Rewind (A Perfect Forever Novella) (5 page)

Now I’m not just hungry, I’m pissed and feeling wretchedly suspicious again. I don’t want to be jealous. I don’t want bad thoughts, but hell what do I really know about how Bobby spent the last two years. There could be someone else, maybe not serious, but maybe not over either.

He’s too cute a guy, too wonderful and hot, not to have some girl somewhere interested in him. He also has a more than healthy appetite for sex. Sex was never one of our issues. He couldn’t have passed his nights alone here with the dogs living like a monk. No matter how much the thought of that pleases me, I don’t really wish for that to have been and I’m not really angry if it wasn’t.

Maybe I’m just irritated because I can’t stand not knowing the details of things, and definitely not of something that took my guy away from me.

I smile. My guy. I hope wherever he is, he is that.

Listening to my phone messages, I start to make my way down the hall toward the kitchen. In the living room, I find Tiki sitting obediently in her cage looking as if she’s waiting to be released.

I crouch down in front of her, checking to see if there is food and water. Those soulful dog eyes fix on me. I smile but I’m not about to release her.

“Sorry girl,” I whisper, slowly slipping my fingers through the cage to lightly scratch her ear. “You’re going to have to wait for your dad to come home. I’m not ready to trust you yet.”

As if she understands my human rambles, a look flashes in her eyes as if to say
I’m not ready to trust you either.

I laugh. Leave it to Bobby to find a dog like me. My humor leaves me. Is she like me? Is that part of what Bobby said true?

Shaking my head, I stand back up and continue into the kitchen. I open the fridge and hang on the door trying to figure out if there is anything to eat here. Nope, Bobby was right. There is definitely nothing worth cooking in the fridge.

I slam shut the door and find instant coffee on the counter. I rummage through the cabinets, find a cup, fill it with water and put it in the microwave to heat.

I hit call back for the office, then the speaker button.

“KKK Productions,” Veronica says pleasantly.

“Good morning, Veronica. Got your urgent messages. What’s up?”

I take the cup from the microwave and stir in the instant coffee.

“Are you all right?” she asks anxiously.

“I’m great. Why?”

“You missed your afternoon meetings, and when I left work last night your car was still in the parking lot. Justin said he hadn’t heard from you. That’s when I started worrying.”

I scrunch up my face. “Family emergency. Nothing is wrong. Just everything got so hectic I forgot to call.”

“Are you coming in today?”

“I’ll be there in about two hours.” I look in the pantry. Not even bread. “Justin wanted to meet at ten. Tell him that works for me.”

I click off my cell and take my coffee back to Bobby’s bedroom.  I stare at the bed, wishing he was here to spoon with all day and feel a prick of unkind emotion that I don’t want as I wonder why he’s not here. I toss my phone onto the bed and go into the bathroom.

After turning on the shower, I begin to absently rummage in the cabinets. I don’t know why I’m doing it. The fresh towels are neatly stacked on an open shelf right where I can see them. I look in the vanity drawer: A first aid kit, allergy pills.

I go to the medicine cabinet: electric razor,  shaving cream, cologne…

I twist open the bottle and take a sniff. Thank goodness he wasn’t wearing that last night. It must have been a gift from his mother. Linda has unusual taste.

Linda. I need to call her. Bobby is right about that. Without looking, I shove the bottle back into the medicine cabinet and a box falls out. Every man’s little gold best friend. Shit, I wish I hadn’t seen these. The condoms don’t surprise me, but the internal nerve pricks have just gotten worse.

I lift the lid. The box looks almost completely full. It doesn’t mean anything. Could be new. I set it back on the shelf and close the cabinet door.

I take a shower in record time, finger scrunch the dampness from my curls, pull on yesterday’s clothes and grab my purse. I check my phone. Still no message from Bobby. I pull free my keys and then freeze.

Shit, I don’t have a car. How am I going to get to the downtown from here? I  spot a set of keys still on the dresser. Maybe Bobby has another vehicle as well as Bertha.

I go out onto the porch and find Bertha still in the driveway. So, Bobby didn’t take the heap truck last night wherever he went. I’m hit with another internal nerve prick that I don’t want.

I lock the front door, then close it behind me. I debate with myself whether to shoot Bobby a text, but hell, the guy should have texted me.

Eight a.m. commute on the 101 means two hour drive from Simi Valley into the downtown. If Bobby and I get back together, we’re going to have to figure out something so that I don’t have to do this commute.

Back together. How would that work? Our living situations are incompatible now that he lives in Simi. Finally we are at perfect-guy-perfect-time and now there is geography ruining it.

Oh well, he’s just nearly perfect at the moment. He’d be perfect if he’d text me so this rampant flashing suspicions would end in my musings. He’s doing nothing wrong. Bobby is an all-in or all-out kind of guy. I know that. Why is not knowing where he is driving me crazy?

I park Bertha next to my shiny black Lexus. I laugh, wondering what everyone will think of me arriving to work in an old truck still dressed in yesterday’s clothing.

I hurry through the double glass doors and Veronica’s face shoots up to greet me.

She comes around her desk. In a whisper, she says, “Justin has had me on lookout duty for an hour. You’re late.”

I frown, shaking my head. “What’s the big deal? He just wanted to meet and discuss a few things.”

Veronica’s eyes round. “He didn’t text you?”

“Text me what?”

“He did another cut of the documentary yesterday. Without you. The team voted on a new title. He pushed up the meeting with the distributor to today. They are doing the pitch today.”

I freeze. “He did what?”

Veronica makes a shush face. “We got a call from IGSB. We’re behind schedule. They were thinking of pulling out. The team worked all through the night, Kaley. IGSB wanted the meeting today. They’re scheduled to be here in two hours.”

Oh crap. I scramble toward my office, feeling panicky, betrayed and irritated as hell. The one day I take my eyes off everything, and Justin can’t work things out with IGSB, he does solo a new cut of the documentary without my permission, and he’s about to show it without my approval.

I dump my purse on my desk, hit the lights and then power up my computer. I look at myself in the wall mirror. Great, I have wind-dried hair and I look like a girl wearing yesterday’s outfit.
Crud.

I rush down the hall to the conference room, swing open the door, and the entire team turns at once and stares at me.

“Justin? Can I speak with you for a moment? Privately.”

I don’t wait for him to answer. I hurry down the hall to my office. I settle on the edge of my desk feeling ready to pounce on him.

“Why didn’t you delay the meeting with IGSB? They just want to keep track of our progress. Why take the meeting now?”

Justin steps in and closes the door. “Rafe said they were going to pull the plug.”

Rafe, my USC buddy and hotshot independent documentary distributer. Like hell he would have pulled the plug.

“Why didn’t you call me. I know how to manage Rafe. Instead you did another cut, rushed, all without me.  And then you take a meeting that if it goes the wrong way it could bankrupt me. You do understand I need this project to succeed.”

Justin stiffens, but his manner remains calm. “I couldn’t reach you. I made a decision. The one I thought was in the interest of the company. There was no point losing valuable production time because you weren’t here.” He checks his watch. “I’ve got enough time to run the cut for you before the meeting. You can decide after if you want to risk another delay with IGSB.”

Justin’s calm infuriates me.

“I specifically said I wanted to be there through the next round of cutting. I specifically said we don’t screen this unless I give it my OK.”

“Kaley, you’re the director. You shoot the film. But I’m the editor. I turn it into a story. We’re a creative partnership. We’re not working against each other. The process would work a lot better if this was the process you’d commit to.”

My cheeks burn. “Are you telling me how to do my job?”

“No. I’m telling you how I do mine. If you don’t like the latest cut we can try to delay the meeting and start over this afternoon. We all have our talents, Kaley. You have vision. An eye. Determination. My talent is making the most of your vision.”

I shake my head. I probably would have fired him yesterday for that, and yet, something in what he said, reminds me of where I messed up with Bobby, pricks at my conscience, and holds me at bay.

“Let’s go look at the latest cut,” I announce and move quickly ahead of him out of the office.

When we step back into the conference room, everyone looks at me as if they’ve speculated about the scene outside the room. I smile and sink into my chair. There is a printed list of the changes on the table in from of me. “Finding Fiona.”

Fiona? Fiona? There is a photograph with the notes. I remember her. Great footage: young, still beautiful but bearing the marks of walking the streets, and poignant in her hope for something better that somehow still whispers from her eyes. She is fascinating and vulnerable. Much better title. So Justin changed the title. Did he change the focus to?

I lift my gaze. “Great title. Good work, everyone.”

Cool. In control. Professional. Now let’s see what they did to my film. I lean back in my chair as the lights go out and the first footage is of Fiona. I don’t even remember shooting this footage. When did we cut it? It’s excellent.

I shift my gaze to Justin. He looks at me. I nod. He deserves something for this. He made the beginning better, so much better, than it had been.

As I watch Justin’s creation, I can’t stop myself from recalling his words earlier in my office.
You have vision. An eye. Determination. My talent is making the most of your vision.

Without me,  Justin’s work is brilliant. Has my enthusiasm over the work stifled the team?  Am I helping them to be their best or preventing it? That’s something I’m going to need to spend some time analyzing.

The documentary ends. The room is quiet. Allie turns on the lights and out of the corner of my eye I can see her watching, trying to assess my reaction to this.

I smile. “Well done, everyone. Excellent work. We’re
very
ready for IGSB today, thanks to all of you. We can meet back here at two.”

I nod at each team member as they leave the conference table. Allie closes the door behind her and leaves me alone with Justin.

“It really is an extraordinary piece of work. You’ve done an excellent job. It’s like you could see what I was going for inside my head, but you made it happen.”

Justin smiles and sinks back into his chair. “It’s your footage. I can’t do anything without your vision. There needs to be trust between us for both of us to excel at our work.”

My cheeks color hotly and I don’t want them too. It is such a young woman thing to have allowed to happen, the chastised blush, but Justin’s comments bring Bobby’s back to hit in full force.

I stare at my pen as I tap it on the desk and search for something to say. Trust issues. Why is that all I hear from people lately?

“Can I give you some advice?” Justin asks politely.

I don’t really want it and I realize that’s a petty thought. He just pulled a small miracle with this documentary and I know that under our tug-of-war he is, in his own way, trying to mentor me.

I nod. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Justin smiles. “You’re a very talented filmmaker and you’ve molded this dis-spirited group into a top notch team. We’re almost there, your vision for what you want us to be. All it takes now is you.   It will all fall into place if you learn to hold on less tightly. It will fall into place much faster by just trusting us enough to let go.”

I stare at him, but it’s Bobby that flashes in my mind. I stand up. “Thanks. I’ll try to work on that.”

I walk toward the door. I pause to look back at him. “That’s final cut, Justin. Do you think you can take the meeting with Rafe today without me and cover things around here for a while? I’m going to be gone for the rest of the day and probably tomorrow as well.”

Justin smiles. I’ve finally said something that pleases him. “Sure, Kaley. I’ll do the pitch meeting with Rafe.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

I hurry out of the conference room and back to the safety of my office. I lean against the closed door, breathing heavily. I suddenly feel frantic and shaky, desperate, and like the only thing that will make any of this better is to run to Bobby.

I want him to know I love him. I want him to know I trust him. It isn’t him that makes me act the way I act at times. It isn’t him, and he’s known it all along and has loved me anyway.

I feel on the verge of both laughter and tears, and I can’t make sense of that any more than I can explain the rest of this crazy day. Without need for thought, I decide my next move.

I’m out of here. I’m going back to Simi Valley and telling that wonderful guy he was right about everything.

I reach for my purse on the desk. Ding. I look at the computer screen. Shit, I must have forgotten to log out of my Fembot blog last time I was here. The chat box is patiently waiting.

I drop into my chair. I open it, already knowing it’s my cyber fan waiting there.

Love-struck Trainer:
You weren’t drinking and blogging last night. Hot date?

I lift my hands above the keys.

Rapid typing:
I’m not going to be blogging anymore.

Waiting. Waiting.

Love-struck Trainer:
Why? I’ll miss our nightly chats.