Rewind (A Perfect Forever Novella)

Rewind

A Perfect Forever Novella

Susan Ward

Copyright © 2014 Susan Ward

Cover Design by Laura Shinn Designs

All rights reserved.

ISBN:
1500745820

ISBN-13:
978-1500745820

DEDICATION

For my beautiful daughter Tracy, aka Princess Bug. You are always in my thoughts and heart.

My SIL and  my Granddogs:

Tiki, Donovan and Georgia Peaches

ONE

It started as a joke.  Just something I worked on one night after learning the last girl from my sorority clique was getting married. I really didn’t do it out of spite or resentment. I didn’t even do it because I polished off a full bottle of Zinfandel that night. It’s just how I fill my evenings when there is nothing better to do: design a blog page, give it a name—
How to Train Your Fembot
—and start to post.

Who would have ever thought this page would take off the way it has in the past six months and who would have thought there were so many vain guys out there looking to bag a Fembot?

I don’t
really
think of my sorority sisters as
fembots
, any more than I think of myself as
the token brunette.
Sure, I was the only brunette in the clique inside my sorority of rich hotties at USC, but that was totally random and had nothing to do with this being California.

I don’t really resent them all landing their super-duper great guys, marching down the aisle into their oh-so-perfect lives. I had a super-duper great guy. I just didn’t marry him. Oh well, that’s another story for another day and a different blog. Tonight, I haven’t finished teaching overachieving men how to achieve their fembot-perfect wife.

Rule #477:
If you want to make the Fembot crawl to you, figure out who her best friend is, and then flirt her up. As much as they pride themselves on ‘the sisterhood’ the second the BFF’s back is turned, she’ll make her move.

My fingers pause and I stare at the screen.

You ought to know rule #477 in spades, Kaley Stanton.

It’s what got me into my current mess. I’m so stupid to have fallen for that one, and definitely over a player like Graham Carson. Graham could write this blog probably better than I do. He made his way through my sorority sisters with a slick talking velvet encased machete.

Damn. It was a mistake, misplaced female competitiveness, and it cost me Bobby Rowan. I wonder where Bobby is these days. Two years. I never expected not to hear from him for two years, despite the fact that he was very emphatic, in an
oh-so-not Bobby
way, that we were over after I foolishly confessed to a pointless, drunken one night stand with Graham Carson, thinking that truth would make it all something I could fix.

I take a hearty sip of my wine. I called that one wrong. I definitely have no one to blame but myself. And I definitely deserve to be home alone on a Saturday night writing my pitiful blog post.

I open the drawer in the bedside table and pull out my secret scrapbook. God, I’ve become like one of those lonely cat-ladies, one of those girls with secret scrapbooks, bitchy blogs, and dateless weekend nights.

I start flipping through the pages. As sad as I feel, the pictures make me smile. There is just something so right about how Bobby and I look together. I felt it the first day I met him. We were meant to be, a perfectly imperfect forever kind of couple.

I’ve never been able to imagine myself with someone else. I’ve loved Bobby Rowen since I was seventeen and, up until two years ago, he was also my best friend.

I refill my wineglass, put away the scrapbook and turn on the TV. I’m restless tonight. I should sleep, but there is something frantic and twitchy running through me. A feeling of lack of completion, of loss, and of need.

How long does it take to get over a guy? Maybe it would happen faster if I could find someone interesting and occasionally enjoy that sex thing again. How long has it been since I’ve gotten laid? I try to remember. I can’t. That’s how long it’s been.

God, I always miss Bobby the most on nights like these: alone, blogging, thinking, and drinking.

Ding. I look at my laptop screen. S
hit
. I forgot to log off, but then again, I never get any chats or comments on this blog except from my one virtual fan who randomly has been dropping in the last six weeks. A lot of people read it, the traffic numbers are very good,  but no one wants to admit it by commenting that they visit the site. It’s that kind of thing.

 I click open the chat box. OK, what does my cyber groupie have to say to me tonight?

Love-struck Trainer
:
Instead of posing as a somewhat humorous, sarcastic, devil-may-care princess to hide your bitterness, why don’t you tell guys something useful? How do you get over losing the perfect girl?

My entire body goes cold from head to toe. Is that how I come off?
A somewhat humorous, sarcastic, devil-may-care princess to hide my bitterness.
If that’s true, I’ve sunk so low. My hands rise and hover over the keys.

Rapidly I type:
I’ve been told that my comments are witty and funny.

I hit send and wait.

Ding:
A non-denial denial. Why won’t you answer the question? Or can you only dish out and not be helpful?

I really shouldn’t respond. I’ve had too much to drink, but fuck, there is something in his first question really hitting home right now. How does this stranger in cyber land know exactly what I’m feeling today? Maybe, it is obvious.

Click, click, two words:
You don’t.

Crap. What made me say that? An honest answer. Exactly what I had just been thinking.

For some reason, I am suddenly fully alert, plugged in and engaged in this random moment with a virtual stranger. I stare at the screen. Waiting. Waiting.

Ding:
Is that why you’re bitter? You lost the perfect guy?

I rapidly respond:
Nope. I lost the perfect imperfect guy.

Love-Struck Trainer:
You are witty and funny.

I bite my lip, feeling a smile trying to take shape, and then the chat box announces he’s left the chat. That’s it? Gone. Love-struck is usually good for at least an hour of diversion.

I log off of my blog, switch off the light, and go to sleep.

I’m late. Sunday hangover always equals Monday late. I really need to stop that Saturday night drinking and blogging shit. It’s no way for a twenty-five year old girl to live. Isn’t that what everyone keeps telling me?

I hit the button for the garage door to open and wait impatiently for it to lift. Why does everything near the ocean move at a snail’s pace, even the garage door? I put the car into reverse, back into the driveway, hit the button and wait for the door to fully close in case Muffin the cat is lurking and decides to slip in. If the garage sensor pops the door open again, there is no telling what I’ll find within, leaving a house open all day in Malibu.

OK, you can close anytime.

While I wait, I study the stunning beach front concrete and glass structure. It really makes me feel like a fraud to live here. Struggling independent filmmakers should live struggling lives if they want their art to be good. But then, the house was vacant since Dad finally married Mom shortly after my eighteenth birthday, and finding livable conditions for manageable rent in Southern California is just a bitch.

The house may cost me nothing, but there is
rent.
It may not cost US dollars to live here, but I do have to live with the memories, the memorabilia, and history contained within the walls of the Malibu house. I’m not talking about the photos of my parents, but the legacy of lovers that is always present within the rooms.  Dad loved Mom here. Mom left Dad from here. And I live alone without Bobby here.

The door closes and I start to ease carefully from the driveway. Second battle of the day: getting onto Pacific Coast Highway during the commuter rush without getting hit. I merge into traffic and again everything is moving at a snail’s pace.

I pull into the drive-thru Starbucks to grab a morning tray of coffee for my creative team. I hit the notes icon on my iPhone, where I artfully conceal the list of everyone’s preferred drink. It’s a nice touch to always get it right, and it’s the little things that seem to keep the team humming happily. It sure isn’t the money I pay them since, according to my business checking account balance, I really am a struggling independent filmmaker.

If not for capital injections from Dad, my start-up film company would have folded long ago. I pull up to the window to pay.

“Thirty-seven-dollars, twenty-eight cents,” the barista announces.

“Really? I only ordered six drinks. I’m not buying Starbucks.”

The girl doesn’t laugh. OK, so this isn’t one of my wittier and funnier moments, but heck I’m in a rush and I’ve got a headache today. I rummage through my purse for a credit card.

I smile as I hand it to her. “Thank you.”

No response. Monday, Monday, Monday: they seem to bring out the worst in everyone. I wonder if the barista would notice if I started to secretly film her. There’s got to be a story in this and that’s what I do, film little bits of this and that all through the day until the next great documentary inspiration strikes. I peek at her out of the corner of my eye. Nope, better not try it. This girl looks pissed.

My credit card is shoved back at me and I have only a moment to drop it on my dash before I have to grab the tray closing in on me.

“Thank you,” I say.

Nothing. Not even a smile. Maybe I should start another blog:
How to Train Your Barista.
I put my car into gear and pull out of the drive-thru lane. That’s one of the things I miss about Bobby; he’s the only person I’ve ever known who always thought my quirky sense of humor was funny. I admit, I’m an acquired taste.

Thirty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot in front of the shabby industrial space that houses my fledgling company: KKK Productions. Another mistake of my quirky sense of humor, the KKK thing that started back in high school when I started to sell my hand-painted Vans on the internet: Kaley’s Kustom Kicks. I thought it was memorable—KKK— but I guess it wasn’t one of my smarter branding moves because sometimes I get the most interesting mail from viewers who’ve seen one of our documentaries. And the KKK thing is definitely misinterpreted.  

I pull my cross body purse over my neck and scoop up the drink tray. Note to self:
learn to contain quirky sense of humor when making business decisions.

I push with my hip through the double glass doors and pause at the reception desk.

“Morning, Veronica. Is everyone here?” I ask, setting the tray down and searching for the soy latte.

“They’re in the conference room,” she informs, smiling as I hand her the coffee. “You’re late. Rough weekend?”

I force my expression into something I hope looks saucy. “The roughest kind.”

Veronica laughs. “I’m free for lunch if you want to tell me about it. Mine was totally dull.”

“I never kiss and tell,” I counter with heavy meaning.

I grab the tray and continue down the short hallway to the back office we’ve converted into a conference-screening room. Struggling to balance the tray in one arm, I open the door and the room quiets.

“Sorry to keep everyone waiting,” I say in a rush, moving quickly toward my seat. “Traffic,” I add lamely, wondering why I felt it necessary.

Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest person in the room and it still feels kind of strange to sign paychecks. Or maybe because someday they are going to figure out that I haven’t a clue what I’m doing and haven’t since the first moment I took over this defunct production company and inherited this team.

The business acquisition was a mistake, it was too burdened with debt and I should have listened to my dad about that, but I was excited about starting my career after graduation and the team is definitely a winner. I may not like each and every one of them, but I respect them, they are enormously talented and I’m getting great on the job CEO-documentary-filmmaker training here.

I smile and start to hand out the coffee drinks. I pull out a notepad from my bag and it gets a few funny stares. All around the table are laptops and tablets.  I like paper, so shoot me. I grab a pen and start to tap it on the scarred wood table.

A sheet of paper is shoved across the table at me. “Should we start at the top of the agenda?” Justin asks.