WEDNESDAY: We Get Ready

BY EUGENIE MONTAGUE

Copyright is held by the author.

MOLLY SAYS Meg Ryan is the gold standard. We can identify the traits of an ideal woman by watching every one of her movies.

“Some of those are from the 80s,” I say. “Is this all still relevant?”

“Meg Ryan is always relevant,” Molly says.

We started with Top Gun. We just finished When Harry Met Sally. Next, we will watch The Doors. I write our observations in a notebook. For Top Gun, I write: take me to bed or lose me forever. For When Harry Met Sally: drive across the country with a boy.

I roll over to look at Molly. “Do you think we’re getting the important stuff?”

“Definitely,” Molly says.

Downstairs, something crashes. The wall shudders. Molly pushes her toes into my upper thigh. They leave white, toe-sized blotches in my skin when she takes her foot away.

“Do your underwear have avocados on them?” Molly says. I roll away from her, but she is grabbing at the band resting on my left hip. “Tell me why I’m the one whose mom left, but you’re the one whose underwear have singing avocados on them?”

I slap her hand away, and she scissors her legs at me, flashing sheer black.

Downstairs, the smoke alarm is going off. Her father is swearing, slamming windows open, yelling at the oven. Molly pauses the movie to listen, then rolls back to me, rolling her eyes. She rests her head on my shoulder. Everyday there is more and more of her life I can’t share. In eight months, her boyfriend Jason will get her pregnant. I will go with her to the clinic but they won’t let me come when they call her back. In the waiting room, I will let her father cry against me.

We start a new movie.

From The Doors, I write: be difficult and pretty and cleave yourself to an impossible love.

From Sleepless in Seattle, I write: find an old movie and tether your life choices to it.

From When a Man Loves a Woman: it is possible to be blackout drunk and adorable.

Molly says, “Let’s get ready.”

We are sneaking out. We are taking her father’s truck. We are 15, but we learned to drive at 12, because we are from the country. When he falls asleep, we will throw out the cold Hot Pocket he left in the microwave, take his truck, drive away, and make all right-hand turns until we are completely lost or back where we started from. We will scream along to our favourite songs, and Molly will drive fast. Sometimes, she will scare me. We will do this at least once a week for three months. In four months, she will stop asking me to sleep over, because she is taking the truck to meet Jason.

Now, she is pulling things off hangars in her closet. I feel fabric land on top of me. I am blanketed in her clothes. She picks up a slinky black top that fell on my shoulder.

“Wear this,” she says.

“Hold on,” I say. “Just a few more.”

From Courage Under Fire, I write: don’t try to be anything too different than what people want you to be.

From You’ve Got Mail, I write: see above.

From Kate & Leopold: sometimes you are trying to live in the wrong time.

“Come on,” Molly says. “I don’t want to watch movies. I want to go out.”

I look up. She is wearing a blue dress, and she is older now. She says, “Sara, are you ready? Are you ready yet, Sara? No one’s going to wait forever, you know.”

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Eugenie Montague’s debut novel, Swallow the Ghost, was named a best crime novel of 2024 by the New York Times.