The only signs of individuality were the haphazard stacks on almost all the available surfaces. He hadn’t been lying when he said he loved books. Or his publicist was really working overtime to hammer home this new narrative.
I spotted a few recognizable spines from my safe space in the doorway. Fiction. Nonfiction. Poetry. Plenty of recent bestsellers and book club books, but also a few that surprised me.
bell hooks. Katherine Dunn. Tim O’Brien. Aimee Bender. James Baldwin. Alan Bennett.
Books that I had on my shelf at home. My hands itched with the desire to run my fingers along their spines—something familiar to center me in an unfamiliar environment where I felt completely out of my element.
Instead, I tucked my hand into my bag, once again checking. Pen. Notebook. Tape recorder. Everything I needed for this interview was there, and yet…
Maybe I couldn’t do this.
Ever since Jeremy and I had broken up, that thought had been circling in my head like an un-swattable fly. It hadn’t helped that my motivation had apparently walked out the door right after him.
I hadn’t written anything in weeks.
While all of my former MFA classmates were out there signing with agents or having short stories published or getting book deals, I was stumbling through the kind of assignments they all would have sneered at.
I didn’t really blame them. Not because I was ashamed of the work I was getting, but because I knew that the writing I was doing was, at its best, boring.
At its worst, it was just bad.
What if that was the kind of writer I was? The kind of writer I’d always be?
But now wasn’t the time for an existential crisis.
I pushed aside my doubts, and focused on the room. On the piles of books. There were movies too—a stack of them on the credenza next to the ridiculously oversized and completely expected flat screen TV.
Even though I knew it was probably more professional for me to stay in the doorway, I ventured toward the DVDs. A familiar one stared up at me from the top of the pile.
I don’t want to be worshipped. I want to be loved.
“Sorry?”
Gabe turned back toward me, and I realized I’d said that out loud.
I blushed and held up the DVD. The Philadelphia Story.
“It’s from the movie,” I said.
“Oh yeah, that’s what I wanted to show you. Ryan sent these over the other day,” Gabe said. “For research.”
Ryan Ulrich, the director of The Hildebrand Rarity.
I looked at the rest of the pile. All older movies—most in black and white. Arsenic and Old Lace, The Thin Man, Holiday, and My Man Godfrey.
“I’ve only seen one or two,” Gabe said. “But I have to watch them all before we start filming.”
I nodded.
“Is it good?” he asked.
“Is it good?” I looked down at the DVD, at the cozy threesome of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart, all smiling up at me. “It’s only one of the best romantic comedies ever made. One of the best comedies ever made.” I knew most of it by heart.
“？‘I don’t want to be worshipped. I want to be loved,’？” Gabe repeated.
He had a good memory.
“Is there a difference?” he asked.
“I think so?” I said. “You can worship someone you don’t know, but you can’t love them.”
Gabe looked at me. I looked back.
I was a little startled by the sincerity of my words. If Gabe was too, well, he bypassed that awkwardness quickly.
“I think Ryan wants our Bond to be a combination of Cary Grant and William Powell,” he said.
I could see it. Could see the angle they wanted to take.
Because even though Gabe’s on-screen persona—and apparently his off-screen one—wasn’t necessarily known as sophisticated, he had shown a talent for humor. If Ryan Ulrich could channel that into the same cool, dry humor that Powell and Grant excelled at, then Gabe’s Bond could be something unique.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, more to myself.
Gabe came over to me, taking the DVD from my hand. Once again, our fingertips brushed against each other, and once again I did everything I could to ignore the tight, scratchy feeling the contact gave me.
“It’s good, huh?” he asked.
“It’s amazing,” I said.
I should have stopped there, but I didn’t.
“Except for one gross story line that almost wrecks it for me every time.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t want to ruin it for you,” I said.