Jack Nelson wasn’t sure what to make of the latest email from “Esme.” He had read it twice already, and re-read it once again:
My Fair Duck-Man,
I’m afraid I cannot give you much in the way of good news. The Esmerelda Theater will be participating fully in the town’s Valentine’s Day celebrations, and, as you already guessed, those celebrations will be rather extensive.
I can promise that An Affair to Remember will not be shown, but if you are averse to sentiment and absurdity, you probably won’t be pleased with our Valentine’s schedule.
By the way, there IS only one version of An Affair to Remember. While there are several films with the same story, both the 1939 and 1993 films are titled Love Affair. And of course there’s also Sleepless in Seattle, which definitely qualifies as both sentimental and absurd, although it doesn’t follow the plot quite as closely as either version of Love Affair.
I hope I haven’t disappointed you too much!
Sincerely,
Esme
Was she – no question it was a she - flirting with him, or just amusing herself with her clever little messages? And who was she, anyway? She couldn’t be the owner of the theater. He’d seen Marianne Carter just last week at a town council meeting, and although he wasn’t the best judge of people’s ages, there was no way she could be older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. And nobody under thirty used words like “averse.” Most people under thirty barely used complete sentences in emails – when they even bothered to email instead of texting, which wasn’t very often. If both his parents hadn’t been high school English teachers, Jack doubted he’d write in proper sentences either.
Besides the question of vocabulary, it was difficult to picture the young woman in the ridiculous fake (he hoped it was fake, anyway) fur coat having such an encyclopedic knowledge of old movies. No, it had to be someone else who worked at the theater. There had to be someone in the back office who handled the schedule and the business affairs, someone more mature and better-read. Maybe Marianne had an older cousin, or an aunt, working for her.
Jack wasn’t at all sure how he felt about being flirted with by an older woman. It was flattering, if that’s what these emails were, but hard-won experience had taught him that he needed to find someone his own age. All four of his serious girlfriends had been older than him, and all four had broken his heart. He knew when the universe was trying to send him a message.
Besides, he wasn’t in Romance for romance. He had a job to do, and he wasn’t going to let a few flirty – or whatever they were – emails get in the way. Unless, of course, “Esme” or someone else at the theater knew who he really worked for, and why he was here in town. But how could they, unless they had an inside source in Salem? They couldn’t. The very idea was ridiculous. He’d told everyone who asked that he was from the state Tourism Board, and everyone seemed to accept that at face value.
If Esme did know what he was doing here, he’d have to leave town. His job was to make an objective, unbiased, completely dispassionate assessment of the Esmerelda Theater, and whether or not it deserved to be named a State Historical Landmark. He couldn’t have anyone who worked for the theater trying to influence his report; that was the whole point of sending someone in unannounced.
So far, the theater met all the objective criteria, but it wasn’t as simple as checking boxes off a list. There was the question of how the theater functioned within the community; it wasn’t enough to just be an old and architecturally interesting building. There was also the future to consider – there had to be a commitment from the owner to both preserve the theater, and also keep it up to date with the latest building codes, safety rules and all the rest of it.
But, again, he had to discover that without announcing who he was. Obviously, Marianne Carter would say all the right things to an official agent of the state, but what did that really mean? Anyone could pass a test if they had all the answers ahead of time.
No, he’d have to get to know her better the old-fashioned way, win her trust, and then see what she said in an unguarded moment. That was the only way to be sure. And maybe he could use his correspondence with Esme to get close to Marianne.