Summer Days and Summer Nights by Stephanie Perkins Page A

hoping to bring her back from the brink of sad. “Supposedly, there’s a special effect where it looks like demons are coming out through the screen—that’s how the whole gateway to hell rumor got started. The effect was a huge deal. And nobody knows how they did it.”
    â€œReally?” Dani spun a pair of glasses around by the temple piece. “Should we give DemonVision a try?”
    â€œOn three,” I said. “One.”
    â€œTwo.”
    â€œThree,” we said, and slid them on.
    On-screen, it was just an early 1960s take on an old mansion. Lots of wood paneling, framed oil paintings, and taxidermied animal heads. The James Dean–like Jimmy Reynolds leaned against a fireplace in full angst-rebellious mode, even though he wore an early nineteenth-century suit with a cravat. Fact: Nobody looks badass in a cravat. Beautiful Natalia Marcova lounged on a divan, her raven mane curled over the shoulders of her ball gown. Beside her, square-jawed Alistair Findlay-Cushing gulped what I supposed was a manly Scotch from a crystal tumbler and delivered his lines in a world-weary Mid-Atlantic accent: “I’ve heard the rumors about your family. Madness is in the blood. You’re originally from the Carpathian Mountains, if I’m not mistaken.”
    Lightning flashed, revealing waxwork-like creatures with hideous mouths peering in through the mansion’s windows. And then, suddenly, Jimmy Reynolds raced toward the screen in a panic: “Please, get out while you can! Take off your glasses and leave this theater at once. You’re in great danger!”
    â€œWhoa. Super meta,” Dani muttered.
    â€œYeah. Very Invasion of the Body Snatchers .” My shoulder touched hers, and I wanted there to be a word for the current that shot up my arm, a word like ShoulderSplosion! or AlmostSex.
    â€œPlease, you must believe me,” Jimmy Reynolds continued. “They’ll come for you, soon. I’ve seen it before. You won’t survive. Turn it off now, I beg you! That’s the only way!”
    Natalia Marcova glanced nervously toward the audience and back to Jimmy Reynolds. “Now, Thomas, what are you saying? You’re not yourself.”
    â€œMan, this is so-o-o bad. Still. It’s oddly … compelling,” Dani said, her words a bit dreamy.
    â€œI love how inventive they were with the special effects back then, you know? All those models, double exposures, split screens, and stop-motion. They used foam latex to make the outfit for Creature from the Black Lagoon . And all those stabbing sounds? That’s just guys dropping fruits and letting them splat.”
    â€œYeah? Cool,” Dani said.
    For the first time ever, I didn’t care about the movie. I just wanted to be with Dani, talking about stupid shit that eventually became meaningful shit, and then, if everything went well, we could stay up all night and watch dawn creep over the flat grassland, turning everything a golden pink as we shared our first kiss.
    Sweat slickened my palms, and I rubbed them against my jeans. “Hey, um, are you, like, sticking around this summer?”
    Dani was still engrossed in the movie, so I tapped her arm.
    â€œHuh? Oh. Sorry.” She turned to me. The oversize 3-D glasses gave her a mutant bug creature quality. I dug it. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’ve got a job nannying for the Cooper twins. They’re total booger-eating firestarters. But the money’s decent.”
    Lame dialogue drifted up from inside the theater: “You know this old house has its secrets…” “Why are we continuing this pantomime? We know how it ends. I want out of my contract. I want to leave!” “Sh-h-h, Jimmy. He’ll hear you.”
    â€œWell, this summer, when you’re not, like, tending to the children of the damned…” It was like I was trying to swallow an air egg. “I was just wondering if maybe you’d