It's a Love Story

by Annabel Monaghan

Slap a smile on your face and your brain will eventually think you’re happy. That’s not just me talking; it’s science.

My first-date dress is green and white pin-striped and hits right below my knees. It’s a dress you can’t argue with.

When my future partner and I tell our kids about our first date, that’s how I want him to describe me: kissable and Grandma-worthy.

This script is a total game changer. There’s a tenderness to the writing and a truth to the humor that has its hooks in me.

To be clear, I don’t actually believe in true love. I’m a grown-up. But if this script can affect me this way, then normal people are going to lose their minds.

I switch to a reliably country station and, you guessed it, Jack Quinlan. I turn off the radio. I knew Jack when we were teenagers.

“No one wants to watch two people who they don’t care about fall in love for absolutely no reason.” He’s just so superior with his omniscience about what everyone wants and doesn’t want.

“We both probably need it. But I don’t hate this script. In fact, I can see it, in my mind, exactly how it should be.”

He presses the button and the doors open. “If you can just act like a normal person, we can make this movie.”

There’s nothing that makes a person act more insane than trying to prove how sane they actually are.

I just want to be taken seriously for once, and preferably in the world I was raised in.

Nathan slaps his knees as if he’s about to say, Thanks for stopping by, and shoo us all out. Rodney is looking at his phone, and Dan’s watching me with that unnerving intensity.

I do not believe in love. I do not believe in finding The One. All of that is nonsense, but this script has given me this tiny ache, the sneaky kind that attaches itself to hope.

I see my hand on my heart. Dan almost put his hand on his heart when he was talking about True Story. I’m sure he wants to turn this thing into something boring, but at least he gets it.

out. I’m on the pier looking down onto the beach, and I’m not sure what I’m looking at. Dan is surrounded by women.

I laugh. I don’t mean to. I want to take the laugh back, but it’s gotten me.

He’s completely still, and there’s so much motion behind him, it’s mesmerizing, like he’s in time-lapse.

“The loud movies with the explosions and superheroes, they sell tickets because they’re an escape. We don’t have to think about our own lives when we watch them. We can hide in the noise. But it’s the quiet movies that make room for us to look at ourselves. People cooking, teaching, gardening. They’re quiet things, but they’re the things that move us. And people, mostly, are afraid of the quiet.”

Jack was more comfortable in his skin than I was, like he’d spent a lifetime being cool and didn’t know another way to be.

As I sang the last few words of the song, “to be in love with you,” and as my lips made the u in “you,” he leaned in and kissed me. That was my first kiss.

He squeezed my hand, and my heart fluttered in my chest.

He drove me home and kissed me in the car, and the windows fogged up like the air knew we needed our privacy.

He stood and took my hand with him, leading me toward my dressing room, where he pulled me toward him and kissed me again. His hands on my neck, his chest up against mine.

Something in my heart told me this was forever, and because I was fourteen and only knew three other kids, I believed it.

I am crying. Just quiet tears rolling down my cheeks that tell me this is never going to happen. There’s no song.

I really thought I was going to be famous. The joke was always on me, but I made it work. But then I grew up. I keep trying and failing to be taken seriously. Everyone else seems to be leveling up, you know? Joke’s still on me.” “I’m sorry,” he says.

“To Long Island. For a week.” With the most annoying man alive.

Take the week, clear your head, and maybe catch the tiger.” I sit up rod straight. “Okay. Let’s try. We’ll leave in the morning. Text me your full name and birthday.”

“You’re going to spend a week hunting down a guy who you’re terrified to see while shacking up with another guy you can’t stand?

I look two rows up to where Dan is watching something in black and white with subtitles on his laptop. So on brand. He is also, and I hate to admit that I remember this, wearing the same flannel shirt that he was wearing the first time we met.

He’s striking, but take all of that away and you’d still notice him for the way his eyes were trained on a spot behind me.

It was unnerving the way he looked at me like he recognized me and also the way he asked me to hold his stuff like we’d known each other forever.

Dan looked down at his camera, “Got it. Don’t give up.” He showed it to me, and it was perfect.

He laughed and I saw his smile for the first time. Not Batman at all. His smile chased away all the darkness.

“Yeah, so I was wondering if I could take you to dinner on Friday. Do you eat seafood?” “I do. Sure.”

He said he’d text me Friday, and we got off the phone. And maybe I was excited. Well, I probably was. I mean, I didn’t know any better.

“Call me Reenie,” she says, taking both of my hands in hers. She is the source of the wide navy blue eyes. “You’re so pretty. Danny didn’t say. But of course you are. Danny always likes a pretty girl.”

“I’m Sammy,” says a little boy. “Who are you?” “Rude,” says Reenie, giving a fake swat. “This is Uncle Danny’s girlfriend, Jane.” “I’m not…” I start.

“I’m the poor man’s Hailey Soul,” I say and shrug. I want him to think I’m kidding. Dan looks at me for a beat before saying, “I don’t think so.” It’s a kind thing to say.

He doesn’t make any move to leave though. He’s just looking at me. “I don’t hate the part where Noah comes back from the war and sees his dad—everyone cries at that point,” I say. His smile is wide and bright, like I’ve just shown him a photo of his favorite thing.

I like the sound of his laugh and the way his eyes dance around my face before settling on my eyes.

“So this is where you learned to be a pain in the ass?” He smiles at me. “Yes.” The back of his hand shades his eyes, but I can see the playfulness there.

Dan jumps in and holds out a hand for me. I was going to jump in too, but I take his hand anyway. And there’s that feeling again; I am definitely a monkey starved for touch.

The hole is deep enough now that the water settles at Dan’s shoulders. The surprise of the ice-cold water has me disoriented, but not as much as the feel of his arm around my waist.

And as the back of my thighs rub up against the front of Dan’s, I realize the lemony hand on my tingly lips was just a warm-up. Dan’s head is right over my shoulder, and his arms are around mine as we pull.

“I’ll lay this all out to dry,” he says and takes my clothes. “Are you staying in?” I need to gather my thoughts and monkey hormones, so I say, “For a minute.” I dive under a wave.

“You’re just kind of honest.” It must be Dan’s honesty that’s making me put so much of myself out there. He’s like a human invitation.

“And you never had a boyfriend of your own?” The truth is no, of course I didn’t have a boyfriend. Except for the twenty-four hours I convinced myself Jack Quinlan was my soulmate.

It was a joyful thing that turned sour and false. What’s inside of me can stay right where it is.

“You’re so naked, I’m not following what you’re saying. You’re going somewhere?” He smiles and pulls his shirt on, buttoning just one button. “Better?” The blue of the shirt and the smile both do something to his eyes.