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That, by the way, did happen. Right down to the satisfying click of the handcuffs around the steering wheel.
Yet Charlie’s favorite part of the movie was the denouement, mostly because it showed what could have been. Marge died at the Mountain Oasis Lodge. According to police, she climbed into the pool, fished out the gun, and pulled the trigger.
There was no hospital room conversation.
No unspoken truce between them.
No triumphant moment with a tooth.
Watching all of that on-screen made her wish it was true. In this instance, she doesn’t mind the Hollywood ending. In fact, she cherishes it.
Movie magic. It’s a palpable thing.
And Maddy would have loved it.
Which is why Charlie smiles back at the director and says, “I adore it.”
After that, she’s free to go.
The screening room is located in a downtown building and not a studio lot. A shame, really. Charlie loves it when she gets to visit them for her work. They’re magical and mundane at the same time. Factories where dreams get made.
The upside about her current location is that a Lincoln Town Car is waiting for her outside. Rather than climb into the back, she slides into the front passenger seat.
“Hey,” she says.
The driver flashes her a killer smile. “Hey yourself.”
That part of the movie, as improbable as it may seem, is true. Josh did let her borrow his car. Charlie drove it straight to Ohio and Nana Norma. When she returned the car two weeks later, Josh did indeed ask if she’d like to go to the movies.
Her answer was simple: “I never say no to a movie.”
They went. Josh paid for the tickets.
They went the next night. Charlie returned the favor.
By their third movie, Josh had learned that she preferred to sit in the middle of the sixth row. By the fourth, Charlie had learned that Josh liked to put Raisinets in his popcorn. By their fifth, she finally learned to start calling him Jake.
That was six years ago.
“How was your day?” she asks.
“Good,” he replies. “I got to take Sharon Stone to the airport.”
“How’d she look?”
“Like a Hitchcock blonde.”
“Exactly what I wanted to hear.”
He waits a beat before asking the question she knows is at the forefront of his thoughts. “And how was the movie?”
“Not bad. Not great, but certainly not terrible. It was a typical movie. But real life—” Charlie exhales a sigh of contentment as she reaches for her husband’s hand. “Real life is so much better.”