Rugged

by Lila Monroe

  As a whatthefuck?

  Ground control, we have lost transmission.

  There are no words for the five finger death punch that has completely knocked the wind out of me. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.

  “I can’t believe it’s finished!” Charlotte goes on, shaking her head. “It’s…it’s beautiful. It’s just perfect.” She’s in awe. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to hurl over here.

  “Oh my gosh!” Charlotte heads toward the fireplace, crouches down, and gasps. “Just look at that,” she says. I might as well not even be here right now. She reaches out and touches the little carved sunflower. “The matching pair,” she says, sounding amazed. She looks at the other one across the room. “I can’t believe he remembered.” She smiles, disbelieving. “That’d be just like him. Flint never forgets.” It’s like she’s speaking only to herself, and her voice is soft with regret. I think her eyes are actually filling with tears.

  So are mine.

  I’m such a fucking idiot.

  Flint designed this house for Charlotte. As an engagement present. A symbol of their all-enduring love and their glorious future together. He built it for her, finished it for her, even carved their sunflower thingie, whatever it is, as a reminder. Of Charlotte.

  And now she’s followed his call home.

  Flint didn’t want to build this house originally. I talked him into it, for all intents and purposes basically forced him into it. He didn’t want to build it because it was too personal. Because it meant too much. Because it hurt too much.

  He didn’t want to build a house for the future he’d lost, the love he’d lost, the woman he’d lost—the woman he was still obviously in love with.

  “Is Flint going to be here today?” Charlotte asks, breathless as she stands up. She’s really crying now, wiping delicately at her smudged mascara with a Kleenex. It’s touching, really. I am touched. “I need to see him. We have to talk about this.”

  She’s full of pain and regret and hope. I’ve never seen anyone look so overwhelmed. So in love.

  I mumble an excuse, find and grab my camera, and leave. Driving back, I almost ram the car right off the road. My chest feels so tight I can hardly take a breath. Charlotte needs to see Flint today. She’s full of sadness, full of longing. And what will he do, when he sees the woman he’s pined for, standing in the house he built as a tribute to their love?

  I pull up to Flint’s place and stagger out of the car, going fast up the steps. My head’s buzzing, my throat’s dry and feels swollen. Okay, no tears. No crying. There’s no crying in baseball, or reality television. Unless the script tells you to cry, dammit.

  When I open the door, Flint’s standing there with a cup of coffee in his hand. He smiles. “Heard you pull up. You must’ve left at the crack of dawn.” He leans down for a kiss, but I dodge out of his way and head upstairs. Tears are burning in my eyes. I hear him coming up after me. “Laurel. What’s wrong?”

  Inside the bedroom, I grab my bags and turn for the door. Thank God I packed before I jumped in the car. Flint blocks my exit from the bedroom, looking increasingly bewildered. “Why are you leaving like this? Talk to me. What the hell did I do?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got meetings all this morning and early afternoon. I’m leaving in a few hours anyway,” I lie. I was supposed to fly out in a couple days, thought I’d spend a little more time with Flint, but I’ll get the airline to change my flight, or go on standby at the airport if they can’t. “So I need to get back to the inn. Look over some last minute tapes, check in with a few people. Then I head home.” I nod, trying to keep a neutral expression on my face. “Like I planned. This isn’t news.”

  “I understand that, but you don’t have to rush out of here like this,” he says, still confused. He moves aside as I storm through the door and down the stairs.

  “I think I do, actually. I don’t want us to get the wrong idea about where this is all headed.” I look up at Flint, who’s stopped dead on the stairs. His face is impossible to read from this angle; I can’t tell what he’s feeling. “We’re adults, remember?”

  Even from down here I catch the jaw muscle flex that Flint does when something’s gone foul. “Laurel, I need you to explain to me what the hell just happened,” he says, his voice gone deadly calm and dangerous now.

  But I don’t explain anything. All I can think of is sweet Charlotte, in her prim little bun, waiting for him back at their perfect little fairy tale dream house. They deserve each other. I hope they’ll be happy, or at least as happy as they can be after Flint falls off a cliff and dies. Okay, not dies. Maybe cracks his tailbone.

  Stop it, Laurel. This was never going to last. You should hope to God they agree to have their wedding on camera next season. What a ratings boost that’ll be.

  “I’ll call you once I land,” I say briskly. “We’ll talk schedules.” I nod, roll my bags outside, and shut the door behind me. After that I jump into my car fast, before I break down, and start backing down the driveway. Flint is standing on the porch, watching me drive away. I can see him gesturing, calling my name, though I can’t hear him. I’ve turned the music up loud; I never like to hear myself cry.

  That’s it. He can have Charlotte and their Barbie dream house, and I can have my soulless Hollywood career and never come back here again. Everyone gets what they deserve. That’s all, folks.

  In more ways than one, the show’s over now.

  25

  When most people break up, the one mercy is that they don’t have to see their ex’s face every day. I’m not even that lucky.

  “Laurel. What do you think?” Flint says, turning around with a devil-may-care glint in his eye. Irresistible as always. Painful as always.

  Granted, Flint McKay and I aren’t in the same room at this particular moment. Unlike most wrecked relationships, I can fast forward past him if I feel like it. Seeing his gorgeous, infuriating face is part of the daily torture of editing Season One of Rustic Renovations. I’d love to take a powder on this one, but being the producer and the creator of this whole enterprise, I’m a little stuck. So I stand here, right behind Juan, and mumble places to cut while I stare at a man I can’t have.

  Every night when I go home, get into my PJs, and watch trashy television to turn off my brain, I tell myself that tomorrow it’s going to be fine. Tomorrow I won’t feel anything. Tomorrow is another day, said with conviction as I picture myself silhouetted against an old Hollywood backdrop while dramatic music swells. And when that tomorrow fails to deliver, I have to go home depressed and tell myself it’ll be the next tomorrow.

  “Can we cut right here?” Suze asks, knocking me out of my dreary headspace and returning me to the cramped editing room that smells like Carl’s Jr. and B.O.

  Juan, the mohawked USC Film School grad who’s in charge of both stitching this show together and the oppressive smell, groans in frustration and rubs his bloodshot eyes as Suze points to Flint, bending down to pick something up. “If we go straight from this into the part where he’s helping lift the wall, we get the sense of effort without the whole sweaty, grunting mess.”

  Sweaty. Grunting. Thank you, Suze, for making me think of Flint-related sex. I take a sip of sullen coffee and try not to remember the bed-shaking athleticism of our past encounters. Knock it off, Laurel. She’s stepped in because she knows you need help focusing. She doesn’t have to be co-editing this right now. It’s a favor. Be grateful.

  “Laurel, what do you think?” Suze asks, looking at me with interest. Juan swivels around in his chair, scratching his little chin beard.

  “Yeah, you tell me. We making art or just trying to show this guy’s deltoids?” he asks, chugging from the hugest can of Red Bull I’ve ever seen. Ick. Then again, maybe I need one of those.

  “Both. Maybe,” I say, sighing and crouching down. “But I’m with Suze on this one. Let’s make the illusion as graceful as we can.”

  Juan shrugs. “Your call. It’ll be hilarious when all the housewiv
es of America think it’s this easy. See them tottering around in their overpriced heels, trying to drywall with the best of them.” He grunts and hits a few keys on his keyboard.

  “You’ve been working in reality TV too long, Juan,” I snap, tossing my empty coffee cup in the trashcan. “Most housewives would kill for a pair of overpriced heels. Like actual shoe-murder.”

  Nobody laughs at my joke. Probably because my stress and heartache is turning me into bitchy-Laurel instead of funny, overworked, slightly-crazed-yet-also-fun Laurel.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. The room’s still uncomfortably quiet.

  “Want to step outside a minute?” Suze asks me. Her pursed lips have that je ne sais quois quality that says ‘Do it or I’ll drag you.’ We duck into the hallway, closing the door so Juan can work in peace. “So. How’ve you been?” Suze doesn’t ask what the hell is wrong with me, or why I’m ranting about housewives killing people, both of which she’s entitled to do. Instead she eyes me carefully, smiling gently, being a good, conscientious friend. Which is lovely. Except that good, conscientious people are kind of my kryptonite right now. Kindness makes my throat swell up, like shellfish.

  “Well, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and I didn’t implode or go on a chainsaw rampage or adopt twenty-seven cats,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Always a plus.” Suze sighs. “Look, what happened just now…”

  “I’m not at my best,” I mutter, cheeks heating up. She nods.

  “I’d have to agree with that statement.” Trust Suze to be blunt. It’s what I love about her. “Look, if there’s anything we can do—”

  “My best was a few months ago,” I interrupt harshly. God, it’s almost the beginning of March. Three months have passed since I last saw Flint. Since I found out our entire relationship had existed for the sole purpose of keeping his bed warm until Charlotte, my doppelganger and his ex-girlfriend—wait, no, his ex-fiancée, how on Earth could I forget that tasty little detail—came back into his life. Until she responded to the siren song of the gorgeous house he’d designed and built just for her, which he’d used my show to get done.

  Used me to get done.

  Maybe twenty-seven cats isn’t a terrible idea after all.

  “Laurel? Come back to me,” Suze says, snapping her fingers in my face, making me blink. “See, this is what worries me.” She sighs. “I say something, you look off into the middle distance and think, and then I have to wait in this awkward silence. This time I think you were even mumbling to yourself.”

  Was I? Okay, that’s not good. No need to go full Hollywood crazy before I’ve reached the executive pay grade. I sigh and push my hair out of my face.

  “Anything you’re burning to know?” I ask as I lean my shoulder against the wall and itch the back of my thigh with my stiletto heel. I think I’m getting a blister, too. Maybe I should just call it a year and go home.

  “Have you talked to Flint? Since…” Suze trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blank. Oh, I can fill it. I can fill it with a lot of curse words and kicking the shit out of the walls, but I don’t think that’s what she wants right now.

  “Since I got my bags and made it out of his house in Olympic record time? Like, faster than a Jamaican short sprinter record?” What is it with my sports metaphors today? “No, Suze. I have not. And he hasn’t reached out to me, either. I think he’s been pretty busy.” Probably busy with Charlotte, picking the first wildflowers of Spring and calling each other ‘darling’ and having hot sex on a bearskin rug, or whatever it is you do year round on the east coast. I keep remembering Charlotte, standing in that house in the early morning light. Her face was so open and amazed. He’d built this for her, she’d said. He’d even carved their two lovey-dovey bullshit matching sunflowers in the corners of the house, some history-laden backstory that I’d never understand.

  Point is, I was disposable. A distraction. Charlotte was the goal.

  Well. Get your vuvuzelas out, because Flint McKay obviously made the World Cup of ‘long lost ex-girlfriend-winning’ goals.

  Okay. Enough sports.

  “Are you sure you didn’t overreact?” Suze asks. I can’t help bristling at her tone.

  “You didn’t see her, Suze. The look on her face. You didn’t see how amazed and touched she was. Flint wanted her back, and I guess he got her. I was just a standin.” I rub my forehead. Great, a headache and I skipped breakfast. Is it possible to have a Tylenol omelet? Perhaps with a bit of fresh-ground Vicodin on top, and a side of—

  “Point taken,” she says, putting her hands up. “Scum, thy name is Flint McKay.” After a semi-awkward moment, she says, “But today’s the day, isn’t it?” It’s kind of hard to look at the sympathy in her eyes. It reminds me how damn pathetic I must appear.

  “Yep. The day.” Flint day. He’s arriving in town today for us to start promotion, since the show airs in exactly a month. Hopefully we won’t have to be crammed together too much, but given my producer status and the fact that Lady Luck enjoys giving me swirlies in the women’s restroom, I get the feeling I’m going to be seeing him. All six feet four inches of the glorious, muscled, pine-scented man who broke my heart.

  Can’t. Fucking. Wait.

  “I figured it had something to do with the extra bad mood.” Suze puts her arm around me and gives me a squeeze. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”

  “There is something, actually. Could you go back in there and force Juan not to add that scene with the drunk girls making out at the bar? We filmed it the first night we were in town, and he keeps trying to sneak it in there.” Pervy little bastard. It’s why we love him. “And, uh, could you mention that I’m sorry for giving him so much shit lately? Tell him it’s just show stress. And that I owe him lunch.”

  “On it.” Suze hugs me, and heads back into the room. I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall. I’m tempted to start pounding it, to see if I can finally dislodge Flint from my brain. But that’s an impossible task with all the editing we’ve been doing. Every time I see his golden brown eyes, I think of how they’d light up when he laughed. How they smoldered when he was inside me. How walking out of that house and driving away shattered my heart, swept it into a little broken heap, and stomped on it again.

  No. I’m not getting pulled into this maudlin ball of crazy. Even if I hadn’t busted out of there on Flint, even if he hadn’t gone back to Charlotte, it never would’ve worked out. He said himself that he’d never leave the woods, and I’m not going to trade the infuriating, glorious world of show business and type A insanity for a quiet life in the Berkshires. That’s not for me, and my life wouldn’t be for him.

  And the headline, of course, is that he loves Charlotte. He’s always loved Charlotte. Always will. Love. Charlotte.

  I can’t help feeling miserable. I haven’t felt this used and abused since—

  “Young Laurel. Asleep on the job, as usual.” My oh my, another chance encounter with the smarmiest dickhead of them all. Just what I wanted.

  Tyler Kinley. Asshole extraordinaire. He really should get that printed on his business cards, like I’ve been telling him. I open my eyes a crack and feast my poor tired eyes on the spray-tanned jackass, peeking at me over the rims of his Ray Bans. Scientific fact: how much of an asshole you are is directly proportional to how often you wear expensive sunglasses indoors.

  “I’m meditating, Kinley. Helps get the creative juices flowing. You’d know what it’s like if you had any.” I shove off from the wall and try to get through the door, but Tyler leans his douchey bulk against it. Why did I ever let Davis’s henchworms talk me into keeping Kinley on this project as an executive producer? Why don’t I remember what a terrible idea he is, just in general?

  Wait, I do remember. It’s just that the Hollywood boys’ club wants to keep him around to oil the place up for some unfathomable reason.

  “Well, you’re a, uh,” Tyler says, squinting, trying his hardest to come up with a cutting retort. Come on, bud
dy. You can do this. You’re the little engine that couldn’t, but gets validated by society anyway. “A bitch,” he finishes. Man, he actually smiles a little. Clearly he feels good about himself. Let’s see what I can do to fix that unfortunate situation.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Herman Davis loves my show, would it?” I ask, practically purring. Tyler’s salon-massaged face falls. “Come on, I know all about it. Remember Dave Lantos? I went out for dinner at Mastro’s with him and a few of the execs. They told me how crazy everyone is going for Rustic.” It’s true; the big boys love my show, took me out to dinner, and didn’t even try to cop a feel or take me home. Well, one of them tried, but he got his instep stomped for good measure. And I enjoyed some fabulous prime rib. I fake-gasp with fake concern. “Oh, I’m sorry, Kinley. I forgot that you weren’t invited. How rude of me.” I smile.

  “You did not forget,” Tyler says, as if the light of all knowledge has fallen upon him. “You’re trying to make me feel like shit.” Slow clap. What a genius.

  “How am I doing?” I ask, leaning in. Normally, this is where Tyler would look down my blouse, but he actually backs up a step. Am I intimidating him? Wonderful. I lower my voice, drilling holes into Tyler’s eyes with mine. “Now listen to me, you entitled piece of shit. My show is going to be a hit. So you can either cooperate and get a few crumbs of credit, like a good little exec producer, or you can go nurse your hurt feelings somewhere else and get the fuck out of my life, in which case make sure to let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, because I have absolutely had it up to fucking here with you.”

  Both of us are a little startled for a moment. Wow. Where’s that person been hiding all this time?

  “You’re learning how to play the game, Young,” Tyler says. He actually sounds impressed. “All right. Keep on crowing about how awesome your show is.” He smirks at me. “That’s how you career women end up sitting alone in your apartment for the rest of your life, eating ramen and hitting on the FedEx guy.”

  Ah, the enlightened feminism of Tyler the Fuckhead. After he finally leaves, I rub my eyes. It’s not that I agree with him—women can be successful in work and in love, you don’t have to choose for God’s sake—but I am a little worried about the colder, angrier part of me that’s been coming out of hiding in recent weeks. Something about how spectacularly the Flint thing failed has really gotten under my skin.