“Seriously,” I prod.
“Well, I majored in communications, because I wanted to be White House press secretary. You know, a normal thing eighteen-year-old girls want.” She laughs at herself a little. “But I had to take a couple of creative writing classes for my major to graduate, and I was really good at it. So I decided to do a screenwriting MFA.”
“Why screenwriting?”
She dumps a huge blob of ketchup onto her eggs.
“Because screenwriting is more lucrative than toiling away at a literary masterpiece, and I like money.”
“Strategic,” I say. “But why rom-coms?”
In high school she could not abide the slightest whiff of anything romantic. She wouldn’t even watch masterpieces like Titanic. She liked to cuddle up on the couch with popcorn and watch Frontline.
“They were way more popular, when I started, and easier for women to break into,” she says. “And I wanted to write stuff I could sell. Plus, you can bang them out quickly because they all have the same arc and use similar tropes. It was just practical.”
“You sound somewhat dismissive of your own genre.”
And dissonant with the girl she used to be. Molly’s interests were never “practical.” She liked listening to Rufus Wainwright and debating the existence of trickle-down economics and reading slim volumes of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
“I’m not dismissive. I think rom-coms are an undervalued reflection of our culture. The conventions are a narrative vehicle reflecting the fantasies and anxieties underlying, you know, the primal biological will toward finding a mate.”
“Oh, like, a soul mate?”
She groans. “Not this shit again. I mean the impulse to reproduce one’s genetic material.”
“It’s not shit, it’s true love. And it’s what you’re selling, isn’t it? Soul mates? You must on some level find the idea attractive if you’ve devoted your entire career to it.”
“What I find attractive is exploiting the inherent human desire for connection for profit. It’s a job. I’m good at it. End of story.”
I don’t buy it.
“You’re so full of shit, Molls. God, I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Excuse me?”
She looks mad.
I guess we’re not at so restored a level of closeness that I’m allowed to call her out.
Apparently, this is the part of her high school schtick she’s still hanging on to: finding love corny.
I happen to know she actually doesn’t.
I’d bet my life on it.
But for now, I’ll bet something else.
CHAPTER 9 Molly
Seth looks very hot when he’s provoking me. I’m torn between wanting to kick him out of my room and wanting to grab his hand and put it under my robe.
But I can’t do that because I’m already soaked in shame that I slept with him.
Not because the sex was bad—it was, um, fantastic—it just feels like he wants this a little more than I do.
He always has.
“If you really believe I’m so wrong,” he says in a lawyerly voice, “and true love is not real, and soul mates are Hollywood bullshit, then prove it.”
He’s sitting at full attention, knocking his knife against the table like this is very serious business rather than awkward posthookup conversation between two people who are never going to speak to each other again.
“Prove it how?”
“Let’s make a bet. See who knows more about relationships: the romance writer or the divorce attorney.”
“And how would we do that?”
“With evidence. Five couples, five years. We both predict who will stay together and who will break up. We’ll meet again at our twenty-year reunion and see who was the most accurate. If it’s you, I’ll admit true love is a fantasy. If I win, you admit soul mates exist.”
“You’re just trying to get me to come to the next reunion.”
He considers this.
“Well, I did enjoy fucking you.”
Dear God.
“What?” he asks, watching me squirm. “You didn’t like the sex?”
