Touch Screen: a small town romance Read online

  www.lbdunbar.com

  Touch Screen © 2015 Laura Dunbar

  L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.

  www.lbdunbar.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

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

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  2018 Cover design – Shannon Passmore/Shanoff Designs

  Original Edits - Jaimie Rivale

  Table of Contents

  Other work by L.B. Dunbar

  Dedication

  Take 1

  Take 2

  Take 3

  Take 4

  Take 5

  Take 6

  Take 7

  Take 8

  Take 9

  Take 10

  Take 11

  Take 12

  Take 13

  Take 14

  Take 15

  Take 16

  Take 17

  Take 18

  Take 19

  Take 20

  Take 21

  Take 22

  Take 23

  Take 24

  Take 25

  Take 26

  Take 27

  Take 28

  Take 29

  Take 30

  Take 31

  Take 32

  Take 33

  Take 34

  Take 35

  Take 36

  Take 37

  Take 38

  Take 39

  Take 40

  Take 41

  Take 42

  Take 43

  Take 44

  Final Take

  More from L.B. Dunbar

  Keep in touch with L.B. Dunbar

  Little Nibble of Sight Words

  Roll Credits

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Other work by L.B. Dunbar

  Silver Fox Former Rock Stars

  After Care

  Midlife Crisis

  Restored Dreams

  Rom-com for the over 40

  The Sex Education of M.E.

  The Sensations Collection

  Sound Advice

  Taste Test

  Fragrance Free

  Touch Screen

  Sight Words

  Spin-off Standalone

  The History in Us

  The Legendary Rock Star Series

  The Legend of Arturo King

  The Story of Lansing Lotte

  The Quest of Perkins Vale

  The Truth of Tristan Lyons

  The Trials of Guinevere DeGrance

  Paradise Duet

  Abel

  Cain

  The Island Duet

  Redemption Island

  Return to the Island

  Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore

  Hades

  Solis

  Heph

  Dedication

  For my own alpha male and the fab four –

  Mr. Dunbar, MD1, MD2, JR and A

  Family first.

  Take 1

  Under the Moonlight

  As I looked out the French doors at the bright sunlight and the blue waters of Lake Michigan, I daydreamed. It was summertime in northern Michigan, and I smiled to myself. Summer brought back memories of time spent in that cool water, days in that warm sunshine, and nights under yellow moonlight. Summer also brought back memories of her. She’d left me long ago, or rather I’d let her go. It wasn’t like it was yesterday; it was years ago. Seven, but who was keeping track? Either way, she was gone from my life, but not from my memories.

  The informative speaker rambled on from the podium and I shifted in the banquet chair. It was warm inside the Baycove Convention Center. The heat index had been 100 degrees the day before and it was predicted to be just as warm today. The sun’s rays against the three large glass doors increased the temperature of the room, and even the speaker had beads of sweat on his forehead. I continued to stare out the window.

  I fiddled with my nametag absentmindedly. Gavin Scott, Director, UCLA, it read. I knew I should be concentrating. Listening. This was where I had longed to be. It was a gathering of all the film directors showcasing at the Traverse City Film Festival. I found it ironic that I went all the way to California to study film production and direction, only to end up back in Michigan, some thirty minutes south of my hometown, to premiere my first film.

  Elk Rapids was a small town of less than one thousand people in the northwest region of Lower Michigan. In a small town with big dreams, I’d left the family cherry farm for the great movie metropolis of Los Angeles and film school at UCLA. I was what they called a small fish in a big pond when I first arrived at the university, and my initiation was to discover I had a lot to learn. I refused to let the big city beat me. I was determined I would be successful, and I was.

  Just five years after graduation, I was releasing my first independent film under the financial backing of my girlfriend’s father, Zeke Steinmann, one of the most successful movie finance company owners in LA. Zoe Steinmann was almost everything I’d ever wanted in a girlfriend. Almost. She was Californian royalty from Beverly Hills with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a healthy tan. She was fashionable, high society, and very photogenic. She hardly made a move without someone flashing a camera in her face, and I was often the man on her arm in those photos. Together for three years, I knew I was lucky to have Zoe in my life.

  I glanced around the room filled with other up-and-coming director-wannabes. There were guest speakers from various categories of film study, direction, and production. Film students would be present at some of the seminars as well as amateurs, who were just curious about cinema history, but this particular introductory session was for featured film presenters only. It was full of directions, schedules, and menus.

  A golf outing was planned for the afternoon following a buffet lunch. My tee-time was early and the speaker was running late, which meant I would have to skip lunch and head to the course. My stomach was already rumbling from this morning’s coffee, and my thoughts continued to wander to the mandatory dinner I had to attend tonight with my parents. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a young woman and a little boy walk under the old outdoor dance pavilion.

  Located several yards away from the conference room, the cement base structure was surrounded by sand and covered with a white canvas canopy in a tent-like fashion. I imagined in my director’s eye a wooden boardwalk attaching the main floor to the grand hotel sidewalks. Soft white bulbs would light the large circular area for resort visitors in an age gone by in their antiquated clothing as they danced a waltz.

  The woman and the boy seemed like they were here for just that – a little old-fashioned dancing. She was talking to him, pointing to the banquet hall, and looking upward to what I assumed was the hotel above. The child started to laugh as she wrapped one little hand in hers and positioned his other hand at her waist. His head was just above her waistline, and he was giggling with a beaming smile as he looked up at her. It was obvious she was leading him around and his short legs were tangling behind him in a silly manner.

  Eventually, she tickled him under t
he arm he had wrapped around her waist, and in his laughter, she dipped him over one of her arms. I could tell by the expression on the little boy’s face that he was laughing hysterically. The woman bent over and kissed the little guy several quick times on his cheek and neck, then pulled him upward. The boy now wanted to dance more, and with stiff legs, he twirled the woman around and around. They were oblivious to the convention room full of people just inside the glass doors, and I noticed more than one person was sidetracked by this image of what I assumed was mother and child.

  I wiped a line of sweat that now dripped down the side of my face with my index finger. I wondered if the air conditioning was even on as I turned from left to right to see that others in the stuffy room also noticed the woman and the boy. I wasn’t the only one mesmerized by them outside in the bright sunlight under the white tent-like structure. Other directors seemed dazed by the monotone voice of the speaker and the heat, and I almost laughed out loud at how comatose my colleagues looked. Several near me had now shifted their eyes to watch the blonde haired beauty twirl and dip her blond-headed little boy. His dark brown eyes were visible even from this distance and his little face glowed with dimples. As the speech drew to its conclusion, I saw an opportunity to stand up and walk outside.

  I felt drawn to this woman and child, and I exited one of the French doors to walk along the pathway under another canopy. The beauty and her boy did not seem to notice me, and I tried to stay behind the columns that supported the overhang providing shade to this portion of the sidewalk as I peered nonchalantly at the beach. I glanced in their direction enough to notice wisps of her blonde hair around her tan face blowing out of her ponytail. She kept her eyes downward, focused on the boy, but I realized they had the same nose. Again, it seemed safe to assume this was her child.

  She dipped the boy again and I heard his strong childish laughter. It was infectious and I smiled to myself. The woman kissed the boy again with several small pecks on his little red cheeks and neck, only now I could hear the sounds the mother made, loud and exaggerated, with each brush of her lips. The boy laughed harder, saying, “No, no, no,” but he squealed his enjoyment of each kiss and clearly wanted more. She stood him upright again and the child wrapped his arm around his mother, beginning to dance.

  “Again,” the child pleaded, but the mother directed him elsewhere. They held hands as they stepped off the dance floor and into the white sand surrounding the pavilion. I hadn’t noticed they were both barefoot, and the woman bent down to pick up two pairs of shoes. She handed the child his and carried hers through her fingers. There was something strangely familiar about her as she walked across the sand away from me and toward the water line of the lake.

  I stood straighter now, no longer leaning behind the barrier. I took no more notice of how much warmer I was outside in the blazing morning sun in my gray summer suit as I took a step into the sand, forgetting my leather dress shoes. The woman turned toward the child, walking backwards. Her tan legs were graceful beneath her white shorts. This blonde beauty shielded her eyes as if looking at something behind me, then she suddenly stopped walking. The child broke free of her hand and started running across the freshly combed beach toward the lake’s small white caps.

  I made my way to the dance floor, the sand slipping under the hard soles of my dress shoes. I balanced on the edge of the cement structure with my heel and kept my gaze focused on her as she continued to stare back at the resort. Slowly, she lowered her hand from her eyes and tucked a piece of wayward hair behind her ears. I realized she was no longer looking behind me, but at me. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear made her instantly recognizable. Britton. Britton McKay had returned to northern Michigan, just as I had.

  Take 2

  Under the Moonlight

  I had the worst golf game of my life. My concentration was off and I didn’t want to admit to myself why. Now, as I drove north on US31to Elk Rapids and the Scott family farm for dinner, my mind wouldn’t rest with the reason. Britton.

  Summers in upper Michigan are filled with tourism of golf courses, sandy beaches, and lake waters, and for those that lived here permanently as a resident, one grew accustomed to the comings and goings of random renters or summer-only homeowners. Locals, and transplants as people affectionately called newer permanent residents from the southern portion of the state, hardly mixed; only mingled. It wasn’t uncommon, though, for the young to find each other and share in random hook-ups and summer loves, which was exactly how I had met Britton. Our relationship was unique, however.

  Britton McKay came to Traverse City every summer to stay with her great Uncle Leo and his live-in girlfriend, Gertie. Never married, they were rebels from an older generation that required marriage of couples in order to share a home. Uncle Leo was quite unconventional in more ways than one, and I remembered him fondly.

  Britton originally worked as summer help at my family’s cherry farm. We hired summer pickers and sorters. She’d been fourteen-years-old, and I was sixteen. The following summer she moved on to Sunrise Books, the local bookstore in Traverse City. The last time I’d seen her she was eighteen, had graduated from high school, and was excited to go away to college in Ohio. That summer, I had been home on a rare visit between semesters at UCLA.

  Because I saw her every summer, I always assumed she was more than the average summer fling. She was more than a summer love. And much to the dismay of anyone I was dating, when Britton returned, the girlfriend had to go. I belonged to Britton and she belonged with me. I didn’t complain. I waited all school year for her return.

  As a teenager, I wasn’t innocent. I caused trouble for my parents, drank too much, and pushed too far with many girls, but my first sexual experiences of meaning were with Britton. I still remembered having sex with her for the first time, as if it had been my first time, and I remembered it fondly.

  We had a very physical relationship, but it was more than that to me. I loved her then with my teenage heart. I loved her still in my memories. And old memories flooded my mind when I saw her standing on the beach earlier today.

  But I had questions. Many questions. She must be married. She had a child, obviously. What was she doing back in Traverse City? I would be surprised if Uncle Leo was still alive. I knew Gertie died during Britton’s senior year of high school. Leo would be in his nineties, maybe a hundred if he was still alive these seven years later.

  I turned off US 31 and onto the winding road that would take me back to the farm. My mind shifted momentarily away from Britton. This area was beautiful and I’d never appreciated its beauty until my return from California. The cherry trees were symmetrically lined on either side of the road as I neared the gravel drive for my parents’ house. Driving up the lane to my childhood home made me suddenly homesick, a feeling I never had when I was away. Now that I’d returned, I was surprised to realize how much I had missed my hometown.

  Life was quieter and simpler here than the dance clubs, social parties, and constant appearances that Zoe’s life demanded and helped me network. It could be tiring at times, and I understood why many people were sucked into drug and alcohol use to keep them going and going and going. Of course, that use led many to abuse, and I prided myself at the moment on not giving in to the addictive temptation. Zoe participated occasionally and I didn’t care for it, but I kept quiet, like I often did for things I did not approve of in her. I allowed her to have her way. She never pressured me, although she did try to entice me at times to join her. I found creative ways to refuse.

  I continued down the gravel drive in the dry air and a cloud of dust was trailing behind the convertible Mustang rental car. A layer of dust was covering everything and I swore as I’d forgotten that the dirt road and the open top of the car were not a good combination. I parked in the driveway next to the rusting old green truck and looked at the antique farmhouse. The yellow siding paled in the late afternoon and the green shutters were faded. The roof sagged a little in the middle, and the grass was almost non
-existent in the dry heat of late July. The wooden porch steps dipped in the middle from the constant coming and going of visitors and workers. It was the height of cherry season.

  I had missed the annual Cherry Festival, but I had spent many summers in attendance. It was small town Americana, but I had fond memories of it. I hadn’t been home in seven years; not since the summer when I was twenty. I had missed Christmases and Easters, birthdays and Harbor Days. Most recently, I’d escaped the return of my mother’s cancer. At twenty-seven, I was finally returning to see her.

  Sara Scott had cancer when I was a child and my older sister, Karyn, thought she was Mum’s substitute. I didn’t appreciate Karyn’s bossiness as much as our younger brother, Ethan, and I resented her as she tried to act like Mum at times. We called her Mum, as she preferred, being a native of England. It was the only English tradition she continued when she made America her new home some thirty-five years ago.

  Nothing could prepare me, though, for the frail woman who answered the door in a buzz-cut hairstyle with deep brown eyes that drooped. Her clothes hung on her thin body, but her smile let me know it was my mother. I reached out to hug her in my forceful Californian way, and felt like I would break her. She was so thin, and I almost thought she winced when I encircled her with my muscular grasp. We stood in sharp contrast to each other.

  I was tall, six-four like my little brother, but lean. I didn’t have the manual labor build like my solid brother, but more of a sculpted physique. I worked out five days a week and ate whatever Zoe told me to eat for a diet. I was proud of my healthy body and my fashionable clothes, which contrasted sharply with my mother’s sagging blouse and sweatpants. Even though it was warm, she was dressed as if the day was cool, and I noticed the house was chilly. A window air conditioning unit in the living room was on full blast.

  “Gavin, lovie, I’m so happy to see you.” My thin mother pulled me back in for another hug. Looking over her bony shoulder, I was able to take in the old living room, with its overstuffed and well-used couches, an old wooden piano, faded shades on the windows, and a well-worn carpet that covered the scuffed wooden floors. I thought of my pristine apartment in Malibu that I shared with Zoe. It had exposed brick, polished flooring, and black and white modern, sleek furniture overlooking a gorgeous view of the ocean through the two-bedroom loft. It was the polar opposite of this setting.