Plot Twist

by Bethany Turner

  “Fi. Hey, Fi . . . ,” I whispered in my sweetest voice. “Hon, can you wake up? I know it’s early—”

  “Ten more minutes,” she mumbled as she rolled over and pulled the fluffy ivory comforter over her head.

  “I made cinnamon rolls. They’re fresh and hot and gooey—”

  “You’re lying. I’d smell them. Go away.”

  “But, Fi, George Michael is here, and he said he loves you and I should wake you up before he go-goes.”

  She peeled back a corner of the cover, and I saw one sleepy eye appear. “You know I stopped holding out hope for George Michael in the late nineties.”

  I knew that my Fiona-consciousness window would close quickly, so I put aside the jokes I wanted to make about how she just needed to have faith-a-faith-a-faith. “I know. But this is important enough that I invoked the George Michael clause. So . . .”

  She groaned and grumbled as she rolled back over and sat up. Sighing loudly, she reached for her glasses from the bedside table. She looked so cute in her oversized Gucci Wayfarer glasses that she only wore for about twenty minutes each day.

  “That’s not fair. I don’t even remember who your guy was.”

  “Tom Hulce.”

  She poked her fingers under her glasses to rub her eyes. “Like I said . . .”

  “Fiona Mitchell, you have watched Amadeus with me no fewer than twenty times over the course of our friendship. How do you still not know who Tom Hulce is?”

  “Olivia Ross, how do you still not know that regardless of whether or not I’ve been in the room, I have never watched Amadeus with you?” She yawned. “Since George Michael is not here, can I safely assume something is on fire?”

  “Just these.” I wiggled my fingers and sat on the edge of her bed.

  She crossed her arms. “What are you talking about?”

  “I finished.”

  “You finished? You finished what?”

  I placed my hand on her crossed arms. “Fi, I finished.”

  Realization dawned—just before the sun—and her eyes widened. “You finished? You finished the screenplay?”

  I nodded, and she threw her arms around me. “Oh, Livi, that’s huge! Congratulations!” She was out of bed in a single bound. “Tell me all about it. Tell me everything! What time is it? Did you even sleep? Oh my gosh, we need coffee. Come on!”

  She was out the door and in the kitchen reaching for coffee filters before I stood up from the edge of her mattress.

  “I’m going to use the good stuff today,” she said as she dug through the cabinet. I didn’t know what the good stuff was when it came to coffee grounds, or why the good stuff was hidden in the back behind things we had bought on a whim and would probably never use—things like red-bean flour and powdered milk—but I was wholeheartedly in favor of the best coffee money could buy on this particular occasion.

  “Hey!”

  Fi’s hand froze in midair, holding a bag of lentils. “What?”

  “Let’s go out for coffee.”

  She chuckled. “Look, I know you’re wide-awake and ready to confront the day—seriously, did you sleep at all?”

  “Not yet.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m off work today, and I have no intention of leaving the apartment. You know the next few weeks are going to be crazy for me, and—”

  “That’s fine. No big deal.” I sighed dramatically and walked to the living room to flop onto the couch.

  “Oh, good grief, Liv. I’ll get dressed tonight, and we can have a celebratory dinner. Don’t be such a martyr.”

  I sighed again. “Yeah, that will be great. It’s just that there’s this little coffee place I know in Culver City . . . I was thinking we could go there—”

  “Are you kidding me? You need to take a nap before you start imagining clowns in the bathroom or something. Why in the world would we fight the morning rush on the 405 just to go to Culver City, of all places, for coffee?”

  I stared at her and waited, and then began batting my eyelashes as I flashed an innocent smile.

  Her eyes flew open wide. “Are you saying . . .”

  I shrugged. “I mean, I guess it couldn’t hurt, could it?”

  She left the cabinet wide open, and the “good stuff” coffee was forgotten as she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her after shouting, “I’ll be ready in ten minutes!”

  My innocent smile melded into a more genuine one as I stood from the couch and walked into my bathroom. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” I wasn’t entirely sure that was true. I didn’t know what memories would be waiting for me in that old coffeehouse on Venice Boulevard. Maybe they had redecorated so much that I wouldn’t even recognize the place. That was probably the best-case scenario I could hope for.

  “Except this has nothing to do with Liam,” I muttered to myself as I applied some dry shampoo and ran a brush through my hair. It had a little to do with Hamish, and a little to do with nostalgia, but it had nothing at all to do with Liam. It had all to do with me.

  In one year I’d finished a screenplay. I considered that as I applied an excessive amount of deodorant. Well, eight years. In eight years, I’d finished a screenplay. But in one year I’d gone from zero to sixty. I’d set my mind to completing it in a year, and I’d done it. I hadn’t wasted any time. I’d walked back to my hotel that night after kissing Liam at Starbucks and—

  No, wait. It had nothing to do with Liam.

  On the flight back from Boston, I’d told Fi about my commitment to finish the screenplay within the next year, and the subsequent events in everyone’s lives had kept me spurred on. Everyone else was living their best life. Over the course of the year, Brandon and Sonya had gotten married and were living happily with Matthew and Maisie in a beautifully renovated 1854 townhouse in Charlestown. My parents had seen their beloved cherry blossoms and taken an Alaskan cruise with the Mitchells, and a scuba diving trip to Cancun was supposedly next on the docket. Fiona had dipped her perfectly pedicured toes into new but ever-glamorous waters as a celebrity stylist, thanks to Vera Wang calling in a favor and getting Fiona’s assistance on Oscar night just a few weeks after we got back from Boston (assisted by a series of could-only-happen-to-Fi events that followed). And Samantha had, apparently, forgiven Liam, they were madly in love, and they went on double dates with Brandon and Sonya all the time—

  Stop that! It had nothing to do with Liam.

  Besides, I didn’t even know if any of that was true. After Brandon told me he saw Liam and Samantha together a couple months later at some Harvard reception and I threatened to show Sonya some Polaroids I’d held on to from my big brother’s perm years if he ever mentioned Liam’s name to me again, I’d been left with no choice but to connect my own dots.

  But none of that mattered anyway. What mattered was that I had finished my screenplay! I brushed my teeth and splashed some cold water on my face and then went into my bedroom. As I slipped on my favorite pair of jeans, I said the words aloud again. “I finished my screenplay.” I reached for a comfy Boston College hoodie but then thought better of it and instead grabbed a short-sleeved white peasant top that made me feel like Baby Houseman from Dirty Dancing—admittedly not a style I usually aspired to or a movie I thought of often. But it was a day to soak in the sun and celebrate the world and refuse to let anyone put me in a corner.

  I finished my screenplay.

  I couldn’t quit saying it over and over in my mind, and I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face. It wasn’t just that I had finished it. Although that was momentous, I had finished things before. Greeting cards, articles, columns, even some super crappy pseudo-screenplays that I never would allow to see the light of day. But this. It wasn’t the story I had set out to tell, but I genuinely loved it. Jack and Alicia were engaging characters with a fantastic story arc, if I did say so myself. Most of the dialogue was fresher and more engaging than half the movies I had seen in my life, and it packed in all the emotions. Even the romance was pretty great in th
e end, I had to admit. By making Jack and Alicia’s undying love the centerpiece of the story, I’d been able to increase the impact of every other aspect. It was time to acknowledge that Liam had been right.

  Not that the day had anything at all to do with Liam, of course.

  “Liv! Hurry up!”

  I opened my sock drawer, then closed it again. Sun. Celebration. No corners. It was a sandals sort of day. I slipped them on, grabbed my purse, and met Fi in the living room.

  “How were you ready before me? When has that ever happened?”

  And of course she wasn’t just ready before me. She was ready better than me. Contacts were in, makeup was simple but flawless, and she wore a summer dress that, once again, made me feel like Baby Houseman. Not in a good Patrick-Swayze-thinks-I’m-like-the-wind-through-his-trees sort of way. More in a Fiona-looks-like-Penny-who-makes-so-much-more-sense-for-Johnny-Castle-while-I-look-like-I-just-carried-a-watermelon way.

  “You look cute!” Fi looked up from her compact, lip gloss perfectly in place. “So, tell me, what are we hoping for? Do you think he’ll be there? Are you counting on him being there? Or is this just in case? I’m good with it, regardless, I just want to make sure I’m in the right frame of mind.”

  I shook my head. “No way. Hamish won’t be there.” My reaction was instinctive, but something felt different. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “I just thought it would be fun. It feels like a nice little way to wrap up this part of the journey. Honestly, I don’t even know why I thought of it. It just . . . I don’t know . . .” I’d just blurted it out without giving it any thought.

  I was sort of tired. Considering it was Friday and I’d only slept about twelve hours since Monday, I guess that wasn’t surprising. Adrenaline and caffeine had kept me going, but for the first time in a while, my body was running low on both.

  “Well, I think it’s a brilliant idea.” Fi grabbed her keys off of the hook by the door. “And you know what? I think he might be there.”

  “He’s not going to be there.” Again, something felt different. It was almost like I wasn’t convinced I was correct.

  “It’s February 4, so something’s going to happen. That something might as well be you bumping into Hamish MacDougal at Mugs & Shots two years early.”

  She opened the door, and I followed her into the hallway and locked the door behind us.

  “I’m not even going to argue with you this time. Maybe he’ll be there. Maybe he won’t. Regardless, I have a completed screenplay, Fi. Can you believe it?”

  “Of course I believe it. I’m so proud of you.”

  Outside, we climbed into her yellow (“It’s not yellow, Livi—it’s solar”) Mitsubishi Eclipse as she continued. “So how did you end it? Did Jack watch Alicia die and then walk off into the sunset alone with only his existential thoughts to keep him company?”

  I laughed and buckled my seatbelt. “No, but only because I didn’t think of that. Why didn’t you suggest it sooner?”

  She backed out of her parking spot and pressed on. “How did you end it? I want to hear all about it.”

  “Well, believe it or not—”

  The ringing of her cell phone cut me off. “Sorry. Would you look and see who that is?”

  I dug into her bag and pulled out the phone. “It just says ‘Giselle.’”

  In one fluid motion Fi maneuvered the car to the side of the road and snatched the phone out of my hand. “Amy, hi. Is everything okay? Oh no. Well, that’s okay. We’ll just let Emma have the Valentino. I’ve had my eye on an Elie Saab . . . Yes, exactly. The one from fashion week. No, of course it’s no problem. I’ll have a few different options for you to try on tonight. Yes, of course I can be there. I’ll see you then.”

  She ended the call and threw her phone back in her purse with a heavy sigh. Then she faced me slowly, a disappointed expression on her face. “I’m sorry, Livi. I have to go to work.”

  “No problem. What’s going on?”

  After checking her mirrors, she pulled back into traffic and began circling the block to get back to our parking garage. “I claimed this gorgeous Valentino for Amy Adams months ago, and now, apparently Emma Watson is wearing it to the BAFTAs next weekend.” She shrugged. “It’s fine, except I don’t actually know for a fact if the Elie Saab is still available. Hopefully it is. If not . . .” She began talking more to herself than to me. “I guess she could go ahead and wear the de la Renta next week. But then what for the Oscars? Oh . . . of course. The L’Wren Scott.”

  I stifled my giggles. It was all so extravagant and unimaginably cool, but Fi talked about it all with the same tone and enthusiasm with which we all talked about our jobs. Our much less extravagant, much less cool jobs.

  There’s an uptick in St. Patrick’s Day cards.

  Cleanup on aisle fourteen.

  Market projections have slowed in the third quarter.

  Emma Watson stole Amy Adams’s BAFTA dress, and now I have to work with the world’s top designers to find a new one-of-a-kind gown for the Academy Award nominee to wear.

  It was all the same.

  “Why is Amy Adams in your phone as Giselle?” I asked as she shifted the car into Park.

  “Princess Giselle. Enchanted.” I kept staring, and she sighed. “I know. You didn’t see it. But Amy played her.” And still I stared. And again she sighed. “If anyone ever hacked into my phone, I wouldn’t want them to have access to celebrities’ phone numbers.”

  My mouth gaped. She was just so stinking cool. “Who else do you have?”

  “I’ve got to go, Livi. I really am so sorry to bail.”

  I grabbed her phone from her purse again and entered her passcode. “I’ll forgive you if you give me thirty seconds to look through your contacts.”

  She smiled and raised her hands in surrender, and I began scrolling. There were dozens of mysterious names.

  J. C. C.

  Mr. D.

  Liz L.

  Henry V.

  “Who are all these people?”

  She laughed. “I’ve got to go!”

  “Fine,” I grumbled and handed her the phone.

  “Call me if Hamish shows up,” she said as I opened my door.

  “Nah, I’m not going by myself.”

  “Oh yes, you are!”

  I scoffed and scrunched up my nose. “I’m definitely not. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

  “No way, Liv. You have to do something special. You have to! I think he’s going to be there today. I have a good feeling about it. Please go. Please. I can meet you there when I get all my work stuff sorted out. And if he doesn’t show up, I’ll buy you lunch or dinner or whatever you want, and we’ll still celebrate. Please,” she pleaded.

  “Oh, you’re pathetic.”

  She held up her phone and fixed her eyes on mine as she scrolled through her contacts list. “I’ll tell you one.”

  I wanted to act like I didn’t care. In fact, I wanted to not care. But curiosity had gotten the better of me. It wasn’t even that I was all that impressed by celebrity—though, admittedly, over the course of the past few years, I had taken a new interest thanks to the unexpected star encounters in my life. But it was the mystery of it all that I found irresistible.

  “Okay, but I’m staying long enough for one cup of coffee. Maybe a pastry. That’s it.”

  She was so cocky. She hadn’t had any doubt she would win that one. “Which one do you want to know?”

  “Henry V. I can’t think of any characters with a last name that starts with V. Is there a Henry Valentine or something?”

  She gasped in mock horror and true delight. “That’s probably the one I thought you had a chance of knowing! It’s not a V. It’s a five.”

  I tilted my head in confusion. In retrospect, I blame it on the lack of sleep.

  “Henry Five? Was that the robot in Short Circuit? I can’t remember who was in that. Steve Guttenberg?”

  Fi shook her head in dismay. “That was Johnny 5. And no
, Steve Guttenberg is not one of the top-secret celebrities in my phone.” She added, “Although . . . yeah, I think you’re right. I think he was in that. You didn’t recognize Hamish MacDougal when you spent thirty minutes with him, after he’d already been in a Bond movie, but by golly you remember the cast of Short Circuit.”

  I stepped out of the car and shut the door, and then talked to her through the open window. “Alright, smart aleck. So who’s Henry Five?”

  “Good grief, Liv. It’s Henry the Fifth. Kenneth Branagh.”

  “Shut up! You have Kenneth Branagh’s phone number?”

  “I met him at a Harry Potter event when I worked at Grauman’s. His wife doesn’t always trust his fashion sense. I advise. No big deal. Now get out of my way so I don’t run over your toes.”

  Cleanup on aisle eleven. Repeat, cleanup on aisle eleven.

  She drove away, and I pulled out the keys to my much less sporty—and plain silver, as far as I was concerned—Toyota Corolla, parked three spaces away. For a moment I contemplated betraying my commitment, but I now knew that my best friend had Kenneth Branagh’s number in her phone. A friend like that deserved better.

  I drove through a Starbucks on Laurel Canyon Boulevard to grab a coffee to help me hang on until I could get some coffee and then hopped onto the 101, which would take me to the 405. Even with the morning rush, I knew I would be in Culver City in about a half hour. For the first time ever, I found myself hoping that Los Angeles traffic would live up to its infamous reputation. I had a full tank of gas, a venti latte, and a Lilith Fair CD from 1998 that I had discovered a few weeks prior in a box in the back of my closet during one of my more legendary writing procrastination spells of the past year. It was a day to enjoy life. To enjoy California. To enjoy the smooth musical stylings of Sarah McLachlan. And maybe it was even a day to be reunited with Hamish MacDougal.

  * * *

  Four hours later I had traveled eleven miles, and if Sarah McLachlan made one more comment about all the peace and comfort that could be found in the arms of angels, I was going to jump out of the car and take my chances on foot. Maybe one of those angels would come in the form of the safety officer who would tackle me to the ground and cart me away. At least then I’d probably get to ride in the HOV lane in which vehicles kept zooming past while the rest of us watched time slip through the hourglass of our lives.