This is an entry for the Summer Lovin' competition. After over twenty years childhood sweethearts Rachel and Bob find each other one summer. Do they still feel the same about each other now they are 30 somethings? Can they turn back time?
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We met the first day we began school.
She bit me
! The following week neither of us could remember why and neither could our parents but parents are like that, only interested in the long term where their kids are concerned. She didn't break the skin but the teeth marks were there and, despite being a boy, I did cry. But she wasn't in the least concerned and ran to the far end of the playground to be with the other girls.
Our class teacher, who was on playground duty, was there immediately she heard the commotion and saw me crying. She told my mother, when she came to collect me that afternoon, how much she had wanted to console me but couldn't. She'd been a teacher for many years, not far from retiring, and told mum that 'back in the old days' she would have sat me down, put her arm around me, given me a cuddle and wiped away my tears. But she wasn't allowed to do that now for fear of repercussions. The fear of parents complaining she had assaulted their child. My mum and dad, like most parents wouldn't even think of doing so. They would be grateful she was concerned about their little boy rather than just ignoring him but there's always the odd one, the parent who doesn't think the same way. The irrational ones, perhaps hoping to get some financial reward, or they were just the type of person who liked causing trouble.
Anyway, that's nothing to do with the story just me rambling on about something I never realised until I was older. When you're small and think the world is magical everything is different from when you're older and your naivety has long gone.
Strangely, that bite began a friendship we both thought was going to last forever. We lived not far from each other, hardly surprising when we were at the same school, and like all little angels we spent more and more time together both at school and in each other's homes. As time went by our parents became friends and we went out for the day as two families. Our favourite place was a lake just a few miles away, less than thirty minutes in the car, and we had joint family picnics. We threw stones in the water watching them skip over the shiny surface and, once after it had rained, couldn't resist running through some puddles and getting absolutely muddied up. That didn't go down well and we both had to sit on towels on the drive home.
We swore eternal friendship and told everyone we were going to be married when we were old enough. But then the world changed and not for the better. Her parents announced they were leaving. Her dad had been promoted and he had to work at the head office two hundred miles away. It might as well have been on the moon. I was devastated. At ten years old my life had fallen apart. We promised we would keep in touch, her mum and dad said they would send their new address as soon as they'd found a house but it never arrived. It was in the days before email and perhaps the letter got lost. Who knows? But I never forgot her.
I discovered a desire to read and, not surprisingly, my favourite subjects at school were English language and literature. I didn't go to university, my parents couldn't afford to send me, but after leaving college I was fortunate to get a job as a junior, very junior, reporter on a local newspaper. I stopped making the tea when the editor realised I had a talent for writing and it wasn't long before, at his recommendation, I got offered a job on a national newspaper. One of those examples of being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right person.
Like many people, particularly journalists, I'd always had the fantasy of writing a best seller. Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime but was only three years, the big day arrived. I sent my manuscript off to a publisher. The weeks went by and then the letter arrived with the publisher's name on the envelope. I eagerly tipped it open, desperate to read the good news, and then sat down. Completely deflated. The black words I had never expected to read jumped from the scrap of white paper I held in my hand. "We are sorry to say..." The further I read the more blurred it became. I didn't have the energy to be angry. All I could do was sit in my chair, staring at the blank screen of my laptop in front of me as if, magically, the words "your story had been accepted for publication" would appear. I've never been a big drinker but I swear, if there had been a bottle of whisky handy I would have downed it all without a problem.
After everyone at work, and others, knowing I was trying to write a best seller how could I tell anyone I'd failed? The weeks went by and I went for a haircut. I'd been going to this ladies hairdresser for a couple of years and had got used to the stares which had got less as the regular female customers had got used to seeing me every few weeks. You might ask why a ladies hairdresser and the answer is because I'd got fed up with going into men's hairdressers and coming out with a different haircut every time.
One day I had walked past this ladies hairdresser and saw they did men's hair as well. It had taken a little courage, quite a lot of courage actually, to walk in and have all those female faces, staff and customers, look at me as if I was from outer space, or so it seemed at the time.
"I see you do men," I said, realising as soon as the words were out of my mouth what a stupid statement. The receptionist smiled, not smirked, at the unintended innuendo. "Could I book an appointment, please?"
"Of course, you can," she replied, "but Donna is free now if that's convenient?"
Five minutes later I was in the chair, staring at myself in the mirror, draped in the usual gown, and seeing Donna behind me wielding the scissors and comb. We chatted away with the usual silly stuff you do in that situation and for some reason I told her about my book and it being rejected. When she asked how long ago, and I told her several weeks, she wanted to know why I hadn't submitted it to another publisher and I told her I couldn't see the point. If one publisher rejected it then the others would as well. She asked me if I'd ever heard of a writer called J.K. Rowling and I thought '
what a stupid question."
Who hasn't heard of J.K. Rowling? She asked me if I knew Harry Potter had been rejected by umpteen publishers before being accepted. Don't give up, she said. Send your book to every publisher you know and see what happens. I did and, a few weeks later, after reading one rejection after another, the golden letter arrived. I now have three best sellers to my name. Well, not my name because a more established writer had the same name so I had to use a pseudonym.
Life was good. I bought myself a
nice house
in a
nice suburb
of a
nice town
. I had some
nice
girlfriends, none of whom I wanted to settle down with but I enjoyed shagging them, and they seemed to enjoy being shagged by me, so that okay with them and me. In fact, everything about my life was
