The Hudsucker Proxy1994

[Amy finds Norville out on the balcony with an ice pack on his eye]

Amy Archer:
Norville? What happened?

Norville Barnes:
Oh. Nothing, really, just the more timid investors are no longer running for cover.

Amy Archer:
Let me look.

Norville Barnes:
Sid found me the icepack.

Amy Archer:
Let me hold it, or you'll have a real shiner.

Norville Barnes:
Thanks. People seem to be pretty hot over this imbecile story.

Amy Archer:
I'm sorry.

Norville Barnes:
Oh, it isn't your fault, Amy. You're the one person who's been standing by me through all this.

Amy Archer:
Norville, there's something I have to tell you. You see, I'm not really a secretary.

Norville Barnes:
I know that, Amy.

Amy Archer:
You do!?

Norville Barnes:
I understand that you're not very skilled yet in the secretarial arts. I'm not that skilled as president. Oh sure, I put up a big front not that everyone's buying it.

Amy Archer:
I believe in you, Norville. At least I believe in your intentions --

Norville Barnes:
Oh, I don't blame them, really. I guess I have sort of made a mess of things. These folks have to protect their investment. Most of them are very nice people --

Amy Archer:
Listen, Norville, you can't trust people here like you did in Muncie. Certain people are --

Norville Barnes:
Did you ever go to the top of old man Larson's feed tower and look out over the town?

Amy Archer:
What?

Norville Barnes:
You know, on Farm Route 17.

Amy Archer:
Oh yes! In Muncie!

Norville Barnes:
No, in Vidalia. Farm Route 17?

Amy Archer:
Uh, yes. 17! Yes, I... well...

Norville Barnes:
The boys from varsity use to take their girlfriends up there to hold hands, except... I never made varsity.

Amy Archer:
There's a place I go now, the cutest little place near my apartment in Greenwich Village. It's called Ann's 440; it's a beatnik bar.

Norville Barnes:
A beatnik bar!

Amy Archer:
Yes!

Norville Barnes:
You don't say.

Amy Archer:
You can get carrot juice or Italian coffee! And the people there are... well, none of them quite fit in. You'd love it. Why don't you come there with me. They're having a marathon poetry reading on New Year's Eve. I go every year.

Norville Barnes:
Every year?

Amy Archer:
Well, this year... if it's good, I plan to make it a tradition. [laughs and changes subjects] My it certainly is beautiful. The people look like ants.

Norville Barnes:
Well, the Hindus say, and the beatniks also, that in the next life some of us will come back as ants. Some will be butterflies. Others will be elephants or creatures of the sea.

Amy Archer:
What a beautiful thought.

Norville Barnes:
Say, what do you think you were in your previous life, Amy?

Amy Archer:
Oh, I don't know. Maybe I was just a fast-talking career gal who thought she was one of the boys.

Norville Barnes:
Oh no, Amy, pardon me for saying so but I find that very farfetched.

Amy Archer:
Norville, there really is something I have to tell you --

Norville Barnes:
That kind of person would come back as a wildebeest, or a warthog. No, I think it more likely that you were a gazelle, with long, graceful legs, gamboling through the underbrush. Perhaps we met once, a chance encounter in a forest glade. I must have been an antelope or an ibex. What times we must have had. Foraging together for sustenance, snorfling water from a forest stream, picking the grubs and burrs from one another's coats. Or perhaps we simply touched our horns briefly and went our separate ways.

Amy Archer:
I wish it were that simple, Norville. I wish I was still a gazelle, and you were an antelope or an ibex.

Norville Barnes:
Well, can I at least call you deer? [laughs] Seriously, Amy, the whole thing is what your beatnik friends call a kar-MAH --

Amy Archer:
Karma.

Norville Barnes:
-- the great circle of life.

Amy Archer:
Yeah, yeah. I think I've heard of that. What goes around comes around.

Norville Barnes:
That's it. A great wheel that gives us each what we deserve... Golly, tomorrow's my big presentation to the board. I've gotta show Sidney and the guys that I deserve all their confidence!

Amy Archer:
[sadly] Oh...

Norville Barnes:
Kiss me once, Amy! Kiss me once for luck!

Amy Archer:
Sure, Norville.

[Amy gives him a peck. They look at each other and then embraces and kiss again passionately]