Chloe turns to look at him. “Dude. Have you never seen a movie? Maximum drama means a ragtag group of supporters have to help Annie find her man. Her loving and kind uncle, her super-hot BFF, and some random guy who’s there because it’s funny.”
“So I’m the random guy,” Nick says flatly.
“You’re certainly not her uncle,” Chloe says.
We weren’t able to get four seats together, so once we get on the plane, I sit next to Chloe. Don and Nick sit several rows ahead of us.
“You’re doing it, Annie,” Chloe says, squeezing my hand.
My phone buzzes with a text notification.
ANNIE. READ THE SCRIPT. LOTS OF POTENTIAL. LET’S TALK SOON.—TOMMY
“Oh, my God.” I can hardly breathe.
“What?” Chloe grabs the phone out of my hands and reads the text. “Wow, he texts in all caps AND signs his name? He really must be ancient.”
“That’s what you’re focusing on? Tommy Crisante thinks my script has potential.”
“Duh.” Chloe hands my phone back. “I haven’t even read it yet, and I could’ve told you that. Speaking of which, when do I finally get to read it?”
I squirm a bit, and Chloe’s eyes widen. “Wait a second, you don’t want me to read it, do you? What, do you not trust me? Am I no longer your best friend? Did I or did I not make you pancakes this afternoon?”
She’s getting frantic, and the various families and businesspeople shuffling onto the flight are staring at us. I don’t want to get kicked off the flight for causing a scene, so I decide this is the time to tell her. “Keep it down, Chloe! I need to tell you something. The screenplay . . . it’s about you.”
She sits back, a look of confusion on her face.
“And Nick,” I continue.
“Wait, what?” she screeches, and I put a hand over her mouth. Maybe this was a bad idea.
“It’s just . . . you guys have perfect romantic comedy chemistry. You’re the quirky girl who doesn’t believe in love, and he’s the gruff dude who’s clearly obsessed with her.”
“Nick isn’t obsessed with me,” Chloe says, giving me a steely glare.
“Agree to disagree.”
Chloe smacks me on the arm. “This entire time, you’ve been writing about me? You showed Tommy Crisante a screenplay about me?”
I shrug. “I mean . . . yeah, sort of. Although in my screenplay you and Nick make out, which hasn’t happened in real life, as far as I know.”
“It certainly has not!” Chloe snaps, then hides her face in her hands.
“This isn’t that weird!” I say. “Look at The Big Sick. Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon wrote that about their real-life love story.”
“Yeah.” Chloe scowls. “But that was about their own love story. You’re basically writing fan fiction about my life. What, did you call us Rick and Zoe?”
I don’t say anything.
“Annie!” she shouts. “Change the damn names!”
I put a hand on her arm. “Hey. Are you really not okay with this?”
She eyes me warily. “You wrote a movie that’s a fictionalized version of my life where I end up making out with my boss. You get that that’s weird, right?”
For the first time, it hits me that . . . well, it is more than a little weird for her. To me, it was just writing, but she never signed up for Tommy Crisante to read a highly fictionalized version of her life story.
“Do you want me to scrap it?” I ask. “Because I can. Our friendship means a lot more to me than a movie.”
Chloe’s shoulders slump. “No, I don’t want you to scrap it. I mean, Tommy Crisante is already showing interest in it, and that’s a big deal for you.”
“He said it has potential,” I hedge. “A pound of raw hamburger has the potential to make a great burger, but that doesn’t mean I can eat it without cooking it.”
Chloe stares at me.
“Not without getting E. coli poisoning, anyway,” I say.
“Stop trying to change the subject to tainted beef.” She turns to face me fully. “This is the only thing you’ve been really passionate about the past few years, and I don’t want to stand in the way of that.”
“Chloe,” I say, my eyes welling with tears. “You’re the best.”
I pull her into a hug, and she says into my shoulder, “But try to make sure someone really hot plays me, okay?”
“I’ll do what I can,” I say, releasing her. As the preflight video plays and the flight attendant makes sure we’re all buckled in, it starts to sink in that I’m on a flight to New York. To find a man and . . . do what, exactly? Maybe I didn’t really think this plan through.
“What am I doing, Chloe?” I ask in a tiny voice, and she turns to face me again.
“Remember in The Wedding Singer? Remember how Adam Sandler needed to stop Drew Barrymore from getting married to that total jerk, so he got on a plane?”
I nod.
“In that scenario, Billy Idol was there, and also Adam Sandler had written a really lovely song about Drew . . . you haven’t prepared any music, have you?”
“I have not.”
“Okay, so we don’t have that, but everything else checks out. This is your big The Wedding Singer grand gesture, and air travel is the most romantic form of travel. Well, except for train, but that’s not exactly an option right now. Anyone can send a text; you’re going to show up in person.”
I nod again. Chloe’s right; this is a pretty grand gesture, and it worked in The Wedding Singer . . . Of course, as she mentioned, Billy Idol was there and Adam Sandler wrote a song. I look around the plane and I don’t see even one celebrity, major or minor. I’d settle for a YouTuber right now.
“I’m nervous,” I say.
Chloe pats my arm. “Of course, you are, but it’s Drew. Just go over your big, dramatic speech in your head.”
The plane takes off, and I immediately fall asleep. For some reason, this has always been my reaction to stress—if I’m facing too much or getting too nervous, my body’s like, “You know what? Let’s sleep this one off.”
I open my eyes and see Nick reading a paperback beside me.
“Where’s Chloe?” I ask groggily.
“Sitting with Don. She asked to switch seats because she wanted to sleep and you were snoring too loudly.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
He shrugs. “No problem for me. I don’t sleep on planes.”
I take in his rigid posture and the way his hands are fidgeting with the book. “Wait. Are you scared of flying?”
“I’m not scared of anything,” Nick mutters so quietly that I can barely hear him above the noise of the plane.
“You are,” I say, sitting up.
“I have an absolutely normal amount of apprehension about sitting in a metal tube and hurtling through the sky,” Nick says. “That’s not fear. That’s called being reasonable.”
In a low voice, even though there’s no way she could hear us several rows over and asleep, I say, “You should tell her.”
He eyes me skeptically. “Tell who what?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Chloe.”
“That I’m afraid of planes?” he asks, his eyes darting away.
“I thought you weren’t afraid.”
“Yeah, well.” He meets my eyes again and gives me a wry smile. “Maybe I’m afraid of some things.”
“You’re in love with her,” I say, a statement and not a question.
“I’m not . . . Love is a complicated thing,” he says, rubbing his hands over his stubble.
“Yeah, well, I’m flying to New York to confess my love for Drew. At least telling Chloe how you feel doesn’t involve air travel.”
“And yet I’m on a plane right now,” he says. He narrows his eyes. “So you really like this guy, huh?”
I nod.
“Well,” Nick says. “He didn’t bring in a bunch of bodyguards who peed on the seat, and he didn’t scare Gary with a rant about fluoride, so I’d say he’s okay.”
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“To be fair,” I say, “that’s a pretty low bar.”
I glance at my phone—it’s late now, and the coffee shop has been closed for a while. “Have you heard from Tobin?”
“Oh, God,” Nick says. “He probably forgot to lock up. I can’t believe I risked my livelihood on that kid.”
I smile and close my eyes, and when I open them, everyone’s putting their seat belts back on. This is it, as the great Kenny Loggins would say. We’re landing in New York City, a place I’ve never been, because I decided I had to end my romantic comedy with a dramatic run through the airport and a big grand gesture that seems more and more like a silly idea.
Nick grips my arm as the plane lands with a few bumps and skips down the runway, then pulls his hand back and clears his throat as soon as we’re stopped. “Don’t tell Chloe, okay?” he asks with a groan.
“I won’t,” I say, already imagining putting an airplane scene into my screenplay.
We disembark the plane, and one of the plus sides of traveling with absolutely no preparation or logic is that you don’t have to worry about luggage.
“Okay, so.” Chloe claps her hands together as we stand outside near the line of taxis. “Where do we go?”
“Um . . .” I haven’t thought this far ahead. “I don’t know?”
Nick blinks a few times. “You mean you—we—flew to New York and you don’t even know where this guy is?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I guess I got caught up in the moment.”
And then I remember: Good Morning USA.
“What time is it?” I shout.
“Uh, it’s like six A.M.,” Chloe says. “And also chill. You’re scaring people.”
“He’s going to be on Good Morning USA!” I tell her. “That’s where I can find him!”
“Alternatively,” Nick says, “you could text him. You know, like a normal person?”
“But there’s nothing romantic about texts!” Chloe says.
“I don’t know,” Uncle Don says with a shrug. “I’ve sent some pretty romantic texts in my time.”
I am zero percent prepared to hear about Uncle Don’s sexting history right now. “You guys, focus. I need to get to Good Morning USA.”
“Isn’t that one of those shows where you have to start lining up at, like, four A.M. just to stand outside the window and wave a sign?” Chloe asks.
“Yeah, but . . .” I think for a moment. “They film outside sometimes, too. Like, they have a stage set up, and everyone stands around it.”
“So either we yell at him from the crowd while he’s on the outdoor stage, or we create an elaborate sign that will get the attention of the producers and/or camera people inside,” Chloe muses. “I suggest something with a lot of profanity.”
“Let’s go,” I say, and I march over to the first cab I see, forcing as much confidence as I can. “Sir? Can you take us to the set of Good Morning USA?”
He looks me up and down. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”
“What? No! Why?” I ask.
He points to my hair. “Because you look, well, like maybe you’ve been attacked.”
I run my hands over my hair. It has, to be honest, reached previously unheard-of levels of unkempt, and that’s coming from someone who spends most of her days alone. Perhaps this is not the best look to confess my love to Drew in.
As if she can read my thoughts, Chloe steps between me and the taxi driver. “No. No. You cannot back out now. We’re in New York; we’re minutes away from Drew. You can do this. He doesn’t care what you look like.”
I turn to Nick and Don. “Do I really look that bad?”
Nick politely looks away, and Don says, “You’ve looked better.”
In a gentle voice, Chloe says, “You’re wearing a leopard-print coat over a Pizza Slut T-shirt. It’s not a glamorous look, hon. But Drew doesn’t care, okay? He’ll want to see you, not some lady in a beautiful dress. Like Yoda says, just do it.”
“That’s not actually what Yoda—” Uncle Don starts.
Chloe holds up a hand, still looking at me. “So not the point, Don.”
“If you aren’t getting in, move out of the way,” the driver says, no longer concerned about me now that he knows I’m not escaping an attack.
“Okay, okay,” I say, sliding into the back seat. “Let’s go.”
* * *
• • •
Our driver lets us out at the edge of a small crowd, facing the back of the outdoor stage, although we’re about ten rows of people away from it. The crowd is contained within metal gates, and intimidatingly large men in shirts marked SECURITY stand around them, arms crossed.
“Is that him?” Chloe asks, her voice high-pitched and excited as she points to the stage.
“The one in the red dress?” Don asks, squinting.
“That’s Teresa Perez, the anchor,” I say. “Drew’s the man beside her.”
“Ah,” Uncle Don says. “Okay, I see it now. Maybe I need to go to the eye doctor.”
Although we can only see their backs, I’d know those broad shoulders anywhere. Drew is standing next to his costar, and someone is fussing with their mic packs and their hair, so the interview must not have started yet. I might have time to get to him before it starts . . . if only I can get through this crowd.
I climb up on the gate and yell, “Drew!”
A forty-something woman wearing an orange windbreaker turns and gives me an apologetic look. “Oh, honey, good luck.”
“No, I know him,” I say.
As she takes in my leopard-print coat and my disheveled hair, her apologetic look turns into pity. “Of course you do, sweetie.”
“Ma’am.” A burly man approaches me and holds out a hand. “I’m going to have to ask you to step off of the gate.”
“But I need to get to Drew!” I say, getting frantic. By now, the woman in the orange windbreaker isn’t the only one watching me—pretty much everyone in the audience is. I look toward the stage again and shout, “Drew!”
“I’m here to stop women like you from getting to Drew, okay?” the man says, grabbing me by the shoulders and effortlessly placing me on the ground like I’m an annoying insect he’s swatting away.
“I have to tell him something!” I shout, and before the guard can stop me, I pull myself up on the gate again. “Drew! Drew!”
The burly man speaks into his walkie-talkie. “I’m gonna need some backup over here.”
Aside from some murmurs and a few nervous laughs, the crowd is silent as they watch this scene unfolding. Things are so quiet that it’s easy to hear when someone onstage yells, “Annie?”
The burly man has his arms wrapped around me as my feet pedal in the air when I see Drew onstage, looking toward me.
“Drew!” I shout again.
“It’s okay!” he yells to the guard as he easily leaps off the stage and over the gate into the crowd. “You can put her down. I know her.”
“I told you.” I give Orange Windbreaker a smug smile, and she rolls her eyes.
“God,” Nick says in awe. “He leapt over that gate like it was nothing.”
“He’s done a lot of training,” I say breathlessly, watching Drew make his way toward me, taking selfies with every woman in the crowd first.
“It’s very impressive,” Uncle Don says. “Did you know he used to eat ten chicken breasts every day?”
“I literally couldn’t do that,” Nick says. “I’ll just stay wimpy and skinny. It’s fine.”
“You’re not wimpy,” Don says, giving Nick a pat on the back. “Every body type deserves love.”
“Oh, my God, you guys,” I hiss. “I’m trying to focus on what I’m going to say to Drew, and I can’t when you’re having a body-positivity workshop behind me.”
“Annie,” Drew says once he makes his way to me. He hops over the gate. “What are—how did you—?”
I look at his face, at those soft brown eyes, his hair that’s gelled a little more than usual to stand up to the s
light wind today, those lips that I spent hours kissing, and everything I wanted to say floats away like a piece of paper in the breeze.
“I wanted to tell you something,” I squeak. And then I clear my throat. I didn’t fly all the way from Ohio to New York to give Drew some half-assed, weak declaration of like. I came here to make a declaration of love, dammit.
I look over my shoulder at Chloe, and she gives me a thumbs-up, which is all that I need to go on. Because I know that, Drew or not, I’m not lonely like a rom-com heroine. I have Chloe and Uncle Don, and I always will, even if eventually we don’t all live on the same property.
I turn my face back to Drew, who’s looking at me expectantly.
So I open my mouth and start talking.
“I wanted to have some big speech for this moment, because that’s what this is supposed to be, right? Matthew McConaughey on a bridge telling Kate Hudson not to leave? Adam Sandler singing Drew Barrymore a song? Or Katherine Heigl interrupting a wedding to tell James Marsden that she’s falling in love with him in 27 Dresses?”
“Oh, I love that movie!” says Orange Windbreaker.
“It’s underrated, right?” I say.
“So underrated,” she murmurs.
I look at Drew, the confusion on his face, and remember what I came here to do.
“If this was a movie,” I continue, “I’d have some beautiful, poetic speech that has that one really great line people quote years later. But what I recently found out is . . . this isn’t a movie. My life is just my life. Maybe it doesn’t have that perfect narrative arc or characters who are just lovably quirky. Maybe it has some people who have actual flaws, like the really big glaring kind. Maybe people are going to let me down, and I’m going to let them down, and things aren’t necessarily going to end with a slow pan out and a sweeping instrumental score. And that’s okay! Because what I’m trying to say is . . .”
I take a look around me. Orange Windbreaker is looking at me in wonder, her mouth open like everyone else in the crowd, including . . .
Oh, God, there are camerapeople here now. I look into the camera for a second and freeze, then shake my head. I have to keep going.
Waiting for Tom Hanks Page 22
