Organist who played vintage music before the show began: check.
Fresh popcorn that appeared in unlimited quantities: check.
The candy counter he told me to raid like a Viking: check.
The fact that he somehow secured an original 1942 print of Casablanca for a private screening: another unfathomable check.
“This is just… It’s crazy. All of this. You didn’t have to—”
“I know I didn’t have to,” he interrupts gently. “I wanted to.”
I shouldn’t ruin this moment with stupid questions, but I can’t help myself. “Why?”
Bastian is silent for a long moment. Finally, he says, “Because you deserve to see it the way it was meant to be seen. Not on some laptop screen or your phone. The real thing. The way people saw it eighty years ago.”
“And because… ” He pauses, then reaches over and takes my h
