The Good Life

Chapter 18

Several weeks later Marla had become accustomed to random text messages, voicemails and the promised skype.

The radio she had loved since her youth had become almost painful to listen to with Just the Way You Are, Grenade and now The Lazy Song on heavy rotation. She popped in her ipod and cranked up the sound. She slowly forgot about the time and space between the two of them.

Bruno, on the other hand, was so busy with music, promotion and his world that he hardly had any time to sleep. But, when he wasn’t busy with those, or with his band, he thought of her. And it drove him crazy. He wondered what she was doing, what she smelled like, what her hair looked like, what she was thinking about, what she was thinking too hard about…he opened his computer and started typing…

Marla opened the door to her office. She smiled widely at the office secretary that she had just recently started to get to know. Her name was Taylor, she was 22 and going to a community college to complete her basics. She was also an incredible artist. Taylor’s radio was on. Of course it would be KROQ. Just the Way You Are was playing. “Marla! Don’t you adore this song? I’d kill to have this guy sing this to me.”

“Yeah..uh, huh. I would too.” She smiled a painful smile and glanced down at her phone wishing he would interrupt the painful conversation.

“I don’t believe you, Marla…what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Oh nothing. Just boys.” she said headed toward her office. She plopped in her desk chair, moved her mouse and glanced at her phone again. She needed to hear his real voice. Not that same song, over and over and over and over again. She needed to see his face, his brown eyes and to taste his cinnamon kisses. She didn’t know if she could handle it much longer. I have work to do. There are kids that need my help. I can get through it. I have a few more days. I can do it. It’s the last few miles of a marathon. “I can do it.” she said out loud.

“You can do what?” the organization’s lawyer walked by perplexed by her thought process.

“I can finish these case manager notes. They’re out of control….” she waved her hands above her head to indicate how much work she had to do to indicate she wasn’t crazy.

“Get ‘em girl!” He said as he continued to walk past her office. He crossed paths with her office mate, Cristina.

“Hola, love! How are you today?”

“Waiting for a phone call…” she told her.

“Girl…I’d wait by the phone all day if I knew he was calling. I’ll wait with you…” she smiled at her sympathetically.

“But I’m so sick of waiting…I know it’s only been a few weeks…but it’s been forever.”

The girls laughed and started to type away, answering phone calls and working on case manager notes. Around 12:30 Cristina and Marla’s supervisor walked in with a pile of flowers in her hands. “Marla, I had no idea you had a secret admirer. It came with a CD in it too. An amazing playlist? Let’s listen to it!”

“Wait! Let me read the note first!” Marla grabbed the flowers, which looked incredibly exotic to her.

“Hi – I know you’ll get this at work. Listen to numbers 3 and 4 there. But 1 and 2 are just for you.”

Je t’aime-Brunz

“We can listen to 3 and 4...” she told them as she grabbed the CD from her supervisor. They popped it in and a familiar tune came on. “Cheese….” Marla exclaimed. It was the live version of Just the Way You Are. She actually never had heard the song performed. There was something different about the live version. It was special. She knew it was for her. Grab ‘em real tight …I’ll be that special someone… She wrapped her arms around herself as she felt a chill down her spine. She pressed the forward button to here the next song. She knew it wasn’t written about her or had anything to do about her, but nonetheless it made her smile. Talking to the Moon was just so heartfelt.