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When Harry Met Charlie
by Donna Costa
Genre: MM Romantic Comedy
Harry is a number-cruncher. Charlie is a people-person. One
is bubbly and optimistic, the other serious and pessimistic. With an endless
stream of verbal sparring and heated debates filling the car on their road trip
from Vancouver to Toronto, they arrive at the conclusion they are complete
opposites and go their separate ways.
When they meet years later – older, wiser, and love-worn –
will their sparring become a prelude to romance? An exciting turn on? Will they
be there for each other when it’s needed most?
Boys’ Love + Nora Ephron Fan Fiction = When Harry Met
Charlie
“Fun, funny and wonderfully delightful! Reminds you of
experiencing your first crush – I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!” –
Leeanne Whitehouse, Pure Country Morning Host
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My Life Growing Up
Although I was born in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, my family moved to a farm in Perth County when I was three months old. I had two older brothers at that time. A younger brother plus a sister would come later.
As an introverted child, country living suited me very well. Life was quiet, aside from the country music blasting from Mom’s radio. I read a lot of books, while trying to ignore my pesky brothers. My best friend, Shelley, lived on the neighbouring farm. (Our homes had once been owned by two brothers who lived side by side.) Between the homes was a small field, about the size of a small city lot. I had to cross the field to visit my friend, but her horse would always spy me, come running, and nip at me. To this day, horses still make me nervous.
I attended a rural elementary school that provided solid foundation in grammar, punctuation and sentence structure (some of which I still remember.) I always loved English classes best and truly enjoyed parsing sentences which we studied in grades 5 to 8. Recently I learned that parsing had been dropped from the official curriculum, but our principal insisted on teaching it anyway. I’m very grateful she did!
However, parsing sentences might have been at the expense of French classes which were introduced into the curriculum at that time. So when I entered high school, I had no French training while most students from other schools had two or three years. I was told I could still take French, but would have to stay after class every day to catch up. If you remember back to high school, the time after class was when you got to hang out with your friends and meet boys.
Which is to say I did not sign up for French lessons.
How I Came Up With The Characters Harry & Charlie
The names of the main characters in When Harry Met Charlie are right there in the title, but it wasn’t me who came up with their names. It was my mother.
Mom, like me, was a creative. At one time, she wrote a column for the local newspaper. Mostly though, her creativity was expressed through other channels. When I was growing up, her creative outlet was sewing. There was always a new dress for me and my sister every Easter and Christmas when we became walking displays of Mom’s talent.
Over time, Mom’s interest changed to knitting and crafts, and eventually to teddy bears. They were much sought after items to mark births, weddings, even the opening of a Tim Hortons donut store. Mom christened all her teddies, pinning to their chest a small, handwritten namecard with the bear’s identity.
In her 80s, my mom developed Alzheimer’s. For a time, I drove to her town every week to check up on her. By then, her condo was filled with teddies. One night after she had gone to bed, I was working on some short stories and looking for inspiration. I decided to use two of Mom’s teddies as characters. It was fun to create personalities for them.
Eventually, I used these teddy bear characters in the memoir If I Could Remember: Bears & Brains & Caring For My Mother. Some of the teddies had Alzheimer’s, and it was a way to introduce aspects about the disease that Mom and I didn’t experience in our journey. Plus teddies just make difficult topics easier to discuss. Two of those teddies were Harry and Charlie, a bear couple.
Writing a prequel, or so I’ve read, is a good strategy for authors since there is already an established audience. I decided to write a prequel of Harry and Charlie for the period before one of them develops Alzheimer’s. I suppose it’s not a true prequel in that Harry and Charlie are now human, not teddy bears—let’s just call them shapeshifters—and I’ve changed the genre from memoir to rom-com. When Harry Met Charlie really has become a standalone novel.
The movie When Harry Met Sally is an iconic rom-com from 1989. Harry, as portrayed by Billy Crystal, does “bear” some resemblance to Harry the teddy bear, particularly his curly hair, and I decided to write the prequel as a contemporary interpretation of the original Nora Ephron play.
If you would like to see the original teddy bears, Harry and Charlie, along with the complete cast of characters in my memoir, click this link. Each of the characters you see was handmade by my mother.
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Chapter
1
It’s 1977. Harry Burns
has just graduated from law school on the West Coast and is standing at the
window of his third-story dorm watching for the arrival of his ride to Toronto.
He crosses his arms and drums his fingers impatiently.
Behind him, Harry’s friend and dorm mate Rufus is
vigorously kissing his girlfriend, Sally. They’re sighing and murmuring to each
other. Oh, I’m going to miss you so much.
I love you. Will we ever see each other again? Kiss me again. Harry rolls
his eyes.
Out the window, Harry spots a VW Beetle pulling up to
the curb across the campus green. Rays from the rising sun glint off the car
roof. He pushes his glasses up his nose and shouts, “Ride’s here, Rufus.”
Harry slings his backpack over one shoulder and wedges
a heavy box of textbooks under his arm, then grabs his suitcase with his other
hand. Why couldn’t someone invent luggage
with wheels? Struggling to carry all his gear, Harry loses patience with
the couple’s sloppy sweet-nothings and shoves Rufus’ arm none too gently,
dislodging him from the embrace. “C’mon. Let’s go!”
“Bye, sweet-ums!” Rufus gives Sally one last smooch.
“I’ll call as soon as I get there.” He stares longingly into her eyes and blows
her a kiss, then snatches up his duffel and follows Harry down the stairs.
Harry stops as they reach the VW, taking in the
vomit-green color, which reminds him of the nauseating flight he took from
Toronto when he moved west to start university. He’s in no hurry to repeat that
experience. A two-day nonstop road trip is the lesser of two evils.
He eyes the car’s thick rust and immediately wonders
if the car will make it all the way across the country. With two unknowns—the
driver he’s never met and the state of the car—his anxiety increases. Why
hadn’t he been more prepared, done more research? Am I going to regret this?
A young man gets out of the VW, and Rufus, the common
denominator, makes the introductions.
“Charlie, this is Harry, my roommate here in Vancouver
and my pal growing up in small-town Ontario. Harry, meet Charlie, my friend
from karaoke. That’s where Charlie told me he was headed to Toronto, like you,
and why I suggested you ride together.”
I
don’t know what I was expecting, but it isn’t this. Shouldn’t
a future flight attendant be clean-cut and well groomed? Instead, Charlie
has the appearance of a furry teddy bear. Even his forearms, visible below the
short sleeves of his Oscar Wilde T-shirt, are bushy. His faded bellbottoms are
a little too tight. Is that the start of
a pot belly? Don’t flight attendants have weight restrictions? He extends
his hand to Charlie for a handshake.
As Charlie settles behind the wheel of the Beetle,
Harry places his suitcase and textbooks on the back floor behind the passenger
seat. A Coleman thermos and small picnic cooler already take up the floor space
on the driver’s side. Harry folds his long frame onto the rear seat beside
Charlie’s nineteen-inch Electrohome TV, complete with rabbit ears. The only
place for his feet is atop the box of his books. He squeezes his knees together
and holds his backpack on his lap. It’s
only a short drive to the airport. I
can manage.
Rufus jumps into the front passenger seat. The bud
vase on the dash holding a single daisy catches his attention, and he flashes a
peace sign at Charlie. “Cool!”
“I knew you’d like it,” Charlie says, beaming a
hundred-watt smile. He grabs an imaginary microphone. “Good morning, ladies,
ahem, gentlemen. Welcome aboard Flight 2B with service from Vancouver to
Toronto, with a short layover at the airport. We expect to be on the road for
approximately forty-eight hours. Please fasten your seatbelts and stow your
baggage. Please note there are two exits.” Charlie points at the car doors,
then adds, “Thank you for choosing Charlie’s VW Air.”
Harry rolls his eyes and wonders if he’ll have to put
up with aviation demonstrations every time Charlie takes the wheel.
Maybe
flying would have been a better option?
Too late now.
Donna Costa draws on her love of romance, both novels and
movies, plus her years in the aviation industry for When Harry Met Charlie. She
writes in a variety of genres including YA, memoir, romance, and historical
fiction. She lives in London, Ontario.
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