They stared at the screen. The Columbia lady came back with her torch.
"Did we miss it? Was it in the part you cut?"
"No. No, I don't think so. I think—" She stopped. She found she was laughing, sitting on the floor of the break room with her knees under her chin and her hair falling down. "I think that's the ending. They don't show it. They don't show you the wall coming down. You just hear the trumpet."
"That's the best ending of any movie ever made?"
"Yes," said Theda, wiping her eyes. "Yes. Your sister's right. It is."
He looked at her for a long time, sitting on the floor next to her, in the flicker of the blue screen. Then he reached over and pressed rewind, and the VCR began to whir, taking everything back to the beginning, and neither of them said anything until it clicked.
Cosmo called them a Yellow Cab at half past one, and Nicky rode with her to Brook Street and walked her up the steps of the three-decker in his socks, because he had taken off his own shoes in the cab and made her wear them over the protest that they were boats, they were canoes, she'd drown in them, and he had said sure, sure, and tied the laces for her himself. At the top of the steps, under the porch light that didn't work because nothing in her building worked, she gave him back his shoes, and he stood there holding them, and she stood there with the RIPTA blanket around her shoulders, which she had forgotten to give back and which he did not mention.
"Store closes at nine," he said. "Due back at six. I've got dress rehearsal at seven. So I'll be at Fox Point at a quarter to six, and we'll take it in together. If that's all right."
"It's your card."
"It's your splice. If Mrs. Teixeira's going to kill somebody, I think it should be both of us. That's only fair."
"That's very romantic."
"I thought you said it wasn't a date."
"It isn't," said Theda. "Good night, Nicky."
"Good night, Theda Duarte. D-U-A-R-T-E." He went down two steps, then turned. "What's your favorite scene? For tomorrow. For the lady."