Harbor Lights

A man, JACK, meets a woman, MICHELLE, for coffee at a harborside coffee shop. It is late November, and the weather is wintry. At first glance, they appear to be having an affair. As the conversation heads from talking about the babysitter’s chance to spill a secret, to excuses they’ve given their spouses for being here, the couple start to look out the window across the street to a three-story brownstone. Michelle keeps vigil, checking her watch, waiting for something to happen. Jack does not bother with the window. As Michelle is fixated on the window across the street, Jack tries to distract her, with little success. Michelle is waiting for something to happen; Jack says that maybe, this time, it won’t. Michelle calls him a fool; Jack teases her by calling her a cynic. Michelle notes the light in the third-floor window is suddenly on. Jack tells her to focus on the coffee in her hand, and the lights on the tugboats in the harbor. He marvels at how cold and lonely it must be on that tugboat. “Is this how you deal with them?” Michelle asks. “No,” Jack replies. “I never take my eyes off you.” The shade in the window drops. Michelle notes there will be one hour where their husband and wife will have their affair. It isn’t Jack and Michelle who are cheating; it is their spouses. Jack and Michelle are watching the tryst take place, albeit from behind pulled shades. The two jilted spouses sit at their coffee table. Michelle thinks her husband Mark is in love with Jack’s wife, Susan; Jack knows that Susan doesn’t love Mark back. Jack’s answers clearly irritate Michelle, who finally snaps at Jack. How can he be so blase about this affair? Knowing that her husband is in love - and sleeping with - his wife? Jack tells Michelle what he came to tell her: that he will be moving his family away. It’s a new development, but Jack has taken another job out of town. Stunned, Michelle claims that Jack’s wife won’t let that happen. It’s already done, Jack says. Michelle asks why he’s leaving. “I had to, for us,” Jack says. Michelle starts to protest, but Jack stops her. He had to, he says, “for US.” Michelle realizes that Jack is in love with her. And she is in love with him. Michelle takes off her glove. Jack hesitates; they have a rule that they cannot touch. Michelle chides him. “They can touch; we can’t?” She calls him the Last of the Purists - “all or nothing with you, isn’t it?” She asks him if he still loves his wife, and he admits that, for all of his flaws, he does. Jack thanks his wife, because, without her infidelity with Mark, he would no longer ONLY love his wife. Jack takes his glove off, but instead of grasping hands, he grabs the back of Michelle’s head, and the two of them KISS. With a flash, Jack and Michelle see their potential future: making love, having a child of their own, becoming a family, raising their child (with Jack’s kids as well) and watching their child leave for college, ending finally with both of them in old age and happy. They separate, however, Jack’s hand knocks his coffee mug to the floor. it SHATTERS, breaking the reverie. As they gather themselves, they never make eye contact again. Michelle tells him that the harbor is beautiful tonight - a mirror of Jack’s earlier line. Jack says “it was,” and leaves Michelle alone in the booth as the barista sweeps away the broken coffee mug. Michelle ignores the window, however, choosing instead to gaze out over the harbor.