There were a lot of people in the theatre the weekend release of The Great Gatsby. I went with my roommate and a friend and a mutual friend of my roommate and my other friend. We got dinner and drinks nearby and then went to a Pinkberry and then went to the movie. There were many people in their twenties dressed up like they were from the twenties. When we finally got to our seats there were people still looking for seats. A woman and her boyfriend were looking to sit together and they couldn’t find two seats that were open and next to one another. The mutual friend made the observation that she looked like she was about to cry or have a tantrum because she couldn’t sit next to her significant other. She looked very angry, worried her lip, and finally settled to sit two rows in front and four seats to the left of her boyfriend. The seat she selected was directly in front of mine.
The woman then proceeded to call someone and say something very angrily. It was something about how ‘he didn’t even see if anyone wanted to move’ and ‘I’m so embarrassed I could just spit’ and ‘oh my god I think I’m having a panic attack.’ She was then texting for a while and eating milk duds and making pointed, aloof glances at her boyfriend. He was staring straight forward and not looking back at his apparent girlfriend. She coughed occasionally and made faces like she was going to throw up. Desperately wanted her to throw up. She was constantly fidgeting, nudging her chair back and forth as though asking people around her to do something that no one wanted to get involved in. Wanted to go up to her and tell her to slow her roll but she seemed distressed and unable to be reasoned with.
Her boyfriend got up and walked towards the exit, and she seemed to draw nearer to the aisle with a plastic attraction to him. She was whispering something at him, trying to get his attention. He stopped and looked over and nodded at her incoherent mumblings. She then got up and walked to the back of the theatre. They had a fight. This is the conversation that I think had happened:
“Why haven’t you looked at me?”
“Idk”
“Pay attention to me.”
“OK”
“I’m in love with you.”
“w/e”
“haha”
“haha”
“Let’s watch a movie.”
“OK”
The two of them sat down with the remarkable distance between them. Their hands stilled and seemed to have some sort of amicable silence between them. I imagined them going home that night, sleeping in the same bed with a semi warm sort of sleep. He would press his nose to her neck and say something about marriage or sleeping or the white sheets. Cars would go by their apartment and cast shadows of the wooden things that sit between the panes of their windows. She would get up in the middle of the night and vomit demurely into the toilet as she wanted to all night from the stress but hadn’t since she was on good terms with him. She would then cry and sit on the side of the bed because when she pukes she gets all teared up and empty, but physically empty, not super emotional.
There is the other half of the story, however, where they walk out of the theatre, descending the escalators and looking out onto Grand. They block the rest of the patrons from descending the escalator, standing on either side, embarrassed by their hands brushing periodically. They walk to their car/cab/bus/train and feel the city slowly pressuring them together and the wind telling them to move faster and suddenly. The man shudders harshly and the woman wonders if she can bear to see him again like this, two hours of turmoil distanced by ~6 seats in a theatre.
The movie was ok.
—
nathan masserang is
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