Helen Klein Ross

Word Count 413

There's an indie film getting great buzz from people whose opinions you trust. This is the last day it's playing at a cinema in the Village. You’re on deadline, you’re crazed, you have no time to do this, but what the hell. You buy tickets online for you and a friend. The friend makes reservations nearby for dinner. You meet at the theater. It’s the wrong theater. Tickets are QR codes, no address. How many theaters are there on 12th Street? You find the right theater. You’ve missed half the film. After the film, you decide it's too cold to walk across town to the place she made reservations. The restaurant around the corner can take you, good! As the entree appears at your table, you know something is wrong. You’ve lost your bracelets. You love those bracelets! They must have fallen off when you took off your gloves at the theater. (You're old! You wear gloves!)

After dinner, you say goodbye to your friend and return to the theater where the ticket-taker lets you back into look for your bracelets. The theater is dark. The film is playing again and you wait for a bright scene to illuminate your way to the aisle you sat in. The aisle is empty. You get down on your knees and turn on your phone, aiming it downwards, resisting the urge to switch it to flashlight mode. You don't want its klieg light to disturb viewers seated around your crouched form. (What must they think you are doing? No matter. It's NYC.) You pat and pat the filthy floor. First under one seat, then under another, then under the one next to that. Your bracelets are nowhere.

Before getting up, you twist towards the screen, to watch a scene you’d missed because you’d been late for the film. Suddenly, the film goes quiet. A robotic voice shouts from your hand "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!" It's Siri. You never use her and don't know how to turn her off. You scramble back to your feet and hurry up the aisle to the door before she speaks again.

You stop at the ticket booth to give the taker your number and ask him to look for your bracelets after the lights come up. You get in a cab and finally walk through your front door. On a table by the door–so you wouldn't forget to put them on before leaving--are your bracelets.

Helen is a writer whose work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Her novels include What Was Mine and The Latecomers. She lives in Lakeville, CT where she lost the bracelets for good when she dropped them in a driveway and a car ran over them.