Mismatched in Manhattan: the perfect feel-good romantic comedy for 2020

by Tash Skilton

  Her hazel eyes sparkle with mischief. “Didn’t realize I’d gifted him to you. Something happen?”

  “You definitely engineered it. And don’t change the subject, please.”

  “Just tell me the good stuff and then we’ll get back to your thing,” she says.

  Despite my confusion and misgivings about her serial drop-bys, I settle beside her on the couch and find myself giving in. After all, who else can I tell?

  “It was wonderful. We had the best time at the most pretentious place ever.”

  “Then why do you look so miserable?”

  “Because it’s already over and done.”

  “How do you know?”

  I shrug. “He ghosted me. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I mean, why would he choose me?” I look away and bark out a laugh to cover up the truth of the next statement. “No one else has.”

  “I say this with all the love and respect in the world, but what a fucking absurd theory to have.”

  Startled by Mary’s raised voice, Frank jumps to the floor and slips under the couch.

  I swallow tightly. “Is it? My parents never wanted me around—stop, it’s true—they confirmed it completely at dinner when I saw them—and you didn’t want me around, and, and, two seconds after you shove me out the door …”

  “I didn’t shove you out the door—”

  “You literally did, and slammed it on me.”

  “Not in a bad way!” she protests.

  “And two seconds after you shove me out the door, you hire a dude-bro to manhandle the phones,” I snap back. “How do you think that made me feel?”

  Her brow wrinkles in confusion. “Darren? He waters my plants and I asked him to pick up the phone ONCE. Did you call me? When? What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The point is—”

  “Your gran wanted you,” she interrupts forcefully.

  “That wasn’t a choice. She was the only family member left—she had to take me in.”

  “But she adores you.”

  “I know. And I adore her, too. But it’s not the same thing as having a parent who wants you around. When people have a choice, I’m never the one they choose,” I add shakily.

  “All of this is nonsense,” she roars. “Why do you think I pushed you out of the nest?”

  “Because you think I suck, obviously; you couldn’t even look at me when I gave you notes on your play—”

  “Because I want more for you! You shouldn’t be stuck emulating me—look at me!” She stands up so I can see her full outfit: sailor shirt, leather culottes, striped tights, and high-heeled penny loafers. A feather boa not owned by me also hangs on the coatrack. (It’s not owned by Mary, either; it’s Frank’s.)

  We stare at each other for a moment.

  “You were dealt a shit hand in the parenting department,” she says. “It’s true. But you’re wrong about something. Parents shouldn’t want you around. Not forever. The good ones don’t. It’s selfish to keep a son or daughter home when what they need most is to find their way in the world.” Mary never does anything quietly, but right now she is, so I lean in, in time to hear her say, “You’re the best kid I could’ve hoped for. And if I’d kept you as my personal assistant, you’d never have had the chance to spread your wings, write your own scripts, and fly. I sent you away because I want the world for you.”

  Tears fill my eyes for the second time today.

  “Don’t you remember what you told me the day you interviewed for the job? You wanted to be a screenwriter. As for thinking you ‘suck,’ that is ludicrous with a side of bullshit. I value your input, and your ideas were clever, but for a memoir adaptation to be a memoir adaptation, I think it all needs to come from the filly’s mouth, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I get it—”

  “Good. Now go write your own stuff, willya?”

  “I don’t want to,” I grit out. “You think I do, and maybe eight years ago I did, but I’ve changed—it isn’t what I want anymore. I can’t do what you want me to do!”

  She waits.

  “There are seven basic plotlines in the world,” I tell her. Nothing she doesn’t already know, of course. “Could I write a Boy Meets Girl, or a Man Versus Nature? Yeah, probably. But so could anyone else. It’s not the plot that matters, it’s the way you tell it.

  “I always figured revising other people’s work was meant to be practice for creating original stories. But what I realized is I’d rather take someone else’s idea, their one-out-of-seven storyline, and flip, twist, rearrange, and improve upon it so the audience will think they’ve never seen it before. George Orwell said, ‘Good prose is like a windowpane.’ I want to be so good, no one will know I was there; they’ll be so engrossed in the story, they won’t even see the words. I like editing and shaping, not starting from scratch. Actually, I don’t just like editing, I love it. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “I didn’t know you felt that way,” she replies. “I thought I was holding you back, forcing you to adopt a voice that wasn’t yours.”

  “I want to adopt lots of voices—not just yours, though I like your voice—it taught me so much …”

  Her eyes sparkle. “This is amazing. Do you know what this means?”

  “… no?”

  “You’re rebelling. You’re following your own path. That’s all I ever wanted for you. I’m ecstatic!”

  “You are? Then what the heck are we yelling for?” I want to know.

  “You were pissed that I assumed I knew what was best for you. That’s a pretty bad look for me, huh?”

  “It’s okay,” I say, meaning it.

  “As for Miles …” She waits until my gaze meets hers. “You didn’t come here to meet a guy.”

  “But I did meet a guy—”

  “There’s a whole city out there—a whole life—that has nothing to do with that café and nothing to do with this building, and if it’s too tough to live here anymore, we’ll find you a new place. It won’t be as good as this place, but …”

  “He isn’t going to make me move. I was here first,” I snap.

  “True. I’ll raise his rent sky-high, just his, and—”

  “No, we’re not kicking him out either. If it’s a ghost he wants, I can be a ghost. Check this out.” I make a big show of opening Miles’s contact info on my phone and hitting “block” with a flourish. And then I even go over to Aisha’s and do the same thing—from now on, my life is Ibrahim-free.

  “That’s the spirit! Take what you’ve been given and rewrite it. Change the plot, switch the dialogue, make it work. Be your own script doctor; you’re in charge of what happens next, not him.”

  With Frank on her shoulder, feather boa wrapped around both of them, she gets up and makes her way to the exit. “Let me know about those tickets.”

  “When did you find out your show was going to happen?” I ask, as something clicks into place in my mind.

  “Hmm?” she says absentmindedly, securing a new cigarette in her mouth. “March, I think. Why?”

  March. The month she abruptly fired me and sent me to New York.

  “Mary … did you send me here so we’d still be in the same city?”

  “That would be crazy,” she says, her lip curving up, and a second later, she’s gone. I laugh out loud, and between that and the release of tears earlier, I’m feeling slightly better.

  Just because Miles won’t be with me doesn’t mean I can’t explore the city on my own.

  I’ll start by expanding my café horizons.

  CHAPTER 33

  MILES

  “To the groom and groom!”

  Everyone is still holding up his or her champagne glass but I have already downed mine.

  I forgot that it was Dylan and Charles’s joint groom shower until about forty-five minutes ago when Dylan texted me. I threw on some clothes and arrived half an hour late. I gave an impromptu speech that was mostly cribbed from the TITMH Freelancer’s Handbook. But judging by the smiles, it was
either coherent enough or everyone was already too buzzed to care.

  I feel like I’m off the hook and can spend the rest of the party quietly finding a corner to blend into, willing the intricate, hand-cut paper decorations hanging from Dylan and Charles’s ceiling—all sorts of animals, from cranes to tigers to peacocks—to make a staggeringly vital life decision for me.

  It works for about two minutes before both Dylan and Aisha come to corner me. “Thanks for the speech,” Dylan says.

  “Yeah. Nice one,” Aisha says, eyebrows raised, because of course she knows exactly where most of it came from.

  “No problem,” I reply. “Great party.”

  “Anyway,” Dylan says. “Can we talk about you now? Are you okay?”

  I’d texted both Aisha and Dylan within minutes of Jordan leaving my apartment and begging me to please think everything over. But then, after a few of their exclamations and threats that they’d disown me if I even thought about taking Jordan back (Aisha, of course), I told them I needed some time to sort things out before I could really discuss it. And I hadn’t answered anyone’s calls or texts since. Not theirs. Not Zoey’s, I think with a pang. Not until Dylan’s reminder that it was their shower today.

  The problem is I haven’t sorted anything out at all. My mind is just as jumbled as it was six days ago.

  “I guess … I’m not really okay,” I admit to Dylan and Aisha. “I honestly don’t know what to do.” I run my hands through my hair. “I know it’s easy for you guys to tell me to leave Jordan. But we have history. And maybe … a future.”

  “But they’re not your kids,” Aisha says gently.

  “But she said she wants them to be …” I sigh. “Maybe I want them to be. Maybe this is my last chance to have a family.”

  “What about Zoey? I think you’re in love with her,” Aisha says.

  I look around at all the decorations, at the manifestation of love that is this party, even at Charles so giddily laughing at something with one of his friends. And how can I deny it? “Of course I am. With everything about her. Everything except … she told me she probably doesn’t ever want to have kids.”

  “She told you that?” Dylan asks.

  “When?” Aisha chimes in. “In what context?”

  “In the context that I said I could think of a million reasons to have kids, couldn’t she? And she said, not really.”

  “But did she know that it was a deal breaker for you?” Aisha asks.

  “Of course not!” I say. “We were on what would probably be considered our second real date. I mean, come on, Aisha. Have you read my handbook? Who brings up having kids as a real topic of conversation on a second date.”

  “Except it wasn’t a second date. Not really and you know it,” Aisha says. “Look, I don’t know what you should do about Jordan. Only you know that. I know if you decide they’re going to be your kids, they will be. And they’d never know the difference. But I just really want you to think about this, Miles. Because is it more important to you that you have kids, or that you find the right person to have kids with?”

  “You can’t make someone who doesn’t want kids have kids,” I say.

  “No, you absolutely cannot,” Aisha says. “But you owe it to yourself—and Zoey—to give her a real chance to understand the stakes. Let her know it’s not a jokey question for you, not a reason for a quick comeback. It’s time you were Heart on Your Sleeve Miles again. For Zoey. She deserves that.”

  After the party, I run. I’m in a button-down, slacks, and loafers. But I don’t care. It’s the only thing I can think of doing to clear my head.

  I get flashes of my life with Jordan, of all the times we jogged together through Prospect Park, of pushing each other through sprints around the lake, of sometimes picnicking by the baseball fields so we could watch the Little League games. The ones with the youngest kids were our favorites, the kids who didn’t always know which way to run, or who could barely even hold up their lightweight bats. It was such a sweet moment to witness, a first.

  And then I get flashes of my time with Zoey. We don’t have years’ worth of memories. What we do have is all sparks and excitement, wit and passion. Would it fizzle out after a few months? Would it ever turn into anything more than that first blush of romance? I think we’re in love … but can we stay there? Could we ever have what my parents do?

  I don’t know.

  At Union Square, I hop on the subway and I let the air-conditioning dry my sweat. I get off at the familiar stop, I walk the steps to the familiar stoop. But I no longer have a key so I have to ring the bell. The buzzer still doesn’t work and it takes a minute for Jordan to slowly make her way down the stairs. She smiles tentatively through the glass doors when she sees that it’s me.

  So many things are the same, but everything’s different.

  She opens the door and I say the one thing I know to be true. “If I said yes to you right now, it would be coming from a place of fear.” I take a deep breath. “I know I’d get to be a dad and that’s something I’ve always wanted. But it’s not the only thing. Because that dream has someone else in it, too. Someone I love deeply for her own sake. Someone who loves me back just as fiercely. I can’t give up on that, Jordan.”

  Jordan blinks at me. “I love you, Miles.”

  “Do you?” I ask gently. “Or do you love the idea of me? Are you envisioning the four of us”—I gesture to her belly—“as a profile picture? The ‘likes’ pouring in?”

  She scoffs. “That’s not fair.”

  “You weren’t fair to me,” I say. “And if I came back now, I wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Or to Doug. Those are his kids, this is his family photo. Give him a chance to step up to the plate. Give him a chance to surprise you.”

  She hesitates. “Like that time we caught him scarfing down a whole bag of Funyuns in the bathroom before class?” she asks softly.

  “See? He’s not without his charms.”

  She gives a small smile and pauses before she speaks again. “Is this because of that café girl?”

  I can’t keep myself from flashing back to that first kiss with Zoey, when she was pretending to be my girlfriend just to help me save face with Jordan. “Yes. Even though I may have screwed that up. But it’s also because … we don’t belong together, Jordan.”

  She stares down at her belly, cradling it. “My dream of a family had you in it, Miles. Because you were the first person I was with who made me want that.” She looks up at me. “I knew it was a long shot. But I had to try.”

  “Try with Doug.”

  CHAPTER 34

  ZOEY

  As the sole proprietor of Z to A, I’ve edited two college entrance essays and one corporate presentation. Not much money’s coming in—I offered discounts if they spread the word to other possible clients—but it feels good to be in charge of my life. I also tried out not one but two non-Crudité cafés, with mixed results. The first didn’t have free Wi-Fi (booo) but the second one had day-old chocolate croissants on offer, which IMO, beats the snot out of biscotti anytime.

  The next day I drown my sorrows in a liquid lunch at the Half King. I’m two pints in, editing a corporate presentation for a far-flung trade show, feeling buzzed and disoriented in a city that, let’s face it, I’ve never belonged in, when a new e-mail comes in.

  To: Z to A Editing Service

  From: VP@Night-Light Films

  Re: Sample Pages

  Hello Zoey,

  Mary Clarkson sent us some sample pages of your work. We especially liked the way you riffed on that old Playboy interview where Mary says she never punched a guy, she clobbered him with the collected works of Dorothy Parker (you changed it to “the portable works of Dorothy Parker, known for their velocity”). Cute stuff.

  We’d love to get on the phone and discuss the possibility of getting your thoughts on a script that’s in production. It needs tinkering, and we’re eager to see what you could bring to the process. We know we’re not the only production company
interested in you …

  (They’re not? I wonder, dumbfounded.)

  … but if you’re willing to hear us out, we’ll make it worth your time. Assuming the phone interview goes well, we’d need you back in LA by the end of the month to get started. Send us your availability for a phone call, and thanks,

  Jon Klein, VP, Night-Light Films

  My heart rate speeds up. This could be the escape hatch I’m looking for. I could hightail it back to LA and put an entire country between me and Miles. First I instant message Mary.

  Zoey: Should I take a call with Night-Light Films?

  I’m not expecting her to get back to me for a while, but they must have broken for lunch at the Roundabout Theatre because two minutes later, my phone dings.

  Contrary, Quite: Your choice, just don’t submit notes without a contract. They might be getting ideas from a bunch of writers, keeping the notes, and not hiring anyone. Wouldn’t be the first time. Fuckers.

  Zoey: Is it nepotism? Should I feel gross/unqualified?

  Contrary, Quite: You should always feel gross and unqualified, all the time. NO, of course not! Nepotism is the lubricant Hollywood runs on. But for the record, I never told them I had a daughter.

  As if the tears I’ve shed over Miles the past week weren’t enough, a fresh group gathers in my eyes. It takes some effort to tap out the next letters.

  Zoey: Thank you.

  Contrary, Quite: I helped get your foot in the door, the rest is up to you. My last piece of advice: Don’t do it the way you think I’d want you to, or the way you imagine I might go about it. They don’t want me. They want the person that edited me. (Don’t worry about my feelings—my ego’s a bounce house.)

  Zoey: Guess what, I’m going to Momofuku today.

  Contrary, Quite: Enjoy!

  Next thing I know, I’m on the subway—breathing hard, sometimes bending my head down between my legs, but on the subway, nonetheless. In the Financial District I get sidetracked. I visit the Charging Bull statue and Battery Park. I try to do an adult thing and take a wildflower tour in the perennial garden, but the aquatic carousel inside a giant, metallic-and-lavender-hued fish looks more my style (blame the booze or adrenaline, your pick). The colors and light patterns almost trick me into believing I’m underwater. I also feel weightless, which makes me giggle.