Page 6 of Nora Goes Off Script
“It’s the classic self-correcting problem. If someone leaves you, it’s because they didn’t want to be with you. All you lost was someone who didn’t want to be there anyway.”
Leo laughs. “Jesus. You’re not much of a romantic, are you?”
“I am not. At all. I believed in marriage at any cost until that moment. Then I just let go,” I tell him. And to Naomi, “You’re not a victim here. Or anywhere. That’s what this whole movie’s about.” Everyone’s silent until finally Naomi starts to cry, Martin hugs me, and Leo mutters, “Oh, for chrissake.”
•••
To be clear,I didn’t set out to write some big treatise on victimhood. I really just set out to write a TV romance for my standard fee of $25,000 so that I could pay my back real estate taxes and keep my name from being listed in the local paper. Again. It irritates me to think people believe I am suffering financially without Ben. As if. Having Ben off my credit card has been like a windfall. Last month my credit card bill was $795.34, mainly food and utilities. Having full control over that number is almost my favorite part of my new life. That and being able to spread out like a starfish in my own bed.
I digress.
The story opens in a cute college town that looks a lot like Amherst. I wrote the meet cute just as it happened. Interior: lecture hall. Handsome Jay Levinthal is whispering in my ear, and I laugh. Cut to Ben seeing this interaction. Class is over and I am waiting to talk to the professor. Ben approaches.
“I’ve never met you,” he says. I remember this exactly, because it’s a weird sentence structure. The idea was that the two of us had never met, yet the way he says it puts the focus on him. You never forget your first red flag.
“I bet you’ve never met lots of people,” I say.
“No, I mostly know everyone.” And as if to prove it, he adds, “I’m Ben Hamilton.” He has a way of saying his name like it means something, like it’s supposed to conjure up a set of images and expectations. Like if you said your name was Oprah Winfrey.
“Nora Larson,” I say over my shoulder. It’s my turn to talk to the professor.
Ben turned up in the library where I was studying, at the dining hall at dinner, at a bar that my friends and I went to every Friday night. He wasn’t the type of guy I’d normally go out with. He was so obvious in his confidence, so annoyingly extroverted. His energy demanded attention, as if the people around him were all worshipping at the temple of Ben. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to have a person like this focus all of his attention on you. I don’t know if it comes across right in the movie, but there’s this moment where you adopt everyone else’s belief system, and suddenly you’re worshipping too. No one could believe my good fortune, dating and then marrying Ben Hamilton. Eventually, I couldn’t believe it either.
It wasn’t until we were making the invitation list for our wedding that I discovered Jay Levinthal was Ben’s sworn enemy. Which pretty much explained everything.
•••
Leo is drinkingamber liquid from one of my glasses on the porch swing when I pull into the driveway with my kids after school. Two of the eighteen-wheelers are gone so there’s room to park in front of my house. Arthur walks straight past him without saying hello. Bernadette plops down next to him and offers her dimple.
“You smell like my dad.” She means it as a compliment and has confirmed my suspicion that it’s scotch in that glass. Ben’s, I’m guessing. I nearly lost my mind when he spent eighty-six dollars on that stupid bottle. I was glad when he forgot to takeit with him, but I’m maybe more glad to see Leo drinking it unceremoniously from a juice glass. Ben would be so pissed.
“Lucky me,” he says, raising his glass in a toast. He doesn’t strike me as particularly drunk, more as a person who stays mildly buzzed all day.
“I like this spot,” he says.
“Me too. The sun rises here,” Bernadette confides.
“Right here?”
“Yep.”
“Wow.”
“If you stay, you can see it tomorrow.”
“Happens every day?”
“I think so.” The two of them look out over the trees, and I have the odd sensation that I’m the third wheel here.
“So, is everything wrapping up back there?” I ask.
“I think. They’re reviewing just to see if there’s anything we need to reshoot. I’ll be back in civilization by bedtime.”
Trigger alert: That’s the kind of thing Ben might have said. He’d belittle the life I’d chosen and worked so hard to build like it was less than. At the corner of arrogance and cluelessness, you find the worst kind of person. I suddenly can’t wait to have this guy off my porch, out of my space, and away from my family.
“Well, enjoy that. Come on, Bernie, let’s get going with the homework.”
•••
