“You take all the time you need.” A sly grin spread across her face. “I mean, rent’s due on the first, but until then you do whatever you need to do.”
Just then, the door flew open as a beautiful man rushed in. He was tall, but not too tall. Tall enough to help me grab things I couldn’t reach from the top shelf, but not so tall that I would get a cramp in my toes if I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and never let go. His dark-blond hair was strategically unruly, and he wore glasses with dark frames, which made his blue eyes sparkle—reminiscent of a day at the beach when the sun is so bright that you don’t realize how blue the ocean is because all you can see is the reflection. Those eyes were further accentuated by his bold blue shirt and even bolder blue tie, in that style I had always tried to hate after Regis made it popular on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? but that I actually found quite attractive, in spite of myself.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to observe any of that at first, having been knocked to the ground from my position leaning against the door.
“Oh my gosh, Livi!” Fiona rushed over to me, as did the beautiful, beautiful man.
“I am so sorry,” he said softly as he helped me up, not by simply giving me a hand, but rather by guiding and assisting me. One hand was on my elbow, and then it was on the small of my back. It was while each hand was on an elbow, and my hands were resting on his muscular forearms, that I finally got a good look at him. “Are you okay?”
Truthfully, I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay at all. And it had nothing to do with my tailbone, which I was fairly certain was bruised. And it wasn’t because of my pride, which struggled to hang on as I adjusted my skirt and wished I had fallen in a more dignified way.
“I’m fine,” I lied with a smile I didn’t recognize from myself. “I’m Olivia, by the way.” I added this in a breathy voice that I also didn’t recognize. Before I could stop myself, I involuntarily applied just a little bit of pressure to those amazing forearms, which were still within my grasp.
“Caleb,” he replied, one corner of his mouth tilting upward, perfectly mirroring the opposite eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re okay, Olivia? I feel awful.”
“Okay,” Fi bellowed, not at all subtly. “Caleb, did you need something? Caleb! Did you need something?”
He hesitantly pulled his gaze from mine and turned toward an impatient Fiona. “Oh, sorry . . . Yeah. I have a message for you from Gus. I was going to e-mail you, but since you’re here . . .”
“Well?”
“Yeah. Right. He said to look for a romantic comedy for Keanu Reeves.”
She crossed her arms. “And that justifies bursting into my office at a hundred miles per hour?”
Caleb’s confidence was teetering on the edge. Mean Fiona.
“Well—”
“What?”
“He said it was urgent.”
Her laugh was loud and cynical, and I made a mental note never to mess with professional Fi. Professional Fi was scary. “Urgent? Why does Keanu Reeves urgently need a romantic comedy?”
“He didn’t tell me—”
“Fine. You can go.”
Caleb looked frustrated but not surprised. This was not his first run-in with scary, professional Fi, I was guessing. He turned to leave, as he had been ordered, but as he did, he caught my eye and winked. “So, if I can somehow make it up to you—”
“I said you can go, Caleb!”
He walked out the door and shut it behind him without another look at me.
Caleb was gone, Fiona was pacing, and I was bruised and confused.
“Why were you so rude to him? He seems nice.”
She looked at me and laughed, and then the laughter stopped abruptly. She hurried to the door and opened it. “Caleb! Was this message from Gus on a Post-it Note?”
“Um . . . no . . .”
She shut the door again and resumed her pacing.
“Fi?”
“Yeah.”
“Why were you so rude to him?”
She laughed again and rolled her eyes. “Caleb flirts with every woman in this office, and every woman in this office has a thing for him.”
“Even you?”
“No, not me. Clearly not me.”
Yeah, I guess after what I’d just witnessed, that was a stupid question. Unless Fiona was a fan of the Kathy-Bates-in-Misery style of flirtation.
“I’m his boss, first of all. But more than that, he’s a child, and I’m not just talking about his age. Trust me on this one, Liv. He’s not your type.”
See, I’m not so sure about that . . .
I looked through the glass and watched him at his desk, typing away and adorably pushing his glasses up once in a while. “How old is he? At least thirty, I would guess. That hardly qualifies as a child.”
Before I realized it, she was behind me. She grabbed my shoulders and turned me around so that I was facing her. “Focus!”
“I am focusing. I’m focusing on him. I’m just gonna say it. I am besotted with him.”
“‘Besotted’?” Fiona’s lips repeated me, but no sound accompanied the movement.
“I mean, I can actually hear my pulse. Is that normal? And there’s this strange ringing in my ears. Did I hit my head when I fell? Maybe I hit my head so hard that I don’t even remember hitting my head. I guess that could explain all of this. It’s like a butterfly thing. But not in my stomach. Hang on . . . Is it butterflies? Is that what flies around Yosemite Sam’s head when someone hits him with an anvil? Or is it birds? Whatever. It’s kind of like that, but minus the five-inch bump on my head. It all feels like a—”
“Romantic comedy.”
“Yes! Exactly! You know how I feel about those things, but I think this may be as close as I have ever come to understanding the appeal.” I snuck another peek at Caleb through the glass. Sure, he was younger than me. But if he was thirty, that still made him a full-fledged, professional adult. I wasn’t old enough to be his mother or anything. Just a young, hip aunt who was more like a sister. Okay, Liv. Enough with the family analogies. You do not want to be like a sister to Caleb. “I think I get it now, Fi. I think I understand why Meg Ryan feels inexplicably drawn to Tom Hanks, like a magnet. I get it. I do.”
Laughter exploded from her. “Okay, two things.” It was a big “two things” day for Fiona. “Number one, you do realize that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan haven’t made a movie together in more than a decade, don’t you?”
“Really? I just thought they were kind of always together.”
“And number two, that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t completing your sentence. I was telling you that what we need to focus on is romantic comedy.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I muttered in a hushed tone. “That did all sound pressing and dire, but also, well, ridiculous, frankly. Keanu Reeves needs a romantic comedy now! The future of the free world depends upon your ability to find Keanu a romantic comedy, Fiona. Don’t let Keanu down. Don’t let the world down.”
She chuckled as she grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the sight of Caleb. Once I was safely placed in a chair by her desk, she returned to the window and closed the blinds.
“What are you going to do?” I asked with a sigh, once my distraction had been removed. “How does one go about finding Keanu Reeves a romantic comedy that will rescue all mankind?”
“Believe it or not, I think I’ve already got one. It needs some edits, but I think we can make it work.”
“Oh. Good,” I replied, not sure what else to say. Sure, I was relieved for Fi, but I was a little disappointed for me. The situation had presented such interesting comic potential only seconds prior, but apparently Keanu’s romantic comedy needs would be met. The world could sleep soundly once more.
She sat down in the empty chair next to me. “It’s about this dashing hero named Jack Mackinnon who returns to his hometown, Landing’s Edge, Vermont.”
I seemed to process what she was saying in slow motion, and I think my face communicated each thought
as it occurred. A more subdued, unintentional mirroring of each expression I made appeared on my best friend’s face at the same time, although each of her expressions carried the added emotional depth of held breath.
“What in the world are you suggesting?” I asked with an uneasy laugh.
“Okay, now, just hear me out. What if we tweaked some things? What if there wasn’t quite as much corruption and intrigue, but we kept the romance and made it a bit zanier? What if Jack and Alicia didn’t have to literally save Landing’s Edge so much as they have to metaphorically save it?”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. I mean, she had to be joking, right?
“I’m sorry . . . Did you just say we could make it a bit zanier?”
She didn’t smile. Instead, she stood from her seat and began pacing the length of the room, squeezing the bridge of her nose as she did.
“Hey,” I continued gently, not sure why she wasn’t smiling, “I appreciate the thought. I do. But Keanu deserves better.”
“Do you think this is funny?” she asked as she continued to pace.
“Sort of.”
Regardless of what I thought, I suddenly understood that I wasn’t supposed to think it was funny.
“Well, you’re wrong.” She turned to face me, and I saw the tears streaming down her beautiful face, across her flawless-as-ever makeup.
Right there in that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen Fiona cry. My mind quickly ran two inventories simultaneously: one of all the times I could remember seeing her cry, and the other of everything that had been said in the last few minutes, seeking out anything that would explain her emotional reaction.
Strangely, the second inventory took longer to compile than the first. More than thirty years together, and I could only remember four times she had cried. Not crying because she was rereading The Notebook for the nine hundredth time or because we stayed up too late laughing until we couldn’t breathe or at a funeral or a wedding. Really crying. And in the few seconds that I thought through our history in an attempt to remember Fiona crying so that I could potentially figure out what was happening and what I needed to do about it, I found myself focusing more on all the times she hadn’t cried. Times when anyone else would have, but Fiona held it all in. What was it about this moment that was worse than all those times?
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said softly as I stood and began walking toward her. “I don’t know what I said, but I didn’t mean to upset you. I shouldn’t have made jokes about Keanu.” I guess.
“It’s not always about you, Olivia,” she said with curtness as she directed her pacing away from my general direction.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Yes, I heard you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is your problem?”
“My problem,” she shouted, facing me head-on with her feet planted in front of me, “is that I just handed you everything you’ve ever wanted and everything you’ve worked for, and you decided to make jokes.”
“So it is about me . . .”
She exhaled with a bit of a growl, and I couldn’t help but flinch. “Sure, Liv. Sure. Yes, it’s about you. Is that better? Do you feel a little more comfortable now? Is that more like you’re used to?”
Well, that did it. “Fiona Mitchell, what in the world are you talking about? I don’t know where this passive-aggressive crap is coming from, but would you please just tell me what this is about? I appreciate you trying to make the screenplay work, but you know as well as I do that it’s a ridiculous idea. Ridiculous! The script needs some ‘tweaks’? We could make it ‘zanier’? You and I both know I probably couldn’t write a romantic comedy if Keanu Reeves’s life depended on it. And frankly, how dare you?”
“How dare I?”
“Yes! How dare you? How dare you take something I’ve spent nearly a quarter of my life working on and treat it like it doesn’t even matter? Like this is all just about getting a movie made rather than actually seeing work that I love made into a film I can be proud of.”
She smiled, but nothing about the smile indicated there was a thaw taking place. If anything, it indicated that winter was just beginning.
“You’re so pretentious.”
I swallowed down the hurt, determined to continue the fight. After all, a third inventory had begun taking place in my brain, and I was realizing that fewer than the things I might have potentially said that I shouldn’t have in the last few minutes, and even fewer than the times I had seen her cry, was the number of times Fiona and I had fought. We’d disagreed, and we’d not spoken for extended periods of time, but I could only think of two times we had ever had an actual fight. The first fight had ended with Fiona going to a New Kids on the Block concert without me, and the second had ended with her moving to Paris. I couldn’t imagine how this one would end.
“I’m pretentious? I’m pretentious? Are you kidding me right now?” The words cascaded out of me, seemingly beyond my control. “This, coming from the spoiled princess who has always gotten every single thing she has ever wanted? This, coming from the daddy’s girl who got her degree in Undecided? Undecided, Fiona? Has that never seemed strange to you? But at least you’ve put your degree to good use. You’ve been undecided your entire life. But that’s okay, because now you finally know what you want to do, and the rest of us are supposed to roll over and make it happen for you, I guess. I’m sorry if I’m not willing to throw away my dreams so you can make your boss happy. But sure . . . Okay. That makes me pretentious.” I started to turn away from her but rushed back and spewed, “It’s never been called freaking Untitled Keanu Reeves Project, you know!”
For about five seconds, we each appeared to be completely driven by our convictions and unrepentant. For about five seconds, we stood our ground, convinced we were saying what needed to be said. For about five seconds, she held my determined gaze. Of course, no matter how my gaze appeared, I became less determined with each passing moment. By the time five seconds had passed, I was ready to apologize for everything I had said, that day and ever, and rush home to watch the seventeen films Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had made together so that I could educate myself in the art of the romantic comedy. If that’s what it took to make Fiona happy again, I would do it.
But before I could do any of that, I saw her crumble before me. It began in her eyes, and then it presented itself as a tremble in her lips.
“Oh, Fi, I’m so sorry,” I cried as I threw my arms around her. “I didn’t mean any of that. Really, I didn’t. I just needed something to say. You’re not a spoiled princess. I’m so proud of you for all you’re doing, and Untitled Keanu Reeves Project has a nice ring to it, actually—”
“He’s getting married, Livi.”
“Oh. Okay,” I stammered, thoroughly confused. “Is that why he’s in the mood to make a romantic comedy, or—”
She looked up at me in confusion and then laughed through the tears when she realized what I thought she meant. “Not Keanu, doofus.”
I smiled, relieved by her laughter. “Okay, then I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I thought . . . Well, when I got the e-mail . . . That’s why I thought we should come here. I wasn’t going to talk about it today, not on February 4, that’s for sure. I thought coming here would be a good distraction for the day. But I’m not distracted. That’s distracting me from everything else, and—”
“Fi, you’re scaring me. What’s happening?”
She took a deep breath, and then in one fell swoop she caused my heart to implode upon itself.
“Liam.”
“Liam?” I pulled away from her and steadied myself against the wall. “Liam’s getting married?” My jaw tightened, along with every other muscle in my body, as the old cannonballing-into-blue-raspberry-slushie sensation washed over me.
“Yeah.”
“Liam?”
“Does Heartlite have the perfect card for congratulating an ex? You may
be on to something with that rejection line you were brainstorming.”
How was she able to make jokes while I was struggling to breathe? “And . . . and . . . he e-mailed you? Or . . . Why would . . . How do you . . .”
Color rose to her cheeks until they matched the scarlet-leather wingback chair behind her desk.
“We’ve been in touch.”
I shook my head, not understanding. “What do you mean you’ve ‘been in touch’?”
She sighed and for a moment looked around the room like she was trying to figure out the best place to sit. Or maybe she was wondering if it was too late to escape the whole conversation. She could have been trying to figure out if she could craft a time machine with the supplies available to her in her office so she could go back and rewind the whole thing. Regardless, it must have all been too taxing for her, because in the end she just sank down onto the floor and tucked her legs underneath her.
“After Boston, I felt like such an idiot. I didn’t handle it well. Seeing him, I mean. I was embarrassed.” She shrugged. “So I wrote him a letter, apologizing. Explaining, more like, I suppose. He wrote back. And we’ve e-mailed a few times since then. It’s . . . Well, it’s nice.”
“It’s nice?” Fiona got to share nice e-mail correspondence with Liam while I had to act like the thought of him never even entered my mind?
I sank down against the wall that was still providing me the support I desperately needed and joined her on the floor. “What was there to explain? It was the first time you had seen him, and he was there with someone else. It was uncomfortable and painful—” I balled my hands into fists in an attempt to stop the trembling. “I mean, it must have been so uncomfortable and painful for you. It must have been hard . . . seeing someone you loved so much . . .”
She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Nah, I don’t think that was it.”
“I—I—I mean . . .” Hands balled up: not helping. Teeth biting inside of cheek: ineffective. Fiona’s words: not making sense. “You don’t think what was it?”
She dabbed at elegant tears. “I’m pretty sure I never actually loved him.”
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