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

    For six years she worked on the fifteenth floor—
    FOURTH MAN
FOURTH WOMAN
—as a nurse where I had a practice on the fourteenth floor of the very same
I worked for a very prominent neurologist, Dr. Bemmelman. building.
FOURTH MAN
FOURTH WOMAN
We never met.
We never met. Can you imagine that?
    FOURTH MAN     You know where we met? In an elevator—
    FOURTH WOMAN     I was visiting family.
    FOURTH MAN     —in the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.
    FOURTH WOMAN     
(overlaps)
    He was on the third floor, I was on the twelfth.
    FOURTH MAN     I rode up nine extra floors just to keep talking to her.
    FOURTH WOMAN     Nine extra floors.
    FADE OUT .
    FADE IN:
    A TIGHT SHOT of one of those toy felt birds that somehow is able to miraculously keep dunking its beak into a glass of mater
.
    WIDER TO REVEAL:
    INT. HARRY’S OFFICE—DAY

Harry is sitting in his office staring blankly at this ornithological phenomenon. As Harry stares, we hear the sound of a phone RINGING. It is picked up by Sally
.
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    Hello.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    You sleeping?
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    No, I was watching
Casablanca
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    Channel, please.
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    Eleven.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    Thank you. Got it.
    As Harry continues to stare at the bird, we hear a few lines of dialogue from
Casablanca:
“Of all the gin joints …” etc
.
    As the
Casablanca
dialogue continues, we—
    CUT TO :
    INT. SALLY’S OFFICE—DAY

Sally is at her desk, doing business on the telephone. A woman walks in, hands her something
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    Now, you’re telling me you would be happier with Victor Laszlo than with Humphrey Bogart?
    The woman walks offscreen as Sally looks at the magazine on her desk, hangs up phone
.
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    When did I say that?
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    When we drove to New York.
    Sally turns to her computer terminal
.
    CUT TO :
    INT. KOREAN GREENGROCERY—DAY

Sally moves along the salad bar, very selectively assembling a salad
.
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    I never said that. I would never have said that.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    All right, fine. Have it your way.
    CUT TO :
    INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY

Harry sits on the floor with a deck of cards, pitching them into a bowl
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    Have you been sleeping?
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    Why?
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
    ’Cause I haven’t been sleeping.
    Harry continues pitching the cards. We see the room is bare except for a couple of chairs
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
     (CONT’D )    I really miss Helen. Maybe I’m coming down with something. Last night I was up at four in the morning watching “Leave It to Beaver” in Spanish.
    CUT TO :
    INT. HARRY’S APARTMENT—DAY

Harry is sitting in a chair, trying to read a book. He has a thermometer in his mouth. He can’t concentrate. He keeps reading the same paragraph over and over
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
     (CONT’D)     
“Buenos días, Señora Cleaver
.
Dónde están Wallace y Theodore?”
    Finally, Harry flips to the last page and reads it
.
    HARRY     
(Voice-over)
     (CONT’D )    I’m not well.
    CUT TO :
    INT. FITNESS CLUB—DAY

Sally in a tap-dancing class
.
    SALLY     
(Voice-over)
    Well, I went to bed at