by Holly Bourne
He continued being ultra professional during filming too. He stopped getting baked with the others – choosing to stand outside the car with me, asking inane questions. “How’s Dougie? So why are you doing Geography? Do you think that last shot was okay?” We seemed to be shooting every single scene that didn’t involve Harry and me being on screen together. The main thrust of the film was me falling in love with him, even though he wasn’t a zombie – but we hadn’t filmed one scene together yet, focusing instead on all my rampage scenes. Rosie, of course, seemed delighted with this turn-out. She went into overly-tactile mode – finding excuses to touch him, leaning her head on him in the car as he drove us back because Tad was too high, smirking at me like I gave one.
I mean, of course I didn’t care. I was just relieved that he’d listened to me, that he’d respected my wishes and now we could just be friends…
I mean, of course this bothered me!!
Because even though I wasn’t interested or ready or a fool, I missed the attention as soon as he withdrew it. I missed getting the full megawatt smile. I felt a bit strange when Becky and Charlie and Alice kept telling me how hot he was, how lucky I was to work with him. I even found myself caring what I looked like as I got ready for work. Adding the tiniest hint of lip gloss here and there. Even though it was pointless – by the end of most evenings I’d have faux-guts hanging from my mouth.
In other news, my schoolwork wasn’t doing too great.
The constant late nights and the fact I couldn’t give a flying crap about Geography and English were catching up on me. I was scraping Cs. At best. Essays I managed to produce on time came back littered with red lines and question marks.
Media was the only subject I wasn’t flatlining in.
“I’ve read your initial notes,” Mr Simmons said, picking up my draft coursework and slurping from his Star Wars coffee mug. “This is good, Audrey. You’ll need to make your writing a bit more academic when you type all this up properly, but it’s good stuff.”
“Thank you, sir.” I almost collapsed in relief that I might not fail all my subjects.
“Working at a cinema seems to be good for this one particular subject.” He smiled as he looked up.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I really think you could get an A for this. But you need to collect a bit more cold hard data. Is there a questionnaire you could do? To get people’s opinions on a certain aspect of romance films?”
I nodded. “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Brilliant, brilliant. Well I guess you can go.”
Just as I turned to leave, he called me back. “Audrey?”
“Yep?”
Mr Simmons passed his mug from hand to hand and coughed. “It’s just…well…your notes, they were good. But…well…they were a little…er…angry. Is everything okay, Audrey? At home I mean?”
I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there, my mouth open. I mean, Mr Simmons wasn’t a care-y teacher.
“It’s just, you know the school has counselling facilities? If you ever need to talk to anyone about anything? I can talk to your form tutor. Get them to write a note?”
Counselling…
I shook my head. “I’m fine, sir. Thanks for your concern, but I’m fine.”
Am I fine? What even counts as fine?
“Okay, well, the school is always here for you, Audrey. And, good work. I’m looking forward to seeing how this coursework of yours turns out.”
“What’s this?” Leroy asked, as I shoved a questionnaire into his hand.
“A survey for my Media Studies coursework.” I fiddled until I got one for Ian too, passing it over. “I’m on a quest for the best movie kiss.”
Ian’s blue eyes crinkled up when he smiled. “The best what?”
“Movie kiss,” I repeated, handing over a pen. “I’m doing research into romance movies and what’s the ultimate goal of a romance movie? The big kiss! I want to see what big kisses everyone else likes, to see if there’s a correlation. And if so, why?”
Leroy already had a pen in his hand and was marking up his paper with his illegible handwriting. “Easy peasy. Brokeback Mountain. That kiss. The NEED in that kiss!” He started fanning himself.
I raised my eyebrows at the obviousness of the choice. “The cowboy film?” I asked, just as Ian went, “Oh God, Leroy, really?”
“What’s wrong with Brokeback Mountain?” Leroy asked. “Don’t tell me you’re going to pick a straight kiss, Ian?”
“I hated that movie! Have you not read the book it was based on? They totally crucified it.”
“Honey, you read?” Leroy put his arm around Ian and Ian lightly punched him.
“What’s your choice then, Ian?” I said. Feeling like I was intruding on a moment. A sexual moment.
“Umm. I dunno. Let me think for a while. I may pick a straight kiss, just to piss off Mr Queen over here.”
Then, of course, they were kissing. I waited patiently and awkwardly because Ian had my pen.
“Oh, sorry, Audrey.” He finally noticed and I held my hand out.
“Thanks.”
“Hey” – Leroy pulled himself away – “do you want me to ask my followers what their favourite kiss is? It could get you more numbers?”
“That would be amazing, could you?”
“Sure. I mean, my followers are likely to only choose a kiss between Mario and Princess Peach but it’s worth a shot, right?”
I pushed Ian out the way to hug Leroy.
“All right, all right. Just make sure you’re pro-Brokeback Mountain in your coursework, okay?”
I saluted.
At lunch on Wednesday, knackered from my cinema shift the night before, I made a long overdue effort to bridge the gap with the girls.
“Hey,” I said to Alice, Becky and Charlie, as I sat down at their table in the school canteen. It was quiet – sixth-formers always got it to themselves for fifteen minutes at lunch before the rest of the school. A little (shit) perk to keep us from absconding to the local college. They were sharing a plate of chips between the three of them. A dollop of ketchup on one side, mayonnaise on the other.
They all smiled. “Hey.”
“Where you been, Auds?” Becky asked. “I swear you’re like a ghost these days or something.”
“I know, I’m sorry. It’s this job.” I sat down and picked up a chip, feeling all their eyes on me. I hadn’t really sought them out for two weeks – not since the night they’d come to the cinema. Even though they’d been so lovely about Milo and Courtney. I wasn’t entirely sure why. I wasn’t entirely sure about anything, to be honest. I was hoping the questionnaire would break the all-my-fault ice. “How are things with you girls? How are things with Nick?” I asked Charlie.
They all looked a bit flustered and didn’t answer right away. Taking their time to shake off the rust from their talking-to-me skills. I felt a jolt of guilt for being so difficult and inward and essentially dumping them and their well-intentioned sugary-sweet friendship for Leroy’s Death By Honesty approach.
“Good, it’s good,” Charlie said. “I’m dropping mad hints that he’ll take me to Paris for my eighteenth, but we’ll see.”
“Paris?” My eyes widened. “Oh, wow.”
“I know. Wouldn’t it be romantic?”
I did a small smile and picked up another chip. “I’m not the right person to talk to about romance these days. Oh, speaking of which…” I reached into my bag and pulled out some of my questionnaires. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you mind filling these out for my coursework? I need to find the best movie kiss of all time.”
Alice practically snatched hers. “I’ve been creating a shortlist ever since you told me in Media,” she said. “Can I nominate seven?”
“Only one I’m afraid.”
“Meanie.” Her cat flick scrunched up in another smile.
“Becks? You got one?”
“I mean, surely it HAS to be the one in The Notebook,” she stated, picking up anot
her chip. “Why are we even having this conversation?”
“Oh my God, that kiss!” Alice shrieked. “How did I miss that off my list of seven?”
Charlie butted in, sighing. “When it starts to rain…and Ryan Gosling does that speech about how it’s NEVER BEEN OVER—”
“And he just grabs her,” Becky interrupted. “And she jumps up into his arms and he doesn’t buckle under the weight of her.”
They all slowly seeped in on themselves, melting into their plate of chips. The doors opened for the lower years and the canteen was flooded by noise and chatting and the clattering of trays and plates.
“What’s your seven?” I asked Alice and she actually, literally, pulled out her notepad. “You wrote them down?” I smiled and pulled the pad over. “How did I not know you were doing this?”
“Like Becky said, we’ve hardly seen you.” She smiled as she said it – offering out a million invisible olive branches, even though I probably didn’t deserve them.
“Well come on then.” I used my hands to create a drum roll on the tabletop. “Let me have them.”
“Well, I’ve gone for Ron and Hermione from Harry Potter, because we had to wait sooo long for it.”
Becky pulled a face. “Seriously? I do NOT see the chemistry.”
“Shh. I do! And it’s only number seven. Then, for six, I’ve put Peeta and Katniss in Catching Fire.”
“Doesn’t she kiss him in that? Rather than him kissing her?” Charlie asked.
“Exactly! See, Audrey, I can be a feminist sometimes.” She looked up at me nervously and I smiled back as wide as I could, hating that she was nervous around me. Hating that I’d done this to us.
“Then, top five. At number five I put Clueless. The one at the top of the stairs.”
“Oooh!” Becky gasped with laughter. “Incest.”
“It’s not incest. They’re STEPbrother and -sister,” I pointed out. “And Paul Rudd is GOO in that.”
“Then” – Alice rustled her list, ignoring our giggles – “of course you MUST have Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn is EVERYTHING.”
She winked at me and I blushed. I HATED being named after her, especially after the divorce.
“Then The Fault in Our Stars kiss.”
Becky pulled a face at that one. “Really? I never liked the fact they kissed in a murdered girl’s house. It always kind of ruined it for me.”
Alice’s face fell slightly. “Oh…I didn’t think of that. I think I was distracted by how much I want Augustus to be real. I will put that one down as a maybe… Then, of COURSE, there’s Romeo + Juliet.” She sighed. “Ever since we had to watch it in English last year I’ve been OBSESSED.”
“The kiss isn’t even the most romantic part of that film,” Charlie said. “I think the best part is the fish tank scene, where they’re both staring at each other through it.” She pulled it up on her phone and there was a collective melt as we watched it, with Des’ree’s “Kissing You” bleating out of her speakers.
“Maybe not kissing is sexier than kissing?” I put forward as an argument.
“Well, that gets me to number one,” Alice said. “I was going to ask you if it counted, Auds. I picked Pride and Prejudice. The Keira Knightley one. That scene at the end, where she bumps into him at sunrise. They don’t actually kiss in that one…”
I scrunched my face up. “So your favourite kiss is not actually a kiss?”
“They kiss with their eyes!” she protested.
Becky started shaking with laughter. “Imagine if we did actually kiss with our eyes. You just opened them really wide and squelched them together?”
I grinned. “Wouldn’t they make a noise as you pulled them apart?”
The whole table ewwed.
Alice slammed her book shut. “Thanks for ruining my favourite movie for me,” she said, faux-haughtily. “Now all I’m going to see when I watch that movie, is Mr Darcy leaning in with his eyes bulging, and him and Elizabeth Bennet getting their eyelashes tangled.”
“I have to tell you how ardently I admire and love your juicy eye juice,” I added and Charlie pushed the plate of chips away, complaining, “Can we just…stop?”
The laughter melted bits off me, like I was an iceberg being blasted with a travel-sized hairdryer. Maybe I could find me again? Find my friendship with these girls again? Maybe I could Get Through This, my feelings about Milo, my dad. There must be some old Audrey left, buried deep somewhere.
Eventually I made Alice decide; she picked Romeo and Juliet’s elevator kiss. Becky stuck with The Notebook. And Charlie picked this film I’d never heard of called A Room with a View that she couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen, and spent the rest of lunch describing it to us. I’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh with my friends. And they must’ve felt the same because, when the bell went, and we all jolted up, Becky put her hand on mine ever-so-softly, and said, “It’s nice to have you back, Auds.”
Within two weeks, I had over two hundred responses to my questionnaire. A hundred in the last week after Harry had the genius idea of putting a stack in Flicker.
“I despair at people, I really do,” I told him, midway through assembling a giant cardboard cut-out of Thor.
Harry turned his head to one side. “I think you’ve got the arms on the wrong way.”
“Stupid Thor.” I put him down and walked round to see it from the front. His arms were, indeed, skew-whiff. “Why are these things so hard to assemble? And, also, HOW MANY COMIC BOOK MOVIES will there be?”
Harry laughed. “Here, let me show you.” He pulled both of Thor’s arms off. “And don’t diss comic book movies, Audrey. They keep cinemas like us alive.”
I pouted. “Which therefore means I have to work every night this week.”
LouLou emerged from the stock room, dragging a half-assembled Iron Man behind her like she was Jesus carrying the cross. “Hey, Audrey. Sorry, we’re still behind on staff since the change up.”
“Honestly, it’s fine. I was just whingeing.”
LouLou gave me a tight smile, one of her new special ones. “Well, I’m grateful you can cover.” She shuffled into the office, leaving a half-constructed Robert Downey Jr for Harry to deal with. He sighed and got to work putting his head on. Our excitement at Ma’s promotion had been short-lived. Though we hardly had to deal with her in person any more, her control-freakery was ruining LouLou’s life. She rang the whole time to check and recheck we were following her explicit instructions. Harry was pulling back-to-back shifts most days, and I was on at least four shifts a week rather than my agreed three.
“So, why do you despair of people today, Audrey?” he asked, from behind his cardboard. “What haven’t we covered yet?”
I wrinkled my nose at him, though he couldn’t see. “I’m not that bad. And it’s this best movie kiss thing. I’ve got enough results now and I’m working out all the data.” I wiggled to put Thor’s arm into the right hole. “And it’s definitely depressing.”
“I’m intrigued, continue.” Harry’s smile was revealed like a magic trick from behind Iron Man’s head.
“Well, okay, so at least sixty per cent of everyone’s favourite movie kisses occurred in the rain.”
Harry nodded. “Ahh, yes, the rain kiss. You must kiss in the rain, Audrey. That is the law of kissing in movies.”
“But why? I mean, rain is cold and wet! Plus movie rain is never like normal rain. Nobody ever kisses in drizzle. It’s always the really huge rain that comes out of nowhere, with added lightning.”
I had a flash of a memory, of my first kiss with Milo. Which was actually in some drizzle. We’d been walking back from rehearsal and he kept trying to hold my hand but I couldn’t hold his hand and hold my umbrella. When he’d romantically pulled it away, I’d shrieked about my hair going frizzy before I realized he was doing a gesture.
“What else, pray tell, Audrey – you romantic ray of sunshine – did your judgemental survey find?”
I picked up Thor and used it
to knock his figure.
“Hey,” he said. “You can’t make Thor fight Iron Man. They’re on the same team.” I hit him harder. “Audrey, seriously, stop it. You’re breaking everything I believe in.”
I rolled my eyes and put Thor down again. “Well, head-clutching is another hugely popular theme. Whenever anyone kisses in the movies, they always seem to, like, grab the other person’s head. It’s almost always the boy clutching the girl’s head to, I dunno, show off the guy’s masculinity or something.”
Harry smiled again, and, again, I got this notion that he would usually have made a joke or flirtatious comment at this point.
“I’ve got a rival to the head-clutcher,” he said, putting the finishing touches to Iron Man with a “voila”. “The perfectly-arranged-thumb-on-cheek kiss. Have you ever noticed that about movies? When the boy reaches out and puts his palm onto the girl’s face, with his thumb pointing upward? I only notice, I think, because of my directing, because, to me, it looks awkward. Nobody kisses like that.” He leaned against the cut-out, realized it couldn’t take his weight and straightened himself again. “I mean, if I want to kiss someone, it’s like fighting an addiction not getting to kiss them. When I finally get the chance, I would never waste time gently stroking their face.” He laughed. “No, my kisses would probably look horrid on camera, but they feel great.” He made straight eye contact with me and I got another flash. But this time a flash of fantasy. Of Harry grabbing my head and kissing me. Our mouths smashing against each other with urgency.
I blushed, hiding it behind Thor’s head. God, I was such a ridiculous cliché. A guy likes me, and I don’t like it. But then he takes the liking-me away and then, what? I want him to like me again?
Harry, maybe sensing my discomfort, moved on. “So, what else? What else do people want to see in a kiss?”
“Lesbians,” LouLou interrupted, carrying in a giant Scarlett Johansson. “Where the feck are all the lesbians?”
I pointed at her. “Yes! That’s also what my research unearthed. People only really voted for heteronormative kisses.”
“Hetero-what-now?” Harry asked.
“Normative. It means straight couples are considered the norm. I only had two same-sex kisses nominated, and, yeah, LouLou, you’re right. They were both male-on-male kisses.”
