It was a lovely ceremony—Jewish Modern, with a really cool young rabbi. My eyes got all watery when I saw how Jeff was looking at Laurie. He’s always Mr. Agent, but standing there in front of his bride and his loved-ones, he was Mr. Laurie.

It’s impossible not to imagine what it would be like to be up there, marrying someone you’re committed to spending the rest of your life with, in front of the most important people in your life. When I imagine it, I still picture myself standing in front of John Cusack aka Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. I’m a brain, trapped in the body of a game show hostess. I’m wearing an off-white silk charmeuse slip dress and a fresh flower halo and I’m barefoot. He’s wearing his beige trench coat over an ironic dusty blue tuxedo. Instead of reciting vows, he’s holding up his boom box and In Your Eyes is blaring from the speakers, because no words will ever mean more than that. Ever.

Lloyd Dobler has ruined my life. No living human male could ever be as sweet and devoted a boyfriend as he was, and I could never write a romantic comedy hero as lovely as him. It is my cross to bear.

I could feel Braddock aka The Anti-Dobler looking over at me when I was wiping my eyes. I didn’t meet his gaze, of course, but the nerve of him. Yeah, I’m human, I cry at weddings. Look away. Sheesh.

Maya was right about one thing. Of course they seated Scott and me at the same table. Also seated at our table are Laurie and Jeff’s B-list relatives. When they asked how I know the bride and groom, I told them that Laurie is my literary agent. They asked if they would have read any of the books I’ve written. I explained that I write screenplays for movies. They got very excited and asked which movies I wrote and when I told them that none of the scripts I’ve written have been produced yet, they looked confused and sad for me.

“A studio bought your script and they won’t make it into a movie? Does Laurie know about this? Can’t she do something?” “Yes. Laurie knows. It’s quite common, actually. A surprisingly small percentage of the scripts that are bought ever get made.”

This is how most conversations about my career have gone with my own relatives.

When they asked Braddock the same question, he told them that he wrote the last season of Friends and they asked to take a picture with him.

So. That pretty much says it all.

Now we’re dining here in the courtyard under heat lamps and fairy string lights, the speeches have been given, we’re onto dessert, we’ve all named every movie and TV show we can think of that was filmed here at Greystone Mansion without looking it up on our phones (There Will Be Blood, The Big Lebowski, Spiderman, The Prestige, The Bodyguard and my personal favorite—it served as Chilton Academy in Gilmore Girls), and I’ve managed to keep from throwing up in my mouth—despite having to watch Maya and Sam act like they’re the newlyweds, and having to sit next to Braddock, who acts like we aren’t arch enemies for some annoying reason.

“You’re half-Scottish?!” Maya puts her hand on Sam’s forearm and leans in my direction. “If you put on a kilt, Erin will probably propose to you. She’s obsessed with Outlander.”

“Oh yeah?” says Scott, jumping in and perking up. “The books or the show?”

I let Maya answer for me. “Both.”

He smirks. “I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing would that be?”

“Time travel romances.”

“Uh oh here we go,” says Maya, rolling her eyes.

My hand slaps down on the tabletop, startling everyone. “Sorry,” I say to the B-list relatives. I sit up straight, lower my voice, and hiss at Scott. “The Outlander series is so much more than that! The books and the show—the writing is high caliber and it’s entertaining and it’s about history and loyalty and honor and yes there is time travel but it doesn’t rely on the tropes of that genre—it’s an epic romance most of all with two incredibly strong characters and a wretched antagonist and so so so much passion!”  My eyes are tearing up. It’s humiliating. 

He pats the top of my hand. “That sounds great Duffy I’ll check it out.”

I snatch my hand away. “Don’t bother, you wouldn’t like it.”

He smiles and shakes his head.

Nothing that I say ever fazes him, no matter how obnoxious. It’s infuriating.

Maya leans over towards Scott. “Scott Braddock! Mr. Fletcher here tells me that you speak French and Italian.”

Oh fuck you Maya don’t do this to me.

“Si,” he says. “C’est vrai.”

She looks at me when she says: “Say something else in French.”

I had also conveniently forgotten that he speaks sexy foreign languages. His mother is French and Italian. He has that deep European kind of voice. Too bad he always says such stupid idiot annoying things with it. He holds up his wine glass and starts saying something in French, a poem probably, or a quote from Jean Paul Sartre. I take that moment to pull out my phone and listen to a voicemail from my Mom. She butt-dialed me. I can hear the car radio and my dad telling her where to park, but I pretend that I’m listening to something very important. Maya is frowning at me and I smile at her—nice try, I am not falling for this, my fake smile says.

“Now say something in Italian.” Her wicked smile says oh yes you are.

He starts reciting a monologue from Cinema Paradiso, which has been one of my all-time favorite movies since high school, and he knows this. It’s Alfredo telling the story of a soldier who falls in love with a princess. I don’t want to hear it, but it’s such a beautiful monologue, I don’t dare interrupt. I actually start to feel something deep in my belly, like the beginning of an orgasm, but it may also be cramping from food poisoning. Please let it be food poisoning.

“Amazing,” Maya croons, still looking at me.

“One of my all-time favorite movies,” he says.

“It’s one of my all-time favorite movies,” I say.

“Oh that’s right, I forgot you’re the only one who’s allowed to love Cinema Paradiso.”

“I love that movie,” says Sam. “Have you seen it?” he asks Maya.

“I haven’t. Erin’s always telling me I have to watch it and that I’ll cry.”

“It’s so dumb that you haven’t watched it.”

“Well, I’ve been busy.”

“You have to watch it,” Sam says. “You should watch it at my place—I’ve got a home theatre.”

“He does have a sweet set-up,” Scott says.

“I just might do that,” Maya says.

This can’t be happening. I still can’t quite tell if she actually likes Sam or if she’s doing this to get me to talk to Scott more. Regardless, it’s not working and I object on principle, no matter how attractive Sam is. I look around, trying to make eye contact with Laurie, who is at her table, busy talking to someone else. Literally everyone else here is busy talking to someone else, including the other people at our table.

Scott inches his chair over closer to me. The fact that he is not put-off by my obnoxiousness towards him is infuriating. His eyes are the same color as the iced tea that I’m drinking and I have to work really hard to keep from throwing it in his face when he leans back in his chair and looks over at me. “So how’ve you been, Duffy? What are you working on?”

This is the conversation I’ve wanted to avoid. “Oh you know. I finished a spec half a year ago. It didn’t sell, but Laurie’s been sending it out to directors and actors. You know how it goes.”

“Yeah. Who would’ve thought the movie business would be so slow? We’re a couple of stubborn idiots, huh, not getting into television.”

I know he didn’t mean it as an insult, but I heard the words “we’re a couple” and it’s like my ears were lit on fire. “Are you saying you aren’t busy being the darling up-and-coming go-to screenwriter for every studio that doesn’t know any better?”

“Nah, it’s rough out there. For real. I mean I go to a lot of meetings and pitch my take on assignments and write my spec scripts, just like you, but it’s like if you aren’t in the Marvel game there’s basically no point in being alive.”

These are my sentiments exactly, but I refuse to agree with him. “Well. Every person I meet with is in love with you.” Wait. Did I just compliment him? That’s not how it was supposed to come out.

“Well every person I’ve met with is in love with you. As soon as they hear I went to Emerson, people are all ‘oh do you know Erin Duffy, she’s so cute I love her! I love her Black List script!’”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously. I loved it too, by the way.”

“You read it?”

“Yeah. Laurie sent it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked her for it.”

I think my brain is broken. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to read it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d read it before now?”

“Probably because you always run away from me as fast as you can whenever you see me. I thought it was really charming and clever and romantic and your writing style has really improved since school, I was impressed.”

I know he doesn’t mean this to be condescending, but… “Well we can’t all be born brilliant scriptwriters like Scott Braddock.”

He shakes his head. “You never could take a compliment.”

“You’ve never figured out how to give one.”

He laughs. “Fair enough.”

Is he conceding? Is this an admission that I am correct? Is Hell freezing over? Is that why my nipples are getting hard?

“I actually passed on pitching my take for a rewrite project at Paramount last month, that one about the high school dance crew? I told them you’d be great for it—did you go in on it?”

And we’re back to our regularly scheduled program. Suddenly I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. What did he just say to me? I search his face for clues—does he realize how condescending he’s being? Does he?

“I mean it was a terrible project, it’ll never get made. But you would have been able to whip it into shape anyway.”

I force a smile and shake my head.

“What? Was that a dick thing to say? That was not mean to be dick-ish, I just meant it was right up your alley, genre-wise.”

“Oh, it’s my alley if it’s a terrible project that will never get made?”

“No, I mean it was YA.”

“I thought you made YA one of your many alleys.”

“Not for a while, actually. It was just that one script back at Emerson.”

I look around. I cannot lose my shit with him. There are too many people here that I want to work with someday. I don’t want them to remember me as that crazy girl who beat up Scott Braddock at Jeff and Laurie’s wedding.

“Sorry,” he says. “I meant you could have made the script a lot better. I guess that came out wrong.”

“You came out wrong.”

He smiles. “You’re not the first to say so.”

“Honestly, what is wrong with you?”

“You tell me, Duffy. I’ve always wondered.”

I accidentally stare at his mouth and suddenly all I can think about is how it was once attached to Brianna’s vulva. I make an involuntary weird growling sound, and push my chair back, almost knocking over a server. “Oh my God I’m so sorry!” I don’t look back, I just speed-walk to the inside of the mansion.