By Brian Leaf and Diana Lu

EXCERPT //

“Eddie followed the arrow-shaped grass to a movie theater at the edge of the street. It was the last shop she could hit up. She needed work. Some- thing until times got better. Eddie opened the heavy door in the hope of becoming a theater attendant. That couldn’t be that bad, could it?

The door opened way too fast.

A parrot announced her arrival. Smoke with a hint of turmeric hit her face. The dim-lit room had a bar in the corner with bottles in the shape of mermaids, their tongues perennially corked. The bartender came up to her: an Asian woman with cherries on her button down. Eddie touched her military coat elbow. The lady smiled.

‘You here for the job?’ She pointed at a black sign asking for help in an embossed white, and spoke with what sounded like a Chinese accent.

‘Yes. But I thought this was a theater. A movie theater.’

The parrot answered her questions. ‘Annie’s Bar is one of the spaces cut out from the old movie theater. As you can see, there are still theater seats below the window.’ It opened a green wing to a dozen seats with dusky velvet. The light from the window illuminated small pools underneath the seats. Eddie looked up to see where the water would have come from. It was too dark to see the ceiling. A paper sign taped on one of the bigger pools said, ‘No Swimming.’ Eddie couldn’t see any reflections in the still water.

‘Do you want to work here or no?’ the woman asked.

A group of shadows in the left stopped their card game to turn their ears to Eddie’s conversations. She was acutely aware of this. It made her put a smile on her face.

‘Absolutely. When do I start?’”

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SWITCHBACKS // Lifelong Road Trip