Chapter 1
You don’t know what it’s like to be haunted by failure until you use your master’s degree in film production to shoot video dating profiles.
Today’s batch was a case in point. There was a guy with the personality of a turnip who told the camera he only dated blondes who talked like Marilyn Monroe.
And another one who liked “light beer and, you know, skating, dude. And gangster movies. Dude, chick flicks give me hives.”
And the engineer who wanted a serious girlfriend but only if her body was “tight” and she was available Tuesdays and Thursdays, because his other nights were committed to his no-girls-allowed gaming sessions.
At least he was committed to something. Dude.
It was a job, sure. Shooting dating videos paid the rent for the apartment I shared with the most irritating man on the planet.
But really this job was my punishment for screwing up my life.
I was supposed to be telling stories with my degree — beautiful, visual stories. I couldn’t coax a story out of these guys (today it was only guys, for some reason) with a book of Mad Libs and a bottle of tequila.
But props to them for getting out there. This job wasn’t just a reminder of my career failures. It was a reminder of my amorous ones, too.
Because after the romantic and vocational disaster that was my first job, I was not putting myself out there, looking for love like these guys were, until I figured out what the hell my next move was.
OK, let me be honest. I wasneverputting myself out there, not after a burn so bad, smoke was still rising off my heart.
Maybe I wasn’t shopping for guys, but I still wanted a new job. I’d applied for a cool video gig with the new joint Bohemia-Bohemia Beach tourism office. I hadn’t heard a squeak from them after a month. Not a good sign.
So here I was, trying to makeCasablancaout of crap.
I finished going through the standard personality questions with the guy who only dated on Tuesdays and Thursdays and handed him off to the photographer.
Just how long would this job last? More to the point, how long would I last in it? It was the brainchild of a startup jumping into the dating app market with video-heavy profiles. The concept was retro, but they gave it a twenty-first-century spin. After these studio chats with our alpha testers, we’d shoot them in the wild — the skater skateboarding, the engineer gaming, that kind of thing. The pro videos would turn the daters into mini movie stars. And, lucky me, I would get to film them.
But first, I needed to figure out the highest point on the causeway bridge so I could jump off it.
Who was I kidding? I never even jumped off the high dive during swimming lessons. Too scary.
What I needed was other options.
The clock on the wall said it was four. Good. No more appointments today.
I wandered into the bullpen, where the half-dozen coders and data people were having an end-of-shift Nerf gun war. Even the managers from the glass offices that overlooked the river were fully engaged. I ducked a foam bullet and crouched behind my desk.
“Kayla!” called Maria, our office manager. She hid behind a cushy chair in the “chill” area until she jumped up with her weapon and let fly a hail of bright yellow foam missiles. “Your damn phone has been ringing every fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry. Thought it was on silent,” I said as she ducked again. I couldn’t bring my phone into the studio during filming, so I missed a lot of calls. Or I would if I actually got calls, which were sort of rare these days.
I opened my bottom drawer, pulled out an orange, squishy stress-relief ball with the company logo on it and hurled it at Rick, the founder and CEO. He was so busy firing little balls out of his big Rival Prometheus weapon that he didn’t see it coming, and it beaned him right on the head.
“Argh!” he exclaimed.
“Yes!” Maria cheered, her brown eyes flashing in excitement.
Sensing weakness, the others turned their weapons on Rick, and he went down in a hail of bouncy ammo, effectively ending the battle for the day. I settled in my chair and dug my phone out of my backpack.
My mom.
Shit.Six calls from my mom. No messages.
I hoped they weren’t about Grandma Helen. Her health was mostly good, but she was also pretty old. Mom and Grandma lived together in a bungalow in Bohemia Beach that they rented for a pittance from my Aunt Ginny and her newish husband, Jay, who lived right next door. Mom couldn’t afford anything else, and it was cozy to be near family. But the little house was way too cozy for me to live there, too.
