Nora Goes Off Script

Come September, Nora is ready to move on. She throws a Labor Day party in the tea house, hoping to christen it with new memories, and finally feels ready to start writing again. Her new script, Sunrise, is the story of her and Leo’s love affair, but the romantic fantasy version with all the cliches and a happy ending. She finds the writing cathartic; the process “confirms that it wasn’t real” (172): Her relationship with Leo was only ever in her imagination.

Nora finishes the script easily and delivers it to her agent, feeling relieved and optimistic. She is shocked when her agent calls to tell her that the script is not Romance Channel material. Nora has written another powerful story, and her agent, anticipating the success of The Tea House, wants to sell Sunrise for a million dollars. Nora is torn. On the one hand, the money would be life changing. On the other hand, exposing the truth about her affair with Leo would be “epically humiliating.”

Her agent asks Nora to change the happy ending because it feels disingenuous, and she reluctantly agrees. However, Nora has second thoughts and instead goes to work “pulling [her] heart out of that script” (174), making it Romance Channel appropriate.