“Sure.” The producer hung back, twiddled with her walkie-talkie.
“Alone?” Elliot yelled.
“Okay, um.” A stream of curses flowed down the corridor towards us from the set and the producer stared at Elliot, pained.
“It’s fine, go.” I was getting in Elliot’s way.
“But – I – can we—?” His head darted back and forth between me and the producer.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Take care of this and I’ll see you …” I didn’t know when I’d see him again. My flight was next week and if he was to be stuck on set between now and then, I probably wouldn’t see him at all. But perhaps that was for the best.
I took a breath, looked at him squarely and drank him in, filled my mind’s eye with every line and plane of his perfect face. “Bye, Elliot.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ihadn’t dared check the time in hours, but the RJF office had grown dark and quiet. A thunderstorm had hit Manhattan and so I was quite happy to not rush home in what sounded like torrential rain. It was only when Phil and his cleaning crew breezed in that I braved a look at the clock – 10 p.m.Shit.I’d known the proofread would take a long time, but this was ridiculous. I stopped for a drink of water, chatted with Phil about the way the door to the writers’ room stuck.
“I’ll bring my tool belt up here,” he said with a chuckle. “The super here is useless.”
“Isn’t the super your cousin?” I said, vaguely remembering Juno saying such a thing.
“That’s how I know he’s useless!” Phil shot back. We walked back to the writers’ room and he tugged at the door, inspected the frame. “Yeah, I can shave a bit off the bottom here, perhaps oil the hinges, I’ll fix it up.”
“There’s probably no point,” I said sadly. “I’m leaving next week. This will be a storage closet again soon enough.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said politely. “But I’ll still fix this. No point giving up on it.”
“So everyone keeps telling me,” I said, my insides giving a flip. Phil shot me an odd look, then left me to it. I finished off my proofing to the sounds of him ordering his team to finish up and a little later he popped his head in to say goodbye, promising to come back and sort the sticky door next week. I toiled on and, as midnight approached, I hit ‘save’ triumphantly then emailed the final copy to RJ and Sadie. Crazy to think that a few weeks ago I’d emailed RJ about all the things I’d change about his script and now here I was sending him the final, polished version.
As I pondered the full-circle moment, I heard the lift ping again and I frowned. Had Phil forgotten something? He and his team always did an amazing clean; there was no way he’d have missed a spot. Or perhaps he’d decided to fix the door now and not wait until next week. I got up, stretching my tired body.
“Phil?” I called. “Don’t worry, it’s really not that bad, see, you just have to give it a good hard yank and it—” I grunted as I gave the door a big pull and it scraped open another foot.
But it wasn’t Phil standing the other side of the door. It was Elliot, chest heaving as if he’d run a marathon, hair sodden and clinging to his skull.
“Elliot, what are you—”
He stepped closer. “We never finished our conversation.”
“It’s still raining.” I slow-clapped myself internally. That was the best thing I could come up with?
“Um, yeah,” he said, looking down at his damp clothes. “Traffic’s bad, so I ended up jumping out of the Uber to run the last five blocks.”
“In the … with all the rain.”Someone gag me.“I mean … are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.” He swallowed audibly.
And that was my fault. “Elliot, I’m s—”
“I need to say something,” he said forcefully. “I knowyou’re scared and that you didn’t expect this thing with me, but it’s happened and I’m not sorry.”
His tone was severe, but his eyes were endless pools I couldn’t look away from, a mind-muddling combination. “I never said you should – I mean, I’m not—”
“Lucie.” Elliot stepped forward again, rivulets of rain tracing paths down his face. “I have to tell you something important.” His strong hands cupped my face, and I held my breath, ready to absorb this seminal truth. “Independence Dayis a modern classic.”
For a moment, I froze. That was not what I had expected to hear when I’d opened the door to see him standing there. “Ind— what?”
Elliot nodded slowly and seriously. “As an ode to nineties American culture, a symbol of people uniting across class and race divides to save the world, it is a vital message.” He shook his head in awe. “But, more importantly than that, it’s a fucking good time.”
