Page 103 of The Wedding Forecast

‘I have so many issues.’

‘What are your issues?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. I want you to keep thinking I’m perfect.’

‘You think I think you’re perfect?’ he says.

‘Yes! Or near to. No, I don’t know. My issues are…pathetic.’

‘Pathetic is hot, remember. And I already know all your issues anyway.’

‘What are they?’

‘Well, we’re in our thirties. Everyone has a big wound by this age. Mine is my mum, obviously. Yours is the breakup. I’m not sure you know how to get over it.’

‘Can’t my wound be something else?’

‘Well. There’s also your mother.’

‘True. Issues galore.’

‘And maybe your dad, I’m not sure, you don’t talk about him much, and that could be something or it could be nothing.’

‘My poor dad. I should talk about him more. He’s fine. He’s lovely.’

‘And your career change.’

‘Which will probably turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life.’

But I don’t think it’s a mistake. An eleven-year-old girl came into the shop the other day and told me she loved the book I recommended for her. What better feeling in the world is there than that?

‘And the murderous tendencies exhibited in your first book.’

‘Another red flag for sure.’

‘And you’re a writer. Which is the biggest red flag of all. Worse than being an actor.’

‘So you’re saying I’m undateable.’

‘No,’ he says, and his voice is soft and warm. ‘I’m saying you’re perfect, actually.’

33

SAMANTHA CALLS TO say she likes The Scam. No, she loves it. But she says it needs a serious edit, because while the emotional arc is working, there are some glaring plot holes. I spend all my free time in February frantically figuring out how to make it all work. I have a whiteboard in the lounge room and Luke stands there with me one afternoon, helping me make sense of the timeline.

‘Wouldn’t she just go back to the office before the party? It makes more sense that way,’ Luke says.

‘No, because she needs to be at the party first, to have the confrontation with Callum that makes her realise her feelings for Nick, and the party is also connected to how she comes to realise she needs to steal the file.’

‘A lot of realisations happen at this party.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’re not open to cutting that scene.’

‘The most important scene in the book? The turning point of the whole plot? No, I am not.’

‘Okay, okay. I just don’t think it’s possible to get from the city to Richmond and back again that quickly.’