do after I hung up my graduation robe in the closet, but I knew one thing: Tom Hanks would be able to solve this.
Again, not Tom Hanks himself, although he does seem like a very smart man, and I’m sure that if he can write a short-story collection or direct the film That Thing You Do! then he could probably figure out a way to fix my life. But in most romantic comedies, the female lead is floundering. Maybe she’s adrift, maybe she’s lonely, maybe she’s a workaholic who needs to learn how to love! But no matter what, she has some sort of dream she’s working toward, and she just can’t figure out how to get there. But then she meets him—Tom Hanks or Rock Hudson or the rapper Common in the way underrated basketball rom-com Just Wright—and it all clicks into place. She figures it out. She gets stronger and smarter and she achieves her dreams, plus she finds love.
But I’m starting to think that the movies I’ve dedicated my life to may have lied to me. Nora Ephron herself may have indirectly lied to me. Tom Hanks, as much as I’ve trusted him, may have lied to me.
Because I have it all: the sympathetic backstory, the montage of humiliations minor and major, unrealized career aspirations, the untamed pre-makeover hair. But still, I wait. Single, lonely, Hanksless.
I can’t help but think that a large part of my current state of Hankslessness is due to the fact that I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman who shares a Victorian house with her uncle.
I let myself into the house as quietly as I can, slipping off my boots to avoid tracking slush through the house. It’s the middle of January, and the Columbus snow long ago ceased to be the sparkling, magical holiday treat it is in so many Hallmark Christmas movies. Now it’s just gray and gross, and it’s depressing to look at it and know there are months left of this. Ohio winters are an endurance test, not necessarily in how much snow you can handle but in how many gray, sunless days you can take before you flee to a warmer climate.
I hang up my coat and try to creep through the living room and upstairs without being noticed, but then I hear Uncle Don’s voice ring out. “Annie!”
I turn to my right, where four fifty-something men are crowded around our dining room table.
I wave and step into the dining room, which is lined with dark wainscoting and the same red floral wallpaper my mom installed when I was a baby. “Hey, guys.”
This is Uncle Don’s Dungeons and Dragons group. Every Thursday night they meet to—well, honestly, I’m not 100 percent sure what the game entails. I hear snippets—stuff about orcs and werewolves and ice lords—but personally, I wouldn’t know a wizard from a warlock, so I figure this is Uncle Don’s version of book club and try to stay out of it. Mostly I think it’s kind of sweet that these four men have been getting together almost every week for going on twenty years. And other than his part-time job at the gaming store, the Guardtower, Uncle Don doesn’t really get out much, so it’s nice that he has some built-in socialization.
“How was the library, sweet pea?” Uncle Don asks, ignoring the glare from his friend Rick. Rick is the Dungeon Master, aka the boss of the game, which you would know if you saw the shirt he wears every Thursday that proclaims, “When the Dungeon Master smiles, it’s already too late.” I have no idea what this means, but since Dungeon Master Rick hates distractions, I’ve never asked for an explanation.
“Good,” I say. “I got a lot done.”
Even though I’ve been attempting to write my own rom-com for years, right now I’m working as a freelance writer. Well, that makes it sound a little more glamorous than it is, seeing as I write “web content” with titles like “The Five BEST WAYS to Unclog a Toilet” and “Ten of Jennifer Lawrence’s Hottest Hairdos!” I may not be winning any awards anytime soon, but it pays (and you’d be surprised how often you use that toilet-unclogging advice when you live in a house with old pipes).
“What did you write about today?” asks Earl.
“Is It Expired? What to Keep and What to Throw Out!” I say with wide eyes and jazz hands, trying to mimic the excitement of the headline.