“You got dressed up.”

I forced a smile. Like most teenage girls, I was convinced that I was fat and ugly.  I wanted a compliment. I would have died for a compliment. But in my family, compliments were a curse. Too many and you pushed your luck.

Four faces scanned me from my head to my toes. The Bonnie Belle makeup. The shoes. The dress. Outside the car honked. That moron Billy was leaning on the horn. “Gotta go,” I said. Then they collectively pivoted their heads and turned back towards the TV.

I assumed we were heading toward South Beach. In the sixties, the Lincoln Road mall was in its prime. A tram carried you from one end to the other.  Saks. Bonwit Teller. All the big names were there. And going to the movies was like going to a Broadway show.  You’d walk into the lobby and be greeted by a parrot on a perch or the biggest concession stand you’d ever seen. Marble floors dazzled. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceilings.  Inside, the theaters had mezzanines with balconies, and a man played an organ.  When the music stopped, a cord was pulled and red velvet curtains opened.  People got dressed up to go to the movies.   Magic happened.

But we didn’t go to that kind of movie theater. Instead Billy veered north. It was a neighborhood I wasn’t familiar with. There was an Orange Julius on every corner. A shell shop. A bar.

Robbie and I were holding hands in the back seat. Suddenly his got sweaty. “Billy thought we’d try someplace new,” he sputtered, “to save some money. All of his friends go to this place. Don’t they, Billy?”

The back of Billy’s head bobbed up and down. Next to him sat his friend Paul. They had been fighting over the radio since I stepped into the car.

“There’s only one station on this fucking radio,” said Paul.

“You’re not doing it right,” said Billy.

“You turn the knob back and forth,” said Paul.  “Of course I’m doing it right.”

“You’re not doing it right,” said Billy.

By now Robbie’s hand was soaked. “They don’t have first run movies. But they’re like classics, you know?”

I gazed out my window. It was getting dark. We passed bar after bar. The neon lights made everything look wet, shiny.

“I thought we’re seeing Camelot,” I protested.  “You told me that we’re seeing Camelot.”

A sign blinked Single Men Only.  Free Drinks! Girls Galore!  Robbie’s face turned red then blue as we made our way down the street.

I knew Robbie wasn’t rocket scientist material. He was the tallest boy in the ninth grade, had eyes as blue as the ocean, and a mop of wavy black hair.  What he lacked in brains he made up for in looks. A Rock Hudson sort of guy.

“This music is giving me a goddamned headache,” said Paul.

“You’re not doing it right,” said Billy.

We parked the car in a lot littered with beer bottles and old newspapers and made a dash for the theater.  The sidewalks were empty.  No tourists. No teenagers. No cars with the windows down pumping out loud music. The marquee read King Kong Versus Godzilla.  Only half the letters were missing.

I tugged on Robbie’s sleeve. “Do you know this movie’s like five years old? I think it’s been on TV already. I swear I’ve seen it on TV.”

“That’s why it’s a deal,” he answered. Then he over-enunciated each word like I was the idiot and he was some Harvard-educated economist explaining the laws and physics of consumer consumption. “We can’t afford a new movie. That’s why this one’s cheap.”

Godzilla was already wreaking havoc by the time we got to our seats. The floors were sticky.  The chairs worse. Instead of air conditioning, fans on the ceiling whomp, whomp, whomped. Though most of rows were empty, a few men sat in single seats. I scanned the crowd for a feminine face, a Peter Pan collar, longish hair, but no–I was the only girl.

Billy and Paul sat a few rows ahead of us. Once Robbie saw the coast was clear, he thought he’d try a few moves. His hand slowly slid from my shoulder. On the screen, Japanese people were running down a street, screaming out of sync with the dubbed English, their mouths wide open, their fingers waving in the air.

“If you lower your hand another inch,” I whispered in Robbie’s ear, “I’m going to break it right off.”