his coffee that morning before he left for work. The phone cord strained as she shifted, bringing one knee up to her chest.
Robin could feel her mind drifting. The walls of the apartment were painted mint green and worn down with furniture scuffs from past tenants, interrupted by odd, discoloured patches where their landlord, Loretta, had fixed them. Steve had hung up a Back to the Future poster that Dustin bought him as a joke earlier that year when he visited from Boston. When was that again, Robin wondered.
Vickie’s voice cut through the daydream of Dustin and Steve sleeping in their shared living room, faces planted into a pile of blankets. “Robin?”
It must have been in June. No, April. She remembered it was around the time of the assaults in Central Park. Steve hadn’t let Dustin go out on his own at night that entire trip.
“Robin, are you still there?” Vickie asked again.
Robin fumbled with the receiver, “Yeah, I’m here,” she replied, distracted by Loretta’s voice drifting through the thin walls.
Vickie had sounded serious when she called. Vickie’s face flickered in her mind. Robin tried to picture her clearly, the way her eyes looked smaller before morning makeup, but the image wouldn’t stay.
“Robin, are you okay?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking about something…” Robin finally said.
There was a sigh on the other end. “Robin, I wanted to talk to you about something important.” Vickie said, “But it sounds like maybe this isn’t a good time?”
“No, no, I’m fine! Actually, hey, guess what? I got my bus tickets to see you during the break. I thought maybe we could go to The Depot again? You said you like it there, right?”
There was silence for a moment and then: “Can you return them?”
“What? Why would I do that? Wait, are you coming here? Because there’s this insane show at MoMA right now that mixes like Warhol, Picasso, and Lichtenstein with ads, and all this crazy pop stuff. It’s like high art meets everyday life, and it’s totally mind-blowing!”
She heard Vickie exhale softly. “I’m not coming to New York. Robin… oh gosh. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I don’t think this is working anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m tired, Robin. The scheduling, the trips, waiting around by the phone. It’s been a year and a half, okay? And most of that hasn’t really felt like being together. And I can’t afford to take time off from school and work. I need to be here. Really be here. I need to be focused, and I need to take advantage of every opportunity I have here, and I don’t feel like I can do that when half the time I am worrying about us.” Robin thought she could hear a quiver in Vickie’s voice.
Robin bristled, her fingers tightening around the receiver. She was starting to feel the chill from the window’s draft. “You’re saying this… because of my schedule? Because I can call more and–” she broke off.
“No, and I’m not saying this to hurt you. It’s just… I want that research assistant position with Dr. Bartlett, and I just… can’t afford to be loosey-goosey about my time anymore.”
Robin’s fingers tightened around the receiver. “What does that have to do with us?”
Robin heard Vickie take a shaky breath. “I mean, I love you, I really do, but I can’t wait around, waiting for your calls. We barely share the same day-to-day anymore. You’re in New York, I’m here in Baltimore. We’re living in different worlds, and it’s… exhausting.”
Robin’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy, the phone cord draped across her lap like a lifeline. “We see each other. I visit. I’ve been there over breaks, last summer, I didn’t even go back to Hawkins. I came to see you. I want to be here for you.”
“I know. And you’re amazing,” Vickie said quickly. “That’s what makes this so hard.”
“So… this is it?” Her voice came out small. “You’re breaking up with me?” She could feel tears slipping down her cheeks. “I just wanted to see you over break. I thought we could…”
“Oh, Robin...” Vickie’s voice broke. “I know. I wish it could be different. I really do. I think you should start living your life in New York. Really living it.”
Tears blurred Robin’s vision. “Vickie, please,” she whispered.
There was silence. Then, finally, “Goodbye, Robin. Take care of yourself.”
Robin held the phone to her ear, waiting for anything else. When the line clicked dead, it sounded like a door shutting. The apartment felt suddenly too dark and too empty; Loretta’s voice on the other side of the wall went on, unchanged.
❊❀❊❀❊
Hours later, Robin was on the futon in her bedroom, curled up under her checkered quilt, crying while her turntable in the corner spun the last track of The Smiths’ Strangeways, Here We Come. When the last song finished, the player continued to whir with that little irritating put-put sound as it coasted. A sound she had never noticed until it felt like the only thing in the room. She thought about getting up to flip the record, but she didn’t get up.
She stared at her bedroom wall. There was a photocopy of the Voyager Golden Record diagram, which was taped next to a photo of Vickie that she had sent to Robin in a letter in the spring. She replayed the conversation over and over, searching for the words that might undo it. Robin pressed her hand to her eyes, letting it all sink in.
Outside in the hall, she heard the thud of a bag hitting the floor, and the front door shutting, then the scuff of shoes being kicked off. Steve’s voice floated down the hall, too lighthearted for how she was feeling. “Rob? You home?” A plastic bag crinkled, groceries maybe, and then his footsteps again before he opens her bedroom door, poking his head in. “Rob?”
Steve’s hair was shorter, trimmed neatly around the sides, and the soft wave on top was pushed back. He was still wearing the WNEW polo from the promotional event he went to for work. He looked put-together in a way that Robin very much hadn’t right then. She must look like shit, Robin thought. She hadn’t even gotten dressed before Vickie called. She’d been working on her screenwriting homework, due tomorrow, but she hadn’t really done anything. She was still in her pyjamas, and her breath probably stank of the Funyuns she’d eaten after Vickie’s call.
The door opened wider, and Steve stepped inside, stopping short when he saw her. “Rob? You okay?”
Robin sniffled, burying her face deeper into the pillow, her answer dissolving into another wave of tears.
Steve moved to the bed and knelt beside her, setting down the plastic bag he was carrying. “I can’t hear you,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Vickie dumped me,” she eventually managed.
“Oh… God. I’m sorry.” Steve hesitated. “What happened?”
Robin hiccuped and wiped her nose on the blanket again. “She said it wasn’t working. The long distance. She said she couldn’t… be loosey-goosey anymore.”
“Loosey-goosey?” Steve echoed, frowning, “Wait… what does that even mean?”
Robin sniffled, looking away. Steve reached out and brushed her hair back from her face. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She gave a little shake of her head and wiped at her tears. Steve opened the plastic bag and pulled out a roll of toilet paper, then balled up a wad of it in his hands. “Here,” he said, holding the wad to her snotty nose. “Blow.”
Robin scowled at him but blew her nose. When she looked back at the bag, she noticed it was full of more loose toilet paper rolls.
Steve smiled. “I stole them from work,” he admitted. “We were out.”
Robin gave a weak laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I know,” he said. “But at least now we’re set for…you know… emergencies.”
They sat in silence for a moment before Robin said, “I just wonder if…Maybe if I’d transferred to MICA, we could’ve made it work. I was stupidly unrealistic. And who was I kidding? That I was worth all the effort–”
“Okay. I’m gonna stop you right there,” Steve leaned back and looked at her properly. “Robin Buckley, if Vickie thinks you need to change to be worth the effort, that’s her problem, not yours.”
She looked unconvinced.
“Seriously, you’re funny,” he said. “You speak, what, like a million languages?”
“Four,” she corrected. Did Pig-Latin really count, though?
“Four,” he repeated. “You care a lot about the people in your life. You spent a summer in Maryland for Vickie, and even kept paying New York rent to do it. Which is insane, by the way. And let’s be real. You would hate Maryland. Who the hell wants to live in Maryland?”
“There are so many fraternities there.”
“Exactly. And like… this isn’t the worst possible scenario.” He gestured around them. “Now you don’t have to schedule your whole life around a phone anymore. You don’t have to feel guilty every time you go out. You get to figure out what you want, just for you.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
“I know.” Steve said and then added, “When Nancy and I split, I thought I’d blown everything. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. But if that hadn’t happened, I never would’ve noticed people like Dustin… or you. I probably would’ve stayed in Hawkins, working for my dad, thinking that was it.”
He met her eyes. “It sucked. But it wasn’t the end. And for the record,” he said, more firmly now, “I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Not even your chronic verbal diarrhea.” Robin glowered at him, and Steve gave her a small, crooked smile in return. “Until you remember how great you are, I’ll believe it for both of us.”
Her eyes burned again, but the pressure eased instead of tightening.
“You sound very sure,” she said.
“Yeah.” He shrugged lightly. “Because I know you.”
She wiped at her cheeks. “Thanks, Steve.”
He tore off more toilet paper and handed it to her before standing up. “Come on. Get dressed. We’re going out. Someone at work said SideWalk has two-dollar beers and stand-up tonight.”
“You hate open mics.”
“I do,” he agreed. “But tonight? Watching someone else have a worse night might be exactly what we need.”
❊❀❊❀❊
They decided to walk instead of taking the subway, winding down the blocks past curbside trash and the large late-night crowds. They’d been to a handful of open mics since they moved to the city. Robin enjoyed them while Steve tolerated them for the lack of a cover charge and occasionally for cheap drinks. Sometimes Jonathan would come hang out and take photos of the musicians and various chaotic acts on stage for extra money.
SideWalk was busier than either of them expected for a Tuesday: the room was packed with small round tables, coats draped over chairbacks, and a three-deep bar where people jostled for cheap well drinks. Robin and Steve slipped in as the previous comic was finishing to scattered laughter and polite applause; the MC, a stout man with thick black glasses, bounded back up on stage, mic squeaking. “Alright, let’s keep it going! Give it up for Kathy Goren!”
Steve and Robin eased into two cramped seats at a corner table just in time to see the next comic take the stage. She was chubby, round-faced, with dark shaggy hair, wearing a corduroy jacket over a stiff, novelty tuxedo t-shirt. She adjusted the mic stand and waited for the room to settle.
Robin squinted, looking up at the comedian on stage. “Hey, I think I know that girl,” Robin hissed to Steve, nodding toward the stage. “She’s in my screenwriting class.”
“Hello,” Kathy said.
A chorus of “Hi” came back from the crowd.
“Hello,” she repeated, deadpan.
“Hi,” the room responded again, this time less enthusiastically.
Tugging at his collar, Steve shot Robin a look that said he might be sorry he suggested this.
“Hello. That’s all I do. Hello,” she paused for effect. A few small laughs trickled out. “How are you doing?”
The audience replied with the standard, “Good,” and one person yelled back, “Shitty!”
“I don’t really care,” she said, voice flat, “but at least you’re trying to be honest. Because a lot of the time, people lie. You meet someone on the street, say ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’ And they say, ‘I’m fine! How are you?’ and you say fine, and then you say, see ya.” She let the silence stretch. “Because you can’t really be fucked with human communication, can you? And if you tell people the truth, they often get upset. Like if you told them, ‘Aw, awful. I’m terrible. I have hemorrhoids. I don’t know who the fuck Eric Bogosian is. I lick spoons for money. I have a rash on my back that I can’t see. And all my avocado trees have been wiped out by a massive flood.’”
Robin let out a surprised laugh.
“But what the fuck is anyone supposed to say to that?” she continued, “But I’m doing okay. Which is surprising, because I’m bisexual. For those of you who do not know what that means…it means I can’t drive, and that pigeons judge me personally—”
“Faggot!”
Robin’s shoulders tensed. The word cut across the room like ice in an otherwise cheap gin. Robin’s shoulders shot up to her ears, an old and ugly reflex.
“Excuse me?” Kathy’s voice was calm, but the air in the room shifted. A few heads turned toward where the yelling had come from. Steve’s hand rested on Robin's arm while he glanced around at the crowd.
A beat of silence; Robin heard only the clink of glasses.
The heckler quickly resumed yelling obscenities, but Kathy didn’t look fazed. She seemed more annoyed that someone was interrupting her set.
Kathy leaned into the mic. “Listen, dude,” she shot back, “the whole idea of heckling is to be funnier than the person on stage. Don’t get so pissed you can’t think, alright? I’ve set the bar very low so far, and you aren’t doing any better, so why don’t you fuck off?”
When the heckler didn’t stop, Steve called out, “Hey, asshole, shut up!”
Robin gave him a quick, nervous look.
A red light beamed from the back of the room, signalling it was time for Kathy to wrap it up. “Well, I guess that’s my fucking time,” she said before walking off, followed by the MC coming back to the mic, making a half-hearted joke about tough crowds before introducing the next performer.
Steve looked at the door, then back at Robin, “Do you want to get out of here?”
She nodded. They left their beers behind, and Robin scanned the crowd for Kathy, but didn’t see her. They headed to a nearby bar, spending the rest of the night talking about her breakup and whoever Steve was currently dating: apparently, a girl named Emily.
“She’s amazing,” Steve said. “Super cute, kind of knows everyone, and she can actually cook. I mean, who even does that these days?” Robin had smiled weakly, already imagining how fast this was going to crash.
By last call, they were both pretty drunk. When Robin woke up the next morning, her bedroom spun around her, and she had serious cotton mouth.
Groaning, she stumbled to the bathroom, puked quietly in the toilet, drank a couple of glasses of water and brushed her teeth. She knew she had to get to class today to talk to her professor about the assignment she had never finished. She took a few aspirin and proceeded with the gruelling task of getting ready for a long day of being hungover in public.
Robin made her way to the subway station, her shoulders hunched against the cold, her head pounding in time with each step. The platform smelled even worse in her current state, a mix of road salt, piss and damp winter coats. She took a seat in the train and pressed her forehead against the cool glass window as the car lurched forward, staring blankly at the blur of tunnels.
Her stomach twisted, and for a moment, she was worried she was going to puke again. Since the phone call and going out, she hadn’t really allowed herself to process her feelings. Drinking had been an easy escape from thinking of a life without Vickie. Now, riding the train, it’s all she could think about.
When she made it to class, she slumped into a seat at the back of the room. Their instructor, McNamara, arranged his notes on the desk at the front. He was short and square-shouldered, with a severe, beaky profile. He reminded Robin of Sam the Eagle from the muppets.
“Good morning,” McNamara greeted, “You all had homework due today: a single scene that contains a clear objective. Before the break, you will read aloud in pairs to identify objectives, obstacles, and turning points in your scenes. Then we’ll discuss the beats together.”
He moved to the projector, clicked the remote, and the screen flickered to life. Robin squinted against the harsh glow. GOAL → OBSTACLE → STAKES → TURN appeared in big, block letters.
“Remember, we’re not here to indulge in pretty language. We’re here to make stuff that works on the page and on the screen. That starts with understanding what a scene does.” He walked around the room as he spoke, “Every scene,” he continued, “is an experiment. It asks a single question: Will the character get what they want? The scene’s job is to answer that question by the end, yes, no, or partial, and to change the protagonist’s tactical situation. If a scene doesn’t change something, information, relationship, or power balance, then it is ornamental. You can write lovely paragraphs all you like, but you will not make a drama.”
As he went on about Syd Field and the Hero’s Journey for what felt like the millionth time, Robin nudged her notebook open with the side of her hand. Nearby, Kathy sat with her own notebook open, looking alert as she sipped from a to-go cup. Robin continued studying her classmate, occasionally scribbling down a note.
When McNamara broke off from the lecture and asked them to get into pairs, her gaze flicked from one student to the next, unsure who to approach, before calling out, “Kathy!”
Kathy looked over, confused.
“Robin,” Robin elaborated, gesturing to herself, “want to be my partner?”
Kathy shrugged and brought her stuff closer to Robin’s seat.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without the tuxedo.”
“What?” Kathy was giving Robin the same face that most people gave Robin when they first met her, like she was a different species.
Robin rubbed her palms against her jeans, her head throbbing still, “I was at SideWalk last night.”
Kathy’s face went from confusion to grim embarrassment, “Oh. Oh God. That’s mortifying.”
“You’re mortified? You were so cool up there.”
“I bombed.”
“You didn’t bomb. That guy was a homophobic asshole.”
Kathy’s eyes flicked to Robin’s for a moment before relaxing, “Nah… I should have ignored him or said something funnier. Instead, I got pissed off when I’m supposed to be entertaining people.”
“Well… what were you supposed to do? How could you do that if he wouldn’t shut up?”
“What I should have done is turned it on myself,” Kathy took a sip from her to-go cup, “Made it into a bit, then moved on.”
“I thought you were funny.”
Kathy gave her a skeptical look.
“Like… in an absurd way,” Robin clarified.
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” Kathy said, brushing it off, though she didn’t hide the hint of a smile. “You doing okay, by the way? You look like you crawled out of a blender.”
Robin groaned. “Might have drunk too much last night,” and then, “My girlfriend broke up with me.”
“That’s rough. Want some of my coffee? Might make you feel a bit better,” she held out her cup to Robin. Robin’s stomach twisted.
Robin shook her head. “I think what I need,” she said, deadpan, “is like ten pounds of grease.”
Kathy’s gaze landed on Robin’s sparse notebook. “Did you finish the homework?” she asked.
Robin pressed her lips together.
“Then let’s get out of here. Grab some food.”
“But… didn’t you want feedback on your scene?” Kathy’s homework was out in front of her, and it looked like she had spent a lot of time on it. There were even red pen notes in the margins.
Kathy shrugged. “Fuck it,” she said, standing. Robin hesitated for only a second before giving in; there was no way she could argue with McNamara about skipping homework while stinking of beer. On their way out, Kathy dropped her scene homework on McNamara’s desk while he was busy with a pair of other students.
❊❀❊❀❊
They ended up at Waverly Diner near 6th Avenue. Robin had been here a few times by herself after class, but she had never come here with anyone else. She loved the worn booths and the warm lighting that now softened the pressure behind her eyes.
Robin ordered three eggs with bacon and pastrami and a glass of orange juice, while Kathy ordered another coffee and buttermilk pancakes.
When their food arrived, Robin poked at her eggs and watched the yolk wobble, trying not to gag, but the warmth from the plate and the orange juice started to dull the edges of her hangover.
“How long were you and your girlfriend together?” Kathy asked, cutting into her pancakes.
Robin hesitated, fiddling with her fork.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Kathy added, “I just know that when I’m feeling like shit, I need to talk stuff out.”
Robin sighed, shrugging. “We were together for five years.”
“Seriously?” Kathy made a face as if someone had just squeezed lemon juice in her eyes, “That’s rough. Do you live together?”
“No,” Robin said, “we had been long-distance for a while. She’s at Johns Hopkins right now. Pre-med.”
“I’m guessing the distance is what killed it?”
Robin shrugged again.
Kathy blew out a breath like she was about to say something and then stopped herself. “Well… if it makes you feel better, the last time I got dumped it was because I puked on a girl at her birthday party.”
Robin winced and let out a small laugh, “Okay, that’s tragic. And kind of deserved.”
“Oh, totally,” Kathy said, then grinned a little, “But also… funny now? At least in retrospect. Kinda? Maybe? It was during ‘Happy Birthday’, with everyone singing. Total nightmare. But… like, I find it helps to remember that all the shit making you sad right now? Someday it’s just a funny story you tell later, you know?”
Robin managed a small, unconvincing smile, “I guess so.”
They chatted animatedly for a while; the conversation was easy and light. Robin learned that Kathy was a drama major and that she had played the ghost in the school’s production of Hamlet the year before. During her one scene, she tripped over her sheet and almost knocked the student playing Hamlet off the stage.
As they talked, Robin felt the tension of her hangover easing, though she wasn’t sure what to do next; going back to class felt off-limits after skipping out early.
“If you’re feeling up for it, I’m heading to the film co-op,” Kathy said before wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I need to grab some photos I left in the dark room. Cici might crawl through my window tonight and strangle me in my sleep if I don’t.”
Robin raised an eyebrow, “Cici is human, right?”
“Pretty sure she’s human. A bit of a pill, though.”
Robin smirked, “Well, okay, then. That is not at all terrifying for someone whose brain is currently functioning at roughly thirty percent.”
Kathy laughed. “You’ll survive. It’s not far.”
“Cool,” Robin said, sliding out of the booth and grabbing her coat.
As they left the diner, Robin found herself looking at Kathy and wondering for a moment if the other girl was flirting with her or just being friendly.
Robin followed Kathy down a side street off 6th Avenue, her boots crunching over scattered leaves. Kathy’s knitted scarf whipped around her neck as she tugged open a steel door plastered with stickers: some advertising punk shows, some student film festivals, some illegible remnants of whatever had come before. Robin almost missed the sign painted on the glass: The Dark Room, a film strip curling and twisting around the letters like a ribbon.
“Welcome to my favourite shithole,” Kathy said with a grin, holding the door open.
Robin stepped inside. The first thing she noticed was the smell: a pungent cocktail of chemical developer, coffee, and something vaguely like wet cardboard. She wrinkled her nose. “Ah, eau de indie filmmaker. Subtle,” she muttered, earning a snort from Kathy.
“It’s actually really nice once you get past some of the grime,” Kathy said, pointing at a stack of dirty mugs left on the counter. “People just need to learn to clean up after themselves.” She grabbed the mugs and started up the stairs, making a follow-me gesture toward Robin.
Robin followed Kathy up the tight staircase, gripping the chipped wooden railing as it groaned under her weight.
The next floor was a chaotic entryway: a counter with a battered cash box and a stack of photocopied schedules, a communal coat rack overflowing with jackets, scarves, and backpacks, and mismatched chairs forming a casual waiting area.
As they climbed higher, the stairs opened into a wide loft-like room. Exposed brick walls were lined with shelves of dusty film reels, camera equipment, and stacks of journals. In one corner, a large projector screen hung against the wall, flanked by folding chairs and a scattering of beanbags. Robin’s eyes landed on a tall woman crouched by the projector table, wiping down dust from the surface. Her face was heart-shaped, framed by dark curls that fell loosely around her shoulders. She wore a simple blouse tucked into high-waist trousers, sleeves rolled up as she worked.
The woman glanced up briefly, her expression shifting from concentration to quiet annoyance.
“Hi, Cici!” Kathy called.
“Stop calling me that,” the woman said, her voice flat. A pause, then she added, “You left your photos in the dark room again. I told you to stop doing that.”
“I’m sorry, Cecilia, I forgot,” Kathy put the coffee mugs down on the table and rocked back on her heels. “Hey, this is my friend from class, Robin. I was going to show her around.”
Cecilia didn’t reply. She simply returned to her work. Kathy glanced around. “Is Uncle Al around?”
Cecilia looked up again, her dark eyes flicking over Robin with an appraising glance.
Robin offered a small, hesitant smile. “Hi! It’s nice to meet you.”
“You look like death warmed over,” Cecilia said bluntly. “He’s in his office.”
Then she turned back to the counter, ignoring them completely.
Robin touched her face, suddenly self-conscious.
Kathy shook her head at her and mouthed, It’s not you.
They left Cecilia’s desk and moved down a hallway, Kathy already half a step ahead. The building felt like a maze. They passed a couple of closed doors and bulletin boards layered with curling flyers before Kathy stopped in front of an office with a window clouded by old tape residue.
“Uncle Al?” Kathy called, knocking once before pushing the door open.
The office was small, lit mostly by a desk lamp and whatever daylight managed to slip through the grimy window. A man sat behind the desk, reading glasses low on his nose, dark curls gone soft with age. He looked up, surprised, then smiled.
“Hey,” he said, “You’re supposed to be in class.”
“I know,” Kathy said. “I just needed to grab my headshots, and I wanted to say hi.” She stepped inside, “This is Robin. She’s in my screenwriting class. She’s a film student.”
Al stood, offering his hand. “Al.”
“Nice to meet you,” Robin said, shaking it. His grip was gentle, solid.
Kathy was already backing toward the door again. “I’ll be right back,” she said, patting her pockets like she might forget what she was doing mid-sentence. “Dark room. Two minutes.”
And then she was gone, leaving Robin alone.
Robin hovered near the doorway, suddenly very aware of how she looked, tired eyes, wrinkled sweater, the faint sense that she might still smell like vomit from this morning.
Al studied her a moment, taking stock of her.
“Rough morning?” he asked.
Robin felt her cheeks turning red. “A little. But not like…” She felt the need to clarify immediately. “I wasn’t feeling great earlier. Kathy took me to lunch and asked me if I wanted to come here so I wouldn’t just crawl back into bed.”
Al nodded, visibly reassured, about what Robin didn’t know. “That sounds like her. She’s a good kid. A bit of a scatterbrain, but.” He gestured to the chair across from the desk. “Sit. She’s going to be longer than two minutes.
Robin did, grateful for something to do.
“I’ll make tea,” he crossed the room and filled the kettle at the sink, settling it on the hot plate. “Peppermint, okay?”
“Yeah,” Robin said, “That sounds really good, actually.”
The kettle whirred quietly.
“So,” Al said, leaning back, folding his arms. “You’re a film student.”
Robin nodded.
“Mm, what films do you like?”
She thought for a second. “Agnes Varda. Cleo from Five to Seven, especially.” Then, as if the rest were coming back to her, “The Apartment. The Hidden Fortress. Children of Paradise.”
Al’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s a hell of a list.”
The kettle clicked off. He poured water into two mugs, dropped the teabags in and brought them over. Setting one carefully in front of her. Robin’s eyes flicked to a framed photograph on his desk: a woman, looking straight at the camera with a faint, knowing smile. The photo looked like it had been taken a decade ago; the woman’s hair was styled into a soft perm.
“Varda sees people. Kurosawa understands movement. Carné knows how to let a room breathe. And Wilder…” He smiled. “Wilder knows how to be kind without being soft.”
Robin wrapped her hands around the mug. The steam smelled clean and sharp in her nostrils. “I like how they… let you notice small things. People shifting in a frame, or a room, just… breathing.”
“Are you working on anything right now?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Not really. Classes have been… a lot.”
He made a soft, dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “Film students,” he said, “Always ‘too busy’ to make films.”
He turned to his desk and started rummaging through a drawer, pushing aside notebooks and loose papers until he pulled out a stack of videotapes, their labels handwritten and worn.
“Here,” he said, laying them out. “Alright. Given your taste, you might like these.”
He handed them to her one by one:
“La Règle du Jeu.”
“Orpheus.”
“A Matter of Life and Death.”
“Brief Encounter.”
“And Ikiru,” he added, tapping the spine. “For when you forget why you’re doing this.”
Robin stared at the pile, “Oh, I couldn’t take these!”
Al waved it off immediately. “You can.”
She shook her head, hands tightening around the mug. “No, really. What if something happens to them?”
“Something will happen to them,” he said mildly. “You’ll watch them.” When Robin didn’t take the tapes he added, “This isn’t me being generous. This is me doing my job.”
She looked up at him. “Your job?”
“My job,” he said, settling back into his chair, “is making sure people with good instincts don’t get buried under homework and forget why they wanted to make films in the first place.” He gestured toward the stack. “Those are reminders.”
Robin’s throat tightened a little. She swallowed. “I promise I’ll bring them back.”
“I know you will,” he said easily. “And if you don’t, I’ll forgive you.”
Kathy opened the door, a large envelope tucked under her arm.
Al glanced over his glasses. “How’d your headshots turn out, meyn meydl?”
Kathy gave him a flat and long-suffering look.
“That bad?”
“They’re not great… I don’t know why I can’t take a decent photo of myself.”
Robin straightened a little. “What are the headshots for?”
“Promotional stuff,” Kathy said. “Auditions. Trying to get gigs. You know.”
Al smiled fondly. “Kathy wants to be on Saturday Night Live.”
Kathy groaned, “Not now. Obviously. I’m not delusional.” She glanced at Robin, defensive but sheepish. “But yeah. Eventually.”
Robin looked at the envelope under Kathy’s arm curiously. “They can’t be that bad.”
Kathy handed her the envelope wordlessly.
Robin pulled one out.
“Oh,” she said.
She pulled out another.
“Oh no.”
By the third, she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. The lighting was harsh, the angle unforgiving. Kathy’s expression was somewhere between startled and deeply inconvenienced.
“Oh wow,” Robin said honestly. “These are…awful. But,” she gathered the photos back into a neat stack, “I actually know a really good photographer. He’s a friend of mine. Really nice. Not creepy. I can put you in touch, if you want.”
Kathy hesitated. “You’d do that?”
“Of course,” Robin said easily.
Al watched the exchange from his chair, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Okay,” Kathy smiled. “Yeah. Okay. That would be rad. Thank you.”
Robin smiled too, tea warm in her hands, some of the tightness in her chest easing.
❊❀❊❀❊
Robin flopped onto the couch the second she got home, putting the tapes from Al on the coffee table. She barely made it through the apartment door before her body demanded relief, and she let herself sink into the cushions. She closed her eyes, letting the day slide off her. The next thing she knew, it was dark, and she could hear Steve in the kitchen, clanking pans and dishes in the sink.
Robin groaned and pulled a cushion over her head.
Steve soon came into the living room, carrying what looked like a bowl of a poor man’s idea of spaghetti. He looked at the tapes on the coffee table and frowned. “More foreign films?”
Robin lifted her middle finger in reply.
Steve ignored her. “Dustin called while you were asleep. He’s not swinging by on his way to Hawkins this break, but Mike might be in town. He’s in Boston right now. Some kind of Great Beatnik Odyssey or whatever. We were talking about grabbing lunch, if Will and Jonathan get back to us.”
Robin paused, remembering. Will had started at NYU this semester. She hadn’t heard from him since September. “I wonder how Will’s been.”
Steve nudged Robin’s feet to make room for himself on the couch. “So… staying in town for Christmas, or are you running back to the suburbs?”
Robin thought about the bus rides to Baltimore, the too-early mornings, the cramped seats on the Greyhound, the taste of a roadside egg salad sandwich, and the familiar anticipation that used to carry her all the way there. All of that was gone now.
The sadness came back for a moment.
Steve adjusted his position beside her on the couch, solid and warm. Robin’s gaze drifted to the stack of videotapes on the coffee table. “Guess I’m staying here.”
“Huh,” Steve spun a forkful of spaghetti. “Then, guess it’ll be our first Christmas in New York.”