He stopped on the sidewalk, head cocked, frowning at the narrow store squeezed between a kitschy gift shop and a bakery. He stepped toward the door, peered inside, and saw old movie posters on the walls, racks of DVDs and VHS tapes, and a big screen TV against one wall. The lettering on the door read "Impossible Dreams Video," and the smudges on the glass suggested it had been in business for a while.

Except it hadn't been. Pete knew every video store in the county, from the big chains to the tiny place staffed by film students up by the University to the little porno shop downtown that sometimes sold classic Italian horror flicks and bootleg Asian movies. He'd never even heard of this place, and he walked this way at least twice a week. Pete believed in movies like other people believed in God, and he couldn't understand how he'd overlooked a store just three blocks from his own apartment. He pushed open the door, and a bell rang. The shop was small, just three aisles of DVDs and a wall of VHS tapes, fluorescent lights and ancient blue industrial carpet, and there were no customers. The clerk said "Let me know if you need any help," and he nodded, barely noticing her beyond the fact that she was female, somewhere south of thirty, and had short pale hair that stuck up like the fluff on a baby chick.

Pete headed toward the classics section. He was a cinematic omnivore, but you could judge a video store by the quality of its classics shelf the same way you could judge a civilization by the state of its prisons. He looked along the row of familiar titles--and stopped at a DVD turned face-out, with a foil "New Release" sticker on the front.

Pete picked it up with trembling hands. The box purported to be the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles.

"Is this a joke?" he said, holding up the box, almost angry.

"What?" the clerk said.

He approached her, brandishing the box, and he could tell by her arched eyebrows and guarded posture that she thought he was going to be a problem. "Sorry," he said. "This says it's the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, with the missing footage restored."

"Yeah," she said, brightening. "That came out a few weeks ago. You didn't know? Before, you could only get the original theatrical version, the one the studio butchered--"