It Only Happens in the Movies

by Holly Bourne

“All right?” he nodded at us and I was rendered temporarily incapable. My arm moved up in this odd-frozen half wave and I coupled it with a toothy grin that I’m sure made me look like a constipated bear.

  “All right?” Leroy replied, because that’s how normal people behave. “You auditioning for Guys and Dolls next week?”

  “Of course, of course,” Milo said. His arm hadn’t once left Her shoulder. I took a step behind Ian, like his body could protect me from emotional pain. “Who you reading for?” Milo asked Leroy, barely acknowledging me.

  “I’m not sure yet. Maybe Nicely Nicely. And you? Let me guess…”

  “Sky Masterson,” Milo interrupted, not getting the joke. He grinned, in that pretend-humble way I’m sure he’d practised in the mirror. “How about you guys?” He gestured to me and Ian and it felt like a thousand needles flew out from his fingers and embedded themselves into my guts. You guys? I’m just one of “you guys”? Ian was talking and I stood there frozen – thinking, This is my revenge for being rude to the girls. I deserve this.

  “How about you, Audrey?” Courtney asked me. “You’re still auditioning, right?”

  I forced myself to look at her. Even despite the vaguely-unfortunate new fringe, she looked amazing. Her bright red lipstick, her perfect eyeliner flicks, that mole just above her lip.

  “Oh, me?” Bugger, bugger, bugger. I couldn’t talk to them. I’d promised myself I’d never talk to them. “I’m not doing the play this year,” I managed to garble out.

  Both of them looked shocked. Maybe Courtney looked relieved? I mean I guess, until recently, I was Drama Club’s golden girl, the shoo-in for every lead going. Our old Drama Head refused to even speak to me when I quit.

  “Why not, Audrey?” Milo asked, casually.

  I mean, why wouldn’t he be all casual? It’s not like he’d looked at me this one time, walking home from school, with the light shining behind him and stopped me and said, “Audrey, I can’t not say it any more, I love you…”

  “I’ve got a job.” I shrugged. All shruggy shrug. “It conflicts with rehearsals and it’s not like I’m doing Drama any more. I work at Flicker Cinema now.”

  “No way,” Courtney said. “I love that place. Like, I never knew I needed cinnamon dust in my life before I went there.”

  I nodded like a nodding dog who had a gun pointed at the back of its head and was told it would get shot unless it kept on nodding. “Don’t forget the pulled pork hot dogs.” I sounded like I worked in Disneyland. “So, yeah, too busy for the play this year. The cinema’s great though. You guys should totally come.”

  Why was I saying that? What was wrong with me?

  Milo looked dubious, but Her eyes lit up. “Amazing, we so should! Could you get us a discount?”

  “Yeah, of course!” WHY DID I KEEP TALKING?

  “Isn’t the new Dick Curtisfield out? Milo, we should SO go this weekend.”

  No no no no no no no no no.

  “Maybe,” was all Milo said. Making me breathe a sigh of relief. Though I’d still spend all tomorrow panicking that he’d turn up.

  They began to saunter off and I wilted into Leroy, who reached over and squeezed my fingers.

  “Hang on,” Ian called after them. “Who you auditioning for, Courtney?”

  She stopped, turned, smiled. “Adelaide, I think. I would love to do ‘Take Back Your Mink’.”

  My stomach kicked. Of COURSE she’d be Adelaide. The sexy part. Because she was sexy and I was not, which was why Milo was with Her and not me.

  Leroy raised an eyebrow. “Whoa, big part. Good thing Audrey isn’t auditioning.”

  We all gasped, myself included. My face went hot. Courtney’s eyes flashed with anger but Milo was already there, pulling her in closer, kissing her head.

  “She’s going to smash it,” he told us and steered her away. He caught my eye one last time, like this was all my fault.

  A sudden flash, of him kissing my neck, of me shaking with nerves, but he’d lit candles, and my top was off and I was so shy about him seeing my boobs, but he was so nice about it and it was our six-month anniversary…and then…I’d propped myself on my elbows to try and make it hurt less. “If you’ll just relax,” he’d said, trying to be soothing, but I could sense the annoyance under his voice. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. I love you… Shh…shh. It’s okay. Do you want to stop?” I shook my head. He pushed in further. I cried out. He pulled out. I cried. He held me and I was so embarrassed, but he was so, so nice about it being my first time…

  Until a week later when he dumped me.

  I spent Friday night in, like the huge saddo I am.

  The rest of the day was nondescript and dull. I used to love school – love coming in, love Drama Club, love my friends, love sauntering the corridors with Milo’s arm around me. I was one of those annoying people who liked secondary school. But since Milo dumped me and I dramatically decided to drop Drama over the summer – something I’d thought, pathetically, might make Milo realize just how broken I was, turn up at my door, and beg me to reconsider – I didn’t even have subjects I cared about. Drama was all I loved, the rest of my options I’d just picked willy-nilly – thinking they wouldn’t matter as I was going to get into RADA or something.

  So after an afternoon of yawning through English, and head-on-desk sleeping through Geography, I walked home. Alone. The girls had invited me to Pizza Express but I’d told them I was seeing Dad – which I needed to do, but I couldn’t face it on so little sleep.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow though, at work, right?” Alice said, hugging me goodbye. “You can get us in cheap?”

  “Yep,” I squeaked. Hoping Ma wouldn’t go nuts at all the discounted tickets I’d seemingly promised everyone.

  I had to walk a slightly different way home so Leroy’s mum didn’t spot me. I was his cover for tonight, so he could spend time with Ian. Neither of them were out with their families, so they spent a lot of time freezing their arses off on park benches. The other month, when Leroy bounded up to me with a huge “Guess what?” to reveal he’d lost his virginity, my first question was, “Where?!”

  There had been no messages from Mum all day – which was actually worse than too many. When I let myself in, I saw her work heels by the door.

  “Audrey? That you?” Her voice came from the kitchen.

  I dropped my rucksack and tentatively made my way in. She stood at the stove, surrounded by vegetable cuttings and ferociously stirring a stir-fry. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an unravelling chignon and she had way too much make-up on to try to hide the hangover. Her foundation wasn’t quite the right colour and it sank and flaked into the wrinkles of her eyes.

  “Hi.” I perched nervously at the breakfast bar. Mum being uber-efficient to cover up her catatonicness was so much worse than just plain catatonic. The other way didn’t have a comedown.

  “Hi, lovely, do you mind passing me that soy sauce?” she asked, all breezy, like she hadn’t cried herself to sleep on my bed.

  “It smells great, can I help?”

  “No, it’s all under control. I just thought we should eat healthy, you know?”

  I sat and watched her twirl and hurl about the kitchen. The work surfaces sparkled, all the empty wine bottles had mysteriously vanished. It wasn’t even 5 p.m. yet.

  “Why are you home so early?”

  She ignored me at first, lifting a wooden spoon to her mouth to taste her concoction. “Mmm, needs a bit more ginger.”

  “Mum?”

  “Audrey, it’s fine. I took the afternoon off.”

  “I thought you weren’t doing that any more?”

  “Don’t stress, Audrey, honestly. I had a meeting. You know how relaxed my office is.”

  They weren’t last year when they had to put you on performance management.

  I started laying out the cutlery, not even hungry yet, but knew it was worth stuffing anything down rather than rejecting her efforts. She brought two steaming plates of vegetables and bro
wn rice over, a grin stitched on.

  “Mmm, lovely and healthy. All your five-a-day on one plate.”

  “Thanks, it smells great.”

  We sat and ate at the breakfast bar. We rarely used the dining room now it was just the two of us. The stir-fry had so much ginger in it that I had to sip my water between every mouthful, yet I made appreciative noises and watched her warily over my glass…waiting…

  She pushed her plate away with three bits of broccoli left on it. “So I went to see my lawyer this afternoon. About the house.”

  “And…”

  “And, Audrey, I need you to speak to your father. Get him to change his mind.”

  I put my fork down. “What?”

  Mum was squeezing each of her fingers, one by one. Her wedding band was still on. Even after everything.

  “My lawyer says he’s got a good shot at making us sell. With you only a year away from uni…your dad’s saying we don’t need all this space any more. But it’s your home, isn’t it? You’ve got to tell him, it’s more than space, it’s your home. It’s our…our…home.” That’s when the comedown hit. She bent over the table, smashing her head down, getting soy sauce in her hair.

  I was up, squatting at her side, moving the plate to one side to get her hair off it. “Mum? Mum, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” She wasn’t even crying, just kind of wailing, which was worse. “Mum, come on. Tell me what the lawyer said.”

  She sat up. “He’s claiming he needs the money from the sale to help pay for That Bitch and her fucking runts.” She pushed her chair back and went over to the drinks cabinet. “Can you believe it? Like she’s not taken enough? Like she’s not taken EVERYTHING.” She clattered down a glass and poured herself a measure of gin. Neat. I winced. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Audrey. It’s just one, and I’m an adult, for Christ’s sake.”

  I straightened myself up, my face stinging like she’d slapped me. I plonked my empty plate in the dishwasher and went to walk out the room.

  “Audrey? Audrey, I’m sorry!”

  I turned back, looking at her. Her hands shook as she poured herself a second gin. A flash. A flash then of how Dad must see her. Revulsion. For a fleeting second I could see why he left. But then she wasn’t like this before he walked out. He had done this to her. The flash morphed into pure hot rage at him. Rage I didn’t know what to do with, because he was my dad. He was still my dad. I still loved him, and the twins, even after everything he’d done. So I pushed it down and made my guts hurt.

  “Audrey, sorry, honey. It’s just a little drink. It’s been one hell of a day. Please, sit with me.”

  I reluctantly sat back down – wishing I’d gone to Pizza Express.

  “You need to be careful with your drinking. Last night you were…”

  “I know, I know.” She took my hand, tight. “I’ve been doing better though, haven’t I? It’s just the shock, Audrey. If he takes the house…if I lose this place… So, if you can just go see him this weekend. Tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure what good it…”

  “Please, Audrey.” Her voice was sharper. “Try.”

  I sighed. Nodded. “I’ll try.”

  Her posture softened even though there was no way Dad would listen to me. But she put the gin away, cleared her plate, perked up again. “So, you in tonight? Why don’t we have a movie night? Popcorn? Chocolate?”

  Movies. More movies.

  “Sure.” I nodded.

  She stayed relatively normal all night though it took me a while to recover from dinner. I’d forgotten how quickly she could flip between fine and drama – it had been months since she was like this. I couldn’t believe Dad had set her off again. In a burst of parental obligation, Mum even asked me how school was going and I told her about my Media Studies project.

  “Well, we’ll have to watch a romance film then. For research, won’t we?”

  “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly, Audrey. I’m a grown woman. I can handle a romantic movie, even in my state.”

  We shoved a packet of microwave popcorn in, dug out some Cadbury’s and settled on the sofa. It was so dark outside already. The heating groaned and clanked up to the high ceilings, the curtains rustled softly from the draught. She picked Say Anything – an old eighties film with John Cusack.

  “Your dad and I went to watch this at the cinema when it had its ten-year anniversary.”

  Your dad and I, your dad and I. Why did she still insist on doing this to herself?

  But, despite her enthusiasm, Mum fell asleep twenty minutes in. I persevered for the sake of my research but it made my intestines coil themselves around each other. John Cusack was just so…in love with this girl. The way he looked at her, it made me wish someone could look at me like that.

  Milo used to look at me like that. But then look at how that had turned out.

  Mum snored softly to my left, her feet right up on the sofa, her tights wrinkled and bunched up around her ankles. I tried to tune her out, tried to focus on the film. When we got to the famous scene where John Cusack stands outside her house with a giant boombox to try and win her back, I’d had enough. I hit pause and sank back into the sofa, staring blankly at the freeze-frame.

  Nothing like that ever happens in real life…

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through everyone’s updates. The girls had uploaded dozens of photos of themselves at Pizza Express – in full make-up, pulling duck faces and taking multiple selfies. Leroy had tagged me in at the local bowling alley and I quickly sent him a message.

  Audrey: A bowling alley???! FFS?! If you’re going to make me your beard, at least make me a cool beard.

  But he didn’t reply. He was probably too busy not-bowling with Ian in a not-bowling alley.

  I went through all the various sites, catching up on the news from people I didn’t like or care about, but still felt shit that they were out and I wasn’t. Then I saw Dad had uploaded twenty plus photos and I found myself clicking on them. My brother and sister beamed out of my screen – their pudgy faces filling most of the frame. The album was entitled Our new vegetable patch and mostly involved Dad and Jessie smiling and posing with giant spades – their faces dirty and ruddy and healthy from hard work.

  It just looks like a pile of dirt now, but wait until the harvest, Jessie had commented. And the white-hot rage catapulted back, singing through my veins.

  I tried to focus on the photos of the twins – smiling. I couldn’t help loving them – after all, it wasn’t their fault Dad was an arsehole. But I had to be so careful around Mum about them. I couldn’t mention them, or ever have them over. It would be too big a betrayal. I had to tuck away my love for them and save it for the odd few days a month when I could see them. At least I’d see them this weekend, even if talking to Dad was unlikely to work.

  God, I couldn’t not live in this house. In this room, this beautiful living room. With its mint green paint and warm fire, and memories of how we piled in here every Saturday night for family movie night. We watched every Audrey Hepburn film here – Mum and Dad looking dewy-eyed at each other. Roman Holiday always came out at least twice a year.

  “This is where he proposed,” Mum would say, and Dougie and I would roll our eyes because they’d told the story so many times. But we also secretly enjoyed hearing it again. The story of Them. Mum and Dad. Their epic romance. Their epic proposal. Their Hollywood wedding…

  Dad had commented under a photo of Jessie. Love of my life. My best friend. Followed by twelve heart emojis.

  The comment had fifty-one likes…

  Mum’s snore interrupted my angsty stalking and I glanced up at her. She moved onto her side, using the armrest as a pillow.

  Fifty-one likes.

  Poor, poor Mum.

  I turned off the TV and got out an old blanket to drape around her. I checked the front door was locked, and climbed the stairs, pulling on Milo’s T-shirt and getting into bed.

  It wasn’t e
ven ten.

  I stared at the ceiling for a while. I tried to read a book but couldn’t concentrate. So, at half past ten, I sighed and pulled out my phone again – scrolling through the updates of everyone else’s better Friday nights.

  I found myself tapping in Harry’s name.

  We had ten mutual friends – one of them Dougie. His profile photo surprised me. It was him holding up a video camera, just one eye staring out behind it. I clicked through some of the photos that had slipped through his privacy settings. They were mostly gigs – blurry photos of his face highlighted by the flashes of club-night neons. But there were a few of everyone dressed up as zombies. Harry stood proudly in the middle, holding up his camera again. That girl from the car was in one of them, their arms around each other. She was splattered in fake blood, obviously playing some sort of zombie. I wondered again if she was his girlfriend, and if so, why Dougie was warning me off him. I was tempted to ask Harry about the zombie stuff on my shift tomorrow, but then realized that would reveal I’d been stalking him.

  I was asleep by eleven.

  He’s tall. He’s dark. He’s trouble. He just CAN’T COMMIT, you know? He wants to play the field, and the field next to it. Hell, he wants to play in EVERY SINGLE SEX MEADOW THAT HE CAN. Nothing and no one can change his ways. He’s a Bad Boy. A sexy Bad Boy. Because, let’s face it, you can only get away with being a Bad Boy if you’re the sort of good-looking that doesn’t actually occur much in real life.

  But then Bad Boy meets that girl. This one girl. Who – for inexplicable reasons – makes him want to change his ways. He REFORMS for her. She is special. She is different from the other girls…

  I was woken by my phone ringing.

  “Huh?” I said, instead of hello, my head still under the duvet. The house was quiet – Mum not up yet. The heating wasn’t on and it was freezing.

  “Audrey? I didn’t wake you, did I?” It was Ma’s voice. All calm and clipped and of-course-she’s-this-awake-at-9-a.m.-on-a-Saturday. I found myself sitting up in bed, like she could see me.