Fast Forward: A heart-warming and laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

1. Birthday Girl

“Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.” – Emily Dickinson

I can’t helpthat I’m beautiful. There – I’ve said it.

I’m not saying I’m God’s Gift or anything, I’m just being honest. I won big in the genetic lottery, so of course I’d try to make a career out of it. Why should I apologise to my sister for my success? Just because I scored a modelling contract with the city’s most prestigious agency, an apartment overlooking the park and the most gorgeous boyfriend in the world, does not make me a –

“… selfish, conceited cow!” as she put it, storming out of The Lava Bar during my pre-birthday speech about how good my life was turning out. I didn’t even get to finish!

Growing up as a teenager, all Kasey wanted was to fit in with my friends and be one of the gang, despite being two years younger and having more in common with the seven-year-old bug-collecting boy from next door. You wouldn’t know by looking at us that we’re sisters. I was tall, slim, with glossy black hair and a well-proportioned face, whereas she was vertically challenged, had an unruly mop on her head from an unfortunate perm and was… how could I say it? A little… pudgy… to put it nicely. I loved my sister of course, but sometimes her jealous outbursts drove me mad!

As Kasey stomped heavily out the door, I went to dash after her but a hand grasped my forearm.

“Forget it, Kelli, there’s no use going after her, it’ll only end in a huge fight as always,” said Selena, a fellow model with The Goldberg Agency, face of Mystique Cosmetics and my best friend for the past three years.

“She’s right. Just leave her be.” My boyfriend and highly sought-after photographer, Grant Mills, tucked an escaped strand of hair back behind my ear.

I sat on a chair and fiddled with the straw in my empty glass. “Okay, I’ll talk to her when she’s calmed down. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if she boycotts my birthday party tomorrow night.”

“Are you kidding?” A wide-eyed Selena plonked her almost empty margarita down on the table and a drop of liquid splashed on my hand. “I doubt she’d miss a chance to rub shoulders with Max Sheldon. She’ll be there, you wait and see.”

She was probably right. Kasey had been at me for weeks about Max, asking if he had a girlfriend and whether he liked going snorkelling or bird-watching in his spare time. I could be wrong, but something told me the Max I knew – the most popular underwear model in the country, who held no modesty about his blessed DNA – was more likely to be found working on his tan than going snorkelling, and watching different kinds of birds behind his two-thousand-dollar sunglasses.

Grant’s warm hand squeezed my shoulder. “Anyway, don’t let your sister ruin your birthday celebrations, how about another round of drinks? Champagne all round, I say.” Without waiting for our agreement, he walked up to the bar.

Selena leaned forward over the table and curled her finger in a ‘come here’ gesture. “I’m so glad I can finally speak to you alone,” she said.

“What is it?”

I leaned closer and she whispered in my ear. “I saw Grant go into DSJ yesterday.”

“DSJ, seriously?” They’re only the most expensive jewellers in the city, specialists in diamond rings.

“Uh-huh.” Selena nodded with a twinkle in her eye. “I couldn’t see what he was doing, but he did come out of the store with a small gold bag.”

My hand flew to my mouth and then rested on my friend’s arm. “Do you think it means…”

“That he’s going to propose – yes!” Selena bounced in her chair. “I bet he does it at your party!”

“Oh wow! I can’t believe it. I mean, of course I’ll say yes and…”

Selena leaned back in her chair as Grant returned, carrying a tray of champagne flutes with their bubbling gold liquid and I forced myself to act naturally, smiling as he handed me a drink. “Thanks, honey.”

“So, have you decided whether to go to your school reunion on Saturday?” Selena asked.

“No, didn’t I tell you? Grant’s taking me for a weekend away as a birthday present. Besides, I’d rather leave those old school days behind.” Grant draped his arm around me and I nestled myself into his side, revelling in the warm leathery scent and hint of citrus in his aftershave, Fahrenheit by Dior, which I bought him last Christmas.

“A weekend away is more enticing than a school reunion.” Selena winked. “Especially as it’ll be a good way to celebrate the…” she paused as my eyes warned her not to let the cat out of the bag. Her mouth was known to be as big as her paycheck. “… milestone of your twenty-fifth birthday!” She nodded briefly and downed a gulp of champagne.

After the third round of drinks and another hour of chatting and dancing, we called it a night. It wasn’t worth having a shocking hangover the day of the real party.

“Don’t forget this, babe.” Grant handed over my silk scarf that I’d taken off to fling around during an episode of enthusiastic dancing.

“Thanks, honey.” I hooked the scarf around his neck and pulled him in close, planting a hungry kiss on his lips.

We walked out of the bar and into the balmy night air, stained with the stench of inner city pollution. Car exhausts spat out their fumes and passers-by puffed cigarette smoke from their lungs. The eyes of a homeless woman pleaded with mine as we walked past her on the sidewalk, her petite frame encumbered by a worn-out men’s jacket from the seventies, her nipples visible through a thin fraying singlet. I diverted my eyes from her uncomfortable gaze but then glanced back. I took a few loose coins from my purse and walked over, placing them in her hands. As though unable to speak, she nodded her thanks and squeezed my hand.

“Why’d you do that?” Grant asked when I returned to his side. “She’s likely to just spend it on booze or drugs.”

I shrugged. “Maybe she’s hungry and she could sure do with a change of clothes.” And her eyes reminded me of my mother’s. I recognised that desperate stare too well.

“Here.” Grant withdrew something from his wallet. “You don’t know where her hands have been.”

He held out a sanitisation wipe and I flicked my hand. “Oh, I don’t think it’s necessary. There are probably worse germs in the bar we’ve just been to.” But at my boyfriend’s insistence I took the wipe and slid it over my hands before tossing it in a nearby bin. It was nice that he wanted to protect me, despite an invisible and possibly non-existent threat.

“Quick, there’s a taxi letting people out over the road, let’s catch it,” Grant urged, tugging on my hand and stepping out onto the road.

An engine revved and the screech of car tires stung my ears as a black Holden spun around the corner. “Grant, watch out!” I yanked his arm, just as the car sped past. He toppled backwards onto me and I lay panting on the sidewalk, my hands clutching his body.

“Whoa, that was close.” Grant remained still, his expression stunned.

“Oh my God! That idiot driver! He could have killed you!” I clung tighter to Grant as we stood back up, moving as one body.

“But he didn’t. I’m okay, don’t worry,” Grant said, and he resumed walking while I remained stuck to the spot. “Kel, you coming?”

Visions of Grant sprawled on the road, thick dark blood oozing from his broken body flashed in my mind. I shook my head at the disturbing visual and at the thought of my dream man suddenly vanishing from my life.

“Are you all right, babe?”

“It’s just… you could have died,” I replied. “And I just wondered… what would I do without you?”

“Well, unless the universe has something against me, you won’t ever have to find out.” He smiled as he slid an arm around my waist and we walked over to a taxi pulled up on our side of the road.

My eyes strained to open and my body struggled to move the next morning, but the need to use the bathroom won out. Eyes half-closed, I stumbled out of bed and headed for the en suite. It seemed further away than usual, but eventually I got there. My body ached with an unfamiliar heaviness, but I’d only had three drinks. It didn’t make sense. Maybe at twenty-five the human body suddenly becomes less capable of holding its liquor or something.

A shower. That’s what I needed to wake me up. I lifted off my nightgown and went to turn on the shower, but it wasn’t where it should be. It was in a different corner. Weird. Inching my eyes open a little further I noticed that everything was different.

This wasn’t my bathroom!

Had I slept at someone else’s house last night? No, I distinctly remembered crawling into my bed at eleven forty-five, after washing my face and applying Age-Proof Smoothing Serum. So where the hell was I?

My eyes darted around the strange bathroom and the even stranger contraption on the wall of the shower. There was also a device against the far wall that resembled a giant hand-dryer, large enough to fit a person. I looked in the mirror and saw the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life staring back at me. Wrinkles… a ton of them.

Crow’s feet, laughter lines, forehead furrows and… Oh. My. God. Were there wrinkles on… my lips? I squinted and leaned closer to the mirror. If that wasn’t bad enough, I even had a few rogue hairs on my chin and a neck that looked like a turkey’s. Plus, no longer did my hair resemble a silky black cascading waterfall, but instead a burnt-out forest with pathetic little branches of smoky-grey hairs poking out from my scalp. This had to be a nightmare! Yes, that must be it. I’d had one drink too many last night and now I was paying the price.

But it feels so real!Maybe someone spiked my drink. I didn’t know how, but it was possible. I bet it was that creepy dude hiding behind his phone at the table nearby. Probably filmed me too, the jerk. I bet I’m being viewed on YouTube as we speak. And maybe it’s going viral and I’d be in tomorrow’s newspaper:

Exposed! Aspiring Supermodel Kelli Crawford Is An Alcoholic!

My hands cautiously touched the face that was me but wasn’t. I took a step back and then another, edging away from the nightmarish vision in the mirror. Until the cold edge of the bathtub collided with my legs. I fell backwards, knocking over some bottles. A glass vase fell to the floor with a high-pitched, splintering smash. Glass shards launched themselves up into the air like rockets, puncturing the skin on my left arm and dark red blobs of blood bulged out. “Ouch!” I winced, grasping my arm.

And then I saw something even scarier. In terror, I struggled to lift myself from the bath, flailing around naked like a fish out of water, falling back in twice – until I finally stood again at the mirror, my mouth gaping. I lowered my hands to my abdomen, lifting and prodding clumps of loose skin that felt like a bag of jelly.

What in the name of Dior happened to my flat stomach? Not only did I have a freaking jelly belly, my breasts drooped so far south they were practically residents of Antarctica!

There is no God.

Nope, this wasn’t a nightmare and I’m positive no one could have spiked my drink. This was real. I could feel it. Not to mention see it. Here I was; still me, but… old. And if the hideous vision before me was anything to go by, there was no way in hell I was turning around to look at my arse.

“What was that noise, did something break?” A man barged into the bathroom.

“Arghh!!” I instinctively covered myself as much as possible with my hands, cowering in the corner near the toilet, my eyes searching frantically for a towel. Why were there no towels in this bathroom? My nightgown, oh thank God! I picked it up and held it in front of me. “Get out of here!” I shooed him backwards like an annoying insect, but he kept coming towards me.

“What’s the matter, honey?” He glanced at the vase remnants on the floor and then at my arm, blood dripping from the wound. “Are you all right?” The brown-haired man eyed me with genuine concern. His skin oozed the spicy scent of an aftershave I didn’t recognise.

“I’m fine, go away!” He appeared perplexed at the continued shooing movements I made with my hands.

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And wish my wife a happy birthday, of course.” He leaned in for a kiss but I pushed him off, horror overtaking me.

Wife? I wasn’t his wife and this old guy certainly wasn’t my husband! Grant was supposed to be my husband. Well, after tonight’s inevitable proposal. Oh God, tonight! My birthday party. I couldn’t go looking like this!

A high-pitched jingling sound interrupted my thoughts and the man made a strange movement; pinching his watch with his thumb and forefinger and appearing to pull some invisible strand to his ear.

What was he doing?

“William speaking,” he said, as he walked out. Finally.

William? Who the heck was he and why was he saying I was his wife? This was all too weird. Dizzy, I held on to the wall as I racked my brain for an answer, a solution, anything to make sense of this… situation. William… his eyes looked kind of familiar and the way he walked out of the room, that bouncy stride. I’d seen him before… somewhere.

I know! I clicked my fingers. William McSnelly from my school days. Could it really be chubby-no-friends William McSnelly who never seemed to notice the multiple Kick Me Post-its stuck to his back? Wow, he’d actually turned out all right. Okay so he’s ancient, but for an old guy he’s not bad.

Wait… if I was married to William McSnelly, then that would make me… Oh God, no!

Kelli McSnelly. Shoot me now. I didn’t end up with McDreamy or McSexy, uh-uh. I ended up with McSnelly, or McSmelly as the kids at school used to call him. Me included… and now I was Mrs McSmelly.

Like a wilting plant my body softened, my hand slid down the wall and the nightgown escaped my grip. Instead of landing on the floor, my butt landed sharply on the cold toilet seat, the shock of it interrupting my Oscar-worthy fainting episode and causing me to stand up suddenly. I could hear William talking outside the door and when he said goodbye to whoever he was speaking to, I quickly picked my nightgown up off the floor and fed my head and arms through it.

“Kel, what’s going on?” William re-entered the bathroom that was beginning to feel like a prison. A cruel, although seemingly sanitary prison with no towels and weird mirrors that made me look old.

All I could do was shake my head in disbelief, my body soon following suit. My hands trembled and my breath came in short gasps. “Where am I? Why do I look so old?” William touched his hand to my shoulder and I flinched, although his touch seemed strangely comforting. “I don’t understand. Yesterday I was young and happy and now I’m an old shuddering mess!”

“C’mon, honey, you look great for your age. And you’re only fifty, don’t be so hard on yourself,” William said, rubbing my shoulder.

“Fifty?” I blurted, almost choking as the word launched from the slingshot of my voice box. “I’m not fifty! I’m supposed to be twenty-five!” I shook his hand away from my shoulder and he dropped it to his side. “Why aren’t I twenty-five?”

“Honey, it’s natural to feel emotional on a day like today. I mean who wouldn’t love to be twenty-five again?” William smiled. “But you’re still beautiful and today’s going to be great, especially tonight’s party. Come seven o’clock our house will fill with all the important people in your life. You must be looking forward to that?” He lifted my chin with his finger and I reluctantly met his gaze.

Looking forward? I wanted to go backward! Back to my real life and my real self, where I was only twenty-five and my stomach didn’t resemble my father’s beer belly. Soon they’d be calling me Kelli Jelly Belly McSmelly. Oh, how on earth did this happen? What the hell was going on? I can’t take this anymore!

“Where’s Grant? I need Grant!” I said, shoving his hand away.

“Grant? Who’s… oh, surely you don’t mean Grant, your ex?”

“Yes. No! I mean, he’s not my ex!”

“Honey, you haven’t had anything to do with him since we started dating twenty-five years ago.” William’s expression changed to a frown. “Or, have you?”

“Twenty-five years ago? But Grant and I… we… he was supposed to propose to me on my birthday.”

“Kelli, you broke off your relationship with him, remember?”

“I did?” It’s quite possible I’d gone mad.

William nodded. “But I proposed and you said yes. And here we are, still happily married after almost a quarter of a century.”

Okay, Kelli, just breathe. In… and… out. There had to be some explanation for all of this. Think! Maybe I’d had a bump to the head and have amnesia. That could be it. I’d simply lost all memories from the last twenty-five years. Yes, I could have fallen in the bathroom and sustained a head injury. I did remember falling, although that was after I noticed I’d become old. Maybe it happened yesterday, as in my forty-nine-year-old yesterday and now I’d lost my memory. But my head didn’t hurt or anything.

I walked over to the dreaded mirror again, but failed to see any suspicious bruise or lump. It must have happened before. Maybe I woke up as my normal twenty-five-year-old self on my birthday and had some sort of accident then. And maybe William was the paramedic or doctor who treated me, and I fell in love with him because he looked after me. But Grant would have looked after me, wouldn’t he? Time I pulled myself together and asked some questions.

“Um, William?”

“Yes?”

“Have I ever had any sort of accident, perhaps a head injury of some kind?” I asked feebly.

“No,” he replied, confusion and concern meshed together on his face. “Why, do you feel sick or something? Are you having a bad headache, is that it?”

“No, my head’s fine, I just…” Geez, I felt like Drew Barrymore’s character in Fifty First Dates and William was Adam Sandler, humouring me in my unfortunate condition so I didn’t lose the plot. Hmm, a bit too late for that… but anyway. “I just feel like time has caught up with me, that’s all. Life seems to have gone by so fast.” If I played along and kept it together, maybe this terrible morning would somehow go away and I’d be transported back to my normal life.

I needed a shower. I’d close my eyes and focus on the water and my fifty-year-old self would wash away and when I opened my eyes I’d be twenty-five again. Worth a shot.

Except the shower had no faucets and I didn’t have any idea how to turn the bloody thing on. “I think I’ll feel better after a shower. William, er… honey, can you take a look at the shower thingy? I think it needs fixing.”

This seemed to please William, as he rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the contraption on the wall. “Let’s have a look.” He pressed a few buttons and waved his hand under the diamond-shaped showerhead, and the second time he did so, water streamed from the tiny holes. “Works fine,” he said.

“Could you try turning it off for me too, just to test it?”

He pressed a button on the top side of the contraption and the water flow came to an abrupt halt. “That works fine too.” He smiled and turned towards the door. “See you in the kitchen for breakfast.”

“Wait!” I lunged at him. “Could you turn it on again, you know, to save you having to come back in, just in case it plays up again?”

“Anything for the birthday girl.” William repeated his earlier process and this time I watched him like a hawk. He pressed one button on each of the three rows and a red button in the middle, then waved his hand twice under the showerhead.

Got it. I think. Well, hopefully I’d be out of here soon and wouldn’t have to use this thing again.

When William closed the bathroom door behind him, I took my rather confused nightgown off again and stepped under the stream of water. The pressure and warmth soothed my skin and for a while I felt like my old self. I mean my young self. I imagined being in my own shower in my own apartment, looking forward to my twenty-fifth birthday party at the hippest restaurant in the city, followed by a beautiful speech from Grant and culminating in his proposal by which I’d look completely surprised, and accept the DSJ engagement ring with a resounding yes!

Pleased with my visualisation attempt, I opened my eyes and prepared to say a silent thank you to the universe upon seeing my familiar bathroom and youthful face in the mirror. Instead, I said a few not-so-silent profanities upon seeing the same unfamiliar bathroom that was fast becoming my least favourite place in the world.

I thumped my fist on the button on top of the shower contraption, stopping the water flow, and stepped out of the shower. Clamping my lips tightly together to stop from screaming, I crept towards the mirror, knowing all too well what would greet me.

The same crow’s feet I’d seen before that framed my eyes like a broken fence around a dilapidated old house. Damn!

The same laughter lines formed an arc around my mouth, looking more like remnants of inconsolable sobbing. Bugger!

Lip wrinkles, a saggy neck and forehead furrows that have turned my face into a landscape rivalling The Andes mountain ranges. Crap!

And of course, the piece de resistance; Kelli’s jelly belly. Yep, despite my impressive visualisation, I’m still fifty!

Damn. Bugger. Crap. Multiplied by ten.

Desperate to dry off and cover my hideous body, I automatically reached for a non-existent towel. Having run out of expletives, I simply said, “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

Standing with my hands on my hips, I examined the giant hand-dryer thingamajig and tilted my head to the side, furrowing my already furrowed brows. It must be used in place of towels, there’s no other possible explanation. I prodded and poked the machine tentatively but nothing happened, so I inched myself between the two parts of the machine, hoping it wasn’t some kind of vice that would squish my body into oblivion. Although, on second thoughts…

“How do I turn it on?” I asked myself out aloud and at that moment, jets of warm air pushed against my front and back. Reflexively I shut my eyes and mouth. After a few seconds it stopped, my body completely dry. Maybe this bathroom wasn’t so bad after all.

Anxious to finally get some clothes on, I opened the door a fraction, checking to see if the coast was clear. I tiptoed into the unfamiliar bedroom and pulled back a sliding door. The good news was an array of clothing hung from a rack, so I’d be able to put a long overdue end to my nakedness. The bad news was I wouldn’t be caught dead in most of the outfits. Who would wear such things? Well, me obviously. But surely my fifty-year-old taste couldn’t be that bad? I was a fashion model for Christ’s sake! I knew what’s hot and what’s not, and this stuff wasn’t even lukewarm.

So I had three choices:

1. Remain naked.

2. Put my nightgown back on.

3. Suck it up and wear one of the outfits.

As my stomach grumbled for food and my nose detected a faint smell of something good cooking, I stepped into a coral-coloured starched skirt in which the hem ended halfway down my calves before turning upwards into a revolting curved abomination and looking like a baby catch-all bib. The matching top was just as bad, its hem curving upwards too, but if the need arose at least I’d have a place to store snacks. Or Valium.

Now desperately hungry and looking like a middle-aged Oompa-Loompa, I followed the smell out of the bedroom, down a hallway and into a kitchen, where William sat at the bench sipping from a mug. If he was there, then who was cooking?

I looked towards the source of the delicious aroma and nearly threw up into my curved hems. A young man stood there in a pink apron. He was tall, with various pieces of metal jewellery adorning his pierced skin and his hair was jet black despite one hot pink streak falling loose from his mullet/Mohawk/ponytail thingy.

“Happy birthday, Mum!” he said, and for the second time that day I wilted to the floor.