‘It’s fine, it was my mistake; it won’t happen again, I promise.’ He throws his keys on the sideboard with large black and glass side lamps.
‘I guess we do have work to do,’ I say, biting my bottom lip. I put my book bag down on the jet-black Queen Anne chair and take off my coat.
‘Exactly. Come on!’
I follow him past the hardwood staircase, gawping at the incredible photographic artwork as I go, and down a flight of glass stairs into a high gloss, white kitchen, which occupies the whole of the basement. At one end there is a wall of glass looking out over the patio garden.
I pull out a high stool at the centre island that runs the best part of the length of the room and marvel at how shiny it is; he either doesn’t do much cooking or he’s got a great cleaner.
‘God, this is depressing,’ I say, as he hands me a beer that he’s taken from a freezer the size of my bathroom.
‘What is?’ He sits down beside me, a little closer than feels appropriate.
‘The fact that we’re pretty much the same age and you have all of this and I have, well…’ I think about my box of a flat back home. ‘Sweet Fanny Adams.’
‘I’m not that successful! I inherited it from my grandmother, all I had to do was pay the decorator. And besides, I’ve a few years on you. If Mike gets the film made, you’ll be on the same road as me.’
‘It’s hard to imagine.’ I swig back my drink, catching my knee on Ben’s in the process.
‘Where’s your self-belief?’ he asks, placing a hand above my knee.
‘Self-belief isn’t easy when at every juncture your work is ripped to shreds.’ I move his hands away with a look that says, Jen.
‘Catherine loved it.’
He’s right, she said as much but, one way or another, my confidence has gone.
‘And Mike loves it too.’
‘You think? It’s hard to imagine with all the changes he keeps asking for. If I’d known at the Firehouse what I know now, I might have turned down his offer of optioning the script.’
‘Trust me, I know Mike; he wouldn’t be giving it this much time if he didn’t.’ He throws back his beer and reaches his hand out for mine; though I want to take it, I don’t. ‘Come on, let me take your mind off things. I’ll give you the tour.’
‘Do you know one of your customers is Marilyn Brinkwater?’ Ben asks as he shows me the patio garden, entirely private except for being overseen by approximately forty windows from the apartment block opposite.
‘Who’s Marilyn Brinkwater?’
‘She was married to Spencer Davies, the Oscar-winning director. She was nominated herself as a writer.’ He takes me up to the ground floor and the formal sitting room complete with a polished black grand piano and bright orange art deco-inspired lounge chairs.
‘How do you know her?’
‘We worked together years ago, before her husband died,’ he says, leading me up the wide, polished stairs. ‘I saw her at your stall that day in Brixton. I knew I recognised her but couldn’t place her. She looks kind of different these days. I guess she hasn’t coped so well with her husband’s death.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘Lots of grey matted hair, cashmere shawl, huge diamond.’ He opens the door of the wood-panelled office with grey suede chesterfields.
‘Are you talking about Bat Shit Crazy?’ I ask, picking up a script with Ben’s name on it.
‘Is that what you call her?’
‘Sounds like her.’ I think about the film books that she often browses and the Woody Allen comment but still, it seems completely implausible that Bat Shit Crazy could be an Oscar-nominated writer.
‘Well, whatever you call her, the woman’s a genius.’
‘Can I read this?’ I ask, showing him the script.
‘Sure,’ he says, with a shrug, which suggests it’s not worth reading.
We ascend to two guest rooms, both en suite, and finally, on the top floor, the master bedroom.
‘This shower-room is big enough to hold a party in,’ I say, a little self-consciously. The vibe feels more intimate between us, now that we’re in his bedroom suite, with its beautiful sleigh bed, mushroom-coloured walls and crisp white linen.
Ben laughs, watching me from where he’s now sitting on the bed.
‘The place is gorgeous.’ I nervously study the life drawings that pepper the walls.
‘So are you.’
I can’t pretend I don’t feel a quiver of desire at what he’s just said but, determined to keep things professional, and not to hurt Jen, I say, ‘Shouldn’t we be heading back downstairs to get on with our work?’
‘But you are,’ he presses. ‘I’ve thought it since the first moment you brushed your toosh up against me in the Firehouse.’
‘Yeah, right!’ I laugh nervously but wonder if it’s true.
‘I’m serious. I wanted to talk to you but you wouldn’t meet my eye and I was too shy to ask for your number.’
‘You, too shy? Now I really know you’re having a laugh!’
‘Why d’ya think I tried so hard to talk to you at the theatre? I was gutted that you knocked me back. It made me a total jitterbug for the rest of the performance.’
‘Is that why you kept tapping your foot against my chair?’
‘Did I? Sorry. I get that way. Just like when we met in the restaurant. I was a mess when I saw it was you. I tried to play it cool but…well, you must have noticed.’
I don’t let on that I hadn’t, finding it hard to believe someone so cocky and successful could possibly be interested in me. ‘Do your nerves usually manifest themselves as arrogance?’
‘Sometimes. We call it chutzpah.’ He pats the bit of duvet next to him just as my phone rings.
‘I should take this,’ I say, keen to break whatever is happening between us. ‘It might be Astrid.’
Turns out it isn’t.
‘Nina, it’s Will.’
‘Will,’ I say, taken aback. I turn away from Ben, who is watching my every move. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’ I press a finger against one ear. ‘I’m in New York. How are you?’
‘Good.’ There’s a pause.
From Ben’s bedroom window I can see an old Asian woman in a very large hat walking a chihuahua on the sidewalk below.
There’s a slight pause before he says, ‘I’m getting married.’
Everything seems to fall silent. The words sit above the dog’s head, like the cartoon balloon Harry saw when Helen told him she was leaving.
‘You’re getting married,’ I stammer. ‘To whom?’
‘To Carmen,’ he says, as if he can’t understand why I’m asking.
‘Right.’ I bash the heel of my hand against my forehead. Stupid me. Ben props himself up against the large bed cushions, patiently waiting for me to finish. I mouth ‘sorry’. ‘When?’
‘We haven’t set a date yet. But soon.’
‘Well…’ I search for the right words, any words that don’t reveal the great chasm in my chest. ‘Congratulations? I mean…that came out incorrectly. Congratulations, Will! Good for you!’
‘You’re okay about it?’
‘Of course,’ I say, my voice cracking, tears bursting from my eyes. ‘I’m pleased for you! But I’d better go. Bye, Will.’
I hang up and stare vacantly at my phone through the blur of my tears.
‘The ex?’ asks Ben, plumping up a cushion for me.
‘He’s getting married,’ I say, smearing away tears.
He pats the duvet beside him. I slump down. ‘You okay?’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ I say but then I begin some weird breathing that suggests, no, I’m not okay at all.
‘You sure?’
I lower my head and pull an ugly I’m about to cry face. He puts a hand to the back of my neck. I look up, tears now streaming down my cheeks.
‘Where’s my happy break-up?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I me
an, in You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen and Frank broke up without shedding a tear. And in Sleepless in Seattle, Walter let Annie go so that she might be happy. Why can’t my break-up be like that?’
‘Because those were movie break-ups.’ He wipes one of my tears away with his thumb. ‘We don’t live in the movies, we only write them.’
‘Love in real life isn’t like love in the movies, is it?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not very often.’
‘But I thought I was over him. Just like Sally thought she was over Joe.’
‘And remind me what happened.’ Ben leans in, just as Harry did to Sally when she found out Joe was getting married, his lips move closer towards mine.
‘Harry and Sally slept together,’ I whisper, closing in.
I feel his breath on mine, I shut my eyes and before I know it, we’re kissing again. But this time the kiss is deeper, more passionate, and sensual than before. We kiss hungrily until kissing isn’t enough and Ben, slowly, seductively, begins to unbutton my shirt.
26
The next evening I’m back in my own kitchen, watching Astrid make her favourite comfort food, potato and plantain curry.
‘Ben kissed me.’
‘I told you he was Harry to your Sally!’ she says, throwing chopped onions into the frying pan.
‘He has a girlfriend!’ I say, though I wish that he didn’t.
‘Harry had lots of girlfriends, even a wife,’ she says, with a wink. ‘Just make sure you don’t sleep with him and it’ll be fine.’
I wince and pick stray bits of onion off the hob. ‘Too late.’
‘Nina!’ Astrid waggles the knife at me.
‘You’re the one who told me not to leave it too long!’
‘But with someone with a girlfriend? That’s so not like you.’
‘I know.’ I agonised about it all the way across the Atlantic. ‘Basically, I’ve done to Jen what Carmen did to me. And talking of Carmen, do you know they’re getting married?’
Astrid stops chopping and looks at me. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘Nope.’
‘OMG,’ she says, mouth wide, knife down.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘It’s an unexpected setback. But, one way or another, the guilt of what I’ve done to Jen has given me less time to think about it. I can’t believe I’m the other woman. I feel awful.’
‘So you should,’ she says, resuming her chopping.
‘I don’t know what got into me.’
‘I know exactly what got into you!’
‘Not helpful.’
‘Sorry. Did you talk about it afterwards?’
‘You mean like when Harry and Sally have dinner the night after they’ve slept together for the first time and it was awkward as hell?’
‘Right.’
‘We managed to avoid that horror; I had to catch my flight home.’
I spent the flight trying to decide if Ben is an impulsive romantic or a two-timing twerp. And if my gut instinct – not to mix business with pleasure, particularly pleasure that involves someone with a girlfriend – was right all along. With every passing of the drinks trolley I threw some new paranoia into the mix. By the time I fell off the plane I was so drunk and confused I headed straight home and hid under the covers, checking my phone every five minutes to see if he’d been in touch. He hadn’t and still hasn’t, which makes me think it’s pretty conclusive that he is a two-timing twerp.
‘Did he take you to the airport?’
I shake my head.
‘You see – he is Harry!’
I scoff, thinking about Harry and Sally on the aeroplane, five years after their drive to Chicago when Harry tells Sally that he’s never taken someone to the airport early in a relationship for fear of them asking one day why they never take them to the airport any more.
Will never once took me to the airport, he said it was a waste of time and money when we could just say goodbye at home. It occurs to me that Ben may well be another Will. I want to believe it’s better if we forget about it but something inside prevents me. What I really want is for him to call and reassure me that what happened wasn’t just a fling, that he feels something more for me, as I think I do for him.
‘Anyway, what’s going on with you and Aidan?’ I ask, getting the plantain from the fruit bowl, happy to be discussing someone else’s love life.
‘We had a major bust up.’
‘What happened?’
‘I told him he needed to get out of bed and go back to work.’ She stirs the onions, garlic, ginger and chilli more vigorously.
‘I take it that didn’t go down too well.’
‘He said that I have no idea of what he’s going through.’
‘And you said?’
‘That he has no idea what I’m going through given that we can’t pay the mortgage on a single salary.’
‘Do you think that was the right approach?’
She shakes her head, visibly torn by what’s gone down between them. ‘I know he’s not himself, and he’s right, I don’t know what he’s going through, but I reached the end of my tether and I snapped. I shouldn’t have, but I did.’ She rubs her eyes on her sleeve. ‘There’s no talking to him any more; we’ve always done everything together. I don’t know what to do, how to be, who to be without him. And I swear, Nina, I’ve never seen him this bad. Never.’
Lines of despair gather on her forehead.
‘Is there a professional you can talk to? Both of you, together?’
‘I suggested that. He won’t go.’
‘Your family?’
‘They wouldn’t know how to help, and I don’t want to worry them.’ She sounds defeated. In all the years I’ve know her I can’t remember seeing her this low. ‘I never thought I’d say it, Nina, but I’m not sure how we’re going to get out of this.’
‘He’ll get better,’ I urge, giving her a supportive rub. ‘He will.’
‘When? He’s been on the medicine for months.’
‘Maybe it needs to be tweaked.’
‘It’s been tweaked, many times.’
‘Then I guess you have to weather the storm. Keep getting up, and putting on your best kaftan, and opening up the shop until one day the door opens at lunch time, and it’s Aidan, having made the twenty-minute Tube ride to spend twenty minutes with his wife because he can’t get through the day without her.’
‘And until then?’ she says, wiping a tear from her eye.
‘Keep trying to pay the bills, I guess. There’s no more sick pay?’
‘Nope, and replacing the kitchen cleaned out our savings.’
‘And you don’t have any insurance for loss of salary?’
‘Nuh-uh.’ She sucks a spit of hot oil from her hand.
‘Do you need money?’
She sighs a very deep sigh and curls some hair round her finger.
‘I could help.’
‘No way,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I couldn’t. You’ve got Will’s share of this place to pay?’
‘Right, but the advance covered that. I’m okay, honestly. I’d like to help. How much do you need?’
Astrid, unable to say it out loud, mouths what she needs.
‘I’ll transfer it in the morning.’
‘No. I couldn’t…’
‘You can protest all you like but I have your bank details. I will be making a payment.’
‘You’re amazing,’ she says, reaching over to hug me, clinging to me as if for survival. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Oh, and I hate to ask but there’s a big delivery coming in tomorrow morning. I could really use your help.’
‘Of course,’ I say, glad to be of use. ‘Consider it done.’
Astrid closes the door of the flat the next morning before I’m up. I lie in bed for a while broddling my ears with a cotton bud, trying to stop thinking about Ben and instead about the changes Catherine and Mike suggested. It doesn’
t matter how hard I concentrate on making Marie into a sexually liberated, twenty-first-century woman, I can’t push Ben out of my mind. Somewhere beneath a churning stomach of guilt and regret is a desire to drink in his scent, hold his hand, and stroll through Central Park wrapped up in scarves and bobbly hats.
My fantasy is broken by Caroline calling.
‘How was the meeting with Catherine?’
‘It was okay…’
‘But?’ she asks, picking up on my hesitation.
‘Catherine, Mike and Ben all want Marie to be quite free, sexually.’
‘And?’
‘And I don’t feel all that comfortable with the idea, it doesn’t feel true to her character.’
‘Let me get this right: Catherine Regan, Mike Steinfeldt and Ben Scriber are all in agreement but you are having doubts,’ she says, in a tone that suggests I’m out of my goddamn frickin’ mind.
‘Right, I know, it sounds—’
Caroline doesn’t allow me to finish. ‘Do you want this film to be made or not?’
‘Of course I do, but I also want to keep some essence of Ephron. Artistic integrity does count for something.’
‘Kiddo, this is Hollywood. Integrity isn’t part of the game.’
‘I’ve already had this particular pep talk,’ I mutter.
‘Either get used to it or get out because, trust me, there’s a million other writers out there ready and willing to fill your shoes.’
‘Jees-oo,’ I puff, after she’s gone, not exactly thrilled to have a lecture so early in the morning.
I go to the kitchen to get some breakfast, running the idea through in my mind as I do so: ‘Widowed. Off the rails. Widowed. Off the rails.’ It’s then that Ben’s mention of Bat Shit Crazy pops into my head, of her being widowed and not coping. It makes me think about how Marie might respond to losing Jess, and how finding comfort, physically, in other men, may not be so left-field after all. Given I jumped into bed with Ben after finding out Will was getting married, maybe it’s plausible Marie would do something similar after the death of Jess.
Back in bed with my buttered waffles, bacon and orange juice, I begin to sketch a new version of a scene early on in the script, where Marie and Philip are chatting at the bar, drinking already, while Harry and Sally are meeting the Rabbi.
MARIE
If Harry Met Sally Again Page 17