supportively, but I don’t stick around to prolong the pain. With a weird wave and a kind of jump-skip, I turn around and move to a table on the other side of the rink.
It smells a little like children’s feet over here, but it’s certainly a better location for my emotional stability.
Though, it’s a damn shame that relief is so short-lived. Before I know it, Jake and Lydia have entered the rink, its loop shape design mocking my attempt at emotional fêng shui.
It’s official: time is a vacuum. And I have no idea how much of it has passed while I sit inside this god-awful skating rink watching Jake date another woman.
Thirty minutes? Eighteen hours? The time it takes for a dentist to perform a root canal?
It’s all the same. All I know is that if it doesn’t end soon, I might just have to end it myself.
By the way, I realize how ominous that sounds, but you shouldn’t worry too much. I have absolutely no plan, and my track record with follow-through is marginal at best. It just makes me feel better to imagine lighting this place on fire like Adele is always singing. Set Fire to the Rink. I laugh to myself, but it’s admittedly a half laugh, half cry. I’m losing it. That’s not even that good of a joke.
I don’t completely eliminate the possibility of arson from my mind, however. I mean, maybe Garrett would come to put it out and I could meet him—two birds, one stone.
I shake my head almost violently to clear it. Jesus, Holley. Get it together.
Jake and Lydia skate by, laughing with each other as Lydia fakes losing her balance and falls bodily into the strength of Jake’s hard muscle.
What a fucking cliché move.
I try not to grind my teeth as I make note of it on my pad and turn back to watch them as they round the corner on the other side of the room.
Thankfully, in the name of a perfect distraction from the roller-rink-flirt-fest, my phone chimes with an email notification. I open it quicker than I’ve ever opened an email in my life.
I have some unfortunate news about the upcoming BA Event, and Gloria wanted me to make you aware ASAP.
I’m not sure what happened, but somewhere along the line, our wires must have gotten crossed. The BA Reveal Party was scheduled for next Friday, August 28th, not the following Friday, September 4th, like you originally requested.
I’m sorry…what? I blink seven hundred times, but when I reread it again, it still says the same thing.
How in the hell did they get the date wrong?
I keep reading in hopes that Phyllis has decided to become the next Ashton Kutcher and punk my ass. But, deep down, I know better. My fifty-year-old co-worker is too straitlaced to dabble in pranks, and she doesn’t have the bone structure to pull off Ashton’s haircut.
I am so sorry, Holley.
I wish I had better news, but the venue, the caterers, the photographer, they refuse to change the date and have made it clear our deposits are nonrefundable.
I tried to talk Gloria into letting us take a loss on this one and just reschedule, but she was adamant that you’d be able to make Friday, August 28th work for the BA Reveal Party, your article schedule, and the rest of the Bachelor’s dates.
Which is also why, at Gloria’s insistence, the invites have been sent out and the guest list is nearly set.
Again, I wish I had better news.
Please let me know if I can do anything to help you.
Sincerely,
Phyllis Carmichael
Event Coordinator, SoCal Tribune
Let her know if she can help me?
Uh…how about you buy a fucking time machine and go back to the day you screwed up the date and fix it, Phyllis!
Gah. This is a serious snag in my timeline. My article deadlines. Jake’s dates.
It takes everything inside me not to toss my phone out into the middle of the skating rink so someone can roll the hell over it and crush it to smithereens. Clearly, this wouldn’t be helpful in any way, but damn, the instant gratification of releasing my pent-up anger and frustration would almost be worth it.
On a sigh, I look up from what must be Satan’s personal inbox that’s somehow found its way on to my phone and catch sight of Jake and Lydia again.
Suddenly, my brain feels like it might explode. Phyllis’s major