Field Notes on Love

by Jennifer E. Smith

“I never liked her much anyway,” he says, which makes Hugo laugh in spite of himself, because they all loved Margaret. If anything, they thought she was out of his league. But still, one by one, they join in.

“Just because they didn’t love your film doesn’t mean it’s not great. And just because they had a different opinion about it doesn’t mean you have to change yours.”

“there are as many idiots there as everywhere else in the world.”

“I love you, Hugo, and you’re brilliant in a lot of ways, but you’ve also got your head in the clouds more often than not.”

It was like having an extra sun in their orbit, an inexhaustible source of warmth and energy.

“If you can’t even allow yourself to be introspective in this conversation, how are you ever gonna do it in your films?”

“You’re obviously super talented. But the difference between a good film and a great one has nothing to do with jump cuts and cool techniques. It’s about showing people who you are.”

“Everyone grows up dreaming of something different, Hugo. And that’s okay. It’s what makes life so interesting.”

“Love is like this pizza,” Mae says, sweeping her hand over the table. “It’s warm and gooey and delicious, but it doesn’t last.”

“In that it makes everything brighter and happier. And it warms you from the inside out.”

“Love isn’t magic. It doesn’t transcend time and space. It doesn’t fix anything. It’s just love.”

“I was in love many times before I met your grandfather,” she says. “Some of them lasted a long time; some of them didn’t. The trick is not to worry about it. If you spend too much time thinking about when it will disappear, you’ll miss the whole thing.”

He was completely and entirely free.

She’s a good foot shorter than him, but there’s a certainty that makes her seem anything but small.

She smiles back, but there’s something steely about it, and he can almost see it then, the way this means something to her too. It isn’t simply a lark or a freebie or an adventure. It’s something bigger. And from nowhere, the thought pops into his head: This is going to be okay.

the word home pounding in her ears like a heartbeat as it disappears from view.

They’ve spent only twenty minutes together. Maybe thirty. But still, there’s already something familiar about her, standing there in the doorway with a book in her arms, and Hugo can’t help wondering if maybe the thing he was missing earlier was her.

“You will,” he says, though he has no idea really. He’s never loved anything the way Mae loves making films, and he wishes he knew what it feels like to have that kind of passion for something. For anything.

“Most things are easier than you think,” she says. “It’s deciding to do them that’s hard.”

“Wait, do you think love is like a pizza?”

She smiles at him, and it’s the kind of smile that feels like a beginning—though the beginning of what, he isn’t entirely sure. “I think we should see if it might be the same for anyone else.”

“My biggest dream?” she says. “I know this will sound awfully old-fashioned to you, but my dream was always to marry Roy. We met when we were twelve. He bought me an ice cream and was the only boy who didn’t laugh when I spilled it on my dress. It sounds small. But there was such kindness in that. I knew right then. I’ve always known.”

You don’t know what happiness is—what it really means—until it’s taken away from you. Then you realize the world will never be as bright as it was.”

“But my greatest hope is just the opposite,” she says. “That somehow I’ll see him again one day.”

“What do you love most about the world?” Ida smiles. “I love that every generation thinks they’ve invented it. They think they’re the first ones to fall in love and get their hearts broken, to feel loss and passion and pain. And in a way, they are. We’ve been there before, of course. But for young people, that doesn’t matter. Everything is new. Which I love, because it means everything is always beginning again. It’s hopeful, I think. At least to me.”

“That’s love,” he says. “An old woman making something for one person, and then years later, even after she’s gone, feeding all these different people on the other side of the world.”

and don’t forget we love you the best,”

After a moment, he raises his arms, allowing himself to hug her back. Her head fits just below his chin, and he wonders if she can hear his heart beating like something that’s trying to escape.

Outside, the storm has stopped. But if you could hear the way Hugo’s heart is thundering, you wouldn’t be so sure.

There was something almost inevitable about it, something automatic, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, to be kissing him like that.

“Is she in the room with you right now, so you can’t tell us?” he asks quietly. “Listen, if she’s horrible, just say grapefruit.”

glances over at Hugo. Here in the hotel bed, with the light from the window falling across his forehead, Mae is amused by how much this feels like a scene from one of her grandmother’s old romances.

“It’s not supposed to reflect reality,” she said. “Reality is all well and good. But sometimes you just want to pretend the world is a better place than it actually is. That great and wonderful things can happen. That love triumphs over everything.”

It isn’t until now, though, that Mae fully gets it, the pleasure of letting reality fall away. Whatever is happening with Hugo is just as ridiculous as those movies. Maybe even more so. It’s unlikely and temporary and deeply uncharacteristic. But still, she can’t shake the feeling that she’s fallen straight into one of those stories.

Nana: Sometimes it’s good for you. Mae: What? Nana: To be spectacularly stupid.

“I like it when you talk film. You sound very impressive.”

When she laughs, it feels to Hugo like he’s won some sort of prize.

his mind is still busy with it, the idea of all those different places gathered like that, the way the whole world could be contained in a single building.

“My grandmother says she once left her heart on a train.” “With a boy?” Hugo asks. “Or with her luggage?” “A boy.” “That’s good. Hopefully, mine wasn’t in my wallet.”

a happiness so big it doesn’t leave room for worries.

Or a boy with a scar on his forehead who goes off to a wizarding school?” Mae is shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure that last one’s been done before.”

“You’re a tough nut to crack,” Nana once told her, and Priyanka’s warning that she’s too careful with her heart is still ringing in her ears.

But they’re both wrong. Her heart isn’t the problem. It’s that she’s never met someone she actually hopes will break through.

He doesn’t remember her climbing into bed with him, but it somehow also feels like she’s always been here, curled beside him in this tiniest of spaces.

seriously. “You’ve known for a long time that you want something different. It just took you a while to figure out what it was.” “I can’t decide if you’re the cleverest girl I’ve ever met or you’re just as mad as I am.” Mae’s eyes are shiny with laughter. “Why can’t it be both?” she says brightly.

“You want to travel.” “I want to escape. That’s not the same.” Mae shrugs. “It looks the same in the end.”

The actual space between them might be small, but to Hugo it feels like a million miles.

“Your world is going to get so big,”

“I’m starting to realize that a lot of people don’t put much stock in dreams. They think of them like these faraway planets they never really expect to reach. I was only supposed to step out of my life for a week, but that’s another thing nobody tells you: that once you get there, it’s never enough. There are always more planets to see.”

“So what’s your biggest fear?”