INT: LIVING ROOM—FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 10:15 P.M.
EVIE is sitting on the carpet, leaning against the black velvet couch, a glass of wine halfway to her mouth. JEREMY is kneeling in front of a large notepad with The Challenge! written on it, arms splayed in a ta-da gesture. MARIA is sitting on the sofa behind EVIE. She’s giving little encouraging gestures to JEREMY that EVIE can’t see.
“Not that I don’t fully appreciate your efforts, but I meant what I said. I only agreed to the love part to get NOB to sign. I have no intention of actually falling for someone.” Not after Ricky.
“Sure, we know that,” said Jeremy, glancing behind me at Maria. He drew a line under The Challenge! “But hear us out. Evie Summers, from the very moment you agreed to this deal with NOB, you entered the Challenge meet-cute. As seen in 10 Things I Hate About You (RIP Heath Ledger, too beautiful for this world), She’s All That, and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. To the uncultured, very different films. But they each come down to the same thing: a challenge is issued, followed by inevitable misunderstandings, brutal betrayals, and, ultimately, love.” He wrote Love on the pad. “The Challenge meet-cute often overlaps with the ‘love to hate you’ rom-com, but then we realized the only person you hate is NOB.”
“It’s funny to think,” Maria chipped in, “but if this was an actual rom-com, you’d end up with the arrogant writer who, it would turn out, was only using his massive ego to hide an endearing lack of confidence.” There was a moment of stunned silence in which we both stared at her. “I’m kidding! You’d never fall for that cockhat.”
“Drunk Maria, everybody,” toasted Jeremy.
I raised my glass too, as my brain helpfully reminded me of NOB’s sculpted chest. Stupid brain.
Jeremy powered on. “Now, as per any self-respecting Challenge meet-cute, there’s a deadline. You’ve got three months. You said you need to send regular ‘progress reports’ to NOB to keep him inspired. To help you stay on track, I present to you your carefully curated meet-cutes, chosen by the experts.” He waved the tip of the pen between himself and Maria. I gave him a pointed look. Jeremy was the biggest cynic I knew. “What? So I have watched a few rom-coms, no big deal. Your choices are . . .” He hit the board with the tip of the marker. “The Road Trip: When Harry Met Sally. Elizabethtown. Thelma and Louise.”
“Pass on that last one. I want to meet someone, not drive with them off a cliff.”
“Isn’t that all relationships?” Maria and I both rolled our eyes. “Okay, fine, but no more vetoes.”
“It’s not even a rom-com!”
“Hush, now, remember your gratitude.” That told me. Jeremy flipped the page. “Then there’s the Holiday Romance. Also doubles as the Christmas rom-com. Most famously: The Holiday. Love Actually. Bridget Jones’s Diary. A Christmas Prince. Don’t give me that look. I wasn’t one of the people Netflix called out for watching it twice a day for two weeks.” He avoided our eyes as he revealed the next page.
It bore the words Big Finale?? in giant letters. “We’ll come back to that.” He turned over to a list that looked a little more “drank wine on train.”
“‘Stalk Someone’?”
“While You Were Sleeping. A stone-cold classic,” said Jeremy.
“I don’t intend to get arrested, Jem.” I moved on to the next one. “‘The One Where They Meet in a Bookshop’?” I read out.
Jeremy started to tick off on his fingers. “You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally—”
“You’ve already used that one.”
“Venn diagram,” called Maria. Jeremy flipped to a very complicated-looking series of overlapping circles with headings like “Christmas” and “Hugh Grant,” filled in with various rom-coms from pre–golden age to now. It was a work of drunken genius. “There’s some overlap.”
“I can see that,” I said, beginning to smile.
The living room door flew open. “Darlings!”
Jeremy reached for the wine bottle.
“Jane!” I said loudly, aware of how the room must look. “How was your date?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.”
A pair of arms snaked around her slender waist and a dark-haired man peered over her shoulder into the room. He was gorgeous, like a young Antonio Banderas. All three of us gawped. Sometimes I thought Jane’s relationship spectrum was like a beautiful prism, albeit one that had to be dishwasher-safe.
“I’m Trev,” he said in a broad East End accent. “Jane’s told me loads about you.” One might think he’d be talking about me, Jane’s flatmate, but he was looking at Jeremy when he spoke.
“Not as much as we heard about you,” Jeremy muttered into his glass.
“We just wanted to pop in and ask you about the courgettes you’ve put in the fridge.” Trev nudged her. “And the aubergine. Are you planning on using them . . . ?”
I held up some pizza. “We decided to stay out of the kitchen. You’re welcome to eat them.”
Jeremy, who’d been busy rolling up a slice, stopped to shake his head vigorously at me. “Duck,” said Jane. “We won’t be eating them.”
It took me a few seconds to get it. “But they’re organic,” I said, as if that mattered.
Trev nibbled Jane’s ear. “Be right back.”
Jane’s eyes slid to the pad. “What are you darlings up to?”
Maria gamely stepped in. “We were just trying to think of ways Evie could meet someone in a bookshop,” she said.
“You’re dating again?” Jane asked me. “How thrilling! Though hardly anyone meets organically anymore.”
Speaking of organic, Trev had returned with my vegetables and—unaccountably—a spiralizer.
“What about a book group?” he suggested, munching on the end of a carrot.
Jane tugged it away from his mouth. “Don’t waste them. Oh, I know! My friend raves about the one in the Dusty Bookshelf in Peckham. Says it’s an absolute scream. It’s got such a fun name. What is it . . . ?”
I exchanged looks with my friends, but what was the worst that could happen? It was a book group. Jeremy wrote it down.
“How did you two meet?” Maria asked her. Jeremy switched his pizza for more wine.
“Mustache dating app,” Jane said promptly.
We all looked as one to Trev’s bare upper lip. “Must Dash,” Jane enunciated. “It’s an app for commuters who want a quick fu—”
“How lovely,” Maria interjected.
We were treated to a live demonstration of the “dash” part of the app as Trev chased Jane down the hallway with the courgette.
I closed the door so we couldn’t hear anything. “Okay,” I said, returning to the list. “So I’ve got my list of meet-cutes for inspiration. Now show me your plan for the big finale.”
I don’t think I’d ever seen two people look more pleased with themselves.
Jeremy held up his phone, showing he’d been busy on JEMS.
SARAH: is this hen do-related? Tell me you’re not getting distracted!
“Wait, not that one.” He scrolled down.
SARAH: got it. Right, count me in for the wedding one.
“What does she mean?”
“That Sarah’s wedding is finally going to be useful for something.”
“Jeremy,” Maria chastised automatically. Still our conscience, even when tipsy.
Jeremy pointed to the middle of the Venn diagram, where the word Wedding! was made barely legible by the overlapping circles. “Approximately ninety-five percent of rom-coms feature a wedding, maybe more, I haven’t actually done the math. The Wedding Planner. 27 Dresses. My Best Friend’s Wedding. Having the wedding as your end point is literally the most rom-com thing you could possibly do. This,” said Jeremy, spreading his hands, “is your grand finale.”
Maria was beaming encouragingly. “Sarah’s going to find you the perfect date.” She paused at my expression. “She’s going to find you a date.”
“It’s Sarah’s day, I can’t make it about me!”
Jeremy snorted. “Every day is Sarah’s day. With this one she’s just legitimized it. The wedding is just before your deadline, Evie. It’s perfect timing. If you haven’t succeeded by then, who better to make sure you do than an obsessive, aggressively organized control freak? Our questionable friendship is finally going to pay off. Evie, my dear, do it for all of us.”
I looked to Maria, who shrugged. “Sarah seems happy about it . . .”
“Okay, okay, you win.”
Jeremy came back to sit between us on the sofa and we all looked at the word Wedding! at the center of the pad.
“I’m really doing it,” I said, slightly dazed. “I’m going to live as if I’m in a rom-com for three months.”
If I was truly honest, I knew I feared the very thing my friends believed this challenge might be good for. Am I risking falling in love again? Ricky’s final words to me were at the back of my mind. I think you’re great, Evie, he’d said. It’s just me. I want more. It was the ultimate “It’s not you, it’s me” breakup, only I was still left feeling like I’d failed to be what he wanted. I wasn’t grieving anymore, not exactly; but some things linger.
“To Evie,” Jeremy declared, as we clinked our glasses, “and her love life.”
“Career,” I corrected. “And here’s to my brilliant friends proving, with a little manipulation, real life can be like the movies.”
Jeremy held two books from the coffee table over my lap like they were a director’s clapper board, bringing them together with a snap. “Action.”