“It’s always Hugh or the other White Male Lead who gives the speech, but in Notting Hill, the girl gets to do the big speech.”

“Hugh has a speech too. Sort of. He has his moment. At the press conference?”

“Yeah, but no one remembers that bit.”

We arrived more or less intact and stopped debating the merits of one Hugh versus another Hugh long enough to find a spot and figure out how we were meant to tune into the sound.

The car park filled up quickly and there were a bunch of food vans around the perimeter, so we stocked up on supplies, as though the end of the world might come, and waited for the film to start.

“This is so cool,” Ruby said as we tried to arrange drinks, a bucket of popcorn, and an array of sweets you’d normally only see at Willy Wonka’s factory, in a three-door Fiat.

“Is it?”

“Yeaaah,” she said emphatically. “You’d never be able to do this where I live. The neighborhood is too built up; no one would use parking spaces for something fun. And look how cozy this is.”

She held my hand and squeezed.

The way she crackled with enthusiasm for the little things was contagious.

“It is cozy,” I agreed. “Are you warm enough, though?” It had been boiling all day and so neither of us had anything warm with us. A nip had begun to creep in when the sun set.

“I’m a bit cold,” she said, so I turned the engine on and let the heat blast.

“It’s starting,” I said, and turned the radio up. Somehow I actually had managed to tune it in correctly. I felt proud of myself for navigating this primitive technology.

“And you’ve really never seen Scream?” I asked, wrapping a strawberry lace around my finger before popping the perfect coil in my mouth.

“It was made before I was born.”

“So were nearly all the films on your list for the montage.”

“Yeah, but love stories are timeless. Look”—she pointed at the screen—“that person is calling on a landline. If they had mobiles, this movie wouldn’t even make sense.”

“Not true.” I shook my head. “The burgeoning technology of mobile phones actually plays a key part in this film and as such it’s basically a historical artifact. You need to treat it with the reverence it deserves.”

Ruby laughed. “My apologies.”

“Besides, I believe you’re the one who put having an actual phone call on our list, are you not?” I pointed out.

“As an homage to classics like Pillow Talk and Sleepless in Seattle.”

“This is a classic too. You’re going to love it. It’s basically the horror movie version of the falling in love montage. It plays with all the tropes of horror movies.”

“I don’t know any of the tropes of horror movies.”