by Julie Wright
After lunch, we were watching Love in the Afternoon when Emma hit pause on the movie. “What does she see in him? He’s grandpa-old! No, even that’s not right. He’s great-grandpa-old. No. Not even that. He’s Night of the Living Dead, Tales from the Crypt old. There is no way any beautiful young woman with any kind of self-respect would even look his direction.”
“I think he’s handsome,” Grandma said.
Emma stuck to her guns. “No offense, Grandma, but your opinion might be biased. He’s definitely too old for her.”
I laughed, relieved that it could happen when my stomach had knotted so badly it would require a merit badge on knots to undo it.
“And he’s morally reprehensible,” Emma said. “She has to pretend to be a player for him to even have a moment of interest? She needs to cut and run.”
I loved it when Emma got ranty. Working in Hollywood, I expected people to be jaded and things to be marbled gray through the blacks and the whites of morality. Emma’s idealistic line of work was all about putting the kind back into humankind with their namaste lifestyle. When things were skewed, Emma sounded her war cry of indignity.
I almost didn’t need TV when Emma was around. I let her carry on about the ridiculous age gap before speaking up. “You do know that Mr. Knightly is sixteen years Emma’s senior, right?”
Emma stopped mid-rant. I’d apparently poked at a sore spot. “That’s different,” she sputtered. “Knightly wasn’t exhibiting predatory behaviors like the guy in this movie. They were friends; this guy is a player. She’s going to get her heart broken when he gets bored and ditches her.”
“Did you know that more than thirty people jump from the Brooklyn Bridge every year due to heartbreak?”
Grandma and Emma both frowned; obviously neither of them liked that comment. “Should we be glad there isn’t a bridge anywhere nearby?” Grandma asked at the same time Emma said, “Where would you even hear something like that?”
I lifted a shoulder. “A movie, a long time ago. Don’t worry, guys. I’m not suicidal. I don’t plan on jumping from any bridges anytime soon. I’m fine.” And I meant it. I wasn’t going to jump off a bridge. But I kept touching my sternum as though it was bruised. There obviously was no real bruise, but it hurt just the same. Heartache might not be listed on the death certificate, not enough for it to count on one of Ben’s mortality statistics, but I wondered how many people died of a broken heart.
Emma viewed me a moment longer before saying, “Promise me that when we say something is a bridge-jump moment, it will always only mean that it’s a moment to take chances on good things, not a moment to try to end everything.”
I nodded, which seemed to satisfy her. Years ago, we’d decided that some things weren’t meant to be overthought; they were just meant to be done with a leap and a shout. So we’d gone bungee-jumping. I must have really rattled her by bringing up the movie quote about bridges.
Emma eventually had to go home. She’d taken the day off work to spend it with me, and though we didn’t solve any world problems in our time together, her presence had been the bandage keeping my heart from bleeding out on the floor.
“Call Ben!” Emma texted me almost as soon as she’d left. “At least find out his reasons.”
“If he wanted me to know them, he would have told me already,” I texted back.
“Who cares if he wants you to know? This isn’t about what makes him comfortable. You need to know. Find out so we’ll know if we should hire a hit man or not.”
I laughed but sent her a scolding. “You shouldn’t send stuff like that over a text. If Ben mysteriously dies tonight, they’re going to pin the murder on us.”
“No jury could convict us. Dead people creep me out more than feet creep you out.” She sent a GIF of a woman’s face turning into a demon that screams into the camera.
I set aside my phone and watched Funny Face and My Fair Lady with Grandma.
The happily-ever-after endings in the movies I watched irritated me because, in my own life, I didn’t see how that would work. With Ben agreeing to solitary confinement, we couldn’t even have a happily right now, let alone a happily ever after.
Grandma went to bed—her actual bed and not the couch. I put in Charade and watched it again. Something about it appealed to me, though I couldn’t say what or why.
The moment in the movie when Audrey Hepburn declared, “You mean you’re a thief!” to Cary Grant, I thought of myself. I thought about the word charade. The act of being one thing while doing something else entirely. Had I done that? Was Ben doing that? Emma said he might have a good reason for his actions. But if he did, what could that reason be?
The job mattered. Of course the job mattered. I felt the pull, ache, and need to work in that industry as strong as anyone, but I’d managed to choose being myself instead of living in their second-rate morality.
Why couldn’t Ben have loved me enough to choose the same?
I wanted to see him, to talk to him. What if, tomorrow, I happened to bump into him during his morning breakfast at his favorite diner? No one could fault me if we both went to the same place to eat. Just because it was his favorite restaurant really had nothing to do with me at all.
Or what if I went grocery shopping next Saturday at the exact same place he usually went grocery shopping? How could I be faulted? The farmers market was for everyone, and they had the very best price on bananas. Or maybe it was oranges. Or honey. Regardless, it remained a public place.
I groaned and put my head in my hands. What would Ben say to me breaking his contract and getting him into trouble? Was Ben a villain or just playing the villain?
The male lead of How to Steal a Million was also pretending to be a thief and a bad guy in general, but in reality, he was a good guy doing the best he could with his circumstances. These characters were good guys doing good-guy things even if they had the appearance of bad-guy things.
What was Ben?
I stiffened and sucked in a deep breath. I would not go to Ben’s favorite breakfast haunt. I would not go to the farmers market. Because when it came right down to it, I wasn’t playing the good-guy-pretending-to-be-a-bad-guy lead in a movie. I was playing me.
Emma sent me one last text telling me to stop being so dramatic all the time and to give Ben a chance—at least a response. But it was Grandma who changed my mind. There was a picture of her and Walt on her mantel. A picture I’d never seen before. It was from the night of the ball. Here was a woman who had the disease that scared me more than anything, and yet she was still living, still taking chances. Shouldn’t I be taking chances, too?
“Fine,” I said to the house. I would carry out my original plan to tell Ben I loved him. I would just do it with a movie-quote clue. I pulled out my phone and tapped out three words.
I rewound the movie so I could see Audrey Hepburn get her hero’s kiss with Cary Grant. I smiled. Audrey would have approved of my decision to be good and not force Ben to see me and explain himself. Audrey would likely also approve of my decision to be bad if Ben took too long to sort out the mess.
I glanced at my phone, verifying it had sent the message, and nodded with satisfaction at the three words on the screen.
“As you wish.”
“I told you, anything you do for yourself is a waste of spirit.”
—Hap, played by Audrey Hepburn in Always
I spent the next couple of days at Grandma’s house. Why not? It’s not like I had to get to work. We went to the library and checked out several of Audrey Hepburn’s documentaries, one done by A&E, which Emma would have approved of since she adored A&E’s version of Pride and Prejudice. We stopped at the grocery store. I tried to stick to the list Emma sent me regarding the healthy foods cancer patients should be eating, and I had to argue with Grandma when she wanted to buy orange soda and chips.
“Crushing a can of creamsicle-flavor
ed soda is not the same as freshly squeezed orange juice,” I complained when she told me she was eating healthy. She harrumphed, but we eventually agreed that if she ate everything I made her for dinner, then she could snack on whatever she wanted.
When she grumbled, “Who would have guessed you’d turn out to be the prison warden over food?” everything seemed right with the world.
Except, not everything. Ben never wrote back.
He never wrote back the next day either.
Or the day after that.
Ben didn’t write.
On Friday, I returned home to water my plants and to remind myself that I was an unemployed member of society. So, naturally, instead of sending out resumes, I went surfing.
Ben didn’t write.
I surfed on Saturday as well.
Ben still didn’t write.
I visited Grandma and organized her spice racks. Her expression made me wonder if she was happy I’d done it or irritated that I’d messed up her system.
I finally called my mom and told her about the job and Ben. She praised me for sticking to my morals and for working to change the world for the better so that opportunities for women were available in Hollywood. I didn’t admit that my actions hadn’t stemmed from an ideological desire to further the cause of women’s rights, but instead because I’d fallen for a guy who was apparently unworthy of that fall. I did not tell Mom about Grandma since Grandma promised she would tell her herself after her last chemo treatment next week. She would be going in for surgery shortly after that.
In all that time, Ben still hadn’t responded, which made me furious. He knew the quote. He knew what it had to mean. “As you wish” was code for “I love you.” Buttercup and Westley—The Princess Bride. Everyone knew that!
I told him I loved him, and he ignored it.
I spent the rest of Sunday applying at various studios.
By Monday morning, I realized Ben had no intention of trying to make a reconciliation.
Which was fine. I didn’t care. I’d lived my life this long without him, which, okay, wasn’t technically true, since he’d been a part of my life in some capacity or another for several years, but I had been independent for a long time. I could continue to be independent.
Sliver of Midnight media was everywhere. The premiere was scheduled at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Would I be invited?
I didn’t know, but it seemed unlikely.
Thinking about how I’d told Ben I’d take him as my date and how none of it was possible now—not me going, not going with Ben at my side—made me furious. He still hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t anything. It had been a week, and he hadn’t said anything. Emma told me he needed a chance to explain. I’d given him that chance, hadn’t I?
I picked up my phone to call Emma to ask for her advice but put it down again. No. Emma had made her position clear. This was a bridge-jump moment—the kind where you leapt without asking for advice or thinking too hard. You just jumped.
I grabbed my purse, stuffed my feet into my shoes, and yelled “Geronimo” as I started up my car.
Like it or not, Ben was going to talk to me.
Finding Ben wasn’t a problem because he was a creature of habit. He ate at the same restaurants he’d eaten at when we’d worked together. It was just before eight, which meant he would be headed to Tiffany’s Cafe—a throwback to the all-American diner. Ben insisted they made the most amazing stuffed French toast in the entire world, and he went there for breakfast before work every Monday.
I found him sitting alone at a table with his phone in one hand and a fork full of raspberry-sauced French toast in the other. He appeared to be reading something on his phone, or maybe he was watching a movie. Either way, he was about to be disrupted.
“This seat taken? No? Great.” I sat without allowing him to even register what was happening.
When it finally clicked in his mind that I had just joined him for breakfast, his mouth opened in shock. “Silvia! You can’t be he—”
I cut him off. “Don’t you dare say something we’ll both regret. And before I decide that you aren’t worth the mental energy I’ve been giving you, I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself. Emma and my grandmother have both told me that I’m being unforgiving by not allowing you a chance to share your side of the story. Even Walt believes I owe you a chance. So here I am. What gives?” Then I went silent, waiting for his answer.
His answer was to look around to see who might have noticed that I’d joined him.
Really?
To alleviate his blatant need for secrecy, I stood up and yelled, “Hello, everyone! I’d just like it known that I, Silvia Bradshaw, am spending the breakfast hour with Benjamin Armstrong. It’s no big deal. We are not conspiring to topple film studios. We’re actually discussing whether or not we have a future together. Stay tuned, folks. Breakfast at Tiffany’s just got interesting!” I sat again. “There. No secrets. No reason to flinch because it’s all in the open.”
“You’re insane.” This was the first thing he had to say to me after not seeing me for so long, after signing the world’s stupidest agreement, and after not responding to me telling him I loved him.
Not a great beginning.
“Hey.” I snapped my fingers at him. “You told me you loved me, and then you signed the paper version of keep-away. Who’s insane here? Because anyone who really cared about another person wouldn’t have let a piece of corporate pulp come between them.”
“Pulp?”
“Paper!” I said, probably louder than necessary.
Ben put down his phone and his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and fixed me with a stare that was infuriatingly Ben. “Did you really show up here to accuse me of not caring?”
“You signed the paper! The same paper I hadn’t signed. The one I wouldn’t ever sign because it was manipulative and controlling and unfair, and worse than all of that, it made it so we couldn’t be together, but you signed it!” Stinging burned at the back of my eyes, twice as bad behind the prosthetic. I didn’t cry, not over things like this, never over things like this, but I hadn’t ever been in love before either.
“Of course I signed it! What did you think I was going to do? Let you get fired?”
“They didn’t fire me—”
Ben cut me off this time. “Of course they didn’t, because I signed the agreement like Adam told me to!” Ben was yelling too, now.
I held up my hands to stop him, not only because what he was saying confused me but because it unnerved me to hear Ben shouting. “What does Adam have to do with any of this?”
“I ran into him at the movies.” Ben’s volume dropped to normal again. He glanced around as if only just noticing that the diner patrons I’d called to attention were still paying attention. His nostrils flared, but he kept his voice low. “He said they were going to fire you if you didn’t sign the agreement.”
“Did he also tell you that he’s a snake who is trying to impress some executives just so he can get a crummy bit part in a TV series?” Had Ben really signed those papers to save me from being fired? Had Emma, Grandma, and Walt all been right about his motivations? I picked up Ben’s abandoned fork and speared a piece of French toast. After stuffing it in my mouth, I pointed the fork at him. “Anyway, this isn’t about me getting fired. We’d already talked about that. And even if they did fire me, so what?”
Ben raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “So what? So it’s just your whole career that means more to you than anything, that’s what.”
“Not more than anything. Not more than you. I loved you enough to not sign the papers. I was hoping for the same level of commitment from you. Not that I wanted you to get in trouble with your work—of course I didn’t want that, don’t want that—it just felt—”
“Stop!” Ben commanded.
I did,
but only because his shout after he’d been so careful to keep his voice down startled me.
“Did you just say you loved me?”
That set me off again. “Yeah, act all surprised like you didn’t know that. Whatever, Ben.”
“I didn’t know that. How would I know that?” Ben shoved his plate aside and leaned in, his ice-blue eyes mystified.
“I told you already, in a text, after, may I add, you told me you’d shoved our relationship into oncoming traffic.”
“No, you didn’t tell me that.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I would definitely remember you using those words.”
“Well, I didn’t use those words exactly. But you knew what I meant!” I had to take a breath to keep my volume from rising again.
“The last thing you said to me was ‘As you wish’!” Ben whisper-yelled. “That sounded like you were writing me off.”
“So help me, Ben, this is the least funny thing you’ve ever done. You know what those words mean!” I was whisper-yelling, too.
His blank look made me pause.
“The Princess Bride?” I prompted.
A faint understanding dawned in his eyes, like sunlight on an extremely cloudy day. “A movie?”
“Seriously, Ben? You’ve never seen The Princess Bride? Westley to Buttercup? Only one of the best movies for one-liners on love ever created?”
No recognition flashed in his eyes.
I speared another piece of French toast and pretty much swallowed it without chewing. I needed to think. After nearly his entire breakfast had disappeared from Ben’s plate, he pointed at the remaining bite. “Do you need me to get you your own?”
I dared to look up at him. He was smiling. For the first time since my showing up to disrupt his breakfast, Ben looked relaxed.
“What are you smiling about? There is nothing to smile about with this entire conversation.”
“You love me. Why wouldn’t I be smiling?” Then it disappeared from his face with his sharp intake of breath. “But that doesn’t solve the problem of the lawsuit. We still signed an agreement.”