If Harry Met Sally Again

by Annie Robertson

  ‘Harry started out as a plonker. Look how that ended.’

  ‘Someone is out there right now, probably with the wrong person, wondering where the right person is. That’s what happens in Ephron’s world, right? One day, when you least expect it, you’ll stumble into him.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, sceptically. ‘Not that it matters – I’m not sure I’ll ever have any romantic mojo ever again.’

  ‘Nina, for your own sake, I’m hanging up.’

  ‘Okay. I deserve that.’

  ‘Go apologise to your sister and niece.’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Soon you’re going to be a big success and your sister will be your minion, but for now you need to rise above it and apologise.’

  ‘Don’t want to.’

  ‘Nina,’ she reprimands. ‘If you don’t, I’ll withhold your Christmas bonus.’

  ‘Mr Love has given us a bonus?’ I ask, astonished.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it sounds too good to be true.’

  ‘Maybe next year…’

  ‘If we’re still in business.’

  ‘We will be, now go apologise.’

  ‘Okay, but I’ll moan for a bit first.’ I release a short, pathetic moan.

  Astrid laughs, knowing that I’m referencing the end of the Casablanca scene, when Harry practises his groaning down the phone and continues even when Sally has hung up.

  ‘That scene is far too close to the reality of living with Aidan. I really need to get him on the echinacea. Goodnight, Nina.’

  ‘Good night, Astrid. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’ She hangs up.

  I continue to moan.

  10

  ‘I’m so going to find you someone to kiss under the mistletoe,’ sings Astrid, as Aidan rings Ed’s doorbell.

  ‘Not interested,’ I reply, stamping my feet to stave off the cold.

  When Astrid called to ask if I wanted to go to Ed and Verity’s New Year’s party, at first I was hesitant.

  ‘Won’t Will and Carmen be there?’ I’d asked.

  ‘Apparently, they’re skiing in Morzine.’

  ‘Well, why not?’ I replied, jumping at the chance. Not because I particularly enjoy their parties but because the pressure of the rewrite has induced a severe case of writer’s block, which even a sound talking to from Caroline couldn’t undo. Between Christmas and New Year I altered exactly nothing. I’ve never needed to get out of the flat more.

  ‘Oh, come on, it’s been two months since you broke up with Will. A cheeky snog wouldn’t hurt. Nobody wants to be alone at New Year.’

  ‘I’m okay with it. I’m over my Christmas blues.’

  Ed opens the door and lets out a drunken man roar. He takes our coats, asking us to leave our shoes at the door – a detail of Ed and Verity’s house I’d forgotten about. If I’d remembered I wouldn’t have worn tights with holes in the toes, and I certainly wouldn’t have left the bits of black sock-fluff embedded under my toenails.

  Ed and Verity own a fancy terraced house in Balham. It’s one of those white walled, wooden-floored, mid-century-furniture places, and includes the requisite big kitchen extension with bi-folding doors that open onto a minimalist garden. There is no sign of junk, no trace of their student CD collections or thinning Ikea bed linen. Everything is magazine perfect.

  We’re led through to the kitchen where there’s a crowd of thirty-something professional types, standing around, sipping champagne, trying to make themselves heard over the DJ in the corner. You can tell the single girls from the way they keep stroking their shiny hair seductively over their shoulders, and the single males from the way they stand with their groins pushed forward and one hand in their pocket, surreptitiously juggling their balls.

  ‘Lots of guy-candy,’ says Astrid, rubbing her hands together. I shoot her a ‘don’t even think about it’ look. ‘Have a drink, eat some canapés, and stick with Aidan and me.’ She wraps her arm round his waist. ‘You never know, you might meet someone nice.’

  Verity swans over to greet us and immediately takes Astrid away to see her Chagall lithograph in the living room. I turn to Aidan to discover he’s gone off with Ed and a group of lads, who are laughing raucously in the corner; it looks like the sort of man-chat that would suddenly stop if I joined in so I go to the buffet and load up a plate with as much as it will hold.

  In the garden, I sit on a low wall with glass lanterns hanging above it and tuck in. Three glasses of champagne later, just as my eyes are beginning to glaze over, a guy about my age with no socks, turned-up jeans, and big glasses comes up to me. There’s something vaguely familiar about him but in my drunken state I can’t place him. He looks like the sort of over-stylised hipster I’d usually give a wide berth to, but given he’s the only person to have approached me, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Ed and Verity always put on a good buffet,’ he says, in a nasal, American accent, pronouncing buffet, buhff-ay.

  ‘Mmm,’ I say, through a mouthful of smoked salmon, trying to smile without showing my teeth, which feel caked with cream cheese.

  ‘Ben,’ he says, reaching out his hand, super self-assured.

  I gesture that I have a mouthful and that I’ll introduce myself once I’ve finished, something that takes an uncomfortably long time to happen.

  ‘Sally,’ I say, surprising myself with the fake name. I juggle my plate and champagne glass to try and shake his hand, which of course I make a complete klutz of. A glance into the kitchen finds Astrid doing pretend canoodling and pulling a kissy-kissy face.

  ‘Can I join you?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, ignoring Astrid and budging up the wall a bit.

  ‘So, what do you do?’

  It’s hardly the most original of openers but I go with it. ‘I’m a writer.’

  ‘Huh,’ he says, with an inflection that suggests he’s more interested than most. ‘What kind?’

  ‘Screenwriter.’ It feels a little grandiose to say but I figure I’ll never meet the guy again anyway so, I go with it.

  ‘Anything I’d know of?’

  Here it is, three questions in and he comes straight out with the question I dread.

  ‘I’m working on a sequel.’

  He nods, digesting this information. ‘Can’t say I’m a huge fan of a sequel, especially the current trend to hark back to the classics.’

  I recoil. This is exactly the sort of thing I would expect someone who wears brogues without socks and a bow tie and braces to say.

  ‘You don’t think they’re worth revisiting?’ There’s a note of hostility in my voice that can’t have gone unnoticed.

  ‘It’s not that, exactly – I just think there’s a bunch of new writers out there with innovative, original scripts who aren’t getting the time of day because of studio hacks who basically get paid to write pastiche.’

  I’m about to retaliate when I clock a vaguely familiar figure arriving inside. I strain my eyes to see who it is.

  ‘Her name is Carmen,’ says Ben, following my line of sight. ‘She’s a friend of Verity’s, and she’s—’ He says something else but I don’t hear him over the sound of my sinking heart. Not just because it’s Carmen but because now I can see whom she’s with. Will. I thought they were hitting the slopes. Obviously not.

  I put down my plate and knock back my fourth glass of champagne, telling myself they deserve each other and, what the hell did I ever see in Will anyway? But that doesn’t stop the feelings I thought had gone, from beginning to resurface. My head is suddenly awash with questions. Does he still love her? Have they moved in together? Is their relationship ever going to be over? What’s so much more lovable about her than me?

  ‘Can I get you another of those?’ Ben indicates my empty glass.

  ‘Please,’ I say, still staring at Carmen.

  She looks spectacular. Her big boobs, pert backside and long legs look incredible in a red bandage dress. If I wore the same outfit I’d look
as if I’d been mummified. Her hair is pulled up, accentuating her long neck and striking face. She walks in front of Will, holding his hand, weaving him through the gathering. He looks different, I’m not sure how exactly, and wears clothes I don’t recognise. I wonder if she chose them for him.

  ‘There you go,’ says Ben, returning and handing me another champagne.

  ‘Thank you.’ He sits back down; my eyes are on Will.

  ‘That must be Carmen’s fella,’ he says. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I thought I did,’ I answer, distantly. ‘But now I’m not so sure.’

  Ben starts to talk about something; I don’t hear what. I stare at Will as if watching a ghost.

  ‘Would you excuse me?’ I say after a while, putting down my champagne glass.

  Without waiting for an answer, and without thinking if it’s the right thing to do or not, I stand up and walk towards Carmen and Will.

  ‘Hi,’ I say to Will, very pleased to be interrupting whatever conversation he and Carmen are having. I’m impressed with my air of cool confidence that belies my racing heart. I’m trying very hard to appear as if she and he are no more than a piece of chewing gum stuck to the sole of my shoe.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, spluttering on his champagne.

  I wait for him to stop coughing. He thumps his fist on his chest. Carmen, clears her throat impatiently, waiting to be introduced. I think about introducing myself as the girl who found her shagging my boyfriend in my bed but instead I say simply, ‘Nina.’

  A dawning expression creeps over her face, which now that I see it close up isn’t so perfect. Her skin is pockmarked, her teeth are small and crooked like a shark’s, and her eyes are too close together.

  ‘Carmen,’ she says, offering me a hand with white, protruding knuckles. I don’t shake it.

  ‘How are you?’ I ask Will, not really caring about the answer, just pleased to be making them feel uncomfortable rather than the other way around.

  ‘Fine,’ he says, knocking back his drink. ‘You?’

  Carmen drills a look of death at him.

  ‘I thought you were skiing?’ I say.

  ‘We had to come back early,’ he says, staring into his glass like an awkward teenager.

  ‘Castle Rock optioned my script.’

  ‘Wow!’ His face lights up, his eyes full of genuine delight and for a split second I am transported back to the old Nina and Will, which is at once both comforting and confusing. ‘That’s terrific news!’

  Carmen sighs heavily. ‘You two should catch up.’ She leaves to talk to Verity.

  Will points to the stairs, asking, do I want to sit a while? I shrug, sure, why not, and sit down beside him. The proximity of the step feels awkward, inappropriate. Will edges as close to the wall as possible. I press uncomfortably against the iron balustrades. It saddens me that we’ve come to this, that he’s become like someone I’ve just met.

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ he says, after a moment. ‘You know how much our friendship means to me, right?’

  ‘Is that why you shafted me big style and have barely been in touch in the last two months?’ My bitterness catches me by surprise.

  He ignores my comment. ‘I miss you, Nina.’

  It’s not lost on me that eight weeks ago this is exactly what I wanted to hear but now, now that he’s actually saying it, I’m not interested. For the first time I know with all certainty that there is no going back. What we had is ruined, for ever.

  ‘Don’t you want to give this friends thing a go?’

  ‘Not really,’ I answer, cross that he thinks he can pick things up pretty much where we left off, oblivious to the pain he’s caused me. ‘And besides, you used to say you don’t believe in men and women being friends.’

  ‘That was before the amendment.’

  I look at him for clarification.

  ‘I thought men and women could be friends if both of them are in a relationship,’ he says, referencing Harry on the moving walkway at the airport – an all-time classic piece of Ephron.

  ‘There are two problems with that,’ I reply, surprised and slightly miffed that he’s chosen to pull the scene out of his memory bank now. ‘One, I’m not in a relationship, and two, if you remember correctly, Harry vetoed that theory because, and I paraphrase: the person you’re involved with doesn’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re friends with, and accuses you of being secretly attracted to that person, which, in our case, you obviously have been, bringing us back to the original rule, which is men and women can’t be friends…’

  ‘So where does that leave us?’

  ‘That you were right all along: we can’t be friends,’ I shrug, glancing at Ben laughing with Carmen in the living room, they’re carrying on as if they’ve known each other for years. I wonder what it is that they’re laughing about and why I feel a tiny bit suspicious or envious, or both.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because one,’ I sigh, annoyed that he needs this to be explained. ‘I can’t trust you any more, two, you hurt me badly, and three, Carmen will think you’re still attracted to me, which will ultimately be the downfall of your relationship and I don’t want to be responsible for that – though why I should care I really don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t think Carmen and I have much of a future.’ He looks at me softly, his eyes pleading with me.

  I should tell him to stop being so self-pitying and think about all the pain he inflicted on me, and to be more respectful not only of me but of Carmen, who’s only a few feet away, but I don’t. Instead I say, ‘Even so…’

  ‘I’d really like to give it a go. I miss you.’

  I realise Will isn’t going to give up unless I make him.

  Swallowing hard, angered that he’s forced me to become a hardened version of myself, I say, ‘Well, I don’t miss you, so I guess there’s no more to be said.’

  We sit silently for a while until Ed, in the kitchen, raps a corkscrew against a tankard.

  ‘Ten, nine, eight,’ he calls and everyone, bar us, joins in the countdown to New Year. All I can think about is the first New Year’s Eve scene in When Harry Met

  Sally when everyone is celebrating and Harry and Sally are skirting round the awkward realisation that there might be something between them other than friendship.

  ‘So, does this mean we’ll never see each other again?’ he asks. ‘That’s seems kind of weird, don’t you think?’

  ‘Seven, six, five, four…’

  Maybe it’s too much champagne or just out and out exhaustion but, whatever the reason, the lid that has been containing my anger all these weeks suddenly lifts off.

  ‘You know what seems weird to me, Will?’

  I want to be all altruistic and loving and free, like Meg Ryan and Greg Kinnear in You’ve Got Mail, when they laugh about not fancying each other any more, and how Meg loves the fact that Greg’s found happiness with someone else, but it’s just not in me and I can’t forgive the lies Will’s told, not yet, not after only eight weeks.

  ‘What’s weird to me is you lying through your teeth and screwing someone behind my back for six months. Why didn’t you tell me it had been going on that long? Why did I have to figure that out for myself? And why did you lie to me about how you met, forcing me to look like a fool in front of your friends? What did I ever do to you that made me deserve that?’

  He says nothing.

  ‘The lies are what’s weird, Will! Me not wanting to see you again seems like a perfectly rational and lucid response. Seeing you tonight has made me finally realise I need to get on with my life; you being in it doesn’t help me at all!’

  When it’s clear that I’ve finished Will says, ‘I’m not good enough for you now you’ve had a whiff of success, is that it?’

  This is a typical Will response – huffy and defensive. I look at him with eyes that tell him he wasn’t good enough for me the moment he slept with Carmen.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ comes the shouts from the kitchen a
nd ‘Auld Lang Syne’ begins to play.

  ‘Happy New Year, Will,’ I say, flatly, and leave him sitting there, while I make my way through the party, put on my shoes and coat, and step out into the night.

  11

  ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ I mutter, slamming the flat door. ‘I’ll show you!’

  I grab my laptop and climb into bed but not before cranking up Harry Connick Jr and making sure my Christmas selection box is on my bedside table. Chocolate and Harry never fail to soothe me when I’m riled, and boy, did Will rile me.

  Opening the script I begin to decipher Mike’s notes because there’s no way on earth I’m not going to finish this edit. There’s no way on earth I’m not going to prove Will wrong!

  ‘Start with what’s easiest,’ I say, scanning through the document onto which I transferred the reams of loo roll notes. Change Sally from journalist to successful self-help author. I recall Mike saying that this would tell something of Sally’s personal journey over the years without having to say anything explicit through dialogue.

  ‘I can do that.’ I open a Mars bar then change the scene where I had Sally at the newspaper office to a scene where she’s working from home in her book-lined office with posters of her work on the walls. What I can’t bring myself to change is where Sally lives. Mike wants me to have her by the ocean, to show that she’s moved on from her life in the city, but I can’t do it. It’s implausible to me that Sally could live anywhere other than Manhattan.

  ‘But I can move Harry.’ I go to his first scene, where he’s leaving his apartment for Truman’s wedding weekend. Where I’d previously written:

  Harry exits his small bachelor apartment on the Upper West Side.

  I change it to:

  Harry exits his loft conversion in the Meatpacking District.

  ‘Easy,’ I say, recalling how Mike thought having Harry living in the Meatpacking District would give the film a more current New York vibe rather than the more traditional feel of Ephron’s beloved Upper West Side.

  I get up to have a pee and a stretch, and go through the post, which is mostly junk except for a letter for Will, which I place on his bundle of mail on the hall table. I really should parcel them up and send them to the bastard – the last remnants of our life together finally gone – I promise myself I’ll do it tomorrow. After that I loiter over the twenty-four-hour pizza menu on the kitchen pin-board, considering if pizza at three in the morning, all be it New Year’s Day, is a step too far even for me. Deciding against it I return to my notes.