They’d closed the street for the premiere, forcing Sebastian’s cab to drop him off around the corner.
The producers of Midnight Force: Sunset on the Sands had booked the Marigold Cinema for the film’s UK debut. It was a small, independent movie theatre in Soho that’d been around since the turn of the last century, its facade an eclectic mix of classical architecture and gaudy neon.
They wouldn’t let Sebastian in through the back entrance. He’d checked. Fortunately the photographers lined up along the red carpet weren’t interested in a mere consultant, and Sebastian passed through the cacophonous gauntlet of questions and flashbulbs quickly and unnoticed. Security checked his invitation with the barest level of interest and waved him through.
Stepping into the foyer of the Marigold was like stepping back in time. A chandelier hanging from the high coffered ceiling lit the room in bright warm tones, bringing out the vivid red of the carpet underfoot, the subtleties of the patterned wallpaper, the wood grain of the bar along one wall.
As a child, Sebastian had been enchanted. Whenever he came home from school for the holidays, he and his mother would always celebrate by coming to see a film at the Marigold—just the two of them, while his father was on assignment abroad. More often than not, the promise of it was all that got him through the semester.
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