The Emilie Loring Collection

One of my favorite Christmastime movies is “The Holiday” with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Jack Black, and Eli Wallach. I’ve already watched it twice since Thanksgiving, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since I’m the girl that reads Emilie Loring novels over and over and over again. A good story, likable characters, interesting complications, and charming, intelligent dialogue get me every time.

In the movie, Arthur (Eli Wallach) is a retired screenwriter from Hollywood’s golden age, and in an early scene, he explains the “meet-cute” to Iris (Kate Winslet):

"Well, this was some meet cute."
        "Sorry?"
"It's how two characters meet in a movie. Say... a man and a woman both need something to sleep  in. And they both go to the same men's pajama department."
       "Right."
"And the man says to the salesman, 'I just need bottoms.' The woman says, 'I just need a top.' They look at each other... and that's the 'meet-cute.'"

If Emilie Loring’s novels came to the silver screen, there would be plenty of meet-cutes to choose from.

Here Comes the Sun

As a train leaves the station, a black cocker spaniel suddenly jumps from the baggage-car and runs up the hillside. A woman passenger jumps to the ground and gives chase, and a man follows her, as the train pulls away. When the man catches up to her, the woman holds the wriggling dog tight in her arms.

"Here is your dog."
"Mine! Isn't he yours?"

Uncharted Seas

Sandra Duval waits at the train station for a ride that will take her to her job as social secretary to a woman in the horse racing set. At last, a car comes.

The car purred to a stop. The man pulled his soft cap a little lower over his eyes before he stepped to the platform. His short leather jacket was weather-stained; worn o.d. breeches were tucked into muddy high boots. He crossed to the saddle, settled it under his arm, and started for the car.
“I’m here.”
He turned and awkwardly touched the cap pulled so low that only a nose and an inflexible line of mouth were visible.
“So I see, Miss.”
That “Miss” placed him. A groom.
“Weren’t you sent to meet me? I am expected at Mrs. Newsome’s.”
“Are you, Miss? That’s funny. Seven Chimneys is the next place to where I work. I didn’t see nothing of a car as I came along. Sure you’re expected?”
The hint of suspicion in the voice was maddening. “Expected. Do you think I would step off a train in this uninhabited spot if I were not? I was engaged by Mr. Damon this morning as a secretary for Mrs. Newsome. I have been waiting for hours and hours.”
His lips twitched as he glanced at his wrist watch. Sandra qualified:
“It has seemed like hours anyway. What are you going to do about it?”

With Banners

With a nice sense of dramatic values, the heel of Brooke Reyburn’s shoe turned sharply as she ran across the street. She went down on one knee just as the traffic light turned green. She had a confused sense of an automobile bearing down on her, the screech of brakes, of panting cars, of arms lifting her to the sidewalk.

“Hurt?” a voice demanded.

There Is Always Love

For the space of a split second Linda Bourne thought that the man in the open, low-slung roadster speeding out of the orange-red sunset had waved and called “Hi!” to her. As he came on she realized that he was a stranger. Instinctively she turned to see whom he was hailing with such exuberance… No sign of life on the porches. No curious eyes at the windows–none visible. Had he waved to her?

“Don’t tell me I’m wrong. That this isn’t the date you set for me to dine with you.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, but that’s the story. Wrong number.” There was a hint of amused derision in her voice.

“You don’t have to tell me.” He was out of the car looking down at her. “I know now that you’re not thge girl I thought you were. Just to keep the record straight, it isn’t my habit to speed about the country hailing strange females. Your name isn’t Bourne by any chance?”

Linda smiled suddenly, adorably, with a flash of perfect teeth and a deep dimple in each flushed cheedk.
“Not by chance, by marriage.”

Where Beauty Dwells

Mac Cameron calls congratulations to an angler who has just caught a trout, but his hail causes the youth to startle and fall into the brook, hitting his head on a rock. Mac dashes to his aid and realizes it’s a girl! He lights a fire to warm her, gives her a sip of brandy mixed with hot water, and then she opens her eyes.

“I–don’t know who–you are, but you–are bronze as–as an Indian, You–you look mur–mur–derous.” Faint and halting as was the voice it was gracious, sweet and spiced with gaiety.
“Thank God, you can speak.” His arm tightened about the girl’s shoulders. He pressed the tin dup to her lips. “Drink this.” She turned her head away. “Come now. Be good. Please or I shall feel like a murderer.”
… She shrugged distaste and pushed away the cup. Winced as she sat up.
“That’s–enough of that. I–I’m all right. I don’t need–your arm.” She frowned at her bare feet with their rosy nails, at the tweed coat over her shoulders, glanced at the brook purling and tinkling its way to the sea. Her eyes came back to him.
“What happened?”
“I hate to tell you. You hooked a trout. Stepped up on a rock. I broadcast congratulations. Startled you. You slipped. I’m on my knees in apology.”
Her smile brought a tinge of pink to her colorless face, twin dimples to her cheeks, a surge of passionate relief to him as he knelt beside her.
“Literally on your knees, aren’t you?”

Stars In Your Eyes

Kay gets a flat tire, at night, on her way to her brother’s home in Mexico and walks into trouble in a reeking barroom.

Rainbow at Dusk

Jess sits on a riverbank with her dog, Lucky, watching parachute practice from a distant military camp, when one white parachute goes off course, nearly lands in the river, and then suddenly crashes onto the ground.

She ran the distance between them and dropped to her knees beside him. Lucky growled deep in his throat as he pressed close against her. The man sat up and pulled off his helmet. His hair was dark, his eyes seemed enormous in his lean, blood-withdrawn face. He looked up from the ankle he was clutching with a white-knuckled hand. Three deep furrows across his forehead smoothed out when he smiled. His glance was direct and keen.

“Hello!” he greeted. “Did you two drop from a plane? No, I’ll bet it was heaven. The angel in my first Sunday School book had red-gold hair, not feather-cut, though, and a white dress like yours.”

Love Came Laughing By

Pursued, Wendy charges up the steps of a Pullman car and bribes the porter not to say a word about her.

She darted past him, slipped into the compartment at the end of the car, closed the door softly behind her, and with a ragged sigh of relief backed against it. Her breath caught. Her heart stopped, broke into quickstep. The room she had thought empty had an occupant.
The man in gray who was bending over an open briefcase on a table at the window already littered with official-looking papers straightened and glared at her. A surge of red deepened the brown of his stern face.
“What’s this? A plant?” he demanded.

Beckoning Trails

Debby overhears a threatening conversation in her aunt’s house and flees before she can be noticed.

… heart thumping, fearing that she might be grabbed as she passed the bay, she raced down the stairs. Halfway she collided with someone charging up. The impact drove her teeth into her underlip and plumped her back on a stair.
“I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry,” a voice apologized.
She looked up into a face bronzed as tanned leather, with hollows beneath the high cheekbones, a straight nose, a large, generous mouth, keen eyes dark as the hair above a broad forehead; the man was a pushover for a romantic lead. The sudden change of his expression to surprised warmth, as if he recognized someone he knew and liked, sent a responsive glow along her veins.
“Is this your usual method of ascending stairs in a strange house,” she inquired, “or is it a hangover from Sword and Dagger technique?”
“Leatherneck, division of amphibious warfare, in case you’re interested. Is plunging headlong your usual method of going down?”

To Love and To Honor

She was waiting at the Gift Shop for the films she had left to be developed when she became aware of the man standing beside her looking at bracelets. Sharp-eyed, rapier-tongued Ella Crane, the saleswoman, was expatiating on the charm and desirability of an ugly super-expensive silver band. As she went to the window to get another tray, sympathy for the woman who was about to receive the atrocity overcame Cindy Clinton’s caution.
“Not that one,” she whispered. “It’s been here for ages.”
He turned. The clearest gray eyes she had ever seen keenly interrogated hers.
“Thanks,” he whispered…

Keepers of the Faith

Nancy can’t sleep and goes for a midnight stroll in the garden. Deep in thought, she sits on a bench near the swimming pool and puzzles over a set of troubling relationships.

“Lady.” The voice at her feet brought her up standing. A head appeared above the water. Two brown hands clutched the rim of the pool.

“If you’ll turn your back, I’ll retrieve my clothes behind that bench. A swimming pool in October is an icy place in which to spend the night.”

---

I nearly included the meeting of Joan Crofton and Craig Lamont at his mother’s home. That was actually their third meeting, so perhaps it’s not a meet-cute, but the scene has a similar feeling of new awareness. (See “Who Would You Cast in the Movie?” to imagine these scenes casted.)

Do you have a favorite?

---

I don’t know about you, but my calendar seems to have shrunk in the wash. It was October, and then Thanksgiving was coming, and suddenly, December is nearly half over?!

If you’re a regular here, you know that planned promotions for Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom were set aside as my mom’s care took on a sudden urgency. She’s on an even keel now, and I will soon have ten or more hours of respite every week–hurrah!

My house will fill with family in another couple of days–another hurrah! Granddaughter Molly is big into Christmas this year, with the full enthusiasm of her three-and-a-half years. I feel the same way. I am busily decorating, planning meals, and getting things in order before happy chaos reigns. There is truly no blueprint in life, but opportunities continue to appear, and dreams still become realities. I am grateful.

Dreams are the source of much of the new thinking, new convictions, new power in the world. They send the adventurous out on uncharted seas, dangerous seas, and it is danger, not security, which develops strength in mind and spirit.

Uncharted Seas

Happy Landings!