Chapter 7 KELSEY ASKS, “WHAT WOULD REESE DO?”
Chapter 7
K ELSEY A SKS , “W HAT W OULD R EESE D O? ”
The Thursday morning I take off across the US of A is bright and sunshiny.
It’s perfect.
I double-check with Jester to be sure that Desdemona is headed for the airport, then leave LA on I-15 toward Vegas. I’m not going anywhere near there, though. For someone trying to find a small-town romance after leaving a big, jaded city, Las Vegas would be going from the fire into an inferno. I’ll pop southeast and drive near the Hoover Dam instead.
I sing to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé until I have to stop to charge my hybrid.
Thankfully, I’m parked when the Demon makes her first call. She’s in the executive lounge waiting for her flight to France.
“Kelsey, send Drake Underwood the headshots for Caleb Jonas and Salena Cole.”
My body goes still. Not this director! My voice is more tremulous than I like when I ask, “For which project?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The one he hired us for.”
She means Limited Fate.
“Isn’t Caleb outside the age range? The script called for—”
Her voice slices through mine. “I’m not interested in your opinion. Send their agents the script and prep them for self-tapes. Be subtle. Caleb in particular might not appreciate direction.”
I’m so choked up about how wrong those two are for that beautiful movie that I can’t even answer.
“I expect an update when I land.” Desdemona ends the call.
I drop the phone in the passenger seat and scream, “No! No! No!”
A truck driver walking past pauses to watch.
My face flushes. I wave him on.
Unless this is a meet-cute. I didn’t put “distressed damsel” on my list, but it fits in with the rescue trope.
He tilts his head as if he’s considering checking on me. Tall, fit, dressed in jeans (faded Levi’s, probably slightly vintage, $35, and a polo, possibly Walmart, $15).
I’m about to open the door to dramatically sob by my car door when a bit of gold flashes on his hand.
Wedding band.
I hold up my phone and shrug, as if that explains everything.
Seeing me act normal, he nods and continues on to the station.
I smack my head against the back of my seat to resume my professional lament. Caleb Jonas and Salena Cole!
Caleb’s strength is in police roles, not the tender young sculptor in Limited Fate . It’ll be hard for an audience to get past his commanding presence from those movies.
Salena could work as the snappy, jaded graffiti artist from the Bronx, but she’ll need a serious accent coach. She’s only done small parts with a few lines here and there. She’s completely untested in a nuanced role.
But even if both of them can rise to these parts, and I do believe in the flexibility of most actors, there’s something about the two of them that doesn’t make a romantic mix.
I could put a lot of actors with Caleb who would work better. And many leading men for Salena. But Caleb and Salena ...
I’m making myself crazy. I have to stop.
Desdemona is the boss.
I might as well take this moment to notify the two of them they need to record a reading. I know Limited Fate inside out, and as I wait for my hybrid to charge, I use my phone to scroll through the script to select pieces for each of them.
By the time I’m ready to hit the road again, I’ve submitted the scenes to both actors’ agents and bought myself a fried apple pie to make me feel better.
I’m about to pull out when I get a text from Zachery.
Zach: Jester told me about LF. I’m sorry.
Me: It’s a nightmare but it’s done.
Zach: Maybe they’ll pass.
Me: They’d be dumb to, although it won’t be the same movie with them.
Zach: You’re not texting and driving, are you?
Me: Just charged the car.
Zach: Good. Check in on your next stop.
Me: Will do.
I decide to go with podcasts instead of music for the next leg, in hopes of keeping my mind off the tragic casting I had to submit.
My phone has obviously been illegally listening to what I’ve been doing for the last two days, because it pops up a suggestion for a Hallmark movie review show. I click on it and start listening.
Within an hour, I’ve absorbed two perky hosts’ defining characteristics of the genre. They’ve given me far more information than the meet-cutes Zachery and I studied.
I can’t stop and type a list, so I commit it to memory.
One: My future husband will be wearing a flannel shirt.
Two: He will work with his hands. Handyman seems to be the top preference, but he could also be a farmer, a mechanic, or possibly a police officer.
Like Caleb Jonas.
No, no. Don’t think about Limited Fate .
Unfortunately, according to the statistics on the podcast, the leading lady is supposed to be a baker, and if not, a reporter traveling to the town to do a news story.
I can neither bake nor write articles.
Alternatively, I should be coming home to save the family business or as a celebrity in disgrace.
Neither of those applies, either.
Nobody writes movies starring assistant casting directors. The closest thing to my situation is The Devil Wears Prada .
Mine would be The Demon Casts Chick Flicks .
Since I won’t be baking cupcakes or raising money for a failing farm, I’ll have to double down on the meet-cute. There’s no other way.
The plan comes to me.
First, stop in the coffee shop of every appropriate town I encounter.
Second, wait for my future husband to walk in.
Third, rush toward him, trip, and spill my coffee.
I’ll be careful. Iced coffee only to avoid burns. Angle the splash so I won’t ruin anything fancy. In fact, I’ll get most of the coffee on myself, and only a dribble on him. That way, if he isn’t offering to clean me up, I can offer to clean him up.
Yes! That’s a standard opening beat of every romance. The pair gets in close, wiping up the mess.
Proximity is important.
Then their eyes meet.
It will work.
It always works.
I tap my phone to bring up Google Maps. I need a small town and a coffee shop. How wild would it be to have a success on the first day? The very idea brings me out of my funk.
I approach my first tiny town a half hour later. I could have easily bypassed it on the freeway, but I changed the route to follow a small highway that bisects the community. Main Street is adorable, with stone storefronts boasting a hardware store, a beauty parlor, and YES, a coffee shop!
It’s called Good Brew.
I mean, how perfect.
I park a block away so that my car won’t be too close if my new man and I get a chance to walk awhile after the big spill. We’ll need time to establish that we want to see each other again.
I check the rearview mirror, fixing a smudge in my eyeliner. More lip gloss. He needs to think about kissing me, even though that’s not allowed for a while. I think we need to have an interrupted kiss before we can do the real thing.
Oh, this is exciting!
Will he wear flannel?
Be a little older? My age? Have a beard?
I’m open to anything. They’ll all be different from the hot messes I’ve dated in LA.
I peel myself off the seat, which has adhered itself to my thighs in the car.
As I walk the block, I realize flannel will not be a thing. It’s sweltering today, and we’re in the middle of the desert, only a couple of hours outside Vegas.
I don’t see a soul as I take my time looking over the storefronts. I can picture the scene as it would be filmed by a camera on a dolly on the opposite side of the street.
EXT. A SMALL-TOWN MAIN STREET—DAY
KELSEY, 25, strolls along the sidewalk with innocent interest. The skirt of her pale-blue dress swishes near her knees. She wears sensible shoes with a modest chunky heel and sassy ankle strap. Her blond hair flows to her shoulders, held back with a silver headband.
HERO, 28, exits the barbershop. He spots Kelsey and tips his hat.
I pause. Hmmm. There’s nobody on the street. Nobody exiting any of the stores.
Nobody at all, actually.
I arrive at the beauty parlor window adorned with cartoon scissors and a comb. It’s mostly empty inside, but two women talking by the hair dryers definitely notice me. They fall silent, their gaze following as I pass by.
Should I acknowledge them? My movie scene falters as their stiff postures and narrowed eyes don’t fit my perfect imagining.
I opt to speed up, wondering if there’s something wrong with my dress or shoes. Is my hair flying every direction?
When I’m beyond their windows, I turn to see my filmy reflection against the hardware store display. Everything seems all right with my appearance.
Near the door to the hardware shop, a woman about to walk out stops to watch me. My anxiety grows. Maybe I’m not in a Hallmark movie at all, but Children of the Corn .
I’m getting horror vibes.
Maybe I should go back to the car.
But doing that would mean passing by all those people a second time, so I gamely head for the door to Good Brew.
Obviously, this is such a tight-knit community that they recognize when a stranger arrives. Probably they’re already gossiping about me. Perhaps they’ll run me out of town with pitchforks if they pick up on my LA vibes.
I might not blame them.
No, that’s my big-city pessimism taking hold.
I reframe. Maybe they are little-old-lady matchmakers, and their curiosity is all about figuring out which single man would be exactly right for me.
Maybe they’re planning a meet-cute of their own.
I open the door to the coffee shop.
A young woman in a black apron leans on the counter, looking bored out of her mind. Her gaze flicks up to me from her phone, disinterested.
Only one table is taken. Two elderly men sit at it, both looking frustrated. One says, “Turn up your damn hearing aid. I’m tired of repeating myself.”
The other one shouts, “You ain’t got a damn thing to say that’s worth listening to!”
This is good. Grumpy old men are a staple in a good rom-com. They’ll advise the potential guy not to miss his chance, and that if they were forty years younger, they’d give him a run for his money.
That’s better.
I don’t bother to look at the handwritten chalk menu. “Can I get a tall iced espresso with almond milk and a drizzle of caramel, shaken rather than stirred?”
A midfifties woman walks up behind the younger one. Their resemblance tells me this is a mother-daughter pair. “What do you think this is, Beverly Hills Starbucks?” She turns to the younger woman. “Get her a drip with half a packet of white hot chocolate and dump it over ice.”
That sounds disgusting. I open my mouth to protest, but then close it. They seem to be expecting me to go on a rampage. Even the old men have fallen silent.
I think of Legally Blonde , when Reese Witherspoon’s character, Elle Woods, realizes her handwritten notes with a fuzzy pen don’t match the other students’.
What would Reese do?
She’d smile. Big. And hold it.
So, I do, even as I get charged seven dollars for a cup of something incredibly undrinkable, served to me with a grimace only Oscar the Grouch could love.
I sit at a small table by the window so I can do double duty of watching the sidewalk and the inside of the shop. The old men pay me no mind, continuing their circular argument about the hearing aids, and never having a damn thing to say.
The young woman resumes her position at the counter.
And a tumbleweed, a literal tumbleweed, blows down the middle of the street.
I let my coffee sit untouched, although at one point I forget the bastardized order and take a horrible, chalky sweet sip.
Ugggh.
And how did they know I was from Beverly Hills, anyway? I’m a farm girl from southern Alabama!
Have I changed that much?
My phone chimes with the tone I set for Zachery’s text, an incredibly long sequence called “Minuet.”
The sound reverberates in the coffee shop, and even the man who needs to crank his hearing aid turns to stare.
My face flames. “Sorry, so sorry.”
I frantically shut it off and switch the phone to silent mode.
Zach: The Demon has left the country.
That’s a relief. She won’t check in nearly so often, particularly during the festival.
Me: I’m in a town so barren a tumbleweed is the only thing moving.
Zach: Which town?
Me: Bris-something or another.
Zach: Why did you stop?
Me: I found a coffee shop to try my first meet-cute, but they called me out on being Hollywood. Do you think I look Hollywood?
There’s a suspiciously long silence.
Dang it.
Zach : You are very glamorous.
Me: I’m wearing cotton!
Zach: Doesn’t matter.
Me : Do you think I should dye my hair brown?
Zach: No!
An exclamation mark. That’s rare.
But I’m considering it. Jester likes to call me a Beverly Hills unicorn because I’m a natural blonde.
But maybe people here assume it’s fake.
That, coupled with the order I made, tipped them off.
Lesson learned.
Since I’ve obviously blown this gig, I might as well learn a thing or two.
I take my cup to the daughter at the counter, doomscrolling on her phone.
She doesn’t look up when I approach, her dark hair falling forward so that it’s hard to see her face. But she knows I’m there. “Don’t like it?” The question has a laugh in it.
I skip that question. “What would be a normal order for a place like this?”
“Just a coffee.”
Surely not. “No macchiato? No almond milk? No drizzle?”
Her voice is deadpan. “Just coffee. Plain or french roast.”
I’ll have to find a way to work with this. “Am I allowed to get cream?”
She points to a shelf on the side wall. “From over there, yeah.”
I turn. There’s packets of sugar and sweeteners, and a small silver pitcher with a lid.
“And this is how most small-town coffee shops work around here? Can you even make what I asked for?” The only coffee I ever drank in Alabama was from my dad’s burned-bottom metal percolator that sat on the stove. Once I got to LA, fancy coffee became a line item in my meager budget. I got hooked.
She shrugs. “We can make espresso drinks, sure.”
“And you wouldn’t give me one because ...”
“Your order was ridiculous.” She pretends to flip her hair. “Iced with blah blah milk and drizzles of junk and oh, let me tell you even how to make it because obviously it will suck if I don’t.”
So, my order wasn’t precise; it was insulting. “I see. Thank you.”
I’ve learned.
Just a coffee. Ask for it kindly.
Be simple.
If this is what I’ll have to get at every coffee shop all the way to Alabama to avoid looking like a big-city brat, this is going to be a long trip.