“Well, let me know if there’s anything you’d like. Or if you need anything from the store.”
“I don’t need anything. Are you doing laundry again?”
I told her that I would have to do so eventually, and she gave me an encore lecture about intolerable sound levels, as if I was planning on practicing Rage Against the Machine guitar solos instead of running a dryer. Then she sent me on my way. I hadn’t broken her icy façade yet, but I wasn’t giving up, either. New Yorkers aren’t known for being nice, but we know how to break people down over time. It’s not the theme of every Scorsese movie for nothing.
By the next day,when Lisette rang my doorbell to pick me up, I was feeling strangely elated, even before she greeted me with one of her massive hugs.
“Bell Island is gorgeous,” she said. “You’re giving us an excuse to go visit all the best spots. And the ferry is very steady.”
“If I feel ill, it’s okay to jump overboard, right?”
“You won’t. Much bigger boat. Almost Staten Island Ferry big.”
“How do you know about the Staten Island Ferry?”
“I watch rom-com movies. That’s the ferry where you all run toward each other just as it’s leaving the dock, announcing you’re in love, right?”
“It’s a standard part of the morning commute.”
She considered this. “I suppose there are fewer movies set on the Bell Island Ferry. We should make one up! We can do an improv called Love on the Bell Island Ferry.”
Paul smiled in greeting as I reached for the doorhandle of the back seat of his car, but Lisette slid by me and insisting on taking the back.
“You both have at least six inches on me. You should have the front. I’ll just pretend you’re my parents and demand that we go to McDonalds.”
“Only if you’re very, very good,” Paul replied.
“It’s not really a tall person car, is it,” I said to Lisette as I buckled the front seatbelt.
“No, not at all,” Lisette agreed.
Paul gave me an amused glance and muttered something under his breath that may have been “Michael Caine.”
Lisette talked through her romantic-comedy idea on the drive across the peninsula to the ferry, and we filled it in with little details that would make our hypothetical movie feel especially Newfoundland. I learned a lot about the local culturefrom that conversation—the fishing traditions, the phrases, the nightlife.
“Newfoundlanders are really funny,” Paul said. “But in a deadpan way. So for example we have a town named Dildo. And the claim is that it’s a reference to a part of a boat, but people know what it also refers to. You’ll never get them to admit it, though. That’s part of the joke. They’ll look you straight in the eye and claim they have no idea what you’re talking about while they sell you an ‘I Love Dildo’ t-shirt. It’s island humor. Putting one over on the outsiders.”
“Maybe our rom-com should be calledShe Comes from Dildo,” I suggested, and that’s what we stuck with. By the time Paul had pulled his car onto the Bell Island ferry, Lisette was insisting on filming some scenes on her cell phone.
“You two can be the leads in the movie,” she said. “We need clips where you’re falling in love on the ferry.” Paul and I looked at each other, then looked away.
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “I don’t have leading man potential. We need to send the script to Ryan Reynolds.”
“He would do a film calledShe Comes from Dildo,” I agreed, “as long as you pitch it as aDeadpoolsequel.”
“This can be our trailer when we send the script to him,” Lisette began, waving her phone.
“Proof of concept?” I asked, remembering my days in advertising.
“Exactly,” Lisette said. “Whatever that is.”
We all knew that we weren’t going to write the script, but it was fun to speculate about it for the day, coming up with new ideas. Eventually, Lisette left to wander the ferry and Paul and I ended up standing on the deck together, looking out at the waves. The Bell Island dock was already approaching.
“I’ve told Lisette that she should actually write down some of her ideas, but she never follows through.”
“Maybe you two can write a screenplay together,” I said.
“No.” He looked down. “I don’t think I’d have the heart to write an actual screenplay. I might get my hopes up about getting it made. That’s the kind of thing I did when I was younger. I have a huge folder of broken dreams on my laptop.”
