“But the Phantasm is just your type of guy, Liv,” Fi declared, continuing our argument as we took our seats, popcorn in hand. “He’s melodramatic and brooding, and oh so serious. He’ll never go for the easy laugh or the appealing turn of phrase, that one. You may be in for a treat. I have a sneaking suspicion you’re really going to love this one.”
I didn’t. As expected, I hated it. I actually dozed off a couple of times. But whenever the Phantasm himself was onscreen, I was somewhat mesmerized. Not in an attraction sort of way, and certainly not in an I’m-enjoying-this-movie sort of way, but in a “Where have I seen that guy?” sort of way. Also, perhaps, in a the-people-who-made-this-movie-should-be-exiled-to-a-leper-colony sort of way.
“Who plays the Phantasm?” I leaned over and whispered as a scene at a masquerade ball droned on and on.
“Hamish MacDougal. He’s super cute without the mask.”
Never heard of him. “What’s he been in, besides this?”
Fi turned to me and whispered through gritted teeth, “Shut up. You’re ruining the magic!”
For me, the magic was that it finally ended.
“Liv, come on. Let’s go.” She nudged me awake, and after I wiped the slobber off of my chin, we stood to make our merciful exit. “Enjoy the movie?” she asked, her voice dripping with snark.
For more than twenty years, Fiona and I had disagreed on movies. It all began in 1983 when we got to go to a movie by ourselves for the first time. We weren’t totally by ourselves—my older brother, Brandon, had just gotten his driver’s license, and Mom said he could only go to the movies with his friends if he took Fi and me along. Brandon and his buddies were supposed to see Return of the Jedi but snuck into Octopussy instead. Fi and I, meanwhile, were supposed to watch E.T., and Fi did. I snuck into Gandhi and cried when I had to leave early.
From that day on, she and I only went to movies together if we had time to see two, back-to-back. She would pick one, I would pick the other.
We left Magnum Opus Phantasm and headed directly to Hotel Rwanda.
“What else has that Phantasm guy been in?” I asked again as we waited for the underappreciated Don Cheadle instant classic to begin.
“Hamish MacDougal? Umm . . . he was in that Crypt Scavenger movie with Angelina Jolie.”
“I saw that,” I said, munching on popcorn. “I didn’t like it, but I saw it.”
“Yes, I know. I’m the one who took you to see it. But he wasn’t in that one.” Fi smiled and pulled her legs in as a studly stud of a man scooted past us to his seat, making googly eyes at my best friend. “He was in the sequel. I didn’t bother taking you to the sequel.”
“And for that I thank you.”
* * *
I didn’t think of Hamish MacDougal again until the next morning, when he popped up on Good Morning America. In an instant, I knew.
“Fi! Fi! Come here!”
But I’d forgotten she wasn’t there. She had just started her new job as Vera Wang’s office manager. And don’t think for a moment that this office manager position meant she sent faxes or got coffee or ordered paperclips. Oh no. This is Fiona we’re talking about. Her job duties included sitting down with rich (often celebrity) brides and finding out what dreams they had for their wedding dress. She would then take her notes to Vera, who would decide if she was willing to create a dress for them or not.
I picked up the phone and called the only other person who would understand.
“Kubrick & Coppola, this is Liam. Can I help you?”
“Liam, it’s me. Do you remember me telling you about Sexy Irish Guy? Remember? The guy I met in the coffee shop?”
“Um, yeah, I remember. I think. But I’m actually working right now.”
“I know, but I had to tell someone. So, this guy, who I was sure would never be anyone—it was Hamish MacDougal!” I was still staring at him on my television, absolutely certain it was him. I wasn’t listening to a word he said, though I had heard enough to recognize the accent. All I saw was the kindness and humor in his eyes and that wonderful, curly hair. It was definitely him.
“Seriously?” Liam squealed. “Hamish MacDougal? The Hamish MacDougal?”
“Yes! Can you believe that?”
He sighed. “I assure you, Olivia, I have no idea who Hamish MacDougal is.”
Would I ever quit reaping the benefits of Liam’s unearthed sense of humor?
“However . . .” I heard keyboard clacking in the background. “The results of a quick internet search inform me that he is not Irish. He’s Scottish. I will say, however, no matter how much it threatens my masculinity to do so, he is pretty doggone sexy. And most assuredly a guy. A guy who doesn’t appear to own a shirt . . .”
“What?” I yelled, running to my computer. “He’s on the internet?”
Liam laughed. “It’s 2005, my friend. Everyone is on the internet.”
Wow. “Okay. Scottish. So I wasn’t too far off, right?” I searched for “Hamish MacDougal,” spelling it as well as I could. Only a few seconds passed before I discovered, much to my embarrassment, that he’d already been a fairly successful working actor before I ever implied he was destined to achieve heights no higher than Angus & Marie’s Detective Diner Murder Mystery Dinner Theater on the corner of Sunset and Van Ness.
“I’m fairly certain all of Scotland and Ireland would beg to differ, but whatever makes you happy. Can I go now?”
Dear people of Scotland and Ireland,
You know the drill. Sorry.
Love,
Olivia
“Of course,” I said as I continued scanning my screen. “Thanks, Liam.”
“Do we call him Sexy Scottish Guy now?” he asked, no doubt teasing me.
“Well, I suppose we call him Hamish MacDougal.”
“Actually, according to IMDb, his friends call him Mac. And it appears his mother calls him Mish. Should we start calling him Mish?”
“Goodbye, Liam.” I smiled and got ready to hang up, but he caught me.
“It is ironic, though, don’t you think?”
“What is? Please don’t sing again.”
“Well, that would make it doubly ironic. Last year you ended up in the coffeehouse where you met him, and this year, on the same date, you found out who he is. That’s pretty ironic.”
I looked up at the calendar in surprise. He was totally right. After last year I had removed my computer notification, knowing instinctively that Fiona would never allow me to forget the date. But I hadn’t counted on Fiona being too busy with Vera Wang to bombard me with her hopeless romanticism.
Apparently I had a backup.
“I can’t believe you remembered that.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, believe it or not, I don’t get dumped often. I am somewhat of a catch, you know.”
Ahhh! The guilt!
I’d paced the hallways of his apartment building for hours until he finally showed up after getting off work at 11:00 p.m. Then, in fairness, I hadn’t so much dumped him as simply pointed out all of the reasons he and I would never work out, all of which had been cemented in my mind while I waited. For the most part, they had been true, actual reasons. I needed to focus on my career; he needed to focus on his career; more and more dates were being canceled as his schedule became more and more unpredictable. Nothing but truth in any of that. Of course, I hadn’t bothered to tell him that the moment he started making me laugh, hours earlier in that coffeehouse, he had morphed into a package of perfection I felt ill equipped to handle.
He hadn’t fought me too hard on any of it. He’d apologized that his work schedule had become so hectic and assured me he completely understood. He was so sensible and matter-of-fact about it all that I immediately began to wonder if I was making a huge mistake. Maybe he wasn’t the spontaneous, unpredictable leading-man type I feared he was. After all, the leading man would never go down without a fight.
On the phone, a year removed from all of that, there was a moment of silence I attempted
to overanalyze into submission before I asked, “We’re okay, right?”
“Oh goodness, yes!” He laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just ironic.”
Liam and I were better as friends. I was sure of that. It hadn’t been a seamless transition from romance to friendship, but when you get stuck in an earthquake shelter with your ex-boyfriend four months after you break up, and everyone else seeking protection alongside you looks like they wandered out of a particularly rough tribal council on Survivor, it’s difficult not to strike up a conversation. That claustrophobic first post-breakup conversation had continued over lunch, and then it had pretty much continued for the eight months since.
“Hey, look,” my good friend said, interrupting my reverie. “He was in a Bond movie!”
Embarrassment washed over me anew. Don’t hit on me. Good luck with your career. Don’t give up on your dreams! Sheesh.
I hung up the phone, then spent a few more minutes obsessing over every little Hamish MacDougal detail I could find on the internet. The internet on which he was, indeed, quite prevalent. As I obsessed, I kept trying to convince myself that it wasn’t a good idea to bother Fiona at work in only her second week on the job. Ultimately, of course, I just had to. Liam had been such a glaring disappointment in the share-my-enthusiasm department.
I hurried to the refrigerator, pulled Fi’s new business card from its magnetic home, and quickly dialed the number.
“Fiona Mitchell,” she answered.
That took me off guard. “Seriously?” I asked, as impressed with her as ever. “You get to answer your phone with your name, when you work at a company that is completely built on someone else’s name?”
She chuckled. “What’s up, Livi?”
“I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I have to tell you something. And I’m prepared for the possibility that you might not believe me. This is the biggest thing that has ever happened in my life.”
I may have overshot a little, but more than anything that was probably an accurate reflection on the lack of big things in my life to that point.
“I’m nervous,” she replied softly.
“Hamish MacDougal, Fi. Hamish MacDougal!”
She paused, understandably confused. “Um, okay. Am I . . . am I supposed to name someone else, or—”
“No, listen. Hamish MacDougal is Sexy Irish Guy.”
“But he’s Scottish.”
I groaned. “Yes, I know that now. Considering how horrible I am at dialects and geography and everything, I think I was actually pretty close.”
“You do know they are completely separate countries, right?”
“You’re missing the point, Fiona! It was Hamish MacDougal. I had the most real, most genuine encounter with a stranger that I’ve ever had in my entire life, and it was with Hamish MacDougal, who just happens to be the biggest star on the planet!”
She laughed. A little too much. “He’s not.”
He wasn’t? No, I didn’t follow celebrity news like Fiona did, but I thought Magnum Opus Phantasm had taken over the world. I sure hadn’t been able to escape the billboards. “But that movie is huge, right?”
“Eh,” she replied, underwhelmed. “It’s done okay, but not as well as anyone thought it would. Better internationally, I’m guessing. He certainly got some good press from it, and I think he’ll blow up here pretty soon. But so far . . . eh. It doesn’t help that you can only see half of his face, but—”
“Fiona!” I shouted into the phone a little more emphatically than I had intended, but I was without regret. “Forget it. I’ll talk to you later.”
I heard her exhale, and then she sweetly said, “I’m sorry. You tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it. What’s more, I’ll sell it.”
I smiled, having no doubt that was true. “No, it’s fine. Thanks. I think I just got excited, and I thought you would be excited too.”
“Yeah, sorry.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I think for me it’s probably a little bit sad that the mystery is over. Does that make sense?”
That made total sense, though it hadn’t occurred to me. But it only made sense that Fi felt that way. I certainly didn’t. The mystery had been an annoyance that caused me to slap my forehead on occasion to chastise myself for not asking his name—a simple thing that would have helped me avoid all mystery from the onset. But I knew Fiona, and I knew that to her the mystery represented romance. And romance was her lifeblood. As all of that dawned on me, I started to apologize. I felt horrible that I had ruined it for her. But I didn’t get the chance.
“Hang on a minute,” she blurted out as new energy coursed through her romance veins. “You know who he is now. You can track him down. We can find his agent, at least.”
“And then what?”
“Well, now that you know who he is, you know who he was when you met him. You know that he was already working and somewhat successful by the time he met you. And he was still crazy about you, Liv!”
“He wasn’t crazy about me.”
She ignored the reality I had attempted to infuse into the conversation. “I think the key is to get to him before he blows up and gets too big to socialize with the little people.”
Fiona was, without a doubt, the most important person in the world to me, and she pretty much always had been. Nevertheless, I did, on occasion, fantasize about dropping her off in the middle of a hayfield or something, just for a few hours.
“Have we met? Do you know me at all? Seriously, after nearly thirty years together, how can you possibly think that I want to be with a big movie star? That I would want to squeeze in there before he becomes too important to mess with me? If you recall, two years ago I knew I wasn’t interested in him because he was too handsome. Too charming. Too . . . whatever. So now that I know he’s famous, you think that will win me over? Quite the opposite, I assure you. You know me, Fiona. You know I’m more likely to be interested in a romantic relationship with the guy who counts the votes. The accountant guy who gets to rent a tux and go to the Oscars so he can be introduced and stand there looking uncomfortable for thirty seconds while the host assures us for the millionth time that no one has seen the list of winners except for that guy. That’s the guy I’m more likely to date.”
I made a mental note to do a little more research once I got off the phone and make sure Hamish hadn’t already won an Oscar by the time he told me he’d be back with an armful of them in ten years. That would confirm he’d just been messing with me, and that would be disappointing. One likes to believe one can trust a stranger one spends thirty chaotic minutes with. “I could not be less interested in a romantic relationship with Hamish MacDougal. There’s no love story there, Fi. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Okay.” But it was not an “okay” of resignation. She was just preparing to step up to the bench as an advocate on behalf of her plaintiff, the devil. “Then why do you care? Why are you so excited? Why, may I ask, is this the biggest thing ever to happen to you in your entire life?”
Those were all good questions. I had never been impressed by celebrity, after all. As a fifteen-year-old girl I’d gone with my dad to game four of the Stanley Cup finals, and I’d had the good fortune to be seated next to Scott Baio during the infamous Boston Garden power outage. Not once in the forty-five minutes we spent seated next to each other in total darkness did I gush about how I wanted Charles in charge of me. I hadn’t begged for a Joanie Loves Chachi reunion. But I did walk away with his mother’s recipe for pork chops and fried apples, which I then proceeded to de-celebritize as much as possible through the years, passing it off as my own on the odd occasion that I cooked and never once giving Chachi’s mom the credit she deserved.
“I don’t know,” I grumbled, thoroughly disgusted by how quickly my balloon of excitement had been completely deflated. “I just thought it was cool.”
“I’m sorry, Livi.” I heard the smile in her voice and knew she was probably picturing me pouting with crossed arms, like we were
eleven again and she was refusing to join the Model UN Club I’d started at school. “It is cool. And it certainly should go a long way toward getting your screenplay made into a movie.”
I was sprawled out on the couch and therefore producing no tracks, but if I had been, I would have stopped dead in them. “Say that again.”
“Hey, sorry, I’ve got to go. A client just got here. We’ll talk tonight, okay?”
“No, wait, wait, wait!” I pleaded. “What did you just say? Say that again.”
“What? You mean about how the fact that the guy you are meeting up with in 2013 is already starring in big movies can only mean good things for you?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “That.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”
I was left alone with that singular thought. One which, shockingly, had not occurred to me as I’d watched the artist formerly known as Irish on television and vividly remembered that day. Suddenly I wasn’t working toward an impossible dream or even a far-fetched aspiration. I was writing a film for Hamish MacDougal. And perhaps Magnum Opus Phantasm hadn’t been the box-office smash that its marketing campaign wanted us to believe it was, but it was a major Hollywood film. And he was the title character. The lead role. The star. I was writing a screenplay for a star.
Supporting characters might not have happily-ever-afters with stars, but I had no doubt they wrote screenplays for them all the time.
I walked over to my laptop and disconnected it from its charger, then took it with me as I plopped back down on the couch. I opened my word processor and pulled up my work in progress—a list of characters, a poorly set scene, and a brilliant monologue or two made up of lines such as, “This isn’t New York, Mr. Mayor. We don’t have [INSERT SOMETHING NEW YORK HAS AND VERMONT DOES NOT] on every street corner, and that goes for our principles as well.”
I read a few of the plotting notes I had written for my story’s hero.
Name: Nigel Patton
Role: As the chief prosecutor in Landing’s Edge, Nigel is faced with the unexpected fight of his life when he unearths a path of corruption that affects almost everyone in town, all the way to the top. Possibly including Nigel’s estranged wife . . . the coroner? (The DA? A successful businesswoman? Nail this down later.)
Plot Twist Page 4
