We met walking out of a promo screening at the Arclight during AFM. Helen suggested grabbing coffee before the next screening, but Scott turned tail and ran off to a meeting. One year later, during the Tribeca Film Festival dinner for buyers (again, at AFM) Scott arrived to the dinner a little late. In front of many friends and acquisitions executives at competitors' companies, Helen leapt out of her chair and called out to Scott, "The Love of My Life! You're here!" and gave him a warm and welcoming hug. We sat together and talked all night long, and when we looked up, everyone had left and the restaurant was closing. Helen knew it was love because Helen's the smarter one, and she patiently waited for Scott to ask her out on a date. (See next story!)
After Scott met Helen (for the 2nd time), she gave him her email address as she hopped into a Lyft. Within minutes, he sent her an email, asking if that was fast enough ;) but then, as they emailed - then, texted - back and forth, Scott neglected to invite Helen out for a date. Scott's texts were zesty and frequently flirtatious, and sometimes, downright hilarious. Helen became obsessed. She thought about Scott day and night. She checked for his texts, between work calls and meetings, before her morning coffee, and before she fell asleep. Every time Scott texted her, she felt high with delight. If she didn't immediately hear back, she strained her creative mind for reasons why. A month later, Scott still had not asked her on a date. Helen resorted to drastic measures. At brunch with Missy Suicide and Scott's boss' wife, Vanessa, Helen asked if he was taken. Yup. She asked his BOSS' wife for his dating status. As good fortune would have it, she (Vanessa) was hosting a dinner THAT NIGHT where Scott would be, and invited Helen (who quickly rearranged her plans). She nervously showed up... Scott's Boss (Ted) and Vanessa had left an empty seat open, right next to Scott. That's not awkward at all, Helen thought, as she hugged them hello. She pretended to be casual, by sitting all the way down the table at a different seat, but Vanessa wasn't having any of that and called her over to sit next to Scott. From that point on, yet another dinner party faded into the background. Scott enchanted Helen with his stories and opinions. As they walked to their cars, Scott asked how they should see each other again and Helen was elated. Then, she waded through flirty texts for days. Days became (two) weeks. Still no date invitation! At a holiday party, Helen saw Scott's co-worker, Michael, who said, "I heard you had dinner with Scott," and Helen lost her cool. "I'm obsessed with him," she blurted out. Michael told Scott. And, so, Scott FINALLY asked Helen out! (ATLHEA)
Let’s wind back a moment to start with that first (or, rather, second) meeting, as Helen ran towards the hostess stand proclaiming, “The love of my life! You’re here!” While Scott thought to himself, “I know I know this person from somewhere…” In any event, it was a memorable opener – and, as is the case with most things, it turned out that Helen was right. A little over three years later, on the third anniversary of their official first date – at the same restaurant where they had that date – Scott popped the proverbial question, but more on that in a bit. In-between, a little thing called COVID happened, prompting Scott and Helen to move in together – first, in the close quarters of his tiny beach bungalow in Santa Monica (where you could hear the toilet flush from any room in the house); and later, in a bucolic townhouse on the Venice Canals (where an equally besotted couple of ducks, christened by Scott as “Tony” and “Carmela,” took up residence in their row boat). For 18 months, they lived and worked from home – and, with the outside world largely shut down, spent their free time playing chess (read: Helen patiently teaching Scott to play chess), cooking (read: Helen cooking while politely demanding that Scott stay as far away from the kitchen as possible), taking long walks through the neighborhood, and falling ever deeper in love. When the world began to reopen in 2021, Scott and Helen resumed a steady diet of work and leisure travel. And unbeknownst to Scott – who, admittedly, can be slow to catch on to these things – at each stop on the tour, Helen not-so-secretly hoped that he might drop to his knee and (finally) propose, allowing them to walk down the aisle while both were still able to do so with out ambulatory assistance. Would it be, perhaps, against a golden Hawaiian sunset in April (when they went to Kauai for Scott’s birthday)? Or on the red carpet in Cannes in July (where one of Scott’s movies was opening the film festival)? Beneath the panoramic mountains of Telluride in September (another film festival)? Or in the glittering pre-Christmas streets of London in December (where another of Scott’s movies was wrapping production)? Alas, all these dates and places came and went, and even Helen’s considerable patience showed signs of fraying, prompting her to drop subtle hints to Scott, such as “I will not walk down the aisle as a XX years old bride!” (Now, admittedly, there were easier things to do while living together 24/7 than discretely slip out of the house to shop for engagement rings. But somehow Scott managed this Sisyphean feat.) Cut to Friday night, December 17, 2021. Scott and Helen are back at Hatchet Hall in Culver City for their third dating anniversary dinner. In order to secure the reservation – as the restaurant now takes bookings only for parties of 6 or more – Scott has had to inform the staff of the significance of the occasion, and the hostesses at check-in nearly give the game away by fretting and fussing over Helen on the way to the table and subsequently delivering complementary glasses of champagne. Then they are seated in a draughty passageway between the exterior and interior parts of the restaurant – not exactly how Scott had envisioned it. Still, Scott figures, he will make his move between the main course and desert (having read some sort of how-to about this online). Only, Helen – convinced by this point in the evening that the proposal is not coming yet again, declines to order desert, and rushes off to the bathroom to emotionally gather herself. When she returns, Scott stands up, says, “Do you mind holding this?” and hands her a rose gold Tiffany ring, while dropping to one knee beside her and asking if she will do him the honor of spending the rest of her life with him. To which, relievedly (for both of them), she says yes.
"You are so precious. I will love you until the end of time." Helen broke into tears and wiped her eyes into his shoulder, and wept "I love you so much" into his sleeve. (This, she calls, "love-snot", as in, "he loves me, he loves me snot") Did you groan inside? This would have been better if Scott had written it. Maybe. xoxo