The Falling in Love Montage

by Ciara Smyth

I’m watching Love Actually in July. I needed to confess my sins to someone. Have you seen it?

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  Of course. Everyone’s seen it.

  SAOIRSE

  I’m sorry but can we talk about how they keep saying the tea girl has big thighs? I mean 1. big thighs are awesome, 2. inaccurate anyway, 3. why would you need to comment on that? Is Hugh Grant supposed to be dead on because he doesn’t mind thighs?

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  That counted as woke in 2003. We’ve come so far and yet fallen so low at the same time.

  SAOIRSE

  Depressing.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  You haven’t seen the worst of it yet.

  SAOIRSE

  Oh, you have to be talking about the guy with the signs? What is this dude’s craic? Imagine turning up to your best mate’s house and miming to his wife that you love her on a bunch of handwritten cards. So inappropriate.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  Aye, he could have bust out a bit of calligraphy.

  SAOIRSE

  And she kissed him! Cos he’s not a creep he’s just a sad nice guy, right. Fuck sake.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  Have you got to the bit where Emma Thompson cries?

  SAOIRSE

  No?

  SAOIRSE

  I just got there.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  You cried, didn’t you?

  SAOIRSE

  No.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  Come on.

  SAOIRSE

  Fine, maybe I welled up a bit.

  SATAN’S SHRIVELED LEFT NUT

  You bawled your eyes out.

  SAOIRSE

  Shut up.

  14.

  6. Movie night (as seen in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Notting Hill).

  “Dad, come on.”

  “I don’t know. You’re a terrible driver.” He clutched the keys to his chest.

  “Why did you get me insured on your car if I wasn’t going to be allowed to drive it?”

  “In case of an emergency.”

  “This is an emergency. I already bought tickets and the Lamborghini is in the shop.”

  “I don’t know if you fully understand the term emergency.”

  “I don’t like this any more than you do but needs must.” I wrestled the keys from his death grip and dangled them. “I will not drive into a tree or off the pier. No one will die. It’s going to be fine.”

  “I’m not really afraid you’re going to die. We live in a thirty-kilometer-an-hour zone. I’m more worried you’ll rear-end someone and my insurance premium will go through the roof.”

  “Your concern is touching,” I grumbled, but he didn’t stop me.

  “Don’t forget to put your lights on, it’s dark,” Dad called after me. He really did think I was stupid.

  I stalled the car six times on the way to Oliver’s, but by the time I got there I’d kind of got the hang of it. Ruby was waiting at the gates for me, dressed in a pair of stripy socks and embroidered dungarees with a crop top underneath. I could see a clear six inches of skin in the gap. I didn’t know I could be attracted to the side of someone’s waist until I met Ruby. I had a black tank top on with black jeans. The ones I hardly ever wore because they were so perfect and they didn’t sell them anymore so I was afraid to wear them out. We looked like Wednesday Addams and Pippi Longstocking on a date.

  I felt silly for thinking it, but part of me was embarrassed picking her up in my dad’s car. I didn’t know anyone my age, except Oliver, who owned a car because this was not an American TV show, but I felt stupid anyway. It didn’t help that the car was old, beige, and had a ding in it from the time I reversed into the corner of the house because I didn’t fully get how to use wing mirrors. It’s not like I think I have to be rich or that Ruby would think anything of it, but somehow it still feels weird knowing that the person you’re with has tons more money than you do.

  Ruby kissed me on the cheek when she got into the car and then she looked a bit embarrassed. We were in an uncomfortable phase. We’d had the intense groping stuff early on but somehow things had taken a step backward since we decided to actually go out on dates. I absolutely wanted to jump on her (with her consent) and smush all our body parts together, but it was easy to feel sexy when we didn’t really know each other. Now that we were having actual conversations, including one about me wetting myself, it was like she knew I wasn’t a sexy, mysterious stranger—I was an awkward weirdo with commitment issues.

  “Are you ready for number six—movie night?” I said the title of the date as though it was the voiceover in a film preview.

  “Yep. Not at all terrified,” Ruby added.

  We decided to skip down to number six when I saw Scream was playing at a pop-up drive-in. The list didn’t have to be completed in any particular order and this was too perfect to miss. Besides, we agreed I could pick a horror movie for our film date. I was watching all of her beloved rom-coms and I wanted to share one of my favorites with her.

  I may have declined to mention that the following week they were playing Casablanca. I’d had to watch it with Hannah and thought it was the most boring film I’d ever seen.

  As we drove, Ruby seemed kind of distracted. She kept getting texts and even though I knew it was probably her mum, I felt a flash of curiosity. I didn’t really know anything about Ruby’s life back home and I was kind of afraid to ask. An innocent question about her friends would naturally lead to questions about mine. Which led to Izzy and Hannah. Which led to pain and feelings and doom. Like the mature human being I am, I tried instead to surreptitiously see who was messaging her. I didn’t get a good look.

  “Sorry,” she said, noticing me glancing over. “I’ll put this away in a second, I swear.”

  “No worries,” I replied, like I hadn’t even noticed.

  Ding. Another message. I craned my neck to see if I could catch a name.

  “STOP!” she yelled.

  I slammed on the brakes.

  A screech.

  A horn.

  A loud “FUCK YOU.”

  I stopped only an inch from the car in front of me. I hadn’t noticed them braking or the light turning red. My heart was beating so hard I could practically hear it in my ears.

  “Are you OK?” I said breathlessly.

  Ruby laughed in a relieved sort of way. “I’m fine. We were going fifteen miles an hour. But maybe keep your eyes on the road. It’s just my mum.”

  I blushed, absolutely mortified.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Don’t even try and pretend.”

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling away as the light turned again.

  I wanted to ask why her mum was simultaneously so needy and yet didn’t call Ruby on her birthday. They seemed to talk a lot, but she’d gone on holidays without her daughter. It was bizarre.

  Ruby squeezed my thigh and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Seeing as we didn’t die, I’ll forgive you. But creeping on me is not cute.”

  She didn’t really sound mad, which I didn’t deserve; I was acting pretty creepy, after all.

  “Oh, sure, unless I’m Hugh Grant,” I said, name-dropping to show I’d been doing my homework.

  She grinned. “Four Weddings Hugh or Notting Hill Hugh?”

  “Notting Hill,” I said. “I watched it last night. I swear I thought when he turned up on the set, he was going full Fatal Attraction. He’s got serious stalker vibes.”

  “No! Don’t. They’re meant to be together.”

  “I thought I was meant to be with Chloë Grace Moretz from age thirteen until sixteen, but I didn’t follow her to her work.”

  Ruby laughed, and a little fire glowed inside me.

  “But I love the speech,” I said.

  “‘I’m just a girl’? How come?”

  “It’s always Hugh or the other White Male Lea
d who gives the speech, but in Notting Hill, the girl gets to do the big speech.”

  “Hugh has a speech too. Sort of. He has his moment. At the press conference?”

  “Yeah, but no one remembers that bit.”

  We arrived more or less intact and stopped debating the merits of one Hugh versus another Hugh long enough to find a spot and figure out how we were meant to tune into the sound.

  The car park filled up quickly and there were a bunch of food vans around the perimeter, so we stocked up on supplies, as though the end of the world might come, and waited for the film to start.

  “This is so cool,” Ruby said as we tried to arrange drinks, a bucket of popcorn, and an array of sweets you’d normally only see at Willy Wonka’s factory, in a three-door Fiat.

  “Is it?”

  “Yeaaah,” she said emphatically. “You’d never be able to do this where I live. The neighborhood is too built up; no one would use parking spaces for something fun. And look how cozy this is.”

  She held my hand and squeezed.

  The way she crackled with enthusiasm for the little things was contagious.

  “It is cozy,” I agreed. “Are you warm enough, though?” It had been boiling all day and so neither of us had anything warm with us. A nip had begun to creep in when the sun set.

  “I’m a bit cold,” she said, so I turned the engine on and let the heat blast.

  “It’s starting,” I said, and turned the radio up. Somehow I actually had managed to tune it in correctly. I felt proud of myself for navigating this primitive technology.

  “And you’ve really never seen Scream?” I asked, wrapping a strawberry lace around my finger before popping the perfect coil in my mouth.

  “It was made before I was born.”

  “So were nearly all the films on your list for the montage.”

  “Yeah, but love stories are timeless. Look”—she pointed at the screen—“that person is calling on a landline. If they had mobiles, this movie wouldn’t even make sense.”

  “Not true.” I shook my head. “The burgeoning technology of mobile phones actually plays a key part in this film and as such it’s basically a historical artifact. You need to treat it with the reverence it deserves.”

  Ruby laughed. “My apologies.”

  “Besides, I believe you’re the one who put having an actual phone call on our list, are you not?” I pointed out.

  “As an homage to classics like Pillow Talk and Sleepless in Seattle.”

  “This is a classic too. You’re going to love it. It’s basically the horror movie version of the falling in love montage. It plays with all the tropes of horror movies.”

  “I don’t know any of the tropes of horror movies.”

  “You do. They seep into the collective unconscious somehow. Same way I knew the grand gesture comes after the big fight, remember?”

  Ruby raised an eyebrow. “You should really be a lawyer or something. You just keep talking until you win.”

  I put my hand to my heart and gasped. “I feel so attacked right now.”

  “Do you think I should be a lawyer?” she asked.

  I took a long look at her. “No way. You’re far too good. You keep cat treats in your pocket in case you see a stray. That’s not lawyer material.”

  Ruby blushed and I felt a warm rush, realizing that maybe I had been able to make her feel the way she made me feel.

  Throughout the film, I kept looking at Ruby out of the corner of my eye. Her eyes were fixed on the screen. We chatted at first—Ruby did not appreciate all the stabbing—but after a while, the conversation died off, except for a few comments here and there. I don’t normally say this sort of thing, but Monica’s hair is horrendous. Wait till you see this bit, it’s wild! Aww, no, I liked the sassy friend.

  There was an elephant in the room. Or in the car. I mean, the whole point of coming here was to smush our faces together. We weren’t supposed to actually watch the film, right? But I wasn’t sure how to cross over into smush land smoothly. I eyed the space between us, assessing it for pitfalls. I was really far too close to the steering wheel to actually maneuver even if I wanted to try to kiss her.

  Maybe if I let the seat back a bit.

  “Ooof.” I hadn’t realized we’d been parked on a slight slope and when I released the seat it slid back dramatically. Subtle.

  “I was just, too close to the . . .” I trailed off, gesturing at the steering wheel.

  Ruby smiled that uncomfortable smile, you know the one, where your lips are pressed together and you sort of nod to go along with it.

  I wasn’t even paying attention to the film anymore and it didn’t look as though Ruby was either. The fizzing tension in the air was too loud. Every part of my body was on high alert; every slight brush of her arm against mine seemed to charge the air around us. Was she doing that on purpose? Was it just me? How did you transition from having a conversation to kissing? I tried to think back to any other time I’d kissed someone but I drew a blank. It can’t always have been this difficult. I’d have remembered.

  “I like your top,” Ruby said lightly. She reached over and fingered the hem of my very plain black tank top. Her hand grazed an inch of bare skin where my shirt had ridden up and it sent electric shocks through my system.

  “Fuck it,” I declared, and I launched myself on her like I was diving into a pool for the first time. You just had to go for it and drown if you were going to drown. I didn’t drown. I kissed her and she kissed me back and I felt myself sink into it. After a few breathless moments, I pulled away slightly.

  “Thank God,” she breathed, “I didn’t know how to start.”

  I laughed and kissed her again and her giggle escaped into the space between our lips, like if kisses had champagne bubbles.

  “You know what would really kick this up a gear?” she whispered. With a flourish, she pulled on the handle that released the back of her seat and she flew back with a thud. I couldn’t help laughing, trying to disentangle myself from my seat and climb over the handbrake. I propped myself up over her, head to head, toe to toe, and it stopped being funny. I kissed her gently this time, soft like a question, and she answered by pulling me close. I leaned into her, pressing against her, wanting to feel more of her body against mine than just our lips. My hands found the curves of her hips and her breasts.

  When my heart was beating so fast I thought it might break free of my chest and fly away, when our legs intertwined, finding a delicious friction that charged my whole body, when all I could think of was pulling off her top and finding skin to touch and kiss, Ruby broke away, her hand on my chest forcing air between us.

  “Do you think the people next to us can see us?” she asked.

  I glanced out the window. Just like in the movies, they were steamed up, but I could still see the film was nearly over. Neve Campbell had just thrown a TV on the bad guy’s head.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Do you think they know we’re . . . ?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Maybe we should go back to your house,” she said. I felt something lodge in my throat. Did she mean . . . ? (In case you’re wondering, by the ellipsis, I mean sex, but you knew that, right?)

  “Uh, sure. Yes.” Had Dad gone out to Beth’s? He’d said he might, but he didn’t have the car, of course. What if she had gone to our house? Why hadn’t I emancipated myself at sixteen and got my own place and decorated it like a romantic boudoir? Past me had absolutely no foresight.

  Deciding I’d risk it and see what happened, I disentangled myself from Ruby and clambered back into my seat, adjusting it to its normal position. I turned the key to start the engine. Click click click. I turned it again. Click click click.

  I looked at Ruby. She frowned.

  Click click click.

  “What does that mean?” Ruby asked.

  “I’ve driven three times since I got my license. I have no idea. Google it.”

  A couple of seconds later she told me th
e battery was dead. The car, not her phone. I checked the dash and realized I hadn’t turned the lights off. Dad was going to kill me. Although that would come later. Right now I had no idea what to do.

  “What do we do?” I asked, getting panicked.

  Ruby googled again.

  “Do you have a battery charger?”

  “No?” I didn’t even know they made those for cars.

  “Jump leads?”

  “Uh, I don’t think so?” But I got out of the car and looked in the boot. There was an old sports bottle and a damp-looking Stephen King novel.

  People were starting to pull out of the car park. I knocked on the window of the car next door and a woman in her thirties rolled down the window.

  “Do you by any chance have jump leads?” I asked.

  “Sorry, love.” She rolled her window back up.

  I opened the driver’s side door of Dad’s car again and leaned in. “Anything else?”

  “What about them?” Ruby pointed to the car on the other side of us. It was one of those cars that had been lowered to the ground, and it had rims that probably cost more than my dad’s whole car. I tried to sneak a glance at who was inside. A bunch of boys, maybe the same age as us, maybe a little older. Definitely too high to drive.

  “Um . . . I don’t really want to ask them,” I said, imagining what they might say to two girls stranded at night in a rapidly emptying car park.

  I got back in the car and locked the door. This was the part of the horror movie where we got murdered by a “helpful” passerby. It was bad enough that our groping session had been hit by rom-com-style farce. I didn’t want to tempt fate with horror. The consequences were a bit more gruesome than a bruised ego. Then again, if it really was a horror movie, the murderer was already in the back seat. I glanced back there. Just an empty pick and mix bag.

  “I guess you’re going to have to call your parents?” Ruby said, biting on her lip ring. “Do you think they’ll be angry?”

  I realized then that Ruby had no idea my parents weren’t happily married and normal. Why would she? I hadn’t told her anything.

  “I’d really rather not call Dad. He’d never let me hear the end of it.”

  “What about your mum?” Ruby said. “When I broke the TV by doing a backflip in the living room, Mum covered for me and said my little brother did it because he was too little for anyone to be annoyed with him.”