No one spoke for a long, tense moment. The book, dog-eared and missing its Saul-Bass-inspired dust jacket, sat on the coffee table, showing the wear and tear of a book that had been passed from person to person, shoved into bags, read on breaks at work. All three –– Dania and Gwen on the couch, […]
“This has to be the first summer in forever without a major superhero movie,” said Eleanor, panting in the dry heat of July.
Dania nodded. “Well, how do you expect to release a superhero movie when no one can go to the movies?”
They were sitting out on the stoop in front of the house, the shadow of the building falling in front of their feet. Even under the shade, they fanned themselves. It was a slow summer day, the kind where a trip to an air-conditioned cineplex, to watch the latest batch of digitally costumed hunks punch things, wouldn’t have been amiss. But with the drive-ins needing the twilight to be seen, there were no heroes to shield them from the midday heat.
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Their timelines on social media had returned to normal in the last week, with less and less content that showed evidence of the great civil rights struggle still ongoing in the country. Videos of protesters clashing with police had been replaced with more pointed action items about donating to charities and petitioning for legislation. A series of surprise Supreme Court victories had given the country the momentary breath of hope that things weren’t entirely doomed, which only distracted from the fact that things very much still were.
Working from home had drained Gwen more than she expected. She had always been comfortable on her own, without having a supervisor or manager peering over her shoulder as she worked. Had someone asked her, a month ago, if she’d prefer to work in the comfort of her home, she’d have leapt at the opportunity.
But “comfort” wasn’t what the home felt like to Gwen. Despite making sure she took walks outside regularly (at Eleanor’s urging), their small apartment was feeling more claustrophobic by the hour––to say nothing of Gwen’s preferred kind of social interaction: the collective anonymity provided by the dark blanket of a theatre audience. Now, to Gwen’s distress, both the audiences and the stages of Chicago were shrouded in darkness, and would be for some time.
The Hanslick Girls 