Read Online When Harry Met Sally by Nora Ephron - Free Book Online Page A

Together
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    CUT TO :
    INT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT

Champagne is popped
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    We know it’s New Year’s Eve because people are wearing funny hats and there’s one of those mirrored things hanging from the ceiling and casting twinkle lights on a fairly large crowd of revelers in a penthouse apartment somewhere in Manhattan
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    A band is PLAYING. Harry and Sally are dancing
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    He dips her
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    SALLY     I really want to thank you for taking me out tonight.
    HARRY     The during part was good …
    SALLY     I thought it was good …
    HARRY     Oh, don’t be silly. And next year, if neither of us is with somebody, you’ve got a date.
    SALLY     Deal. See, now we can dance cheek to cheek.
    They dance a moment and then the MUSIC ENDS. They go on dancing a bit longer and for a split second we see the beginnings of something … an inkling … a little tender moment. Then—
    VOICE     
(Offscreen)
    Hey, everybody, ten seconds to the New Year!
    The CROWD begins to count down:
    CROWD     Ten, nine …
    HARRY     Want to get some air?
    SALLY     Yeah.
    CROWD     … eight, seven, six …
    EXT. NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY—NIGHT
    CROWD     ( CONT’D )    … five, four …
    Harry and Sally go out onto the balcony
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    CROWD     ( CONT’D )    … three, two, Happy New Year!
    All around Harry and Sally, couples are hugging, kissing, celebrating. It is slightly uncomfortable
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    HARRY     Happy New Year.
    SALLY     Happy New Year.
    They kiss quickly and awkwardly
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    FADE OUT .
    FADE IN:
    DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE
    A COUPLE on a love seat
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    FIFTH WOMAN     He was the head counselor at the boys’ camp, and I was the head counselor at the girls’ camp. They had a social one night.
(beat)
And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine, because people were always walking across rooms to talk to Maxine, but he was coming to talk to me. And he said—
    FIFTH MAN     I’m Ben Small of the Coney Island Smalls.
    FIFTH WOMAN     And at that moment, I knew, I knew the way you know about a good melon.
    FADE OUT .
    FADE IN:
    EXT. WEST BROADWAY, NEAR RESTAURANT—EARLY EVENING

Sally and her friend Marie walking down the street on their way to a restaurant
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    SALLY     You sent flowers to yourself?
    MARIE     Sixty dollars I spend on this big stupid arrangement of flowers, and I wrote a card that I planned to leave out on the front table where Arthur would just happen to see it—
    SALLY     What did the card say?
    MARIE     “Please say yes. Love, Jonathan.”
    SALLY     Did it work?
    MARIE     He never even came over. He forgot this charity thing that his wife was chairman of.
(beat)
He’s never going to leave her.
    SALLY     Of course he isn’t.
    MARIE     You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right.
(beat)
Where is this place?
    SALLY     Somewhere in the next block.
    MARIE     Oh, I can’t believe I’m doing this.
    SALLY     Look, Harry is one of my best friends, and you are one of my best friends, and if by some chance you two hit it off, we could all still be friends instead of drifting apart the way you do when you get involved with someone who doesn’t know your friends.
    MARIE     You and I haven’t drifted apart since I started seeing Arthur.
    SALLY     If Arthur ever left his wife and I actually met him, I’m sure you and I would drift apart.
    MARIE     He’s never going to leave her.
    SALLY     Of course he isn’t.
    MARIE     You’re