“Umm, yes. Why do you ask?” Yoli looked at Schooner with a “Where did that come from?” look.
“I guess everyone is on it, but me. How does it work? Can everyone see what you say on there or can you talk to someone privately?” It was time to get schooled.
“Ok, well you set up your profile and your own page, known as your wall and then you friend people. If you write something as your “status,” it goes on your wall and all the people you friend can see it. Same thing if you write on their wall. But if you just want one person to see your conversation, you can private message them and then the conversation is only between the two of you.”
“Ok, good,” he nodded.
“So you want to go on Facebook?” Yoli was surprised.
“I’m thinking about it.” Schooner tried to keep pokerfaced.
“No. No. No. No. No. Don’t you play that game with me, Schooner. All of the sudden you want to go on Facebook and you want to know about sending private messages. Spill it!”
He sat back in his chair and tapped his forefingers against his lips, wondering how to start this conversation. Or if he even should. But it was the only thing he could think about since Beau had brought her up on Saturday night. He couldn’t get her out of his head — not even for a second. And Yoli was truly the only person he could trust enough to confide in.
“When I was in college, there was this girl. Her name was Mia,” he smiled. “You guys would have been best friends. Oh my God, you would have loved each other. Anyway, I was crazy in love with her and I thought she was in love with me, too. We were supposed to spend the summer together and then she just disappeared. I mean literally, disappeared. I went back to her room after my last final. We were supposed to hang out together that day until she left for the airport and when I got there she was gone. No note. Nothing. And we had been like living together up until that point. And she just freaking disappeared and never came back to school. Gone. Without a trace.”
“I thought you were with CJ all through college?” Yoli looked puzzled.
“Well, except when I was with Mia. I left CJ for Mia. Oh man, did CJ hate Mia.”
“Maybe CJ killed her.” Yoli’s eyebrows shot up in mock horror.
Schooner laughed, “Don’t think that hadn’t crossed my mind.” He took a sip of his latte and shook his head. “So anyway, at the party Saturday night, my old college roommate Beau Gordon …”
“Pee Wee Herman?” Yoli interrupted.
“Yes, Pee Wee Herman.” Schooner laughed, “Beau and I start talking about this thing that happened freshman year and he asks me who the girl was that was with us and I tell him it was Mia and then he tells me that he just had a fight with Mia on Scott Morgan’s Facebook page.”
“Scott Morgan, the advertising guy?”
“Yeah, he went to our school. I didn’t even know Mia knew him. I mean he’s really kind of a random person to be in touch with.”
Yoli’s palms were up in the air, “So have you looked her up on Facebook yet?”
“No, I don’t even know how.”
She got up to come around to his side of the desk, “You are so useless. What would you do without me?”
Schooner leaned his head into her arm, “I’d be lost.”
“That’s for shit sure! Ok, let’s see if we can look at Scott Morgan’s page and his friend list without you being on Facebook yet. It’s going to depend on what he’s got his privacy settings on. Let’s Google him first because there are probably a lot of Scott Morgan’s.” She continued to punch away on his keyboard. “Ok, bingo, here he is. Let’s hope he doesn’t have his settings private.”
Schooner could feel his stomach knot. He was so close to finding Mia — after all this time. Yoli might just be a few keystrokes away. He could feel his hands shaking. Just knowing he was so close to finding her still had such a profound physical effect on him.
“Thank you, Scott! Ok, here is his Facebook page. He’s got 319 friends and we are looking for Mia who?”
“Mia Silver.”
“Ok, let’s put that in search. Bingo. Is that your Mia?” She turned to him.
He sat back in his chair and let out a long, slow exhale. He nodded his head, because he couldn’t speak and when his voice finally came out, it was choked and cracking, “Yeah. That’s my Mia.”
Yoli punched him in the arm, “Shit, she’s cute. I’d do her.”
He laughed.
Mia, all grown up. She looked the same, just older, more mature. Still so pretty. No glasses now and the wild curls were now soft shoulder-length waves with long dark bangs hanging in her eyes. He wanted to reach into the picture and push them from her eyes. He realized he was sitting there smiling at her picture and Yoli was standing there smiling at him.
“Talk about the antithesis of OC women.” Yoli observed. “So are you going to just sit there and stare at her picture all day long.”
“Yeah, I just might”
“Ok, shove over. Let’s get you on Facebook.” She began tapping away again. “We need a picture of you.” She went around to the other side of the desk and picked up her cell phone. “Smile. No. No. No. Don’t give me that bullshit male model smile. Think of Holly looking at the Housewives like they were aliens.” And she snapped the picture. “Perfection! If I do say so myself. Ok, am emailing this to you and then we are going to attach it to your profile. Done,” she came back around the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. “You are now officially on Facebook. Ready to send her a friend invite?”
“What if she doesn’t answer or doesn’t accept it?” Yoli was shocked to see the ancient serpent of rejection rearing its ugly head in a man she knew to be in control and extremely confident in all he did, especially in his dealings with women.
“Well she definitely won’t answer if you don’t send it.” Yoli’s hands were on her hips.
Schooner just stared at the screen. What if she didn’t want him to find her? He was looking at her. He was looking at Mia. There she was. There she was. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the beautiful ombre green eyes on his computer screen.
“You really loved her.” Yoli said, softly.
Schooner nodded his head. “I really loved her.”
And with that admission spoken aloud, he pushed the Send Friend Request button.
BOOK TWO
MIA
CHAPTER 1
“Could today get any freaking worse?” Mia rhetorically asked her assistant, Seth Shapiro. She raked her hand through her hair, while staring at her computer screen. “I can understand losing a client because we didn’t do a good job, because we didn’t deliver. But because his daughter got engaged to some guy who works for a competitor? Do we need to start pimping out our staff? Because I am not above pimping out our staff.” Mia was on a tear. “Fuck!”
“Kami thinks you’re going to fire her.” Seth looked a little scared of Mia at the moment.
“That’s ridiculous. She’s done everything to keep these assholes happy. This is not the way she deserves to lose this account.” Mia pulled up a spreadsheet on her computer. “This really hurts our cash flow.” Seth had been Mia’s right hand since before she started the agency — there was no aspect of the business that she didn’t confide details with him, which is why they made such a great team.
“Do not make me give up my massages.” Seth glared at Mia in the way only an over the top queen can.
“Don’t worry, Princess, we won’t be eating cat food for another few months, yet,” she sneered back at him. “Do you have the latest weekly sales pipeline?” Seth handed Mia the report, she tapped the page a few times with her index finger and then dialed an extension, putting the call on speakerphone.
“Hey Boss,” the voice came through the phone.
“Hey Dave, so how far away are we from automating that new work from American Express? Give me worst case scenario,” she and Seth looked at each other, holding their breath.
“Well, you know what they’re like with the endless conference call
s and doing everything by committee, but their IT guy and I have been kind of doing our own thing. So I’d say worst case is live traffic in 6 weeks.” Mia fist pumped the air and mouthed a silent “YES” to Seth.
“Excellent, Dave. You made my day!”
He laughed on the other end, “I thought that might make you happy and I’ll step it up even more to see if we can be live in four to five weeks. I know what a hole we’ve now got after today’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, bullshit is right.” Mia agreed, “I’m going to start pimping out the staff. It’s the only answer,” she kidded.
“Count me in, Boss. Pimp me anytime.”
Mia laughed, “That’s why I love this staff, Seth.”
“Ho!” Seth yelled at Dave.
“Damn right, I get the job done,” he kidded back.
They disconnected the call and Mia looked at Seth, “Ok, let’s plan on two months of it being tight. I don’t want to stop the sales team from selling, but expenses need to be kept down until we have the additional cash flow from AmEx.”
“Memo or staff meeting?” Seth asked.
“Staff meeting — let’s do this face-to-face and get Kami in here first. I need to talk to her before she slits her wrists and bleeds out all over her office.” Mia smiled at Seth, “Monday’s suck!”
Two hours later, a drained Mia and Seth sat in her office alone again. “I’m glad we did the meeting, Mia. They were all freaking about losing their jobs.”
“The last thing I want to do is lay off people. We have never had to lay off anyone. I will give up my salary if we need to make payroll.” Seth loved working with Mia. She had built a small ad agency that was more like a wonderful dysfunctional family than a place of business and Mia saying she would give up her salary not to lay off people was not just empty words and he knew it. That was the ethos of the organization and precisely why Mia’s staff would run through walls for her.
She looked at her watch and smiled, “I bet the turkeys are out of the oven at the deli.” She went to get her purse out of her drawer and Seth stopped her.
“Sit down. Let me run down and get you a sandwich. Am sure this morning put you way behind schedule. Turkey on rye with Russian dressing and an Iced Tea?”
“Yes, thank you. Put your lunch on my card, too,” she handed him her Gold Card.
“Shall I close your door?” Mia nodded, as he headed out.
Thank God for Seth, she thought. If anyone could keep her life in order and keep her on track, it was Seth. Anal, persnickety, bitchy as all hell, incredibly loyal and very competent. He was her rock as well as her personal fashion police, making sure that her somewhat BoHo style was always trendy and chic.
Mia took a swig from a bottle of water on her desk and thought, today has sucked and it’s only lunchtime on Monday. Please don’t get any worse, I’ve had enough already.
She woke up her sleeping computer screen, clicked her email icon and started to scan her email. Geez — in just a few hours fifty-seven unread new emails — Junk, junk, junk, deal with later, delete, delete, delete, Business Journal, NYTimes alert, junk, Advertising Age, Facebook friend request from Schooner Moore …
Facebook friend request from Schooner Moore.
She just stared at the email subject line, her heart racing, the air in the room disappearing. Breathe, Mia, breathe, she consciously told herself. Facebook friend request from Schooner Moore. Ho-ly Shit! She opened the email.
She looked at the little block with the confirm button. Schooner had sent this. This day was getting stranger by the minute.
Schooner had sent this. He had sent this to her. Ho-ly shit!
Mia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to still her thoughts, but every cell in her body was in overdrive and each and every one of those cells, including the ones in both her head and her heart (which rarely agreed), were in perfect harmony.
Mia hit confirm.
CHAPTER 2
Holy shit. Schooner just friended me, Mia was astounded.
She quickly logged onto Facebook and went to her friends list. There he was, she clicked his name and went to his page. He had one friend. She was his first and only friend. Holy shit.
She clicked on the picture and it came up full sized and she heard herself gasp. She was looking at Schooner. He was smiling at her. His real smile. He was a grown man now. Still so handsome. She could see the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. Those beautiful clear eyes. She realized she was smiling at her computer screen. She also realized there were tears in her eyes and her throat had tightened. In her mind, he had always been nineteen. Not this man she was looking at. But this was Schooner. This stranger, who was not quite a stranger, was Schooner.
She heard the ding and the message screen popped up.
Schooner: Mia, are you there?
Mia: Yes
Schooner: What’s your phone #?
She just stared at the screen. Her hands were shaking. Literally shaking.
Schooner: Mia, what is your phone #?
Wow. He was forceful.
She typed in her cell number, with badly trembling hands and hit send. A nanosecond later, her cell phone rang, the display portraying a number with a 949 area code, she realized she was somehow expecting a 714 area code. Their old area code. Times had changed.
“Hi,” she tried to keep her voice even, but it came out breathy.
“Hi,” it was his voice. A little more mature sounding. But it was Schooner.
She knew it was her turn to speak next, social grace’s would dictate a “How are you?” but she had paused for a moment and he jumped right in, this time his voice hoarse and tight, “Why did you leave me?”
Wham to the solar plexus. She literally was thrown back in her chair. The air momentarily knocked out of her.
“You told her what happened to me.” They both knew to whom she was referring.
“No. I never told her. Mia, I never told her anything,” his voice was adamant. “Did she tell you I told her?” She could hear the tension crackling off his voice.
“Schooner, it was a long time ago.” Mia could feel the pain, as if it were yesterday, and she didn’t want to revisit it.
“Mia, I didn’t tell her. I never would have betrayed you that way. All I ever wanted to do was protect you. And I didn’t know why you left me. I never knew why you left me. But I swear, I never, ever told her.”
They were both silent, clearly equally reeling from one another’s revelations.
He was the first to speak again, “If she told you that she knew, then she was bluffing and she played you.” Mia let out an involuntary sob and he paused and then sighed, “Holy Fuck,” as if he’d come to some huge realization. Mia thought she was going to be sick.
“Please believe me, Mia. You know all I wanted to do was protect you.”
And with those words, it all came flooding back. Now with twenty-four years of hindsight, Mia finally realized that she had been played, and CJ had gotten the knee jerk reaction out of her that she had intended. Mia had played right into her hands and the enormity of the ramifications of how it had changed her life and how she had hurt Schooner came down on her with a weight so heavy she thought her chest was going to cave in.
She started to cry, “Oh my God, Schooner, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. Oh my God.”
“Do you believe me?” His voice was soft.
“Yes,” she managed between sobs, “I do.”
She heard him sigh.
“Schooner, how do I begin to apologize for being an immature sixteen year old, for not trusting you, for believing what she said. I am so, so sorry I hurt you.”
“Shhh, don’t Baby Girl. You were a victim in this, too. What she did was malicious with the intent to hurt you and to put an end to us. And my whole freaking life has been based on a lie.” She could hear the anger in his voice and it was then Mia realized that Schooner had married CJ and her tears began anew. She won. She fucking won. She played a dirty game and won.
There was a soft knock on her door and Seth peeked in. She motioned for him to come in and he put the bag with her lunch on her desk. His eyes telegraphing alarm at coming in and seeing her so distraught.
“Schooner, my assistant just came in and I’ve got to prep for a 2 o’clock meeting.”
“Schooner?” Seth mouthed. “Schooner?” and muttered “Are you talking to a boat?”
“What time are you up until at night?”
“I’m kind of a night owl, usually between midnight and one.”
“Mia, are you going to answer the phone when you see my number come up?” His voice was very soft.
“Yeah.”
“Say it, Mia.” His voice more forceful.
“I will answer your calls, Schooner.” Seth was looking at her, brows knit in a “what’s going on here” look.
“You promise?”
She smiled, “Yes. I promise.”
“Ok, I will call you later.”
“Ok.”
“Mia. It’s really good to hear your voice.”
And that caused another sob to escape. “It’s really good to hear your voice too, Schooner,” She replied, softly.
“I’ll talk to you later, Baby Girl.” A torrent of tears flowed from her eyes at his final two words.
“Ok. Bye,” and she hung up her phone.
Seth sat there looking at her, completely speechless.
“Am sure I look lovely,” she smiled at Seth, wiping her running nose on the sleeve of her sweater.
“Schooner?”
“Schooner.”
“First off, who names their kid Schooner? Is this some WASP thing?”
“Might be.” Mia laughed, tears still running down her face.
“Was he totally teased for being named Schooner?” Seth was obsessing over Schooner’s name.
“No. Not at all. It totally fit him. Am sure there’s a generation of little Schooner’s out there born to women who were crushing on him.”
“So who is he and why were you crying hysterically?” He unwrapped her turkey sandwich for her and put the straw in her Iced Tea and slid them across the desk to her.
Searching for Moore Page 13
