“Nora?” It’s Weezie with a clipboard and a sweet smile. She hands me a tissue. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks,” I say. “This is my sister, Penny.”
She takes a seat on the other side of me. “Too hard?”
“Too hard.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I just wanted you to have that part of the movie where he sees you in your silver dress and realizes what a fool he’s been.”
“Me too!” says Penny. “That’s all I wanted. I could taste it.”
“I sort of imagined their eyes meeting as he got out of the limo,” starts Weezie.
“And he’d smile softly and remember everything they had,” Penny continues.
“And he’d slowly make his way over to her and touch her face. Or take her hand? I don’t know exactly, but you know what I mean.”
“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 House is 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 on The View: “The Tea House shows 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 the film 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 marketing Sunrise. 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.”