Marianne really wanted to email the Duck-Man to tell him about last night. He’d definitely appreciate the story. Except, would that be weird? Telling him about a date she’d had – if it was a date – the night before she was supposed to go on her first date with him?
Maybe it would be a good test of the depth of his feelings for her. Not to mention an indicator of whether or not he got jealous easily. That would be good to know, right?
On the other hand, it was something that Margaret Sullivan or Judy Garland might have done, confiding in their pen-pal without the slightest idea that the man they were writing to and the man they’d just met were one and the same.
But when she read the Duck-Man’s latest email, she immediately forgot all about her encounter.
Dear Esme,
I know we’re meeting tonight, but I simply had to share this with you right away (OK, several hours after the fact, but I wasn’t going to turn the computer on and email you at eleven o’clock at night).
I had no plans last night, and I wasn’t especially interested in the Sunday night football game on TV, so I decided to take a walk. It was a pleasant evening, not too cold – actually, why am I telling you about the weather? We live in the same town, you know perfectly well what the weather was like last night.
Sorry, I digress. Back to the story. Since the weather was so pleasant, I decided to take a walk, and I ended up downtown, and I finally found myself walking past the Esmerelda Theater, and it was a quarter to eight. So I decided, why not buy a ticket and watch The Shop Around the Corner?
I did, and I loved it. Jimmy Stewart was amazing. I had no idea; I’ve only ever seen one other movie with him, and you can probably guess not only which one it was, but where I saw it. Don’t bother replying back over email – you can tell me your guess when we meet tonight, and I will be very disappointed if you’re wrong.
Anyway, I am looking forward to meeting you tonight, and finally putting a face to the words I’ve been reading these last few weeks.
Sincerely,
The Duck-Man
Marianne knew the answer. It had to be Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And he had to have watched it in high school, in American History, or possibly in Civics. Mrs. Swanson, her own tenth grade history teacher, hadn’t shown it in class, because she didn’t believe in showing movies during class time, but she had assigned it, along with several other movies from the 1930’s and 1940’s, as homework. She needn’t have bothered in Marianne’s case, of course.
It was encouraging that he’d gone to see the movie, and even more so that he’d enjoyed it. She wondered if Jack, the man she’d run into yesterday, had taken her advice and gone himself. She supposed she might have scared him off of it, with her dissertation – she really couldn’t call her little performance last night anything else – about it. But, as always, once she got started talking about a movie, especially one she really loved, she couldn’t help herself.
Maybe she’d run into him again, and she could ask him. As he’d said, downtown Romance wasn’t that big. But right now, she needed to clear out the rest of her email, and at least half of the stack of papers and files on her desk, and listen yet again to the long voicemail Mary McKay had left, with her latest list of requirements for her production of A Christmas Carol on the 22nd. She’d already listened to the message four times, and she still only understood about half of what Mary had asked for in her near-impenetrable Scots brogue.
Once that was done, she could go home, freshen up, pick out a suitable outfit, and then try to find a carnation somewhere, since she’d told the Duck-Man to look for one. Were they even in season? She ought to have told him to look for a poinsettia; you couldn’t go fifty feet without seeing one in someone’s window at Christmas time.
Oh, well. Hopefully he’d appreciate the effort of finding a carnation, and, anyway, if it was good enough for Margaret Sullivan, it was good enough for her.