Description: *based off of New Line Cinema The Notebook. This is also from Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook*
An elderly man tells the story to his patient in a retirement home a story to pass the time. The story is about a couple named Alfred, a country boy and Arthur, a city boy. They met the night at the county fair, and it's love at first sight for Alfred. Over time, they date over the summer but things pull them apart and many obstacles get in the way.
Chapter 1: The Little Book
It was morning and the seagulls were flying into the orange sky as it reflected onto the lake that the retirement home stood. An elderly man stared out the window at the rower, who was cutting through the water, making ripples in the water.
"Sir, You have a visitor." A nurse from behind the elderly man said. The white haired man turned his head to face the nurse and his guest. The guest was a tall, elderly man with thin black glasses on his nose and silver hair with one piece sticking up.
"Who are you?" The male questioned. Confused by why he had a visitor in the first place.
"This is Noah, he is here to read to you." The nurse introduces the man to him.
"Read? I don't know if..." The man grips the ledge of the window.
"Oh come on, you'll like him. He is very funny." The nurse says as Noah smiles at the other man.
"Alright."The elderly man agrees. He walks over to Noah and he leads them to a sunroom to start reading.
Once they get to the room, he helps the other male down onto a chair as he goes to the one across from the other.
"Alright, now where did we leave off?" Noah asks as he settles into place and changing his glasses to reading glasses. The white haired male looked so confused with a face trying to think of where did they leave off.
"Oh yes I remember, we left off at the county fair. Alfred went with his friends Lovino and Antonio." the silver haired man said as he opened the book.
"Who?" He asks.
"That's where they first meet. June 1st 1940. Arthur was only 17 years old." Noah said and began to read.
Alfred was hanging with his buddy Lovino, an Italian guy, by the High Striker. Lovino swung but didn't hit the bell so he won a small stuffed animal that was a turtle. They walk over to the bumper cars, where Lovino's boyfriend Antonio was, and they waited for them by looking at what they were doing.
"Who's the guy that's with Antonio?" Alfred asks pointed to the blonde guy he had never seen before.
"That's Arthur Kirkland, his parents just moved down here for the summer. His dad's richer than God." Lovino explains putting out his cigarette he had in his mouth. Alfred couldn't stop staring at the smaller male laughing in the ride, a smirk growing more and more on his face.
When Antonio exited the ride with Arthur in toe, another male grabbed his hand asking if he wanted anything. Arthur answered not right now and continued to walk.
Alfred stepped in front of Arthur, which made him stop in place.
"Go on a date with me." Alfred just blurted out of the blue.
"No." Arthur replies to his comment with his accent.
"Why not?" Alfred asks.
"Because I don't want to." He states with a bit of annoyance in his voice.
"Alfred, he's with us. Arthur you want to go on the Ferris Wheel?" The male that still had Arthur's hand asks.
Arthur looks at Alfred before answering "I'd love to" in a seductive way.
As they walked past Alfred, he just smirks to himself.
"Alfred F. Jones." Arthur's new friend Antonio says to him.
"What?" Arthur asks confused.
"He works down at the lumber yard, I'm surprised he even came to see you. I think he has a thing for you. " Antonio says bumping Arthur teasingly.
"Great. Did you see how close he got to my face?" Arthur asks astonished that a human being would do that.
"Yeah I saw, but that's Alfred for you." Antonio finishes as they are the next to go on the Ferris wheel.
As Arthur and the man that was with him get a car to themselves. Alfred just stares at them going around and around. Somewhere inside of him, a burning jealousy was raging through him. So he decided to do something crazy, he would jump on the Ferris wheel to ask again. As Arthur's car came around again, Alfred got a running start and jumped and latched onto the bar above the car seat. Arthur was screaming and the other guy was yelling profanities. The tech guy stops the Ferris wheel when it gets to the top as Alfred is just hanging here.
"I'm going to ask again, will you go out with me?" Alfred says to Arthur.
"What no." Arthur says to him.
"No?" Alfred asks as he lets one of his arms go of the bar, hanging with one arm there. Arthur is screaming, not knowing if the idiot was going to fall or not.
"I'll ask one more time, will you go out with me." Alfred said again. "Ah I feel my hand slipping." Alfred struggles.
"Alright fine." Arthur gave in.
"Are you serious?" The man next to him asked.
"Yes, I don't want this idiots death over my head for the rest of my life." Arthur yelled to the man next to him.
"Say it again." Alfred demanded. "Will you go out with me?"
"Yes, I want to go out with you." Arthur screamed to get it through the idiots ego.
Alfred brought his other arm back to the bar. "Alright Alright we'll go out." Alfred smirked.
"You think you're funny don't you?" Arthur stated more than asked.
"That wasn't funny Alfred you idiota." Antonia said one cart below Arthur's.
"It's alright, I can handle him." Arthur grinned as he reached to undo Alfred's buckle and zipper of his jeans. When they were loose he pulled down Alfred's pants with no way to fix them.
"If you wanted me to strip so bad, you could've just asked." Alfred teased and Arthur just scoffed at him.
Everyone on the Ferris wheel and people around it were laughing at Alfred. He started to get embarrassed and Arthur could see it on Alfred's face.
"Not so confident now are you?" Arthur joked and Alfred's face was getting hot and red.
"I'm going to get you for this." Alfred said.
"Maybe you will or maybe you won't." Arthur laughed out.
Alfred swung and landed in the cart between Arthur and the other guy waiting for the cart to hit the ground, still embarrassed about the situation.
The next day, Alfred just got off of work and was walking back home which was through the town. He saw Arthur again with a jade green vest shirt and black dress was walking on the sidewalk and Alfred ran over to him.
"Remember me?" Alfred whispered in Arthur's left ear as he ran up to him.
Arthur moved away from him and looked Alfred up and down for a second.
"Oh yeah I remember you, Mr. Underwear was it. How could I forget the maniac that jumps on a Ferris wheel." Arthur looks straight ahead.
"Yeah I wanted to say sorry about that, it was a really stupid thing of me to do but I just had to be next to you. You were drawing me into ya." Alfred walked in front of Arthur to look straight into those beautiful emerald eyes. Arthur was chuckling.
"Oh wow, what a line. You use that on all the girls?" Arthur laughs out.
"No." Alfred answers.
"Sure you don't." Arthur walks past Alfred but Alfred stops him.
"I'm serious. It's just when I saw you, I knew I wanted you, and when I want something I gotta, I gotta have it." Alfred tries to explain.
"You are such an actor, you are fantastic you really are." Arthur compliments him but Alfred is interjecting with no's.
"Look I know it's weird when a dirty guy comes up to you on the street and you don't know him and it's weird but I really want to know you." The dirty man tries to keep the conversation going.
"So what are you doing tonight?" Alfred asks.
"For what?"
"What do you mean 'for what', for our date that you agreed to." Alfred says.
"We aren't having one." Arthur walks away.
"You can't just change your mind."
"Well I just did." Arthur turns around and jokes.
Alfred runs up to him again and grabs the side of his two arms. "Listen, I could be whatever you want. I could be protective, superstitious, uh smart, provocative. I could be light on my feet." Alfred starts dancing his feet around. "Whatever you want me to be and I'll be that for ya."
There was a long silent moment before Arthur speaks. "You're dumb." Arthur gets close to Alfred's face.
Alfred sucks his bottom lip in. "I could be that." Arthur chuckles with a big smile.
A car horn blows and Arthur walks to the car.
"Come on just one date." Alfred yells.
"I still don't think so." Arthur gets to the car and places his hand is on the door handle.
"What can I do to change your mind?" Alfred sounds desperate.
"I guess you'll have to figure something out." He gets into the car and the car drives away.
"And you're sure he's going to be here?" Alfred asked Lovino as they walked to the movie theater.
"Don't worry it's all planned out, trust me." Lovino reassured his buddy.
They got to the corner and saw the two standing there. "Look see come on." Lovino tapped Alfred's stomach as they ran across the street.
"Oh look who's here." Antonio stated making the situation more obvious of what was going on.
Arthur grabbed his arm and spun him in a circle talking in his ear 'how could you'.
"Arthur you remember Alfred." The Spaniard asked.
"Yes I remember him."
The two lovers, Antonio and Lovino, were kissing as the other two stood there awkwardly.
"Hi." Alfred said placing his hand out for a shake. Arthur gestured in kind.
"You look great tonight." Alfred commented and Arthur thanked him. Arthur was wearing a red pete coat with burgundy pants and brown leather shoes.
"I mean really, really..."
"Hey he looks great, you look great and I know I look great so can we please see this damn movie. It is about to start.
-Time skip-
In the movie theater, Alfred got quickly bored and started glancing at Arthur every chance he got. On some occasions he would find Arthur staring at him as well.
When the movie was over the two couples separated. Arthur felt weird walking with Alfred late at night.
"Well that was fun." Alfred decided to cut the awkward silence between them.
"Yeah, I haven't seen a movie in ages." Arthur stated.
"What?" Alfred was shocked by this.
"Yeah I have a busy schedule. I wake up, have breakfast, literature, Latin, lunch, maths, dance, tennis, sometimes both, science, dinner, than bed." Arthur listed his daily life routine.
"Wow, what a great education."
"You bet, applying to so many colleges. The ones that we want." Arthur sounded proud of this.
"We?"
"Yeah, mama and daddy."
"Do they decided everything for you?" Alfred gets playfully smacked by Arthur.
"Don't be mean."
"What do you do for fun? That's what I'm trying to figure out."
"I just told you the things I do for fun."
Alfred looked at Arthur for a brief moment, trying to understand this man in front of him, who has more opportunities than him, doesn't know what to do to have fun or have a mind of his own.
"I guess my thought of you was wrong." Alfred muttered
"What do you mean?" Arthur questions.
"I don't know, I just thought you would be more free."
"I am free. I live in the United States, although my whole family lives in the UK."
"That's not what I meant by free." Alfred looks down at the smaller blonde.
"Come here." Alfred gestures and walks into the middle of the street.
"What are you doing, you're going to get run over." A shaky breath escapes Arthur's mouth.
Alfred looks around him and the dark street with just a few street lights. "By all the car?"
Alfred lays down on the asphalt and stares up at the street light. "Me and my brother Mattie, we would come here with my dad some nights like these and just watch the light go from red to yellow to green. You could try it if you want to?" Alfred asks.
"I don't think so." Arthur shakes his head.
"See that's the problem, you don't do what you want." Alfred teases still staring at the light.
"Fine." Arthur rolls his eyes and lays on the asphalt next to the American.
"What if a car comes?"
"We die."
"Wha-." Arthur starts to get nervous.
"Just relax." Alfred tries to calm Arthur down.
After a few moment of listening to the crickets the two were comfortable with each others company.
"Painting."
"Hum." The American turns his head to face the Brit.
"You asked me what I do for fun, and it's painting. When I do anything else, my world is whipping around in my head. But with a brush in my hand, the world seems to stop and goes silent." Arthur explains with his eyes closed.
In the distance they hear honking and Alfred jumps up with the sight of headlights coming there way. Arthur is screaming heading toward the sidewalk. As Alfred just puts his hands on his hips staring at the young Brit who started to laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" Alfred snickered out staring at him.
"Wow, that was fun." Arthur laughed out.
"Fun, we could of been ran over." Alfred laughs out. They stay silent for a moment, staring at each other until Alfred breaks the silence
"Do you want to dance with me?" Alfred asked with all seriousness.
"Sure."
Walking over to the American, the Brit could tell he was muscular and broad but from up close he somehow seemed bigger. His hands were rough, probably from the lumber work he does, and were so strong. Alfred wrapped his right hand around Arthur's waist and grabbed the others left hand. They started to sway back and forth, dancing to the invisible music that Alfred had in his head. He started humming a tune as the two moved together. Going around and around and getting closer together. Arthur stared into Alfred's eyes and found that they were a beautiful ocean blue. Arthur thought he could get lost into them, like the ocean he loved so much growing up. Alfred did a dip and Arthur threw his head back gently, trusting every move this American made.
The dance continued but Arthur was getting closer and closer to Alfred, almost to the point where there noises could touch. Alfred got the hint and leaned forward too, finally letting their lips graze each others. It didn't last long as they pulled away from each other to look into each other's eyes as if to ask for permission to continue. With a nod of Alfred head and a breathy 'yes' from Arthur, the two kissed again. Only this kiss was not heated, but was filled with promises of loving each other in the future to come. When they pulled away Arthur hugged Alfred close to him, placing his head on Alfred's right shoulder.
"Yes." Alfred pulled away to look at Arthur to understand what Arthur was saying,
"Yes I will go out with you, and go on many dates with you." Arthur confidently said and Alfred could not hear lying in the others voice.
"OK." And Alfred kissed Arthur's hand and intertwined their fingers and walked him home feeling like the luckiest man in the world.