Presque Vu

Chapter 1

Presque Vu

Presque vu (from French, meaning "almost seen") is the sensation of being on the brink of an epiphany.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Of course, that seemed to be the recurring theme of Raina's life the last 3 years so "supposed to be" was beginning to lose all meaning. She grabbed the equipment bag and tripods from the cargo van and quickly headed back to the work area Val had already started setting up. There were still a couple of hours before the band was due to arrive but there was a lot to set up for this shoot. Plus her boss, Val, was a ruthless perfectionist who would want to run through everything several times before they got here. Val was talented and brilliant and usually a good teacher, and Raina was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him but 6 months of shooting celebrities was beginning to make her wonder why she had come to L.A. In the first place. Surprisingly musicians really weren't so bad, but the some of the actors they had worked with so far had been the worst. This band sported a lead singer that was both. And Val was already in a foul mood since he had forgotten to pack the spare batteries and chargers, necessitating Raina driving back into the studio to pick them up and putting them slightly behind schedule. At least Val had been the one responsible for packing the van the night before so he couldn't blame her for the oversight. Still, the day was already putting a sour taste in her mouth and she found herself ruefully second guessing every life choice she had ever made as Val grunted, pointed, and basically barked orders at her for the next hour.

"How the fuck did I get here?"

Raina had always been the go-to person, the planner, the organizer, the Girl Who Got Shit Done. Ambitious and entrepreneurial, she had started a small tech consulting company with a friend straight out of college and thrown herself into her work, enjoying the enormous sense of accomplishment as the startup flourished. She dreamed of more, of course, travel, a family of her own, but she thought she had all the time in the world. She took vacations where she could, had love affairs that went nowhere beyond a few stolen evenings and walks home with her panties in her purse and a not so guilty smile on her face. She attended concerts, visited museums, planned her friend's bridal showers and attended their weddings, and trusted that everything would come together as long as she worked hard and kept her eyes on her goals.

"You furrow that brow any harder and you're going to need a facelift before you're 35."

Raina looked away from the laptop she had been setting up to see Cassidy, the head makeup artist grinning at her. "Sorry, Cassie." She glanced around to make sure the coast was clear before continuing. "Val's in rare form today. I'm just ready for this shoot to be over already."

"Aww, don't say that. I can't wait to work on these guys!" Cassie gave Raina a wide grin. "Have you seen them? Yum!"

Raina laughed and poked the now sizable bump that had been Cassie's toned tummy a few months ago. "I would think you'd had enough of that kind of trouble for a little while."

"Nope. Pregnancy hormones"

"I bet Aaron loves that"

"You know it," Cassie said with a grin, wiggling her hips as she walked away to finish setting up. Raina sighed.

When she met Dan, he was just cherries on top of an already satisfying sundae. The handsome architect was as ambitious as Raina was, and they would often lie beside each other at night talking about the adventures they would have together, trekking the globe, eating unpronounceable food, asking for directions with cobbled together foreign vocabularies, dreaming of growing old alongside each other in a Swiss villa or an Appalachian cabin, or perhaps an apartment in the Parisian Quartier Latin. They moved in together when it seemed sensible to do so, and talked about buying a dog, a big Newfoundland perhaps, one that would enjoy their outdoor treks with them. Things were pleasant. Things were orderly. Things were going according to plan. Then her mother became ill.
The cancer took her with startling quickness. It seemed Raina had barely had time to process the diagnosis before she found herself planning her mother's funeral. Since she her father was long gone and her mother had no family to speak of herself, it had been just Raina and her mom for a long time and the loneliness and grief of losing her so unexpectedly was overwhelming. She struggled to keep afloat, shuffling more business responsibility onto her partner Ellen, distancing herself from Dan, barely speaking to her friends or going out. She moved forward in a daze. Looking back now, she often wondered if her mother hadn't died if she would have noticed what was going on around her before everything exploded.