Since formally accepting Tommy’s offer to be his assistant, I’ve e-mailed back and forth with him a few times about details. He sent me the script for the movie, which is currently untitled, but which might as well be called Modernized, Gender-Swapped Runaway Bride. And that’s not a complaint, because, hello, I love Runaway Bride. Basically, it’s about a journalist who’s writing a story on a guy who left his fiancée at the altar. One of the wedding guests filmed the whole messy thing and uploaded it to YouTube, and now he’s famous for being an asshole. Of course, because this is a rom-com and journalistic ethics don’t exist, the journalist ends up falling in love with him, and then there’s a big “wait, this was all for a story?” scene, aka one of my all-time favorite romantic comedy clichés.
In other words, it’s great. A little cheesy, a little unbelievable, but still full of heart. I know that Tarah Thomas, the lead actress who found fame on teen dramedies, will do a fantastic job, but I wonder if Drew Danforth can pull it off. Although, since it does involve him playing a jerk, I think he might be able to handle it.
The night before my first day on set, I rewatch While You Were Sleeping. It was another one that Mom and I used to watch over and over (and unlike some of the other rom-coms she showed me, it was relatively appropriate for a small child). It confirmed that this “search for love” thing isn’t for the faint of heart. I mean, Sandra Bullock had to rescue a man from an oncoming train, and even once that was done, she had to keep up an elaborate ruse to his entire family and pretend she was in love with him while he was in a coma. And that wasn’t even the man she eventually fell in love with!
Love is complicated is what I’m saying. It relies on fate and Peter Gallagher falling onto a train track and, more often than you would find plausible, comas. I can’t engineer that; I just have to let it happen, and if that means waiting, then I’m okay with that. Chloe may think that I’m not “trying” or “putting myself out there” or “actually using the apps she put on my phone before deleting them,” but she doesn’t get it. You can’t methodically stalk your way into true love (although I guess Meg Ryan did kind of do that in Sleepless in Seattle, and it worked out pretty well for her). And no one would ever make a romantic comedy about aimlessly scrolling through Bumble, because that would be one hell of a boring movie.
As I walk to work on Monday morning I wonder, for what must be the five millionth time, if I’m being unrealistic or ridiculous for wanting what my parents had. If looking for that person to grow old with, to run through the airport to find in a time before strict TSA regulations, to confess their love for you via a grand gesture that involves a boombox or a field of daffodils, is just ridiculous. I wonder if Chloe is right, that I should settle for someone perfectly fine in the right now.
But that’s not what I want, I remind myself, my breath puffing in the cold air as my boots crunch through the dead leaves on the brick sidewalks. I want real love. While You Were Sleeping love. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan love.
The walk to set is a short one, because German Village is a small neighborhood. It may be part of Columbus, which is actually the fourteenth most populous city in the United States (thanks, Wikipedia), but it has its own small-town feel. Like any small town, it has its cute, quirky shops and its cute, quirky residents. Like the Coatless Wonder, a guy who always, always wears a T-shirt even in below-freezing temperatures. Once Chloe chased him down and tried to give him a coat from Nick’s lost and found, in case he didn’t have one, but he said he just liked to keep his arms unencumbered.
As I walk through Schiller Park, I think about how much I love living here. The old and beautiful homes, the history, Katzinger’s Deli with its barrels full of pickles, the dogs that run through the park most days—it’s home, and I can see why a movie would want to film in a neighborhood so lovely. Sure, it’s not Central Park, where so many iconic rom-com scenes have been set, but love does occasionally occur in places that are not New York City.
As I cross a bridge over a small, frozen pond, the nervousness I’ve been avoiding starts to catch up with me. I mean, who am I to think I can do this? Be an assistant to one of the most famous and successful film directors in America? The man who directed Tangled Leashes, the ensemble comedy about a bunch of couples who meet at a dog park? I even overheard Dungeon Master Rick talking about how that one made him cry, and the only other time I’ve heard of him crying was when his black Lab ate the D&D miniatures he had spent weeks painting.
Sure, I’ve seen every single one of Tommy’s movies, but what if he needs me to do something I can’t do? Or what if he asks a question I don’t know the answer to? What if I look incompetent in front of one of the most famous directors in the country?
What would Nora Ephron do? I ask myself silently. Although I love her sweet and sad romantic comedies, I also love her indomitable spirit. Once I saw an interview with Meryl Streep where she talked about how when Nora was a young writer, she tried to get a job at a magazine and was told she couldn’t be a reporter because reporters were men. And did she turn around, go back home, get into bed, and drown her sorrows in whatever the time-period-appropriate version of Netflix was? Hell, no. She became an incredibly important and celebrated writer and showed those assholes what was what. If Nora Ephron was here, she would march onto that set and she would get shit done.
And just in case thinking about the ever-present spirit of Nora Ephron isn’t enough, I think about my mom. Because she would love this. She would want to know everything about what it was like to be on the set of a romantic comedy, and she’d have a million questions for Tommy about Tangled Leashes, and what it was like to work with Julia Roberts, and if Billy Crystal was as nice as he seemed.
For a moment, I allow myself to imagine what that would be like. To come home at the end of the day to her, to curl up on the couch and talk about everything that had happened. A bloom of sadness unfurls so quickly in my chest that I almost gasp.
Because she’s not here, and she’ll never know. And I have to do this, because she’d want me to. And also because, in the five years since I graduated from college, I’ve done exactly nothing to get closer to my dream of working in movies. To do that, I’d have to move somewhere, which means I couldn’t stay here and be with Uncle Don, and there’s no way I’d ever leave him all alone. A movie that’s filming right in my own neighborhood? It’s fate, like a gift Mom sent me from the afterlife.
* * *
• • •
I was worried about finding Tommy Crisante on set, but it turns out it’s pretty easy. For one thing, he’s standing in the middle of the blocked-off street. And for another thing, he’s incredibly loud.
“Hi, Tommy? I’m Annie,” I say, approaching him as he talks to a young guy in a headset and a black jacket.
He cups a hand over his ear. “You’ll have to speak up, sweetheart. I can’t hear for shit. My ears got blown out when I did all those action movies with explosions in the ’90s.”
“Um.” I push back my shoulders, brush my hair out of my face, and force myself to be louder. “I’m Annie. Don’s niece?”
Tommy’s eyes light up and before I even know what’s happening, he’s hugging me. “Donny’s niece? Am I ever glad to see you!”