Love, Unscripted Page 9

  “Nick, do you have any questions?”

  “What’s the redundancy package like?”

  He can’t hide his pity.

  “A month’s wage for every year you’ve worked here. Plus ten percent for those who take the voluntary package.”

  The immediate financial benefits go some way to making us all feel slightly better and are met with murmurs of approval.

  “Everyone can take as long as they want to think this through. We don’t need answers today.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  I don’t realize I’ve said it until I’ve said it and everyone looks at me.

  Seb repeats his earlier call for us to take some time.

  “I don’t need to. I’ll take it. We’ll all be out of jobs by the end of the year. No point running down the clock.”

  My voice isn’t exactly quivering, but there’s an uncertainty to it that makes everyone a little uncomfortable.

  Seb seizes the moment to end the meeting, and I’m the first to make my way to the exit, thinking: If I can just get home and sort out the other cornucopia of shit in my life, I’ll work this latest setback out later.

  * * *

  —

  I’VE BARELY MADE it a hundred yards from the cinema entrance and am as surprised as anyone by the identity of the person chasing after me, calling for me to wait.

  My money would have been on Seb, ready to give me another lecture on maturity and responsibility, closely followed by Ronnie, spewing pearls of wisdom courtesy of Mary Jane. But no, it’s Lizzie, running and yelling across the street at me, insisting I stop and give pause to a decision that almost immediately calls time on the best job I ever had.

  When she catches up with me, she’s a little out of breath and the summer sun has already caused beads of sweat to form around her sandy blond pixie cut. She steadies herself with her hands on her knees, hunched over.

  “You should cut down on the smokes, Lizzie.”

  She takes one out and lights it, as if to tell me to do myself in mime.

  “Fuck me, you walk fast.”

  I must be looking longingly at the smoke rising, because she offers me a cigarette of my very own.

  “Only when I’m trying to get away from somewhere before I do or say something idiotic,” I say, before I take one.

  She regains her composure, the nicotine working like Popeye’s spinach.

  “How are you doing?” she asks.

  I shrug and inhale.

  She nods. “It’s a bullshit state of affairs. I’m as progressive and forward-thinking as the next woman, but why do they have to take our fucking projectors?”

  “If it ain’t broke…” I offer.

  “Leave it the fuck alone.”

  It’s been a while since I’ve spoken more than half sentences to Lizzie. Nearly four years, in fact. And this is definitely the longest we’ve chatted about something other than what needs maintaining on a Kinoton FP 40 projector.

  I’d forgotten how much she swears.

  “I’m sorry to hear about you and Ellie too.”

  I consider reminding her that when Ellie and I first started going out, and I was telling her how happy I was with my new girlfriend, Lizzie snapped and said something along the lines of “and I’m sure her pedestal is the greatest pedestal ever.”

  But then I remember that she’ll be hurting from the cinema news too, and another shrug is all I have right now.

  She continues, “I’d like to be able to call her a bitch, but I know she wasn’t and I know what she meant to you, so…”

  “It was inevitable,” I say.

  Lizzie looks at me, puzzled.

  “How so?”

  “What’s the line from Cinema Paradiso? ‘Even the greatest love eventually fizzles out.’ ”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I believe in all the wisdom of Alfredo.”

  We simultaneously lean against the wall behind us, take a drag, and look as wistfully as we’ve ever looked in our lives back at the building across the road. The building that has felt like a second home to us for years.

  Lizzie turns and asks, “You fancy catching a film next week? Me and you? The Coens have a new one out. It’s just written by them, but, y’know, a film written by the Coen brothers has to be better than half the fucking excrement out there.”

  She’s babbling a little and I’m pretty sure it’s because her offer is a pity invite.

  “I’ll let you know,” I say. “I’ve got to find a job, a home, and a new girlfriend, so…”

  “Give me your phone.”

  I do as I’m instructed.

  She presses a number of keys and hands it back.

  “That’s my new number. Maybe I can be of service.”

  * * *

  —

  SEB RANG ABOUT half an hour after I’d said goodbye to Lizzie. I’m convinced he didn’t mean for it to come across as a lecture, but it sure sounded like one, full of life lessons and tutoring tidbits such as “You need to do this” and “You need to do that.”

  His main beef seemed to be the speed at which I had made my decision and the financial insecurity my impending joblessness would bring. I tried to reason with him that the redundancy package would be more money than I’d ever seen in all my life and that I’d find a new “career” way earlier if I had more time on my hands.

  He countered by suggesting that I’d be allowed to look for work while still working there and that working on the floor as a team leader would bring in almost as much as I was making before. I ended the conversation with some regretful words about being a “lifer in a McJob” and that I had fuck-all tying me down, unlike some people, and that now seemed as good a time as any to split.

  Understandably, he had little left to say to that, and I felt for a moment like I’d won a small victory by being the last to say anything. The feeling of success didn’t even last half the walk home.

  Now, back at the house that I’m being evicted from, that I lived in with the partner who dumped me, about to temporarily move back in with my parents, who have seen fit to leave the country, I think about my new status of being redundant and I feel, for the first time in quite some time, really sorry for myself.

  I hate this feeling. It’s self-indulgent and pointless and so I counter it in the only way I know how. I think about the saddest films I know. I think about Björk’s Selma in Dancer in the Dark and the line “Say goodbye to Frankie” from In America. I think about the young George Bailey being hit by Mr. Gower in It’s a Wonderful Life. I think about the couple in the opening five minutes of Up and I think about the dog in that episode of Futurama.

  And then I think about Ellie, at seven years old.

  And I think, Nick, whatever your sorry tale, someone always has it worse than you.

  NOVEMBER 5, 2008—1:55 A.M. GMT

  OBAMA 103

  MCCAIN 55

  270 NEEDED TO WIN

  You’re late! You’re late! You’re so, so late!—a playlist Ellie described as “one to get you going first thing in the morning”—was kicking out PJ Harvey’s “This Wicked Tongue.”

  I would usually have found it unacceptable to play music this loud at two a.m., but Ellie had no neighbors (the house next door had been for sale forever) and her flatmate was away visiting her grandparents.

  The volume of music was also very necessary as we were both flagging, having lost track of the mission—get to Ellie’s, grab camera, get back to party—and opted instead to spend twenty minutes discussing the benefits of adding bad songs to good playlists simply because they fit.

  She thought you could. I protested otherwise.

  I put forward the closed-minded case that “A terrible song is a terrible song.” She argued that songs you abhorred, put in the right context, could become s
ongs you loved, and cited the example of “Hip to Be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News in the adaptation of American Psycho.

  She was damn fucking right.

  As Polly Jean reached a crescendo, and Ellie poured me another whisky from her “Scottish selection,” I realized I really didn’t want to go back to the party.

  What if she bumped into an old friend? What if she saw some guy she’d fancied for forever and he finally said hello? What if one of my friends started joining in on our conversation?

  Here in the sanctity of Ellie’s bedroom there were no people-size distractions. Her attention was all mine and mine was all hers.

  Here I could make a lame joke about “having a PJ day,” and when it wasn’t picked up on, there was no one there to say, “What do you mean, a day in your PJs?” and I wouldn’t then have to explain I meant a day listening to PJ Harvey, followed by the awkward silence that ensued after the explanation of a joke that wasn’t that good in the first place.

  “Ha, I just got that,” she said, when the song finished. She pointed to the Mac. “A PJ day, like, a day listening to PJ.”

  I shrugged, making sure she could see my nonchalance, and then mouthed, “Marry me,” making sure she couldn’t see my total and utter creepy devotion.

  To remain here alone together, I reasoned, I needed to distract her some more with questions, preferably utilizing objects within the room. I decided that photos were the way forward.

  “Is that your mum and dad?”

  She affected a prim, posh voice. “Indeed, that is Moobum and Poobum.”

  I followed suit. “Moobum and Poobum, how delightful.”

  “They’re good people. Yours?”

  “Yep, I have a moo and a poo still. Still together. They’re okay, I guess. Bit dull.”

  Despite her having zero evidence to prove or disprove my assertion, she seemed offended on their behalf.

  “Everyone always thinks their parents are boring, but I bet they get up to all sorts of secret stuff that would blow your tiny mind.”

  “Well, I doubt they’re secret assassins or have their own pirate radio station, but I could be wrong.”

  “You could be. And are. They are both those things and that’s why I’ve lured you here. To put an end to Mr. and Mrs….name…”

  “Marcet.”

  “To put an end to Mr. and Mrs. Marcet’s reign of contract killings and unlicensed MOR broadcasts.”

  I took a step toward her and looked into her eyes.

  “How dare you suggest my parents listen to middle of the road music!” I exclaimed dramatically, fighting for volume over Modest Mouse telling Charles Bukowski he was an asshole. “And since when is John Denver considered middle of the road anyhow.”

  It was her turn to step forward, and when she did, our noses were inches from touching. She dropped the facade to pick up another.

  “I love John Denver.”

  “Me too.”

  And then, instead of actually kissing her, I simply thought, “I’m going to kiss her, I’m definitely going to kiss her. Right now,” for long enough that the actual possibility of me kissing her was nonexistent.

  There was a window for this type of thing and I was way over it. I stepped back, cleared my throat, and turned to the shelf behind me.

  “And this.”

  I picked up one of the four photos I’d assumed were of Ellie as a child, on the same shelf as the teddy bear and the candles.

  “This is you?”

  The photo was of a young girl, maybe six, and a boy, maybe four, smiling and making sandcastles at the beach.

  She turned her back on me and answered with a quick “Yep.”

  “Very cute,” I observed, taking care not to (a) be overly effusive about the appearance of a six-year-old, or (b) make a weird and embarrassing comment about how good-looking our kids would be.

  “And this guy?” I said, pointing to the boy crouched down holding the bucket. “Should I be worried about him?”

  I didn’t notice her voice had gone into a near whisper.

  “That’s my brother, Lucas.”

  “Ellie and Lucas. Your parents chose nice names. What’s he do?”

  And as I turned to see her face, I knew the answer before she said it, the reason for the candles and the teddy bear and the pride of place on a shelf away from the other photos. The reason why she was suddenly talking in a hushed, reverential tone.

  “He died.”

  “Oh Ellie, I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s okay,” she said as she perched herself on the edge of the bed, her legs all of a sudden unable to do the job they’d been tasked with.

  “What was he like?” I asked.

  She looked up at me and shook her head, wearing the most peculiar expression. It was part bemusement, part total gratitude. I found out why in the following seconds.

  “Do you know, I’ve had long-term relationships with guys, maybe six, seven months, guys who’ve stayed over here countless times, and they’ve never asked. Not once.”

  Unsure what motion to make, I nodded.

  “I’d like to tell you about him, if that’s okay? And what happened?”

  I made my way over and sat down next to her.

  “It was a year after that photo was taken. I was seven. He was five. Our annual family holiday. We always went to Oban in Scotland, every year, because my dad went there with his parents. Or so he’d say. Mum would say it was because he wanted to stash up on whisky and they made the good stuff. Not that he was a boozer or anything. I only remember him having the occasional glass on holiday or on a special occasion. You ever been? To Oban?”

  I shook my head no and considered letting her know that it was the shooting location for a superb romantic comedy called I Know Where I’m Going! but realized that this wasn’t the time to interject with pointless film trivia.

  She continued.

  “We’d been in the car driving all day, and so when we arrived, Mum and Dad said we could go out for ice cream. Lucas wanted to order this mammoth thing with a stupid name, Chocopalypse Now or something. It was a holiday, so Mum and Dad said yes. While he only managed about half of it, it still seemed like an extraordinary amount of food for a boy his size. As you can see, he was pretty scrawny. So when he started to complain about a stomachache, we just assumed it was the ice cream. Lots of ‘eyes are bigger than your belly’ teasing.”

  She took a deep breath for the hardest part.

  “His appendix ruptured, they think, on the way back to the cottage. It shouldn’t happen so fast, and even when it does, you have time. If he’d made it to the hospital sooner…”

  She trailed off before finding something to ground her footing.

  “This was before mobiles and fucking Wi-Fi and all those great new things that could have saved a life.”

  It was the first time I’d heard Ellie swear since she told me her ethos on “mind-fuckery.” She made swearing count. Used it when it was needed. I sort of felt pissed off with myself for chucking curses out with little or no thought.

  One day I might need them.

  She stroked the side of the picture frame.

  “The older I get, the more I feel for my parents. All the ‘why didn’t we’s’ they must have obsessed about. ‘Why didn’t we take him to the hospital sooner?’ ‘Why didn’t we listen when he first started to complain?’ ”

  She shook her head at the questions, as if she was actively shaking them out of her mind.

  “I read somewhere that the brain is designed to remember bad memories better than good ones. Some sort of fight-or-flight, Darwin, evolution thing. You’re wired to recall bad stuff so you can deal with it better next time.”

  She was sitting next to me, but she was years away.

  “I can’t. I can’t remember a single bad mom
ent with him. All he ever wanted to do was sit next to me and cuddle.”

  A heavy sigh signified she was done thinking about it, and so she wrapped it up thus: “You can go two ways with it. Hate the world and its random acts of unkindness, or decide that you only have one life and you’d best live it because it won’t last. I chose the former for as a long as I could. I prefer the latter.”

  Throughout her telling of this tale, I felt all the muscles in my face sagging and the familiar sting of tear ducts awakening in the corners of my eyes. She was staring at the picture of her and Lucas and so hadn’t noticed, but eventually she looked up to see the mess of snot and tears on the bed next to her.

  She let out a surprised little laugh at my woeful appearance, but one with zero malice.

  “Nick.”

  “I’m sorry, I…”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to say sorry.”

  She looked at me with compassion. This person telling me of her loss was comforting me, making sure I was okay as she remembered and recounted the most difficult time in her entire life.

  And then she kissed me.

  I declined Lizzie’s invitation to the new—written but not directed by—Coen brothers movie, concluding it was definitely a “nice person feeling sorry for a loser” invite. Instead, I decided to go alone.

  I turned up early so I could apologize to Seb first. He was so disgustingly magnanimous about the whole thing I could feel myself getting enraged again, ready to throw insults and a hissy fit. I know he has my best interests at heart. He wants me to keep working here until I find another job, to have the protection that he thinks I need. But while I phrased it wrong, I meant what I said about not being tied down.

  This is an opportunity.

  A unique opportunity.

  The trailers are almost over and I’m still the only one in the screen. Usually I’d be praying that no latecomers arrive and sit right in front of me, babbling incessantly while grazing on popcorn. I’d never let them get away with it, of course. On several occasions I’ve either called on a fellow projectionist for backup or stopped the show myself. This approach has, in the past, almost led to violence, but the end result—a respectful, non-talking cinema audience—is, to me, entirely worth it.