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I could feel the blood pulsating through my skull as I thought about all the buoyant clichés I had once believed in, only to have them mock me years later. Give it time, Renee. Everything happens for a reason.
“Right,” I mumbled, looking up at the sky as I shifted my car in reverse. “Well then I’d love to know what possible reason could exist for this.”
And when the impact of the crash jolted me back to reality, I was too stunned to realize that I’d already received my answer.
Chapter Three (#ue6596bfd-b712-54f1-b59e-ad3fe3ba99d3)
The summer before I entered my freshman year of high school, I had convinced my seventeen-year-old next-door neighbor, Pete Maloney, to let me take his car for a spin. It was a classic 1979 Cadillac Eldorado, his prized possession, no doubt. But given the fact that I had hair the color of sunlight and a newly sprouted chest, he agreed to my proposition, as long as I promised not to leave the neighborhood.
Everybody in Wyman’s Field knew that the Queenans had the nicest house on the block. Their lilac windowsills meshed perfectly with the indigo trim of their house and the display of hydrangeas that lined their front yard. Their entire garden looked like something out of a Thomas Kincaid portrait.
So, naturally, when I drove by and noticed the Queenan brothers outside playing basketball in the driveway, I beeped and waved furiously at them, feeling like the coolest kid in the world to be behind the wheel at age fourteen. I then proceeded to drive the car up over the sidewalk and onto the lawn, leaving behind a giant row of tire marks in Mr. and Mrs. Queenan’s impeccable bed of flowers.
If you can imagine the embarrassment I experienced during that ordeal, that pretty much sums up the way I felt when I realized I’d just backed into my new neighbor’s car.
I was so busy cursing my own fate that I hadn’t even noticed the giant van that had pulled up behind me, waiting to slide into my parking space once I pulled out. The guy in the van behind me was throwing his hands up in the air and mumbling to himself. I wanted to crawl underneath my seat and hide there until he was gone.
I climbed out of my car, my cheeks burning, and waited for the other driver to follow. My first impression was that he was semi-good looking, in an unconventional, tortured artist sort of way. His T-shirt hung loosely on his lean frame, and a mass of dark hair wilted around his face and curled right below his ears. The cliff of his cheekbones was lined with a dark five o’clock shadow that ran down his entire jaw line. He looked like someone who would act the part of Jesus in a play. I chuckled to myself, thinking of how much my mother would love him.
As he got closer, there was a certain intensity about him that almost scared me, like he was withholding some kind of dark secret. His piercing blue eyes found mine and remained there, unwavering.
“Did you not see me behind you?” He crouched down and ran his hand over the dent in his front bumper.
“Obviously not.”
He tilted his head upwards, his face a pale sheet of white. His eyes were like ice, a cold blue-gray mass of bitter illumination. “Well, next time maybe you should look behind you before backing up.” He spoke softly and evenly, but I could sense an underlying tone of patronization in his voice.
Without a word, I turned and ducked inside my car to find my registration. I couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. I had just moved across the country and lost my best friend and boyfriend in one swoop, and this dope was crying over a dent in his bumper.
I fished my registration out of the glove compartment and gave it to him. He handed me his information in return, which I jotted down on the back of a receipt, the only piece of paper I could find in my mess of a car.
Dylan Cavallari
10 Park Place Apt. 18
Boston, MA 02111
I stopped writing and tried to figure out if his apartment was on my floor or the floor above me. I wanted to be sure to avoid him at all costs to save myself any future humiliation.
“California, huh?” Dylan asked, glancing at my license plate. “What’s the matter, they don’t teach you how to drive in Beverly Hills?”
“Funny,” I said. “Actually, I just graduated from UCLA, but I’m originally from here.”
After handing me back my registration, I heard him mumble something about women drivers under his breath as he marched back to his van. I studied his hell-on-wheels contraption – a frightening navy-blue monster with tinted windows and dark rain guards that lined the edges – and wondered why he was so upset about it in the first place.
“Nice child molester van you got there,” I said, attempting a joke.
His eyes wandered to the van, gave it a silent appraisal, then found their way back to me. “Thanks for the input,” he said, unsmiling. His quiet confidence was both intimidating and irking at the same time. “For the record, a buddy of mine gave it to me. It’s not something I would’ve necessarily picked out for myself.” He toyed with the silver ring on his right index finger, his gaze now back on the van. “Not that it’s really any of your business.”
The flames in my cheeks had expanded, and I could feel the heat spreading to my ears, my neck, my chest. After everything I’d been through, the last thing I needed was some pompous ass giving me a hard time, especially when I hadn’t even done anything wrong. Not on purpose anyway.
Dylan was just about to open his door when he suddenly turned back around to face me, looking intrigued. “So, why’d you move back here, anyway? Cali wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
“No,” I said, my blank expression mirroring his. “For the record, I moved back after I caught my best friend in bed with my boyfriend.” I started to head back to my car, then stopped and glanced back at him over my shoulder. “Not that’s it’s any of your business.”
***
I called Beth on the way to Noir to tell her I was running a little behind schedule, thanks to my impeccable driving skills. I ended up stuck on the phone with her for the entire drive because once Beth’s mouth gets going, it stops for no one.
Beth and I had known each other since grade school, and she was a great person to confide in when you were in the midst of a crisis because she never told you what you wanted to hear. She was gut-wrenchingly, wholeheartedly, one-hundred percent honest. Always. I hated her candidness when we were younger because my hormonal, sensitive teenage self didn’t exactly take well to constructive criticism, but now that I was older I really appreciated her honesty. Sure, there were times when little white lies were necessary, because no one wants to hear “Yes, you really do look fat in that dress” or “You’re right, your forehead does look like you’ve sprouted a third eye.” But there were also times when you didn’t want someone to sugar coat anything; you wanted them to give you their God’s honest opinion.
This was definitely one of those times.
“So you walked in on them?” she asked, wide-eyed, leaning forward in her seat.
“Yeah, I…”
“What did you do? Did you cause a scene?”
“I just… ran.”
“You left? Why?”
I shrugged. “I was in shock. I didn’t even know what to say. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and try to process what just happened.”
“So what did Justine say? Have you talked to her? She must’ve called you, right?”
Beth was very analytical. Conveying a story to her was like being on trial; she would constantly interrupt with one hundred questions and you had to offer up every single detail so she could analyze each aspect of the story and weigh her opinion carefully.
Beth and I met the summer before we both entered the sixth grade. She lived a street over from me and was the only girl in my neighborhood who didn’t think I was some sort of foreign reptile because I went to Catholic school. Our afterschool rituals consisted of riding our bicycles around the neighborhood and swapping stories about our daily adventures. I was always envious of her public school lifestyle, mainly because nothing exciting ever happened at Holy Family. No one ever got caught fooling around in the locker room or smoking pot in the bathroom. Her stories were like listening to the narrative of a soap opera, which, in my eyes, made her the epitome of cool. I couldn’t believe she actually wanted to be friends with someone who wore knee socks and saddle shoes on a daily basis.
“She’s called, but I can’t talk to her,” I said, answering her question. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to, but right now, I just can’t.”
“Do you think they’re, like, dating? Or do you think it was just a one-time thing?”
“I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t want to know.”
“God, I really can’t believe Justine would do that to you,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands. “I really can’t. You guys have been friends for so long.”
I bit my thumbnail nervously, and then asked the question I had been dying to ask all along. “Beth, why do you think she did it?”
Beth sighed. “Well, I think it could be one of two reasons. The first reason could be that she’s jealous of you.”
I shook my head. There was no way. The only time jealousy occurred was when someone felt they were being denied something they could have, something that belonged to someone else. Justine could’ve had any guy on the planet. It didn’t add up.
“No way,” I said. “I think I’d pick up on it if she was. I mean, come on, the girl was my best friend.”
Beth gave me that look that implied she knew what she was talking about. “Don’t be so sure. Sometimes people hide things well. Maybe she’s always secretly compared herself to you and you never realized it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. So what’s the second reason?”
“Well, the second reason is that maybe she’s in love with him. And I don’t mean some sort of sexual infatuation, I mean serious love, as in marriage. If she doesn’t have jealousy issues with you, then that’s the only thing that would make sense. I can’t picture her ruining a friendship, especially a friendship like the one you guys had, unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this guy.”
That was the more logical explanation, the one I had been leaning towards all along. But the thing that bothered me even more than the thought of Justine and David getting married was the fact that Beth used the word “had” when referring to my friendship with Justine. The friendship you guys had.
And even when I returned home later that evening, I still couldn’t get those words out of my head.
Chapter Four (#ue6596bfd-b712-54f1-b59e-ad3fe3ba99d3)
I’m not sure who came up with the brilliant revelation that college freshmen are mature enough to choose their own majors and career paths because – and I can pretty much guarantee this – eighteen-year-olds do not have the mental capacity to make such a life-altering decision. And in the city of Los Angeles, if you decline to enter into the world of wanna-be model/actresses, that doesn’t leave you many job options.
Five years and three major switches later, I didn’t find my calling. It found me.
I was browsing the classifieds for internships when I saw it.
“Pace Magazine is looking for interns to assist with our new music column, ‘Sound Bites.’ Responsibilities will include article fact-checking and assisting with weekly music reviews. Journalism and Communications majors only. All interested candidates should send their resume to Karen@pacemagazine.com (mailto:Karen@pacemagazine.com).”
The words danced before my eyes. Bright lights and heavenly choir music engulfed me.
A music writer. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of this before? For all the years I’d lived and breathed music, it had never occurred to me that there were other professions inside the music industry besides those solely performing music. I’d long since come to terms with the fact that, in light of the many things I was good at, singing was not one of them. Writing, however, was something that had always been a passion of mine.
My eagerness had clearly shown through on the day of the interview, when the entertainment director hired me on the spot. I’m not sure if she hired me because no one else had applied for the job or because she saw the undying love for music glowing from my eyes, but either way, I was told to report to the lobby on Monday at nine and bring two forms of ID.
When my first day arrived, I was sitting in the lobby, pretending to be engrossed in the latest copy of the L.A. Weekly, when I noticed him. He strolled across the room steadily, his white polo hugging him just tightly enough to show off the outline of his biceps.
“You must be Renee Evans,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m David Whitman, Pace’s sports editor. It’s nice to meet you.”
I stood up and shook his hand, still stunned by the beauty of his dark, deep-set eyes and perfectly chiseled frame.
“The HR team is in a meeting, so they’ve asked me to bring you up to the conference room to get started with your new hire paperwork,” he continued. “Follow me.”
I grabbed my purse and followed him down the corridor. I had to increase my speed to keep up with his brisk pace. One of my college professors had taught us that, when in a business environment, there were three things you should always remember: make eye contact, have a firm handshake, and walk with confidence, “with a purpose,” as he’d called it.
David Whitman walked with a purpose.
After recovering from the initial intimidation of his beauty, I felt instantly at ease with him. By the end of my first day, the budding feeling of lust had already started to form in the pit of my stomach, and I found myself humming on the way home from work like a smitten teenage schoolgirl.
By the end of the second day, he had already asked me out.
I can remember our first date as clear as you’d remember anything else of significant importance in your life: your first kiss, your first love, your first heartbreak. He picked me up in a black Lexus RX, wearing a white baseball cap and a light-green shirt that showed off the tanned tone of his skin. He took me to dinner at Bandera in Brentwood, then for a walk down the Santa Monica Pier. When he leaned in and kissed me, all I could think of was how long it had been since I’d felt like this.
Naturally, at first, I thought it was love, as everyone does when they’re blindsided in the initial relationship stages. I even withheld sex for as long as physically possible, because I was “waiting for the right time.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Justine had asked. “Singing angels to come down from the sky?”
“Hey, we don’t all put out on the first date like you,” I’d joked, but in truth, I really did want it to be perfect, just like everything, up until that point, had been.
But after the honeymoon stage fizzled out, a few concerns emerged. For one, if things didn’t work out between us, I knew the inter-office romance drama at work wouldn’t go over well, and could possibly cost me my newfound dream job. And I had also slowly started to come to the realization that David and I didn’t have a hell of a lot in common.
I had just been assigned my first research piece at Pace, where I was instructed to review the album charts for the past decade and compile a list of the most popular rock bands of the twenty-first century. After coming up with a pathetically weak list of bands not even worthy of mention – it was of no comparison to the bands like Nirvana and Radiohead that had severely impacted the music world a decade prior. I began to wonder if the entire music scene had gone downhill in the last ten years.
When I presented my frustration to David, his lackluster attitude gave way to the realization that we were definitely lacking in the common-interest arena. David’s only passion in life was sports, which was like a foreign language to me. For the first time since we started dating, I began to question our relationship’s shelf life. Common goals and passions may not be important to some people, but they were to me.
“Cornell is still around,” he’d argued when I vented about my article.
“My point exactly. Cornell was one of the talented artists who evolved in the nineties. Name at least one of your favorite bands who evolved over the past ten years.”
Silence.
“See?” I pointed out. “It isn’t easy, is it? I literally sat at my desk for hours today trying to come up with some great bands that have formed in the last few years and I ended up having to include bands that I don’t even like. The only one worth adding to the list is Muse.”
“Who’s Muse?”
***
The lobby to my apartment building was lined with a horizontal row of silver mailboxes, each of which held a small lock in the center. Every afternoon, like clockwork, I’d spend at least ten minutes trying to force my key to unlock the damn door, which usually resulted in my fist beating it repeatedly until it swung open.
Which was exactly what I was doing when Dylan came strolling through the front door.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss California herself,” he greeted, sidling up next to me. His mood seemed to have slightly improved since our last encounter.
I groaned and continued to toy with the lock. Dylan watched me for a good thirty seconds before reaching out and taking the key from my grasp. “Allow me,” he said, unlocking the door in one swift move. I stared at him in bewilderment.
“Try turning the key to the left and then to the right,” he explained. “Works every time.”
I nodded and scooped a pile of junk mail into my arms.
“A thank you would be nice.”
I feigned a smile and mumbled “thanks” before turning to walk away. I could feel his glare as I began to ascend the stairs.
“Why are you such a bitch all the time?”
I spun around to face him, but said nothing.
“Christ, I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot,” he continued. “But I’m trying to be cordial and say hello. The least you could do is reciprocate.”
I felt like I had suddenly teleported back to middle school, back to when the class bully would poke fun at you in front of everyone, and instead of coming up with a wise comeback, you’d be too frazzled to think of a good response. I remember racking my brain for something, but I always ended up sputtering off at the mouth and sounding like a complete idiot.
Which reminded me that in most circumstances like these, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.
Without another word, I turned around and stomped up the stairs to my apartment. Somehow, I could feel Dylan laughing at me as I made my way up the stairs. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t hear him, but I could feel him. And the bastard was laughing.
Chapter Five (#ue6596bfd-b712-54f1-b59e-ad3fe3ba99d3)
Being unemployed whisks you into this magical world where you lose all concept of reality. You never know what day it is, what time it is, and you can’t understand why you’re still constantly late for everything when you have no job. People have a tendency to blame everything on work: the reason they’re behind on chores, the reason they’re late to events, the reason they need to go home early after a few cocktails. Ironically, all these things still take place when you’re jobless, except now you have nothing to blame it on.
My life, up until a few weeks ago, had consisted of cramming in school work, actual work, and time with my then-boyfriend and then-best friend.
