Big Sexy Love: The laugh out loud romantic comedy that everyone's raving about!

by Kirsty Greenwood

  ‘You’ll always be a baby to me.’ She reaches to ruffle his hair. ‘Who are you?’ she says, turning to me. ‘Another girlfriend? What happened to Blondie?’

  ‘Not girlfriend,’ I say at the same time as Seth says, ‘Not my girlfriend, Phyllis. This is my friend Olive. She’s engaged.’

  I screw my face up as I shake Phyllis’s tiny hand. Engaged?

  ‘Good for you, honey,’ she says. ‘What’s his name? Is he from Staten Island? I might know him. Is he as handsome as our lil’ Hartman here?’

  I blink for a few moments, not believing just how out of hand this whole fake engagement has become.

  Phyllis pulls a face at Seth as if to ask, ‘who the heck is this moron?’

  ‘I believe her fiancé’s names is Colin Collins,’ Seth explains, throwing me an odd look.

  ‘Yes, yes of course!’ I stammer quickly. ‘Colin. Colin! He’s very handsome. He… has sideburns.’

  I allow myself a brief second to think of Colin’s lovely sideburns and his pleasant text messages.

  Phyllis pats me on the arm. ‘Very nice. Now you two kids take a seat, what can I get you?’

  ‘Two beers and a meatball pizza,’ Seth says, as we slide into one of the three booths opposite the bar. He turns to me. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be the jerk who orders without asking, but I promise you the meatball pizza is outta this world.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, the thought of meatballs and pizza together making me feel both nervous and excited. ‘I’ll just have a water, though,’ I say. ‘Bit early for me!’

  ‘We don’t serve water,’ Phyllis says stonily. I look to Seth to see if she’s joking but his face is as straight as hers. She might be old and skinny but she’s also kind of terrifying.

  ‘Um. Okay. A beer,’ I say.

  Phyllis, wiggles off to the bar, telling a rowdy customer to ‘go and fuck himself’ as she does so. The guy, a very large, bald-headed man immediately apologises for whatever he’s done to upset her.

  ‘How do you know Phyllis?’ I say, fascinated by this small fierce woman.

  ‘She was a groupie of my dad’s.’

  ‘A groupie?!’ I look over at Phyllis. I can see it actually. The loud pink dress, the clashing red hair, the big earrings. She looks like a rock chick. ‘Your dad was a musician? That must have been cool.’

  ‘He was a stand-up comedian, actually.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘That’s even cooler.’

  Seth smiles, almost to himself more than to me. ‘It was. He was amazing.’

  ‘Would I have heard of him?’

  ‘Nah. But he was pretty popular around Manhattan, at the Comedy Cellar and Dangerfield’s. He even did a spot on the Letterman show once.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yep. But he never quite made it big.’ Seth shrugs. ‘And now he’s in a nursing home upstate, making the other residents laugh in their old age.’

  A short, stocky dark-haired fella treads over to the booth and plonks down two bottles of beer so enthusiastically that they foam up, spilling out of the bottle neck.

  ‘Thanks, Sonny!’ Seth says, giving the man a big grin.

  ‘How’s it going, hotshot? How’s the fancy life? Clearly treating you pretty well.’ Sonny nods in my direction. I give him a smile.

  ‘Yeah, it’s all right!’ says Seth, his cheeks turning a little red.

  ‘Will we actually see you on TV at any point? Or they still keeping you locked up behind the scenes. Ain’t no one wanna put your ugly mug on screen!’ The guy punches Seth’s shoulder jokily.

  ‘I have an audition tomorrow actually,’ Seth tells him. ‘For a cast member position.’

  Sonny’s eyes widen. ‘Oh wow! Seth, that’s amazing.’ He clears his throat, his face turning serious. ‘Your pops would be proud.’

  Seth shrugs a shoulder. ‘We’ll see… Keep your fingers crossed for me.’

  When Sonny has returned to the kitchen to get our food, I look at Seth curiously.

  ‘You have an audition tomorrow?’ I ask. ‘Shouldn’t you be preparing right now?’

  Seth waves me away. ‘Ah, I’ve auditioned a gazillion times before,’ he tells me. ‘I never get it. They like me as a writer, but I always flake out on the stage.’

  ‘Flake out?’

  ‘I forget my lines.’ He pushes his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. ‘Which is crazy because it’s the same routine I’ve been doing for years.’

  ‘Well, do you prepare? Do you practise?’

  Seth laughs. ‘That’ll take all the fun out of it!’

  I shake my head, horrified. ‘Do you even want to be a cast member?’

  ‘Sure I do.’

  ‘Maybe you should prepare. So you won’t flake out this time?’

  Seth puts his arms behind his head and leans back against the booth. His top rides up a little, revealing a tiny bit of stomach. I think of James McAvoy and Keira Knightly in the library. I swipe the image quickly away. ‘What will be will be, I guess.’ Seth sighs.

  ‘What will be will be?’ I say incredulously. ‘That sounds like an awful way to live.’ I shudder at the very thought. ‘I like to know exactly what’s going to happen. In the words of Radiohead, No surprises, please.’

  ‘Where’s the excitement in that?’ Seth argues, taking a gulp of his beer.

  ‘Who says I’m looking for excitement?’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  I think of Mum leaving our family in her selfish bid for excitement. Of Alex and me sitting in the kitchen, crying because Dad was so sad and we didn’t know how to help him. I think of the past few days in New York. They’ve been what most people would call exciting. But I am technically on the run from the police and semi-famous for pissing in front of a stranger. That is not a positive thing.

  ‘Excitement is overrated.’ I lift my chin and take a small sip of beer. ‘Excitement is just terror with PR spin.’

  ‘You’re nuts,’ Seth laughs lightly.

  ‘Maybe I’m the sane one,’ I counter, tucking my hair behind my ear.

  ‘So… how is the prepare for every eventuality approach working out for you, huh?’

  ‘In general, absolutely fine.’ I fiddle with the strap on my satchel. ‘Obviously the past few days have been… complicated. But that’s only because I’ve been completely unprepared. I’m sure if I’d have known earlier that I was coming to New York, if I’d had time to arrange and organise everything, things would be going a lot more smoothly right now.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Yes! I mean, I only knew I was coming here hours before I flew out. I had no time to psyche myself to get on a plane, to get hold of Xanax, or whatever it was you suggested. If I had been adequately prepared I wouldn’t have acted so mental. Then I wouldn’t have been parodied on TV by an unscrupulous writer. Then I wouldn’t have had to collar you in the street, accidentally posting Birdie’s letter.’

  ‘And we wouldn’t be here enjoying this beer, about to have the world’s best meatball pizza,’ Seth adds with a lopsided grin. He rests his chin on his hand. ‘I think if you prepare too much in life, you end up stifling yourself, stifling your creativity. You leave no room for anything amazing to happen unexpectedly.’

  I scrunch my nose. ‘Unexpected things happening is my worst nightmare.’ I take a sip of my beer, enjoying the light pop and fizz of the bubbles on my tongue. ‘Surely a show like Sunday Night Live takes massive preparation. It’s live!’

  ‘Sure, it does. Most of the sketches are written on a Wednesday night. We work on them off the cuff, sometimes responding to news stories that have only just broken, or celebrities that have just said something ridiculous on Twitter. But things constantly change. So even if I prepared a perfectly written sketch, there’s a huge chance that it’s going to get rewritten and changed multiple times before the show. Sometimes things change even seconds before they’re due to air.’

  I wince at the thought.

  ‘And,’ Seth continues, slurping back his beer
and following it with a highly satisfied ‘aah’ noise, ‘the best moments the show has ever had have come out of the unprepared moments. When cast members improvise, or break character, or a musical guest does something controversial. That’s what people love the most.’

  I nod. ‘I get it. But if you’ve auditioned so many times to be on the cast and you’ve never gotten it, doesn’t it make sense to try something you haven’t done before – like practising? So you don’t flake out?’

  ‘I probably won’t get it anyway.’ He looks down at the table for a moment. ‘If I prepare and build it up too much, it’ll feel even shittier when it doesn’t work out. And I like being a writer. It’s almost my dream. And having that is pretty good going, you know?’

  I nod, thinking about what my dream is. Am I close to it? It takes me a few seconds to realise with a jolt that I don’t really have a dream. Not even an almost dream like Seth. No real goals I want to reach or heights to aspire to.

  Hmmm. Do I need a dream? Why do I need one? Can’t I be content with a steady life, a steady job, maybe a future with someone sweet like Colin. It might not set the world alight, but I’d be happy enough.

  Wouldn’t I?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Olive’s recent search history:

  Seth Hartman Sunday Night Live Idiot

  Lost post NYC

  Prison Sentence for stealing a key in USA?

  Orange Is the New Black

  Improv

  Improv Manchester

  Lupus

  Lupus cure

  Kidney disease cure

  Why no cure for kidney disease????

  Staten Island Ferry safe?

  Dr BJ Manchester Royal Hospital

  Where was Atonement Library scene filmed? Which library?

  Am I happy quiz

  How to tell if you are bored with your life quiz

  Sonny arrives at our booth with a massive pizza topped with meatballs. It’s ginormous. And it smells delicious, all tomatoey and spicy and terrible for me.

  ‘How you doin?’ Seth says to the pizza, an eyebrow raised flirtatiously. He picks up the pizza slicer and separates it into slices. ‘You lookin’ real fine.’

  Chuckling, I pick up a slice. It’s all doughy and heavy, the slice drooping in my hand, cheese sliding precariously to the left.

  ‘Hold it like this!’ Seth folds it slightly at the end. ‘Trust me, I am a pizza expert.’

  I follow Seth’s instructions and take a small bite.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I take another, bigger bite, the salted tomato sauce bursting with flavour in my mouth, combined with the gooey cheese.

  ‘Oh my god,’ I whisper. ‘Great Scott! Meatballs. On pizza. Fuck yes.’

  Seth looks me in the eye, nodding slowly, chewing down on another mouthful. ‘Fuck. Yes.’

  We go quiet while we munch down. At home I try to keep my meal choices simple and healthy – rice and veggies, chicken salads, lentil soup. Right now I realise I have been an idiot the whole time. I should have just been eating meatball pizza my entire life.

  I’m just finishing up my last slice when the alarm goes off on my phone. I wipe my tomatoey mouth with a paper napkin, and pull my phone out of my satchel to turn the alarm off.

  ‘Time to go!’ I say, folding the napkin and placing it neatly on top of my plate.

  ‘You set an alarm?’ Seth asks incredulously.

  ‘Of course!’ I say, patting my stomach in satisfaction. ‘I can’t miss the next ferry? I really do need to get to Wall Street.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Seth says, looking slightly disappointed. When he goes to the bar to settle the bill, I double- and triple-check that I have the letter in my satchel. I do. I definitely have it. It’s right there and it’s not going anywhere except for right into Chuck’s hands.

  I pull my umbrella out in anticipation of the rainy walk back to the terminal.

  When Seth’s paid and hugged Phyllis and Sonny goodbye, I call out my thanks for a delicious meal, drain the last of my beer and head to the door.

  As I step out of the bar and flip open my umbrella, the wind blows so fiercely that it turns completely inside out.

  Argh!

  I yelp, trying to wrestle my brolly back into shape, meanwhile getting absolutely soaked through by rainfall that feels like someone chucking a bucket of water over my head.

  ‘Help!’ I yell as I grapple with the umbrella, ducking as one of the spokes almost stabs me in the boob.

  Seth appears behind me, mouth agape at the state of the sky. He grabs the top of the parasol and yanks hard, but the wind howls past us so quickly that it’s no use. This isn’t wind. It’s super wind.

  Across the street my eyes widen, horrified, as a wooden gate opens and closes so furiously that it almost comes off its hinges. I try once more to make the umbrella work. I turn into the gale and hold the edges, but before I can stop it, it flies open again and hits Seth in the eyebrow. Shit! His eyebrow is bleeding. I’ve maimed him! I’ve maimed him with my umbrella! Oh no!

  I try to yell sorry over the sound of the storm, but it’s too loud. Seth grabs my hand and yanks me back inside the bar, blood trickling from his forehead.

  ‘Shit! Shit! I’m so sorry!’ I shriek, panting as Seth touches a hand to his head. ‘Are you all right?’

  Phyllis hurries over at the commotion.

  ‘Baby, your head! Let me get you a Band-Aid.’ She jogs off behind the bar.

  ‘I’m fine!’ Seth assures me. But there’s blood everywhere!

  I reach into my satchel and pull out the handkerchief Mrs Ramirez gave to me, pressing it against the cut.

  ‘Thanks,’ Seth says, putting his hand over mine to stop the bleeding. ‘Honestly, I’m completely fine.’

  ‘Good. Good,’ I say, removing my hand from underneath his.

  ‘Looks like we’re gonna need to get a cab back to the ferry port.’

  ‘Definitely,’ I say wide-eyed. There’s no way I’m going back out there again without the cover of a car!

  Phyllis returns with a plaster and some cotton wool, instructing Seth to sit back down in a booth so she can tend to him. While she’s fussing over him, Seth pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket and taps out a minicab number, while I unbutton my coat and use my dry jumper sleeve to dab at my wet face.

  ‘A cab from Trickys on St Mark’s Place to St George Terminal, please.’

  Seth frowns.

  ‘What? Really? Why? Well… can we get a cab straight to Manhattan then? And the ferries?’

  ‘What are they saying?’ I whisper nervously. ‘Is there a long wait? I mean, I’ll be okay as long as I can get to Wall Street before close of business.’

  Seth presses a button on his phone, ending the call.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ he says. ‘The cabs aren’t running. The storm is getting really bad. The drivers have been told to stay off the roads.’

  Shit!

  I start to pull my coat back on. I’m gonna have to walk it. I need to get to Wall Street this afternoon! ‘You stay here,’ I say. ‘But I really need to go. I’ll just brave it.’

  Seth puts his hand on my arm. ‘Olive… the ferries have been cancelled until the storm clears.’

  I frown. ‘When… when will that be? An hour? Oh jeez, two hours? It’s Tuesday and my flight back is on Thursday morning at 3 a.m. I don’t have much time to get this letter delivered!’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Seth says apologetically. ‘The cab guy just told me they were all cancelled.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Sonny!’ Phyllis shouts into the kitchen. ‘Have you heard anything about this storm?’

  Sonny shuffles into the room, grim-faced. He grabs the remote control and flicks through the channels on the TV. I’ve already got my phone out and am googling Staten Island Storm Ferries. But I needn’t bother because Sonny finds a news channel showing pictures of a very stormy Hudson river.

  The news anchor on screen looks into the ca
mera solemnly. ‘Sources suggest that the eye of the storm will pass through at around 1 a.m. While some treacherous weather was expected, a gale of this magnitude was not.’

  I flop onto the booth. ‘One a.m.?’ I mutter worriedly. ‘What?’

  ‘Both of you will stay here,’ Phyllis says, clapping her hands together, stirred into action. ‘I have a bunch of rooms upstairs.’

  ‘Are you sure, Phyllis?’ Seth asks. ‘That’s real kind of you.’

  ‘Nonsense. I got the room.’

  Stay here? I don’t have my stuff. I don’t have my pyjamas. And what about Chuck? I’ve already been here for three days and I’ve still not delivered the letter. What if he’s not there tomorrow? I can’t let Birdie down. I promised her!

  My heart thuds very slowly. I can hear it in my head. Boom. Boom. Boom. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Shit. I think I’m having a panic attack. I fumble in my bag distractedly for my bottle of Rescue Remedy. But it’s not there. Of course. It’s in the pink bumbag back at the Airbnb.

  I close my eyes, willing this uneasiness to bugger the hell off. Ugh. It’s horrid! I haven’t had a real panic attack for years. But then, not much has happened to me for years either!

  ‘Hey. Hey, Olive!’ I hear Phyllis’s voice saying my name, but it sounds all echoey and weird and I can’t focus. Then I feel something sharp and painful on my arm.

  ‘Motherfucker!’ I yell in pain.

  ‘There you are, honey.’

  My vision comes sharply into focus and I look across the booth where Phyllis is staring at my worriedly, Seth by her side wearing the exact same expression.

  ‘Did you… did you just pinch me?’ I gasp, rubbing my arm.

  ‘Yeah,’ Phyllis says with a nod. She takes hold of my hand. ‘You’re having a panic attack.’

  I nod, my heart still thudding slowly in my ears. I feel all hot and queasy.

  ‘I want you to focus on my face,’ Phyllis says

  I nod and focus on Phyllis’s tanned, pointed face.

  ‘That’s it,’ she says. ‘You are okay. Everything is okay. Say it back to me, honey.’

  ‘I am okay, everything is okay.’