What Nora Knew (29 page)

I hurried to the elevators, smug that I could cut ahead for my extra twenty-two bucks. The doors were about to close on a filled car. I scooted in, made room for myself. I was late, too late, but I had to get up there. I paid $47.50 dammit!—get this elevator up there! The doors closed. Then opened. The elevator operator said, “Sorry, folks. We seem stalled a
moment.” The doors closed and opened again. And there, in the lobby, standing by himself, looking nervous and scared and delicious in a crisp, new Cincinnati Reds cap, was Cameron Duncan. Staring toward the elevator. I smiled at him. He smiled back. I stepped off the elevator as the doors closed behind me. I hadn’t realized before that music was playing in the lobby. Well, I heard music. Jimmy Durante.

I walked up to Cameron. My Cameron. “Nice cap,” I said.

“Nice leotard,” he said. He glanced skyward, shrugged, smiled that sweet, crooked grin of his, now rueful, embarrassed. “I’m never getting up there.”

“So, you never get up there. I like it down here.”

He took my hand. “I love it down here.”

“Let’s stay here.”

And before he kissed me, he said, “Yes, this is a good place to start.”

Major amounts of gratitude go to Joyce Hunt, Debi Feinman, Dolores Barnett, Joan Black, Sybil Sage, Chrissy Cross, and Gina Bogin for their cheerleading skills, and to the beautiful Charlotte Arthur, who saves me from anachronisms. To Kathy Sagan for saying I should do this, Gail Hochman for agreeing, and Vivien Yellin for insisting. And to my fabulous Gallery gals: Tricia Boczowski, Elana Cohen, and the two Jens: Bergstrom and Robinson. And of course, thanks go to Mr. Simon and Mr. Schuster, my imaginary boyfriends.

Linda Yellin

Molly Hallberg is a divorced writer living in New York City. For the past four years, Molly has been on staff at
EyeSpy,
an online entertainment magazine, getting all the wacky assignments. She’s jumped out of airplanes, snuck vibrators through security scanners, and tested kegel-squeezing panties. What she really wants is her own column and to publish her literary essays. Her latest assignment is to write about romance “in the style of Nora Ephron,” and she strikes out big-time. A self-professed cynic, Molly’s no good at love—she’s dating a chiropractor who’s comfortable, but safe—and she won’t acknowledge the one man who can go one-on-one with her. But with insights from Nora Ephron’s iconic comedies, Molly learns to open her heart and find her own fairy-tale ending.

1. The epigraph at the beginning of the book is a quote from Nora Ephron. “There’s no one who’s more romantic than a cynic.” Do you agree? Why do you think the author chose this quote?

2. 
“Deep-down love, deep-in-the-ventricles-of-your-heart love, was something that happened to other people, make-believe people in fairy tales and movies,”
says Molly. Do you think she really believes this? How does her divorce affect how she understands love and romance? Does her relationship with Russell prove or disprove this belief? In what way does Cameron change this thinking?

3. Setting is an important part of Nora Ephron’s movies, from the rain-drenched houseboats in
Sleepless in Seattle
to the infamous “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in Katz’s deli in New York in
When Harry Met Sally.
How does the geography of New York influence this story? Could it have been set anywhere else?

4. While discussing
Sleepless in Seattle
, Molly tells Cameron
“we know Meg will end up with Tom. But it’s not about who she’s going to end up with. We still want to keep watching. We’re mesmerized by the journey.”
Would you say the same is true of this story? Why or why not?

5. 
“Happy couples create romantic narratives; they tell meet-cute stories worthy of a romantic comedy.”
Do you think this is true? How much of an influence do you think movies have on what we look for in romance? Have they conditioned us to expect the grand gesture in our own romances? How does it affect us to compare our own lives to the stories we see on the big screen?

6. Discuss the role of technology in the romantic lives of the characters. How do online dating, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest play into the story? What do you make of the fact that Molly writes for an online magazine? Does
technology help the characters find love? Stand in the way? How would this story be different if it had been written before the advent of these technologies? Consider Nora Ephron’s movie
You’ve Got Mail
, about how email brings two people together, which was an updated version of
The Shop Around the Corner
, about two lovers who communicated by letter.

7. 
“The thing is, why are sex scenes necessary?”
Molly believes keeping the details of what happens in the bedroom off screen (and off the page) is better than describing these acts in detail. Do you agree? How does it change the story to keep the bedroom scenes off the page? What is gained and what is lost by not showing the details?

8. Molly breaks up with Russell while waiting in line for a terrible movie he wants to see. Throughout the story, his thirst for Nicolas Cage movies is at odds with her love of Nora Ephron movies. In a book so deeply rooted in film references, what else does their differing tastes in movies say about them? What does it say that Cameron takes Molly to see
Sleepless in Seattle
? Can you judge a couple’s compatibility by their taste in movies?

9. Cameron insists that elements of his book aren’t stolen from other writers, they’re homages to other writers. Do you think the same is true of Nora’s movies, in the way
Sleepless in Seattle
is a take on
An Affair to Remember
and
When Harry Met Sally
nods to
Casablanca
? Do you see this book as a take on Nora Ephron’s movies? An homage
to her? What allusions to her movies did you like? Not like?

10. Do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not?

11. Molly dreams of having her own column and, eventually, publishing a book of her essays. Through the course of the story, she does get both a column and an agent, but both opportunities come because Cameron has pulled strings for her. Is this a weakness, a sign that she needs a man’s help to get ahead no matter what she thinks? Or does this come across instead as a type of modern chivalry, a sign that shows how much he cares for her? How do you interpret his interventions in her career?

12. Through most of the story, Molly is something of a cynic about love, but she admits,
“I wanted to feel cherished. I wanted to feel adored . . . I wanted someone to
get
me and then love what he got. Most of all, I wanted to believe, re-believe, that was possible.”
Do you think she gets this at the end? Why or why not? Does her transformation from cynic to romantic feel believable?

13. 
“How do we know they ended up happy?”
Molly says of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan of
Sleepless in Seattle
. “We never saw a sequel.” Do you think Molly and Cameron end up happy? What makes you think that?

1. Pick one of the movies Nora Ephron wrote (you can find a list at
imdb.com
) and watch it together. Or take it a
step further and watch
An Affair to Remember
(referenced in
Sleepless in Seattle
),
Casablanca
(referenced in
When Harry Met Sally
) or
The Shop Around the Corner
(like in
You’ve Got Mail
). Make lots of popcorn.

2. Mike Bing is Cameron Duncan’s literary alter ago, and while he shares some of Cameron’s quirks, he has a more glamorous job and love life, and is an idealized version of the writer. Imagine what your own literary alter ego would be like. What would she do, and how would she act? Share your thoughts with the group.

3. Nora Ephron’s last full-length screenplay was
Julie & Julia
, about a woman who cooks through every recipe in Julia Child’s
The Art of French Cooking
. Make your next meeting a French-themed dinner, creating recipes from the cookbook (don’t forget the butter!) and drinking French wine.

4. In addition to her screenplays, Nora Ephron was known for her essays and journalistic writing. Check out some of her non-fiction, including
Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women
,
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
, or
I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections.

Your novel is filled with subtle references to Nora Ephron’s movies. Or what some people might call
stealing.
What are some of those references?

Well, the description of Cameron is a description of Tom Hanks, and Molly is blond like Meg Ryan. The scene with Cameron and Molly sitting back to back in a café is in the same setting as the scene between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in
You’ve Got Mail
. And the montage when Cameron and Molly walk together follows the same route as Tom and Meg’s in
You’ve Got Mail
. Molly sees a boy with a teddy bear in the lobby of the Empire State Building; that’s a shout-out to Jonah and his teddy bear in
Sleepless in Seattle
, as well as the Jimmy Durante music Molly hears. And Arnold and Shirley are the names of the hamsters in
Heartburn
. There are other references, but they’re so subtle even I don’t remember them.

Did you have to do research for the story?

Yes. Anything that takes place in Long Island, I had to call my friend Suzi in Merrick. Plus I watched all the Nora Ephron movies. Except
Silkwood.
I’ve never seen
Silkwood
. It sounds depressing.

Isn’t that what Kristine says in the book?

She stole that from me.

What was the most interesting thing you learned?

That Nora went into the family business; her parents were also Hollywood screenwriters.

Did you ever consider going into your family’s business?

No. I had zero interest in manufacturing dog bowls.

Everyone falls in love in the book. Who’s your favorite couple?

It’s a toss-up between Arnold and Shirley or Joyce and Irwin.

Aren’t Joyce and Irwin turtles?

Correct.

Doesn’t that give the edge to Arnold and Shirley?

That depends on how you feel about turtles.

Who’s your favorite character in the novel?

Emily. She’s so divinely intrusive, and her workplace demeanor reminds me of my first job as a catalog copywriter at Sears. The copywriters all sat in cubicles, and we devoted far more of our workdays to pranks than to writing about toasters and washing machines. For reasons that now escape me, I had a rubber figurine of the Pillsbury Doughboy as well as a plastic donkey on my bookshelf. My buddies Mike and Jim were always sneaking into my cube and arranging the Doughboy and donkey into obscene positions.

Emily doesn’t do that.

Only because Molly does not have a plastic donkey. Otherwise, I’m sure Emily would.

How did you come up with the names for your characters?

I asked for volunteers on Facebook. It just goes to show how trusting some people are. I could have been writing a
book packed with murderers and terrorists and naming all those murderers and terrorists after my Facebook friends, but nobody seemed to care. Except for one woman who stipulated that I wouldn’t use her name for any French schoolgirls. I don’t know why. But it wasn’t a problem because there are no French schoolgirls in the book.

Molly says she’s terrible at writing sex scenes. Do you have the same problem?

Yes, and thank goodness. I avoid them. All my husband needs is me going, “Honey, that little thing you just did with your tongue—how do you spell that?”

Molly seems to cover a lot of unusual assignments. Sneaking vibrators through security. Wearing kegel underpants. Oddly enough, you seem to have covered many of these same magazine assignments in your own career.

Yes. But I have never posed nude.

Why not?

Nobody’s ever asked.

Let’s play a game. Pick one: Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks?

It’s a draw.

Bill Pullman or Greg Kinnear?

What’s the difference?

Bruno Kirby or Rob Reiner?

Definitely Rob Reiner. I’ve been crushing on him for years.

Carrie Fisher or Rosie O’Donnell?

Carrie. Mainly because her mom is Debbie Reynolds.

Meg Ryan or Meg Ryan?

Meg Ryan.

What’s the best way to get to know the real Linda Yellin?

Go to LindaYellin.com. Or spend eight weeks with me in summer camp. Preferably in Wisconsin.