The last words of Part One, “I’ll never be hungry again,” resonated through the almost silent auditorium for half a moment before the waves of conversation rolled over the audience to fill the theater with imperceptible, incoherent noise. I caught only bits and pieces of the conversations around me, forsaking the choice of conversation for the more peaceful silence in which I had spent almost the last two hours, and my pounding bladder tore me from my plush red canvas seat.
     Having relieved myself, I returned to the entrance hall of the giant Victorian theater. They had made a special exception to show Gone with the Wind at this theater where Macbeth and Jersey Boys were the usual events. My thought turned to my grandfather, at whose urging I was attending the film of almost 4 hours. He had had the audacity to die after buying the tickets but two weeks before the show. He was everything I wished I could be. He had a tremendous service record, a wife of sixty years, and 12 kids, including my father. His greatest flaw was his cancerous esophagus, which he had ignored until the day he died with a Budweiser in his hand and a plate of fried chicken and sweet corn on his lap. Oh, and his favorite movie was Gone with the Wind. Believe it or not, I couldn’t convince anyone to spend four hours of his or her life in front of a silver screen watching the dead play Confederates and Southern belles.
     The hall was packed with mostly elderly bodies, some in line for concessions, many more trailing out of the women’s room. Looking around, I couldn’t spot anyone with in fifteen years of my age until my eyes landed on a girl fumbling with and then dropping a small bag of popcorn. She looked around helplessly for a moment before falling to her knees to try and scrape the now worthless kernels together. Bending down, the fabric of her long white dress with blue and yellow flowers stretched across her knees. Without thinking I had moved to her aid, and as I crouched next to her the cuff of my dark grey button up shirt brushed against her pale wrist. She looked up at me with enormous green eyes, surprised.
     She didn’t say anything and neither did I. She must have been in her early twenties, maybe one or two years older than me. I couldn’t fathom why she would come to see Gone with the Wind at all, much less by herself. She probably could’ve been out doing whatever she wanted. The silence lasted a moment too long, and I saw a quizzical glint in her eyes before she turned her face back toward the floor and her long sandstone colored hair covered them again.
     I awkwardly tried to help shovel some of the kernels but she was nearly finished and clearly didn’t need my help. I quickly stood and began to walk away, cursing myself for my inability to speak. The lights in the hall were flashing; intermission was almost over. I dejectedly turned toward the entrance to the auditorium among the throng of people. Steps before the door someone caught my wrist and forced something into my hand. Turning my head, for half a second I saw her smile before she spun and disappeared. In my hand was a shred of napkin with “Victoria” underlined and 10 digits beneath it. Now, like my grandfather, Gone with the Wind is my favorite movie, and I regretted my resentment from before I saw the movie.