In Search of a Love Story (Love Story Book One )

by Rachel Schurig

  “An epiphany?” Chris asked.

  “Yes, one of those!” Ashley actually jumped up from her seat on the floor and started pacing the room excitedly. “It all makes so much sense now.”

  “Ash, what are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Your bad luck with guys. You,” She stopped pacing and pointed at me, “are clueless about romance.”

  That stung a little. I might not have always been the most sought after girl in the world, but I’d had my fair share of boyfriends over the years. “I’ve done okay,” I muttered. “It’s not like I’m some nun, you know.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Ashley said dismissively. “Em, tell me who Julia Roberts ends up with in Pretty Woman.”

  I just stared at her. Ashley sighed. From his seat in the recliner, Ryan sat up straighter, narrowing his eyes. “Gone with the Wind then, who are the main love interests in that story?” he asked.

  “Uh…” I felt like I should know this one, but I was drawing a complete blank. “Scarlett someone, right? And, uh…”

  “See?” Ashley said, turning to Ryan. “She doesn’t know!”

  “So?” I asked. “What the hell does Gone with the Wind have to do with anything?”

  “Emily,” she said gravely, “I think you’re striking out with guys because you never learned what you should be looking for. You never watched romantic movies like the rest of us did. You never read romantic books. Any girl in her right mind should have known right away that Dylan was a Wickham, and not a Darcy. But you didn’t. I bet you don’t even know who Darcy is.”

  When I didn’t respond, she pointed at me again. “See? I told you!”

  “I still don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about,” I said rubbing my forehead. A slow headache was starting to build. I needed another drink.

  “Listen,” Ryan said. “I think Ash might have a point. There are certain things you should know to look out for. Stereotypes, you could say. The guys who are good and the guys who should be avoided. Most of us learn about this from books and movies, but you never did. So now you’re making all these mistakes because you don’t know what you should be looking for.”

  I stared at him for a minute, then burst into laughter. “Are you serious?” I asked, trying to control myself. “You seriously think I have bad luck with guys because I never watched Julia Roberts movies?”

  “Oh, you can laugh,” Ashley said darkly. “But I’m so right. What about Jacob, huh?”

  I stared at her. “What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling a little lurch in my stomach at the mention of Jacob. He had been my high school boyfriend, and we had broken up just before going to college. It had been pretty traumatic, in that teenager kind of way, and Ashley had heard me moan about it many times over the course of our freshman year. I was a little pissed at her for bringing him up now.

  “He’s the classic high school sweetheart,” Ashley said. “The guy you should have hung onto, but let get away.”

  “Ah,” Ryan said sagely. “The one that got away. There’s like, a million romantic comedies with that exact set-up.”

  “Dude, how do you know all of this?” Chris asked sleepily, not even opening his eyes.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. “I may be into sports,” he said, “but I do like boys. Of course I know about chick flicks.”

  “But that’s…that’s like two examples. You can’t base an entire theory off of two examples.”

  “What about Nick?” Ashley asked. “We all told you that you should go out with him.”

  “But, that was…” I spluttered. Nick had been a really nice, somewhat soft-spoken guy who had asked me out freshman year. Unfortunately, his timing was terrible. I had been training for a really big race at the time. When I refused him, he was so embarrassed he never asked me out again, which in turn made me too embarrassed to ever do anything about it either. Last I heard, he was living in Chicago.

  “He was totally a hidden-depths kind of guy,” she said seriously. “The guy every girl knows she should hang onto, if she’s lucky enough to find him. Like Ross on Friends—someone perfect for the girl, but she never notices because he isn’t flashy. Nick was just like that, but you let him slip by because you didn’t know the difference.”

  “This is silly,” I said, even though a pit of fear was starting to grow in my stomach. Could any of this actually be true? Was I seriously setting myself up for heartbreak because I picked John Grisham over Jane Austen?

  “Chris,” I said, almost desperately. “You agree with me, right? You think this is ridiculous?”

  Chris was sitting up now, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I don’t know, Em,” he said. “What about Thomas?”

  “Who’s that?” Ashley asked quickly.

  “Em’s boyfriend in junior high. He ran track for a different school. They ended up breaking up because all of their friends were mean about it, them being on competing teams and everything. I mean, now that I think about it, isn’t that kind of like that one Shakespeare play, the one with the fighting families?”

  “Star-crossed lovers!” Ashley cried. “Romeo and Juliet! You’re so right!”

  “See?” Ryan said, triumphant. “Even Chris gets it!”

  I was definitely feeling panicked now. “Do you guys seriously think I’m sabotaging my love life because I’m clueless about romance?”

  “Sweetie,” Ryan said, coming over to sit on the edge of my chair. “All I’m saying is you could avoid a lot of heartbreak if you had a better idea of what to look out for. I mean, there are certain guys that you should just know are bad news. And other guys you should know to hang on to, if you’re lucky enough to find them.”

  “But how am I supposed to know?” I wailed. “Isn’t it too late now?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Of course it’s not! All you need to do is a little research.”

  “Research?”

  “Oh my God, project!” Ashley cried. “We totally need to help you bone up on your Romance 101.”

  I looked at Chris helplessly, but he only shrugged. “Can’t help you, sweetie. I mean, maybe they have a point. What do I know?”

  “Look, all I’m saying is you could stand to know a little bit more about the great love stories of our time,” Ashley said. “I mean, at this point, it couldn’t hurt, right?”

  I thought back to last night. Of the pain and humiliation I had felt in that moment, knowing that I picked the wrong guy, knowing that he couldn’t care less about me. Could I possibly have avoided that if I’d known who this Wickham guy was? Suddenly, I felt like I would do anything never to feel that way again.

  “Okay, I said, looking up at Ashley and Ryan. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

  * * *

  The next morning I woke up with a massive hangover. It felt like my eyelids had been sewn shut, like a ten-pound weight had taken up residence in my skull and was determined to break free.

  “Oh God,” I moaned. The light shining in from my bedroom window seemed to seep between my closed eyelids, attacking me. I pulled the cover up over my head, but then found I couldn’t breathe.

  “Water,” I muttered. “I just need to get up and get some water.”

  Somehow I managed to open my eyes and get my feet firmly planted on the floor, though my stomach gave a massive lurch when I did so. I hadn’t had quite so much to drink in a while—I forgot how terrible it made me feel the next day. Wondering what state the others were in, I wobbled down the hall to the kitchen.

  Ashley was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and writing something in a notebook. Her hair was wet from a shower, and she had already applied make-up and had dressed in a soft grey cardigan and expensive-looking, dark-wash jeans.

  “She lives,” Ryan said, grinning at me from the stove, where he appeared to be making pancakes. He, too, was showered and dressed. Which must have meant—

  “Did you already go home?” I gaped at him.

  “Of course,” he said, smirking at me. “We ca
n’t all stay in bed all day. We have lots of work ahead of us, you know.”

  “Can I just have some coffee? Please?” I asked, sinking down into a chair at the kitchen table and burying my head in my hands. “I don’t understand how you guys are functioning so well.”

  “Most of us stopped after two shots,” Ashley pointed out, sliding a mug of coffee toward me.

  “I wish you would have stopped me,” I muttered, taking a huge swig. I sighed in relief. What was it about coffee that instantly made you feel better?

  “You’d had a rough week,” Ryan said, setting a plate of pancakes in front of me. Shit. It all came rushing back to me now. Dylan, the bimbo, the horrible spiral of humiliation that kept rearing its head at me ever since Thursday.

  “It’s okay, we have a plan,” Ashley assured me, patting my hand. “You just eat; we’re on it.”

  I took a bite of pancakes. Dripping in butter and syrup, they were the perfect hangover food. Plus, Ryan was a really good cook. I was enjoying them so much that it took me a minute before I registered what Ashley had said.

  “Wait…what do you mean you have a plan?” I asked.

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “Our plan. Like we discussed last night.”

  “You’re gonna have to refresh my memory,” I said. Just trying to remember anything after the wine hurt my brain.

  “Your romance research project,” she said. “Remember?”

  I gaped at her. It sounded vaguely familiar…

  “Em,” she said in her disapproving teacher voice. “We went over this. We all decided that your horrible luck with men can be traced to the fact that you are clueless about romance. So Ryan and I are going to help you do some research. Remember?”

  “Oh my God,” I said, shaking my head. “This is because I didn’t know who Hugh Grant was, isn’t it?” Snippets of memory were coming back now—Ryan and Ashley lecturing me about my lack of knowledge in all things romance. But there was no way, no way at all, that I had agreed to do anything about it.

  “Hugh Grant was only the tip of the iceberg,” Ashley said. “Though I still can’t believe that you never saw Four Weddings.”

  “You guys,” I said, putting down my mug and looking at the pair of them. “You don’t honestly think that my relationships don’t work just because of the kinds of movies I like. I mean, that’s asinine.”

  “It’s not just that,” Ashley said, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, I do think we learn a lot about love and relationships from books and movies. That’s just natural. But there’s also the fact…we think it also might be…” She trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.

  “We don’t think it helped much that your mom wasn’t around,” Ryan said bluntly, coming to sit with us at the table.

  I felt a lurch in my stomach, the way I always did when my mom’s name came up. She had been gone for thirteen years now, but it was the kind of pain that never went away, even if I could manage to forget about it for a while.

  “You didn’t get much of that girl experience as a teenager,” Ashley said gently. “I know your dad did an amazing job with you—”

  “He did,” I said fervently.

  “I know,” she said, nodding. “But he’s not really the feminine type. Don’t you think there might have been some things he didn’t know how to teach you?”

  “And you think I should have learned all of this from books?” I asked. I was feeling an empty sort of ache now. I knew there was some truth to what they were saying. When I was younger, I had really missed a lot of those girl things I saw my friends do with their moms. I had never had anyone take me to get my nails done, or take me shopping. There had been no one to talk to when I had questions about boys.

  “Look, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Ryan said quickly. He was looking at me in a concerned sort of way, and I wondered vaguely what my face looked like. “I just think a little crash course in the ways of romance and dating could help you.”

  “It certainly couldn’t hurt, right?” Ashley asked.

  “I guess,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. I wondered if they really did have a point. Was I stunted because I hadn’t had a girly past? I tried to take a look at the facts. I had been raised by a single father. Even before the cancer had taken my mom, I was always a daddy’s girl—the apple of his eye. I would do anything to please him. So instead of ballet, I signed up for soccer. Instead of watching soap operas, I sat by his feet while he watched the Tigers and the Red Wings.

  Then, after mom was gone, I threw myself into my sports and activities with a vengeance, eager to distract myself from the quiet, lonely little house that had become my reality. In high school, I played soccer, softball, and ran track, for which I would eventually get my scholarship. A chance to move away from the tiny little town where I saw my mom everywhere I looked. Where everyone knew her and wanted to tell me just how much I was looking like her the older I got.

  Had my efforts at blocking it all out turned me into someone who couldn’t be successful in love? The thought of living my life that way, of never finding someone, of never having a full family all of my own—it terrified me.

  “So, what exactly does this all entail?” I asked.

  “We’ll do all the work!” Ashley said, relieved that I was caving in. “I promise! Look, I’ve been making a list.” She pushed the paper toward me, and I saw that it was a list of movies and books. “This is just a start!” she promised, and I gaped at her. A start? There had to be two dozen titles on that page.

  “I already own a lot of these,” she murmured, looking down at the list with her pen between her teeth. “And Ryan picked some up from his apartment today. The rest we can get on Netflix, I’m sure. I think what we have is enough to be starting with.”

  “How…how many is enough?” I asked, feeling overwhelmed already.

  “Oh, about fifteen or so,” Ashley said, unconcerned. “Why don’t you hop in the shower, and Ryan and I will get everything organized?”

  “We’re starting today?” I asked.

  “There’s no time like the present!” Ashley trilled.

  Ryan burst into laughter.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You should see the look on your face. It’s like you’re about to face the firing squad.” He smiled at me. “This will be painless, Em. I promise. It’s just a few chick flicks.”

  I sighed, and stood, downing the last of my coffee as I did so. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter Four

  Mondays were always busy days at the clinic. Most of our evaluations were scheduled on Mondays, and many of our patients liked to get at least one of their sessions done early in the week, particularly our elderly patients, most of whom were on three-day-a-week schedules. We usually had two or three PTs on duty, and we were all kept busy from open to close.

  “Hey, Sarah, can you get Mrs. Zinder all set up?”

  Sarah looked up from her magazine and gave a little start. I liked the girl, but, man, did she have a tendency to flake out sometimes.

  “Sure,” she called out, jumping up and heading to the reception area to get my next patient. I turned my attention back to Frank in front of me. He was lying flat on his back on a therapy table with a stretchy band around his knees and a sour expression on his face.

  “That’s perfect, Frank,” I said, encouraging him. “Do you think you can give me five more like that?”

  He winced, but didn’t argue. Slowly, carefully, he brought both knees several inches away from each other, stretching the band out. I noticed a bead of sweat pool on his forehead. “Don’t overdo it,” I cautioned. “Remember what I told you about pain.”

  “Sweetie, I’ve dealt with worse pain than this,” he grunted, continuing with his exercises. “You wanna talk about pain? You try getting shot in the keister in some damn trench in Korea.”

  “So you’re saying this is a cake walk?” I asked, reaching down to untie the stretchy band. I smiled at him, and he winked at me.


  “With a pretty thing like you to look at all day?” he said, winking again. “You better believe it.”

  “Frank, you are a shameless flirt,” I said, shaking my head. He only grinned.

  “Okay, fifteen minutes on the exercise bike, then I’ll come over and work on you, sound good?”

  “You got it, darling.”

  I couldn’t help but grin as I walked away. Flirting patients were nothing new to me, but it was hard not to love Frank. He was in his late seventies, but every bit as energetic as I imagined him having been as a young man. He’d led an interesting life, that was for sure. Sometimes it was hard not to get caught up in his stories about serving in the army in Korea, or working on the line at Ford, or each and every one of his three wives. A ladies’ man till his dying day.

  Sarah had led my next patient, Mrs. Zender, over to an empty therapy table and was helping her get comfortable there. “How’s the shoulder feeling today, Mrs. Z?” I asked her.

  “Oh, dear,” she said in her characteristic raspy voice, a hint of southern drawl just evident below the surface. “It’s been acting up all night.”

  I ran my hands over her shoulder and the surrounding muscles. Mrs. Z flinched—it was clearly tender. I sighed. “It’s not progressing as fast as I’d like.”

  She raised one exquisitely penciled on eyebrow. “Tell me something I don’t know, darling. I live with this pain every day.”

  I smiled at her. “You’ve been through a lot. I guess we’ll both have to be a little more patient.”

  Mrs. Z settled back against her pillows. “Easy for you to say. I’ve had just about enough of being cooped up. I have such a hankering to go dancing, I can’t even tell you.”

  Over her head, Sarah rolled her eyes at me. Mrs. Z was quite a character. In her early sixties, she still operated under the impression that she was the belle of the ball, the most eligible girl in Cobb County, Georgia, where she had left forty years ago for the bright lights of New York City. She traipsed around every room she was in, as if she owned it, and my therapy office was no exception. She flirted with all the men here, regardless of their age. Speaking of which…