Well, Dear Readers, I know we all were wondering, at least I was, What Happened Next? Or rather, What Happened In Between? As in, what happened in between Alexa seeing Grace and Dimitri drive off into the moonlight and Mr. Dimitri handing out that pop quiz the next morning? Several hours are unaccounted for. What really went down at Rashomon? Here's one account of that time. Of course, each person has their own view of what happened.

Thanks for all your great feedback – good points made, good to hear your differing takes on the same scenes.

Oh – warning. There are Rashomon spoilers here. Excellent movie, by the way.

Chapter 21: Moving Pictures

Grace was quiet until we reached the first red light, and then she spoke, staring straight ahead. "Mr. Dimitri?"

I was jarred hearing the formality of  my professional name. Especially considering what she had just proposed. But who could blame her? That's what she called me, her teacher. I had just given her a speech about her education. I was August only in an inscription I didn't know if she had read. "Yes, Grace?"

"We are friends now, aren't we? I know you said we weren't, before, but we were then, I think, and we are now." I sensed her shifting in her seat; I turned my head and saw that she was looking at me, searching my face for truth. I shifted my eyes back toward the road.

The light turned green, but I didn't accelerate. Gracious honesty. We were then, when I said we weren't, when I said we couldn't be, and I thought of the ease of being with her, my enjoyment of our limited time together. "Yes, Grace," I said, again, as I started to drive through the intersection. I could give her that. "Yes, we were. We are friends. I think we've been friends since the beginning."

"And you said we couldn't be."

"I... did. I was, I am, trying to do the right thing, Grace." Silence. "I believe I mentioned circumstances."

"Circumstances?"

"Who I am, who you are. I said that if circumstances were different... things between us could be different." If I weren't your teacher, if you weren't 17, if I were so much younger, if you were so much older. If, if, if.

"But they didn't change, and we're friends anyway. So, why...?" She let the unfinished question hang in the car.

"Why... are we on our way to the movies and not staying home exploring my house?"

I glanced toward her and a street lamp illuminated a half-smile. "Yes. Because, I don't think I'm misreading you."

I pulled into a parking spot near the theatre. The movie started in 10 minutes. I honestly did want to see the movie with Grace, share it with her, and I decided to say that. "Grace, what we are now is probably more than we should be. Even going to a movie like this, which I think you know I wanted to do. Believe it or not, I want the experience of sharing this with you as much as I might want anything else, and anything else is not possible."

"But – " She stopped when she saw my face. I was looking at her directly, trying to speak honestly and forcefully and appropriately.

"I don't think you really understand that, Grace, and maybe it's asking too much of you to try. But think about it. How could I be with you like, like you suggested, and then go back to class as an impartial teacher? Already --" And I stopped speaking, couldn't say any more, and I looked away from her, took a deep breath, feeling my voice choke.

The question hung there and she looked across the space between us, over the boundaries I had clearly drawn. Finally, she spoke. "Shouldn't we be getting to the movie?"

I released my breath slowly, aware that she now sensed the tumult I was feeling. She smiled at me and continued, "I don't want to miss the beginning, right?"

We got out of the car. At the theatre, I bought the tickets. "Weren't you hungry?" I asked as we passed the concession stand. "They use real melted butter on their popcorn here."

"Really? I thought everyone used that fake yellow oil stuff."

I pointed to the sticks of butter melting in a pan behind the counter. "Let's get a large," I suggested. "I'm a little hungry too." Grace shrugged, but took the bucket of butter-drizzled popcorn as I grabbed a fistful of napkins. The theatre was half empty, but Grace kept walking forward until she reached the fifth row. The row I always sat in. She turned to me. "I hope you don't mind sitting close," she said.

"This is the row I sit in," I responded. "If I sit further away, I might as well be –"

"Watching TV."

"Exactly." We grinned at each other, and sat down. I handed her the napkins while I shrugged off my coat. In turn, she passed me the bucket of popcorn as she unzipped her jacket, and my eyes were drawn again to that zipper, remembering the rise of her breasts as I had zipped it up a short while ago. I watched her hands, sturdy, smaller than I would have thought, with clear nail polish carefully applied to her fingernails. I balanced the bucket of popcorn on my lap and held onto her sleeves as she slipped out of her jacket, again enjoying the feel of her arms underneath. Just... the closeness. I noticed anew the tight blue sweater she had been wearing. The way it clung to her breasts, melded smoothly with her short black leather skirt.

We had just settled into our seats when the movie began. No coming attractions at this repertoire theatre, just the movie we came to see. I hadn't seen Rashomon for over a decade, and the screen filled with black-and-white images that were strikingly evocative of color. I held the popcorn on my knee, and periodically Grace would reach over and take a handful. Then came the famous continuous three-minute sequence, the peasant recalling his version of the story, and the sense of foreboding as he walks through the brightly lit woods, the sharp contrasts between sun and shade, the tall grasses and leaves brushing against him. The scarf in the bushes.

It is a decades-old debate whose version of the truth is the most compelling in Rashomon, but this introduction by the peasant, who discovered the evidence of the crime, has the added element of dread. Even though I knew what happened, had seen this scene so many times, it still filled me with apprehension. Grace clutched at my arm, alarmed at the suspense.

Grace's hand on my arm felt grounding. She didn't let go when the peasant finished, gripped it harder when the bandit began, the first to confess to the murder. His gleeful madness is melodramatic by today's standards, yet disturbing nonetheless. And there was the scene of the torture and the rape, or the acquiescence. I shifted my arm so that we were holding hands, told myself I was just holding a friend's hand during the scary part of a movie. Grace gripped my hand harder during the thief's demented account. A movie fifty years old that still has the power to move and affect people as a period piece that seems not at all dated. I was so happy, right then, I remember that now, I hold that happiness, sitting next to Grace, our knees an inch apart, hands clasped together, staring straight ahead at the screen.

I stole a glance at her, felt her small, smooth hand in mine, restrained a desire to stroke her thumb with mine, to steal a caress. Because that would shatter the charade, the game that we were merely holding hands to ward off cinematic dread, I was just reassuring her, helping her through a scary part.

The bandit finished his account, and the wronged wife began to speak. Grace loosened her grip on my hand, and I opened my hand, already missing the comforting pressure of her fingers. But she left her hand there, and after a minute held my hand again, softly this time, gently, and I curled my fingers around hers. It was just a hand, I rationalized to myself. We both stared straight ahead at the screen, the hands between us having nothing to do with us, nothing to do with the spark I felt. The bucket of popcorn rested between us on both our knees. With our opposite hands we each ate popcorn, slowly, a puffed kernel at a time.

And then the end. Four stories told, the truth is what we choose it to be, balanced by an odd redemption at Rashomon Gate. Hope even in a hopeless world. As the credits came on, our hands fell apart. Grace licked her buttery fingers, and I passed her a napkin as I used one myself to removed the grease from my fingers. 

Side by side we left the theatre. I felt self-conscious of the space between us now, aware of her hand dangling near mine over the sidewalk, empty as mine was. I opened the passenger door for her by hand, and Grace got into my car, looking up at me as I shut the door once she was seated. Her fourth and final ride with me. Did I think there would be others? Did I think there would be more movies, more popcorn, more lifts home from school? Or did I realize somehow things would have to end, that this would be the last time? I had stepped so far over so many lines, but I couldn't stop myself because I didn't want to. That night, I couldn't think beyond each minute.

"That movie was amazing," Grace said as I started up the car. "Really. It really makes you think. Because each character was a believable witness – even the bandit guy, in his way."

"Right – so which version of the truth is correct? I think what was especially brilliant is that each storyteller blames him- or herself for the murder."

"Including the victim," Grace observed. "That's what made it so interesting. Each time you heard another version. The mystery, too, of who did it, and why each one takes the blame. But I don't really get how they all connect to the abandoned child."

"Well, the priest and the peasant both seemed shell-shocked – "

"Yes!" she jumped in. "Like they were stunned. But the priest didn't know exactly what happened any more than anyone else, you know? But he seemed the most judgmental."

"Until they found the abandoned baby. At first, it was just another sign of the horror of the world. But what was the peasant's reaction?"

She thought for a minute as we turned up the street to my house. "At first he wants to, like, get away. But then, then he says he'll take it in."

"And what about the weather?"

"The rain? Oh! The rain stops. It's like, there's hope now."

"The way I see it, no matter how bad things are, there's still an element of good in people, which means there's hope for people."

"It was just such a, I don't know, full movie. Layered. A lot there. I'd like to see it again, to get everything that's there, what I might have missed."

"It's definitely a movie you should see more than once," I said as I pulled up in front of my house and parked the car. "We're here."

Neither of us moved. Finally, Grace said, "Thanks for this movie, for wanting to see it with me." And she looked up at me, her hand on the seatbelt clasp. That intense feeling passing between us, those lips, those eyes, but I couldn't let it go beyond the hands we held.

"Go home, now, Grace," I said, looking at her directly.

She looked as if she were debating; would she say why again? Her car was parked right in front of mine. She undid the clasp, opened the door. Reached a hand to touch mine, which was resting on the steering wheel. The barest touch, branded onto the back of my hand. "Okay," she said, and was gone. I watched while she got into her car, while she started it up, while she drove away. Only after I could no longer see the taillights did I undo my seatbelt and get out of my car.

I remember the times we parted as strongly as the times we had together, because they always came too soon, our time was always too short.