Page 23 of Christmas at the Movies

‘Well, the dialogue is wooden, but that can be fixed. The bigger problem is that the characters feel two-dimensional. To root for them getting back together, we need to understand who they are.’ Sarah’s ideas poured out of her in a rush.

‘Maybe you could show some flashbacks to their previous relationship, so we get a better sense of their emotional conflicts?’

‘OK …’ said Noa.

‘And the ending needs work,’ continued Sarah. ‘It relies too much on coincidence – even for a romcom. But I’ve got some ideas for how you could resolve the story in a more satisfactory way.’

Noa stared at her, frowning.

Uh-oh, thought Sarah. She’d been too honest. She should have tempered her criticism with some praise. After all, what did she know? This guy had an Oscar on his mantelpiece, not her. She’d let the whisky, and the strange situation, go to her head.

‘So when can you get me a new draft?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I want to hire you to do a rewrite of the script,’ said Noa. ‘I can offer you twenty thousand.’

‘Y-you want me to work on your movie?’ stammered Sarah. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more – the job offer or the figure he’d just named. It was enough to buy a new sound system for the cinema.

‘Yes, but I need it to be done quickly – we start shooting in two weeks.’

‘Give me a minute,’ said Sarah, her head spinning. ‘I need to think.’

She went into the bathroom.

This is crazy. I haven’t written anything for years. There was so much going on at home and at work, and Christmas was right around the corner. She’d just been telling James that she had too much to do – so why was she even considering it?

Because it was a golden opportunity. The chance of a lifetime.

When Sarah came out of the toilet stall, she stared at her reflection. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she fired off a quick text message to Pari.

I just spent the night with Noa Drakos.

Pari replied instantly. WTF?

As a stand-up comedian, her friend had been a nocturnal creature throughout her twenties and thirties. Now she woke up at the crack of dawn to go to gym classes with terrifying names like Bootie Boot Camp and Body Blitz Insanity.

We got snowed in together at the cinema.

Sarah added the snowflake emoji and then the laughing face emoji.

Ask him if he’s happy with his current representation.

Sarah laughed. Pari’s law degree, combined with the skills she’d honed as a stand-up, had made her an incredibly successful agent. She had the hide of a rhinoceros and never stopped negotiating the best deals for her clients.

He asked me to work on a script.

As Sarah typed it, her heart raced with excitement.

Her eyes weren’t sparkling just because a handsome film director had been flirting with her all evening.

Or because of the whisky she’d drunk. It was because tonight, for the first time in ages, she was working with words.

Doing the thing she loved. A long-dormant part of her was beginning to wake up again. And, oh, how much she had missed it.

Of course he did. You’re the best. You should do it.

That was all the encouragement she needed.

Sarah washed her hands and splashed some water on her face.

Then she returned to the lobby. She thought about waiting until she’d spoken to James, but how could he possibly object?

This job would mean they could replace the sound system, which he would surely be delighted about. It was the answer to their prayers.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I’ll rewrite the script for you.’ She couldn’t wait to get started, to take a script in hand and make it sing.

‘Great!’ Noa clapped his hands together. ‘I have a good feeling about this. And to think it was Ingmar Bergman who brought us together.’

He smiled at her and Sarah basked in the warmth of his gaze. Noa saw her as a fellow creative. Nobody had looked at her that way in a very long time.

Sarah went to the door and peered out. The street lights were still on, though the sun was just beginning to rise. The road was clear and it had stopped snowing.

‘Shall I drop you off at Merricourt Manor on my way home?’ said Sarah.

‘That would be amazing,’ Noa replied.

Sarah switched off the lights in the office and lobby, then led Noa to the back door, leading out to the car park. Hers was the only car in the lot, swaddled by a thick blanket of snow.

‘Do you own the car park too?’ Noa asked.

‘Yes,’ said Sarah, trudging through the snow.

‘Interesting …’ said Noa, looking around. ‘You’ve got a lot of space out back here.’

Sarah brushed snow off the windscreen and unlocked the car. Driving carefully down the freshly salted country lanes, she dropped Noa off at Merricourt Manor. The hotel looked stunning, the dawn sunlight casting a rosy glow over the grounds. No wonder he had chosen it as his film’s location.

‘I can’t wait to crawl into bed,’ said Noa, yawning. ‘I can probably get a few more hours before my first meeting.’ Pausing before getting out of the car, he touched her arm. ‘Thanks for an unforgettable night, Sarah. My people will be in touch soon with your contract and an NDA.’

Sarah watched him go into the hotel, then set off for home. She hadn’t slept at all, but she was used to feeling tired. Sleep could wait. She’d have just enough time to bake Holly a birthday cake before she woke up.

How was it possible that Holly was sixteen?

It felt like only yesterday that she’d been in her belly.

Having a teenaged daughter – especially one as beautiful as Holly – had been making her feel old lately.

But maybe she’d been looking at things the wrong way.

Sarah’s life might be half over, but she still had half a lifetime ahead of her and it was time to start making every day count.

She was finally going to do the things she had always meant to do.

She’d been handed a second chance and she wasn’t going to waste it!

30th November 2007

‘Come on out, baby,’ Sarah said, running her hands over her stomach. The baby kicked in response to her voice, a tiny heel protruding from her huge belly. Sarah laughed. As much as she longed to hold her baby, she would miss having him – or her – all to herself.

After her initial joy at discovering she was finally pregnant, Sarah had passed an anxious first trimester. She’d sobbed with relief at her first scan, so convinced was she that something would go wrong.

‘Oh, honey,’ the midwife had said. ‘Welcome to motherhood. My youngest is twenty-seven and I still worry about him.’

Once she’d heard the heartbeat, and seen the scan, Sarah had relaxed – a bit.

She had relished everything about her pregnancy, from morning sickness and stretch marks, to back pain and heartburn, because she had wanted it for so long.

Every kick, every jab of a tiny elbow, convinced her that everything was still OK.

‘I can’t wait to meet you, little one,’ she said to her bump.

She and James had decided not to find out the gender. Meg thought it was a boy, because she was carrying so low, but Sarah didn’t mind either way – she just wanted the baby to be healthy.

Sarah looked around the nursery, with the cot James had assembled and lemon-yellow walls they had painted together.

A mobile with sea creatures hung over the cot.

The changing table was stocked with nappies and wipes, the dresser filled with tiny onesies and sleep suits.

Her bag for the hospital was packed, with her birth plan, healthy snacks and an iPod loaded with relaxing music.

Everything was ready – or as ready as it was possible to be before such a life-changing event.

Sarah opened the baby gate at the top of the stairs and waddled downstairs. In the kitchen, she struggled with the child lock on the cupboard door. When she finally managed to get it open, she opened a tin of pineapple and ate the sweet chunks straight from the tin.

Sarah had told James that their baby wouldn’t be crawling for several months, but he’d wanted to be prepared, baby-proofing the whole cottage.

Meanwhile, Sarah had bought every baby and pregnancy book she could get her hands on from the Stowford bookshop.

Nora, the shop’s owner, had joked that Sarah was single-handedly keeping the shop in business.

Despite all her cramming, Sarah still felt unprepared. She kept having a dream that she was sitting an exam and hadn’t studied enough. Only this was real life, and the exam was a baby.

She drank the juice straight from the tin, then threw it in the recycling bin and rang her mother.

‘Has the baby come?’ Geraldine said, answering after only one ring.

‘Not yet,’ replied Sarah, sighing. ‘I’m so impatient. I hate waiting.’

She was nearly two weeks past her due date.

‘You and your sister were both late as well. In your sister’s case, that never changed.’

Sarah laughed. She pitied the patients at her sister’s dental practice, who were invariably kept waiting because Meg was so chatty. ‘I hope I don’t have to be induced like her.’ She wanted a natural birth, with minimal medical intervention.

‘I’ve just been reading a fascinating book about birthing traditions in Native American tribes,’ said Geraldine.

She was on a work trip to Washington, doing research at the Smithsonian Institute.

‘When a Cherokee baby was due to be born, they would try to frighten it out of the womb – by telling it that something scary was coming and they had to get out.’

‘You want me to scare my baby into the world?’ The world was a terrifying enough place already.

Sometimes Sarah wondered if she and James were being irresponsible, bringing a new human being into such turbulent times.

Civil wars were raging in several countries.

Global warming was melting the polar ice caps at an alarming rate.

World financial markets were in freefall.

‘They also drank a tea made of wild cherry bark to speed labour along.’