Remake

“High Road to China,” I say, and then cancel it before it has a chance to come up. “Simultaneous display. Screen one, Temple of Doom. Two, Singin’ in the Rain. Three, Good News…”

I go through the litany, and Alis appears on the screens, one after the other, in tap pants and bustles and green weskits, ponytails and red curls and shingled bobs. Her face looks the same in all of them, intent, alert, concentrating on the steps and the music, unaware that she is conquering encryptions and Brownian checks and time.

“Screen Eighteen,” I say, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” and she twirls across the floor and leaps into the arms of Russ Tamblyn. And he has conquered time, too. They all have, Gene and Ruby and Fred, in spite of the death of the musical, in spite of the studio execs and the hackates and the courts, conquering time in a turn, a smile, a lift, capturing for a permanent moment what we want and can’t have.

I have been working on weepers too long. I need to get on with the business at hand, pick a plane, save the sentiment for my lovers’ Big Farewell.

“Cancel, all screens,” I say. “Center screen, High Road to—” and then stop and stare at the silver screen, like Ray Milland craving a drink in The Lost Weekend.

“Center screen,” I say. “Frame 96-1100. No sound. Broadway Melody of 1940,” and sit down on the bed.

They are tapping side by side, dressed in white, lost in the music I cannot hear and the time steps that took them weeks to practice, dancing easily, without effort. Her light brown hair catches the light from somewhere.

Alis swings into a turn, her white skirt swirling out in the same clear arc as Eleanor’s — check and Brownian check — and that must have taken weeks, too.

Next to her, casual, elegant, oblivious to copyrights and takeovers, Fred taps out a counterpoint ripple, and Alis answers it back, and turns to smile over her shoulder.

“Freeze,” I say, and she stops, still turning, her hand outstretched and almost touching mine.

I lean forward, looking at the face I have seen ever since that first night watching her from the door, that face I would know anywhere. We’ll always have Paris.

“Forward three frames and hold,” I say, and she flashes me a delighted, an infinitely promising, smile.

“Forward realtime,” I say, and there is Alis, as she should be, dancing in the movies.

THE END

Roll credits

REMAKE