Chapter One: Going Home

The car radio didn’t work anymore. To be more specific, the electronic display didn’t work anymore. The radio still picked up radio waves and could play music, but because the music couldn’t distract Lilian Dixon, in a way, the music didn’t work anymore. So Lily drove in silence to the crumbling movie theater. Driving her new car used to make Lily feel better, but even though this was the same car, driving wasn’t working either. She didn’t know enough about cars to care about car care, nor did she care enough to know more than she did know about cars. Nothing worked and nothing was going to work, and in that respect, Lily found a single difference between her and her car.

The sky was that level of gray where finding the sun is impossible. Lily hadn’t seen blue skies in a week and hadn’t looked in two. Three hours later and behind the ticket counter, Lily counted the tickets she had sold: six. The discounted movie theater was an antique that was never redecorated, refurbished or retired. At one point, the theater had been the only theater in town and at another point it had been the best; now it was neither. The place was a forgotten memorial and outdated classic. Lily looked across the lobby at the handful of old movie posters displaying movies the theater wasn’t showing.

I think I’d be good at being famous, thought Lily. I could smile for cameras and sign autographs. And I wouldn’t be crazy or anything.

Lily hadn’t seen many of the movies posted but she remembered changing the posters with her former coworker Jacey. Jacey was Lily’s first friend after moving to the new city years ago and helped Lily get the job at the theater. For years the two of them were the de facto managers as the real manager and owner, D.T., was occasionally locked in his office but more occasionally missing somewhere else. A few months ago Jacey had a nervous breakdown, moved, joined “Projects Abroad” and got herself sent off to Guam, or some other country Lily assumed was in South America. Lily, who had been living a mostly fun, small existence before, had a number of thoughts when Jacey first announced she was moving. The first thought: was working at the discount movie theater really that bad? The second thought: why can’t I do anything that crazy?

Everyday at work since then, Lily had been planning some way to move her own life forward, upwards or outwards. The first step was to finally ask for a raise, which she planned on doing today. Shortly after making this decision, three men in suits and four uniformed police officers stormed the lobby like they were breaking up a money-laundering operation. It looked like this because they were doing exactly that. The three officers staked out the exits, one approached Lily and the three suits barraged into the manager’s office in the backroom. Lily was stunned. Most people who came into the theater just wanted to see a movie. And when drunk or angry patrons came into the lobby and started kicking down doors and arresting people, Lily usually just asked them to stop. But she had never seen cops do this before and she was quite scared.

Lily later learned that the “group ticket deals” her boss had to personally authorize were the initiating codes for the money-laundry scheme. The investigators at the police station tried to explain this to Lily but after seven or eight attempts gave up and concluded she was not an accomplice and let her go. Outside of the station, some reporters and journalists also asked Lily a few questions but upon learning that nobody had slept with anybody, they left her alone too.

Lily had worked at that theater since graduating college and earning a degree in what she usually described as a “B.A. in whatever”. And though not an economics professor--or even a major--, Lily had suspected that the discount movie business was going to get tougher when another discount movie theater opened up in the same city last year. Not only were their discount movies cheaper, their building newer, and their floors cleaner, but apparently the competition was also better at not getting caught laundering money. With her employer demanding another phone call after being arrested for committing a crime Lily believed involved washing dollar bills, she hoped the rival discount movie theater was currently hiring.

Unfortunately, they weren’t. Also unfortunately, neither was either of the non-discount movie theaters. Or the IMAX. Or even the theater on 31st Street that only showed Polish bootlegs. Most unfortunately of all was that it took Lily nearly a month to figure this out and by then she had run out of money and maxed-out two credit cards. She didn’t live with anybody but knew her landlady liked getting a rent payment more than providing Lily with free board, so her options narrowed even more.

Her parents had money. They had paid for her school and her car eleven years ago and thirteen years ago, respectively. She could’ve asked them for rent now but there was no promise another broken-down discount movie theater would open up in the next month. If she asked for money once, what would stop her from asking again and again? More than the financial hiccup, Lily’s pride was hurt. She had no house. No friends. No job or plans. She was failing at life. So like how an escaped convict decides to return to prison, Lily decided to go back home and live with her parents—if they’d let her. She slowly spun her cell phone on the large cardboard box she used as a desk. 20 days late with the rent. 1 day from being kicked out. Finally she called.

-Hey, Mom, Dad. If I ever, hypothetically, wanted to come back home—

-Sure. Of course you can!

Lily grimaced a smile. Her immediate problem was solved but she didn’t like the solution. Her mom suggested throwing a homecoming party but Lily assured her it wasn’t necessary. Her father asked why come home.

-What?

-Why come home?

-Yeah, I can’t hear you.

-Lily?

-Hello?

-Hello?

-Hello?

Lily hung up. Lily didn’t find her actions particularly rude as her parents often claimed to be on the road when talking on the phone and often ended their phone conversation similarly. In fact, among all three in the family, nobody had ended a phone conversation with “good-bye” in over a month. Trying to justify herself to herself, Lily felt that in this case lying was more polite than telling the truth, which was that her parents were a last resort. Still, Lily now had a day to figure out an answer for her father and the rest of her life to figure out the truth.

While packing Lily found an old checklist of ten things to do before turning thirty and so far she had accomplished one-half of one: Getting a job (at an advertising agency). On the highway home the speed limit was 75 miles per hour; Lily did 71.

She sat in the driver’s seat of a car driving to Mainville City. It had been a long two years, only two years. Either way, the directions are not something a car forgets. This former new car, like Lily, didn’t show its age when it worked. However the car was getting up there in years. Lily remembered a time when the car was still new and shiny. With original, sleek black tires and an invisible windshield. It was a car that conquered the road it drove on. Enough about the car, thought Lily.

Going home was depressingly easy. It felt like putting on an old pair of tennis shoes for Lily. Even if she couldn’t paint a picture of her shoes, or recall every crack and crevice, when she saw the shoes, she knew them perfectly. Old shoes always had an odd, stiff feeling to them. They had been broken in before, but hardened in the time since their last use. Hardened since the time she left them in the closet for a newer, better pair of tennis shoes. But now those new shoes had fallen apart and demanded more rent than she could afford.

The sun was low enough to cast new colors on the hills Lily drove over and in between. Lily’s calendar at her abandoned apartment said the month was April, but that was only because Lily liked April’s puppy picture better than May’s. The mid-western hills were so unusually coarse and barren for this late in the year that it could only serve as a reminder of a winter that made Siberia look like Key West. Had she been driving this highway just weeks ago, Lily knew she would have seen snow still in the valleys’ shadows. Now, everything just looked empty. These hills were scattered with switch-length, patchy, field grass; they laid along the black highway like sleeping hyenas.

Lily drove past a familiar gas station that was operational last time she saw it. Many of the boards over the windows were covered with graffiti. Others had been stripped down for interior access. She could see shingles were missing and the landmark sign had faded to a yellowish gray. The inside had been hallowed out. Weeds and stray grass grew along the edges of the building and where gas pumps once stood.

During the daylong drive, Lily considered not going home. The closer she got, the less she wanted to be there. Her old friends would be long gone, physically or socially, and her family would be her family. Why go back home? Lily couldn’t remember her old reasons or think of new ones. There’s nothing pushing me and nothing pulling me, thought Lily, so I’ll just keep driving. What’s the next city on this highway? It doesn’t matter. This will just be a destination-less, solo road trip.

An annoying beeping then brought Lily back into the car. Not her phone, it was her car talking to her. Lily felt rejuvenated but her car was running out of gas just a few miles out of M.C. The little red dial was exhausted and lay limp above the “E.” To just drive through the city and onto the next town was no longer an option. Lily would have to stop where she didn’t want to be: her original destination. Even though she had changed her mind, there was no longer a choice, Lily was going home.