Here the Whole Time(51)

That leaves me trying to come up with themes for the whole week, just so I can get Caio to come over every day.

“Of course I do. I can’t live without Musical Wednesdays anymore!” he says.

“But today I’m going to disappoint the two of you,” my mom says with a pout. “Too much work, tight deadline. I can’t watch a movie. But you know what? I’ve just had an idea.”

“Mom, please don’t try to make Catwalk Fridays happen again,” I say.

Caio laughs out loud.

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea. But today I want the two of you to have fun. Have Musical Wednesday without me. Far from here. At the movies, just the two of you. All on me,” she says, getting money from her bra (not kidding) and putting some bills in my back pocket.

“Whoa, thanks, Rita!” Caio says excitedly.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, shaking with anxiety.

“No need to thank me, boys,” she says with a wink directed at me. Not at all in a discreet way, which makes me even more nervous.



“Well, I’m okay with Zombie Robots: The Attack 2,” Caio says, looking up at the billboard with all the showtimes.

We could have predicted that this Musical Wednesday would turn out not to be all that musical. Our town’s movie theaters don’t show any musicals. I don’t think the locals are quite the right audience for that. Or for subtitles, apparently. Zombie Robots: The Attack 2 is the only subtitled movie available today, and the other options aren’t exactly exciting:

Screwball Mother-in-Law is a Brazilian comedy with a decidedly unfunny cast.

Passion of Fire and Light is a film adaptation of a bestselling novel about a psychic teenager who falls in love with a ghost who then tries to be reincarnated in someone else’s body so they can be together forever, but he ends up being reincarnated as fire. Really. He becomes fire itself. And the girl is still in love with him. In love with the element of fire.

Forest Gone Wild! is a low-budget animated film with talking animals.



See what I mean?

“I’ve never watched Zombie Robots: The Attack 1, but fine by me.” My hands are sweaty. Because, in theory, this is a date. Our first date. It might all go wrong, but for some reason I believe this night might be—

“The beginning,” Caio says.

“What?”

“The first movie is called Zombie Robots: The Beginning.”

“Hollywood makes no sense,” I decide, and get in line for the tickets.

“Can we get popcorn?” Caio asks when I come back with our two tickets.

“Yeah! Which one do you want?”

“Maybe a large with butter to share? Oh, no! Never mind. You don’t like it with butter. So get a medium just for me.”

I’m surprised because I don’t even remember telling him that I don’t like butter on my popcorn.

We stand in the line for popcorn, which is longer than we could have anticipated for a Wednesday afternoon. Kids are running and screaming all around us, acting out a kid’s version of The Hunger Games. Impatient parents roll their eyes at other people’s kids and try to keep their own kids by their sides. It’s probably the combination of school break and Forest Gone Wild!

When it’s finally my turn, I order the two popcorns, and even though they’re both medium, I get “the look” from the cashier. When you’re fat, there are two variations of “the look” that you might get in food-related situations:

The look you get when you order a small means, “You’re that big and you’re trying to watch what you eat?”

The look you get when you order a large means, “You’re that big and you still can’t stop eating?”



All of which is to say that if you’re fat, you’re never right.

I try not to mind the look for now. In the end, it’s not too hard because Caio is so excited to spend the next couple of hours watching robot zombies on a giant screen that I end up feeling excited, too.

When we enter, the movie theater is almost empty. There are some couples scattered around the sides, an elderly man who came to the movies by himself, and a group of friends, laughing hysterically. We go straight to the back of the theater (because I’m tall and don’t want to be in anyone’s way), and when I sit down, I curse the designer of this movie theater’s chairs under my breath. Or of movie theaters in general. The person who came up with this seat definitely did not consider the existence of people my size.

I take a seat, uncomfortably, my legs squeezed by the row in front and my arms without room to move freely. I look like a T. rex holding a popcorn bucket. Caio is sitting to my right, and he seems relaxed and comfortable. I think about complaining about the size of these seats with Caio, just to vent, but when I open my mouth, the lights go off and the trailers begin.

My hands automatically break into a sweat, and I eat some popcorn to put my mind at ease. The movie starts, and after half an hour I realize that I haven’t been paying attention to anything. My leg is shaking, and I try to coordinate its rhythm with the explosions on the screen.

The group of friends in the theater talks loudly during the movie, but no one seems to mind. Some couples are kissing in a very, um, intimate way. And the older man who was by himself already left, probably offended by the low quality of the special effects in Zombie Robots: The Attack 2.