The Boyfriend Backtrack

THE BOYFRIEND BACKTRACK

Dawn Lanuza

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Dawn Lanuza

Book Cover Design by Reginald Lapid:

http://www.society6.com/reglapid

Chapter 1

Wednesdays are always supposed to be just one of those days. Nothing much happens on Wednesdays—mainly because people feel crap about it: the week has started, but it’s not the end just quite yet.

But this Wednesday is different.

It starts when I find myself waking up from a strange dream. I forget how the dream started but I do remember feeling like I was inside a Van Gogh painting: reminiscent of Wheatfield with Cypresses, I was standing in a large field when the sky, cloudy and blue, started to swirl.

I open my eyes then and find my paintbrushes on the nightstand, stacked in a cup and untouched since graduating from University.

Realizing that I accidentally turned off my alarm when I meant to hit snooze, I hurry to start my day. It’s a hectic day in the office: more digital post-processing training with my new assistant Faye, and an album to submit to the printers.

I climb in my car only to find it uncooperative; it refuses to run. I have to get that checked, but since I’m already about an hour late, I hail a cab to take me to Makati.

I realize that it’s on days like this that I need Faye the most. She can cover for me in case Morrie, our boss, comes in before I do. We said we’d have breakfast today so we can actually sit down and get to know each other better. But with this traffic, I bet we’ll be having an early lunch instead.

Then, the radio from the cab starts playing this familiar song. I haven’t listened to it fully—or intentionally—in a long while. It was in Regina’s Soundtrack of Youth, a decade-old hits album burned in a single, possibly scratched, CD. The track that’s currently playing on the radio is Track 3, the very song that was playing when I met this boy in University.

Slightly bothered by this, I distract myself by scrutinizing my hair on the cab’s side mirror. It is how it’s always been for the last couple of years: straight and limp, parted in the middle and cut right below the shoulders. I have been told to let my hair rest for a while so it can outgrow the damaged bit. It figures, because I possibly did all the things that I could do with my hair when I was in school.

I hear the chorus of the song, the same line repeating over and over. I consider asking the driver to switch stations. Instead I ask him to take an alternative route so we can get to the office faster. But seeing that it’s rush hour and we’re on Ayala, it’s kind of hopeless. We stay on that street for ten more minutes, making me officially late for breakfast.

When I arrive at the office, Faye hands me my messages. We decide to have brunch in a coffee shop right across the street so we can talk about the industry and my shift from being the great Morrie Lazaro’s assistant to his junior I-can-trust-you-while-I’m-away photographer.

I have been in the Wedding Photography industry for three years. And I’d like to think that I’ve seen almost all of it: well-planned destination weddings, dramatic cathedral weddings, and the downright shotgun let’s-just-get-this-over-with ones.

I used to think that being surrounded by weddings would bother me, but they’re actually great. When I was younger, I remember getting really bored watching my aunts and my cousins get married. But here’s the thing when you get older, people actually start to understand what ‘I do’ means.

While we’re eating, Faye tells me that she’s planning to get married next year. This shifts the conversation to our wedding ideas, despite the fact that neither of us is currently wearing an engagement ring.

I would really rather have something low-key, Faye tells me. She just graduated from University. She reminds me so much of how new grads are when they step out into the real world. So hopeful. So confused. So idealistic. So like me years ago. It’s my mother who wants the whole grand-ballroom type of wedding.

With all of your extended family invited?

Faye rolls her eyes, Yes. Cousins of the second cousins included. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Reg, I love my family, but I can’t feed 300 people.

I laugh, Not if you take our top package, you can’t.

Faye smiles, What about you, though? If you get married, would you let Morrie do it?

Morrie Lazaro has been a photographer since I was in puberty or maybe even before that. He used to do fashion photography for magazines before he settled down and decided to do weddings.

I wave the idea off. Oh God, I haven’t thought about it. Plus, I’m not getting married anytime soon. My boyfriend and I are perfectly okay with our situation now.

The situation being: my boyfriend Kevin travels quite a lot for work. He’s a photojournalist-slash-blogger so he actually gets paid to travel. He’s usually away for weeks then returns here for a couple of days. If we’re lucky, he could be home for weeks, but he’s usually just constantly on the road. This works perfectly for me, too, because I don’t have a regular work schedule. I go wherever there’s someone getting hitched, and that, I realize, happens quite a lot.

Today, Kevin is back from a vacation-slash-work trip. He visited his family in Sacramento, California, and he’s expected to land in Manila in a few hours. I’ve agreed to meet him in Xavier, a quaint French café close to my office as soon as my work day is over. I like Xavier partly because I’m a bit of a Francophile. But that, of course, is rooted in my love for the French post-impressionist painters: Van Gogh, Seurat, and Cézanne.

Faye and I retreat to our office and I show her a couple of post-processing tricks. When the clock strikes 6, I step out and head towards Xavier. By the time I arrive, Kevin’s already seated at a table. With a cup of coffee in one hand, he is so focused on his phone that he doesn’t notice me gazing through the window.

The tiny bell on the door jingles as I push the door open. Kevin looks up expectantly, a smile forming on his lips.

I wave at him and walk toward the table. He puts his phone down and watches me walk to him. I’ve been welcoming him back for too many times that I’ve developed a certain calmness whenever I see him again for the first time after one of his trips. There’s no dramatic welcome hugs, crying or anything remotely close to that. I think it’s nice that we’re secure enough to think that nothing’s changed between us during the whole time that we’re apart.

Hi, he says.

I sit across him and smile, Hi.

You look nice. How was your day?

Good. My assistant is doing really well.

Yeah, Kevin stretches out his hand to reach for mine. She answered my call this morning.

I squeeze his hand, Yes, I’m thinking of letting her answer my calls more often. He laughs. I take another good look at him, letting his presence sink in. He looks tired and a little sleepy, but he’s always presentable: clean-cut, well-shaved, and smartly dressed. So, you good? Did you bring me anything from your recent adventure?

Kevin glances outside to where his car is parked, I can’t say that there isn’t a huge amount of candy in the car.

I clap my hands gleefully. I do have a thing for candy. I mean, really, who doesn’t?

Should we order first before you start nibbling?

God, yes, I’m starving.

When we’re done with the entrees, we savor a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc while having our dessert. That’s about the time Kevin decides to make this Wednesday anything less than ordinary. He proposes. On a Wednesday. The most uneventful day of the week.

He begins with, Hey, Reg, I was wondering where you’d like to spend Christmas this year.

Seeing that we never really try to plan anything anymore because of our schedules, I simply shrug, Anywhere.

Reg, he presses on. I sense that he’s trying to tell me something important so I look at him only to find him watching me as I take another bite of the dessert. I put down my fork and chew faster. I swallow, Should we be planning this early? It’s March.

I was thinking Sacramento, he continues, a plan obviously in mind.

My eyes widen, What, you enjoyed Sacramento that much, you want to go back?

Well, my family lives there, Kevin says, matter-of-factly.

Right, I nod. Such a dumb moment. Can’t believe I forgot that even for a second. Of course he wants to go to Sacramento. His mom and dad moved a couple of years ago. All that he’s got left here is his cousin, Leo, and a couple of friends. Of course.

So, he shifts in his seat and leans closer to the table. He speaks to me softly, I was talking to my dad these past few days, and he was wondering why it’s taking me so long to make you part of the family.

I heard myself snort, remembering the last time I talked to his dad on Skype. He did mention stuff about coming over to Sacramento, but I didn’t think that meant making me part of the family.

Does your family have a hazing policy or what?

Kevin doesn’t laugh. I click my tongue, thinking that I should probably hold off on my jokes for now. I admit, it took Kevin some time to warm up to my ill-timed (sometimes grim) jokes when we just started dating. Because we were away from each other for about a month, he just needs to readjust so we can be in sync again, I reason. Still, it sort of bothers me to see him as he sits there rigidly, looking like he is about to pass out.

I tilt my head, growing a bit concerned. Kevin rarely looks this way, like he’s not so confident about something. Honey, you okay?

What if we get married? he blurts out. Rather, he spits it out.

I lean back on my chair, completely taken aback, What?

Kevin pulls his hand away and reaches into his pocket. He fishes out a blue velvet box. I squeeze my eyes shut. That is not what I think that is. This is not happening. Is it really? I open my eyes. Yup, box still on the table. I try to recall if there was a hint of a proposal in our last conversation but all I can remember is a discussion of whether or not we were having Japanese or French for dinner. So no, definitely, no.

I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? He asks me, snapping me back to the present.

I lean back on the table to gauge his reaction. Is he serious? Is he being forced to marry so he can settle down back in Sacramento? I find myself looking at the box. Kevin begins to talk again but I can’t make out a single word.

I bet it’s the wrong ring. Kevin has weird taste in jewelry. As much as he’s got good taste in everything else, the man can’t seem to get it right when it comes to jewelry. Last time, he bought me these earrings that I only wore for a night and never wore again. I do not look good in hoop earrings, never did and never will.

And while I’m thinking about where I put those earrings, the most bizarre thing happens—more bizarre than the fact that I think about earrings when my boyfriend drops the word marriage onto the table.

In movies, they call this bit a ‘montage’—a series of shots edited into a sequence. In my case, it is a series of images of all the men I dated before I landed at this table, in a quaint French restaurant, drinking wine from some French villa, staring at a blue velvet box from my boyfriend of three years.

There weren’t many of them, but it is disturbing, still. I mean, Dirk was in it. Dirk, who I’m not even sure I even really liked to begin with. And then there were Thomas, and Josh . . .

Regina?

I blink quickly, Yes. Sorry, yes?

Are you saying yes, or are you just—

I lick my lips, trying to decide at that very moment which to pick. Should I say yes, to make this less awkward, or say no? I look at Kevin and think, well, I can’t say no to that. Can I? No.

His face tenses.

I babble, I mean no, I’m saying yes.

The words reverberate throughout the room. Even the whole café seems to be holding its breath, at least until Kevin lets out a huge sigh of relief. I manage a smile.

Besides, who cares if I never heard a thing Kevin was saying a minute ago? Being reminded of all the boys I dated makes me shiver and I need to shake that off. If anyone’s making sense at this table, it’s probably Kevin. I mean, he’s Kevin—sensible, stable, and secure. Sure, my friends tell me that I could be describing a chair when I use these words, but it’s Kevin. He never does anything