The Seduction Rebecca's Lost Journals Volume 1(4)

            This time the nightmare was worse. This time I hit the water, the icy cold ocean claiming me as I was submerged, struggling to stop the trolley from crushing me. The splintering pain of drawing water into my lungs and trying to get to the surface. Pushing to the top with all my might to find my mother there, shoving me back down. I am angry, more angry than I’ve been in a long time—and I’ve been plenty angry. Angry at her for leaving me. Angry at her for lying to me. Angry at her for shoving me back into the water, and . . . and what? What the hell does this nightmare mean? This feeling of dread, of death, just won’t go away.

            I have to go to work and perform a job I hate. Maybe I just won’t go. But damn it, I have to go. How else will I survive?





Friday, December 17, 2010

            I’ve tried not to think about this being my first Christmas alone. I’ve tried to block out the trees, songs, and holiday cheer I used to embrace. It hasn’t worked. Next up, New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never made resolutions. I mean—why? Who really keeps them?

            But I am thinking about next year, and my life in general. If life is short, why live it waiting tables at a bar? It’s all I can think of today. How did I become the one in my group of college friends who has done nothing with my life, when I was the only one who knew what I wanted to do with my life? Now all my friends have moved on to new things. Casey is married to a banker and barely has time for me. Darla’s in New York working for a television station. Susan is in Seattle working for a PR firm. Okay, there is Kirk, who still works at the Burger Palace and has absolutely no motivation to do anything different. Like me.

            How have I become this? How have I let my dreams slip away? I have to do something. I have to fix this. I have to fix me. Being inside that gallery made me the happiest I have been in too long to remember.





Christmas Eve Morning

            I’m working at the bar tonight, a glad volunteer. Just call me the Grinch, because I’d rather skip Christmas this year. I haven’t had the nightmare again, though I still have that vague sense of foreboding I can’t get rid of. After careful thought, I think the death that I sense and fear is the death of my art dreams.

            So I’ve been thinking. What makes one person’s dreams come true when another’s don’t? Determination. Action. Desire. Those are the things I once embraced, and I chose to do that again when I woke up this morning. I walked to the gallery’s neighborhood and went inside every fancy restaurant that pays big tips, and managed to score a job at a place right by the gallery. I then called the gallery and asked if the internship was still open, and it wasn’t. It was a hard answer to hear, but I was told I could still put in an application for the future. I did and wistfully wished Mark Compton was there. My gut tells me that seeing him again is my ticket to getting a job.

            Now that I’ve decided to do this, maybe I can take an unpaid internship in hopes of proving myself. I’ll hang on to this new waitressing job and stop by the gallery once a week until I get a job there, paid or unpaid. I have to be brave enough to take risks. Besides, the new job pays better than my old one. This is a good move. I have to believe that.





Saturday, December 25, 2010

            Movies alone. A huge tub of popcorn. A box of chocolate. A large soda. Stomachache. A stupid movie choice that made me cry like a baby in the theater and wish I’d brought my makeup to fix my face. Calls with friends. I told them I was with a hot guy I met at the bar. Bedtime. New job starts tomorrow.





Monday, December 27, 2010

            I was breathless when Mark sauntered into the restaurant, owning the place—tall, blond, and deliciously male in a custom-fitted gray suit—and turning heads, both male and female. Not many men make me breathless, but there aren’t many men who can claim the very air that exists around them, as he does.

            Kim, the sweet hostess from Tennessee who I’m fast becoming friends with, seated him in my section, and I was ridiculously nervous as I headed to his table to take his order. I didn’t expect him to remember me. Okay, maybe I did. Or at least I hoped he would. I wanted to be right about what had passed between us. I wanted him to have wanted me to apply for the internship. I wanted him to ask me about it again now, and spare me walking into the gallery later and asking myself—especially after waiting on his table.