Page 48 of Nora Goes Off Script
“I like that part of the movie too,” I say, and they sigh. “Well, I do, and I don’t. That scene is sort of an insult to both of them. Like all that’s happening there is that he remembers she’s pretty so he loves her again. It’s not like he sees her run into a burning building to rescue an old guy. It’s not like anything’s changed. It’s like he just got distracted by something shiny.”
“Screenwriters,” Weezie says and rolls her eyes.
“You can’t build a life around a guy thinking you’re pretty. It’s not a thing.”
“Okay,” she says.
“It’s just not enough. Don’t ever settle for that.”
Penny’s had enough. “Weezie, we need a plan. Like, she’s going to have to say hello to him at some point. I imagine the after-party’s a pretty small affair. Should she call him out? Play it cool? What’s your take?”
“Tell me those aren’t the only two choices,” I say. “I’m incapable of either of those things.”
Weezie laughs. “Polite’s a safe bet. You could pull that off.”
Polite probably is the best way to save face. I can be polite and wish them both well and they can stop feeling sorry for me and we can all move on. But I know I can’t pull it off, not even in these shoes. If I have to stand right in front of Leo and look in his eyes, I’m going to show my hand. And by “hand,” I mean broken heart.
“I’m not quite there yet,” I tell them. “I think I’m going to get some popcorn and we can head home.”
CHAPTER 18
One day I wake up and I’m a feminist hero. Which is funny because I’m still fantasizing about the really cute guy showing up and rescuing me from myself.The Tea Houseis being called “a primer on retaining your personal power.” Women are comparing it to both their own life experiences and those of women throughout history. My favorite quote is from one of the women onThe View: “The Tea Houseshows us that victimhood is a choice. We get to decide how we feel.” What a load of crap.
People want to interview me, but I’m pretending to be reclusive and hard to get. God knows I’m not the latter. I’m afraid that if they really press me on it, I’ll burst this movie’s bubble. I’ll have to admit that it wasn’t that I refused to be a victim. It’s just that I didn’t care for Ben all that much.
Naomi doesn’t seem to be as camera shy. She’s on the daytime shows and the evening shows talking about what thefilm has meant to her. She looks radiant every single time. “This film was really important to me from the beginning,” she tells Ellen. “I feel like if someone leaves you it’s a self-correcting problem. Why would you want to be with someone who didn’t want to stay?” The audience erupts with applause. Sure, take my line, because it’s stupid. You’d want him to stay if you loved him. You’d want him to start loving you again so you can stop hurting. Duh, Naomi.
I have $0 in the bank and a balance of $3,463 on my credit card, and it’s a week before Jackie wants to start marketingSunrise. I seem to have backed myself into a bit of a corner. I need to sell this movie, but I cannot send the true story of how Leo broke my heart into the world. I also can’t show the world my fantasy version, the one where Leo comes back. Nothing would make me more vulnerable than that. I’m running out of time so I start brainstorming several choppy, sentimental endings. Bernadette finds me on the porch swing with my notebook and sharp pencils after dinner. “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to end my movie.”
“End it happy.”
“I’m not sure this story has the ingredients for a happy ending. It’s a love story, and the people aren’t meant to be together.”
“Can you change the ingredients?” Bernadette pulls her legs into her chest and lets me put my arm around her. She’s turning nine this month and I try to imagine her as a teenager, raging against me. It doesn’t seem like she has it in her.
“How do I do that?”
“Switch them up. Make them different. So that they’ll end up in a different place.”
“I kind of want one of them dead. Too dark?”
“Jeez, Mom. Yes. Too dark.”
•••
Bernadette has apoint, though it’s not until I’m in the tea house the next morning that I see it. Something needs to be switched up, and I decide to change the power structure.She’sa pop star who comes to the country from Manhattan to film a music video on the property of a widowed father of two. They butt heads a bit but get to know each other over the duration of the shoot and fall in love. She even offers to help with his daughter’s school chorus concert.
I leave in all the feelings. She tells him, in a clearing full of birds, that he’s the first man she’s ever been in love with. He believes her and thinks it’s forever. In the end, he’s the one who’s abandoned. I’m going to ghost him.
And then it can have a happy ending. She’ll write a song for him, and he’ll hear it on the radio driving down a country road, and he’ll know that she really loves him. She’ll win a Grammy for it and mention him in her acceptance speech. Then the next day he comes home from whatever he does all day and finds her strumming her guitar on his front porch. Big moment, big kiss. It seems to work when I’m in charge.
•••
It’s November andI’ve soldSunriseto Purview Pictures for $750,000. Martin has signed on as director, and they’restarting casting soon. I ask Jackie if I can cash my check and not have anything more to do with the film. I have the right to be on set, which they tell me will be in Mississippi, but I have no intention of going.
I have money now, and I like it. I can’t get over the fact that I actually made that much money, like I made it out of nothing but words and heartbreak. I want having that money to be worth it, so after paying my credit card bill I let the rest of it sit in my account for a while and try to decide what to do with it.
