Nora Goes Off Script

by Annabel Monaghan

Leo brushes past me on the porch like I’m not there, then stops and takes a step back. “You’re missing a dimple,” he says. “The other one’s inside,” I say. He nods and walks into my house like he owns the place. Not much of a meet cute.

“Ha! There it is!” Leo motions to her with his beer. Which is my in-case-Kate-and-Mickey-stop-by beer, I notice. “What?” Arthur asks, a little alarmed. “The missing dimple. I’ve been looking all over the house for it. Your mom’s missing dimple is right there on your sister’s cheek.”

He studies his empty beer bottle. “Can’t he just come back? Like have an epiphany or something and come back?” Arthur hides his face by pretending to review his fractions. Ben having an epiphany would be a salve to Arthur’s open wound. “He’s not coming back,” I say.

“It’s the classic self-correcting problem. If someone leaves you, it’s because they didn’t want to be with you. All you lost was someone who didn’t want to be there anyway.”

At the corner of arrogance and cluelessness, you find the worst kind of person.

“Have you ever felt like you’re disappearing?” he asks. “Like you’re sure one day you’re going to wake up and find that the truest parts of yourself have been replaced by someone else’s plans?” Um, I just wrote a movie about it. I believe you read the script? How many times did I wake up next to Ben and wonder, Where did I go? His face would reflect either indifference or mild distaste, and I’d try to remember back when I was a person who deserved to be loved. I didn’t know what Ben was looking at, but it wasn’t me. I was gone.

“I think he’s the best kind of villain,” Leo says. “He’s the kind of villain who does something horrible but who we still love. You can see his humanity, even though he’s taking advantage of those boys. Characters like Fagin get to the core of what it means to be a human being—we are both light and dark.”

Newton must have been thinking of twentysomethings in long-term relationships with hard-to-secure wedding venues when he decided that objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

I think our whole marriage was about me trying to make him glad he picked me.

“See? You are romantic.” “Only on paper. And when the stakes are low.”

I enter the kitchen and see the coffee’s already been brewed. He’s left a mug out for me. I pour my coffee and make my way out.

If you own up to not being perfect, life gets easier.

“How much money did you make last year?” Mickey asks, like it’s nothing. Kate swats him again, and I shake my head at Leo, who doesn’t flinch. “I have no idea, but you could probably google it.” Mickey laughs and holds up his beer to Leo. “Must be nice.” “It is. You get used to not thinking about money pretty quick. But, like they say, it won’t make you happy.” “It’d make me happy,” says Mickey. “That’s because you’re already happy.”

I’m light while I write it, and as I do so, I understand why I write. To write is to re-create something as you’d like it to be. I can filter my heartbreak through the giddy weightlessness of an afternoon romance movie, and suddenly it’s silly.

“Love isn’t something you need to earn. Dad left because of Dad, not us.”

“So I want to leave today and then come back. Like, here.” “Okay,” I say. Okay! I mean. “Like, I want you to know I’m coming back. And if you think I’m not coming back, then I want you to say, ‘Hey, asshole, how come it seems like you’re not coming back?’ Like a normal woman.”

“You know what? I don’t trust you. Here.” Leo grabs my left hand and shoves a thin gold band on my finger. This is less like a romantic gesture and more like the handcuffing of a fugitive. “We’re married now, okay? Like in your head, just get that straight. This is happening.”

I have two thoughts that I can’t shake. First, that dance floor is going to wreck my lawn for the summer. And second, that the best things come back. Sometimes it’s right after the commercial, sometimes it takes longer. But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.