The Road Trip Rewind

by Kate Tamberelli, Danny Tamberelli

Genres: Romantic Comedy; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Back to the Future meets 10 Things I Hate About You as the past, the present, and two hearts with unfinished business collide in the most epic, hilarious, and downright poignant way . . .

Up-and-coming screenwriter Beatrix Noel’s dream project is finally a reality—her 90s-era script is in production. Less dreamy is the A-list actor in the starring role—none other than Rocco Riziero, who jilted Beatrix on New Year’s Eve back in 1999. Without his celebrity status, the project would likely still be withering on her hard drive, but that doesn’t mean Beatrix won’t shame him at every opportunityon-set—especially when it becomes painfully obvious he doesn’t even remember her . . .

Boxed-in as a Hollywood pretty-boy, Rocco is thrilled to tackle a genuinely dramatic role. But he’s perplexed about why the screenwriter treats him like a maggot. And awkward becomes irksome when their bickering results in a car crash right outside the famed Roxy Theatre on Sunset Boulevard—site of the New Year’s Eve party where everything went wrong . . .

Shockingly, Beatrix, Rocco, and the car, are uninjured. The twist? They’re clearly, truly, somehow, still in December, still on Sunset—but in 1999. Their mission? They’ll have to work together to correct their old mistakes—which just might bring them closer than either expects . . .

But can they change the past without altering their future selves—and hold on to what they’ve found together? Only time-travel will tell . . .

Release date: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“I’m begging you,” Rocco says, voice thick with passion and his electric-blue gaze searing hot, even through the small monitor I’m pinned to behind the director’s chair.

God, I hate how fucking blue his eyes are.

Hate how outrageously, undeniably talented he is. Hate that he’s making me—of all people—believe every single word he’s saying on the set that so perfectly mirrors my childhood living room, down to the radioactively bright orange paisley curtains my mom had sewed herself and the highly coveted lumpy brown leather La-Z-Boy recliner we fought over on family movie nights, transporting me back to the most shameful moment of my life.

“You know me, sweetie,” he says after a loaded pause, a scratchy, hitched breath, “better than your own mother, probably. Better than anyone. You’re my daughter, but you’re also my best friend. You get me. I get you. Always have. So you know I couldn’t possibly have done this. I’m not a-a . . . monster.” His voice cracks as he says it, his whole being breaking, really, and he’s looking at her—Maisy Tanner, pop-tart teen YouTuber extraordinaire turned wannabe indie darling—with an intensity and desperation that has my heart racing and my knees shaking.

Shit.

I might have written the script for Murder in the Books myself, spent the last decade of my life obsessively planning and fighting for this very moment—but I am still wholly unprepared.

Because Rocco Riziero has somehow captured the memory, the moment, the feelings, with a clarity that shouldn’t be humanly possible for someone who never once met my father. Who didn’t stand in that living room with me and Dad the morning the original conversation happened, right before he was taken away.

The last day we’d ever spend at home together.

I know what line is coming next, of course I do. Not just because I wrote the script, but because it’s word for word what I said to him that day. Tempting to lie about it, to sugarcoat, make myself seem at least slightly more sympathetic. But no. I made a deal with myself when I started this project—all or nothing.

I decided on all. Truth. Very few details about the story were changed.

Only one very important piece.

One important person.

“I don’t know anything about you anymore,” Maisy says, her tone flat and empty and exactly as torturous as I’d hoped and dreaded it would be. The camera shifts toward her, closes in on her straight, dead-eyed gaze.

I’ll admit I’d had my doubts, many of them, when casting zeroed in on her. For starters, the video that shot her into the stratosphere of internet celebrity showcased her dancing in a pink tutu with a posse of matching pink poodles to that Carly Rae Jepsen song no one ever needs to hear again, capped off by her jumping into an alarmingly neon pink pool. Probably shaving a few years off her life with the chemicals involved to achieve that level of pinkness. But she’s surprised me from the first read through with her passion and dedication and genuine talent.

She’s surprised me almost as much as Rocco has, damn him. Who knew the chiseled overpaid asshole from Space Blasters and Pirate Kingdom could actually . . . act?

“I’m starting to think you might be just as fictional as those words you write all day up in your lair,” Maisy continues evenly, her calmness more sickening, more cruel than open-faced fury ever could be. I wish I had screamed. Cried. But no. I’d chosen this. “Or no,” she continues, “I have that all wrong, don’t I? Because maybe it’s all less fiction than I ever knew.”

“I didn’t—I could never . . .” Rocco crumples to his knees on cue. “I’m your father.”

I hold my breath, keep my eyes open, as much as I’m tempted to block the rest out.

“No. I don’t have a father anymore.”

Rocco lets out an inhuman wail, and there’s a knocking sound coming from off set, and I’m sinking, lower and lower, toward my assigned folding chair—my first ever on any set, a grand feat even if it does say “Writer” and not “Beatrix Noel”—then “Cut!” and applause and hoots all a rolling blur of noise threatening to knock me down to my knees, too.

I squeeze my eyes shut, force myself to breathe in and out, remind myself that I asked for exactly this. No complaints. No regrets.

I’m living my dream, aren’t I? Watching this movie come to life?

Even if that dream is currently treading into full-blown nightmare territory.

More so than ever, as my bubble of personal space is interrupted by—

“What do you think, Beatrix? Did that feel right?”

My eyes snap open to see Rocco standing over me, a nervous smile hovering on his too-perfect lips, parted just enough to show a small glimpse of his too-perfect teeth, bright against his lightly tanned white skin. Though, huh . . . it actually appears sincere, his need for my approval, his . . . self-doubt? An expression I wouldn’t have expected to ever have a home on his glossy A-list face. Though he’s paid millions of dollars to play pretend with emotions, so how can anyone know what’s real?

There’s a small crowd eagerly buzzing around him, as per usual, scrappy little bugs clinging to the brightest spotlight. Waiting to hear me fawn, so they can join in, too. One grand never-ending praise party for Rocco—that seems to be the way of things here on set. The way of his every day, wherever he may go, no doubt.

Which leads me to say, “You did fine, I suppose,” even if the honest answer would be, “You were fucking sensational, I’m not sure how you so perfectly captured the entire essence of that excruciating memory of mine without somehow traveling back in time to watch it all play out for yourself with those goddamn brilliant ocean-blue eyes of yours.”

Yes, very pleased I didn’t opt for the latter.

Though perhaps a middle ground would have been the best path, because Rocco visibly shrinks at my words, that smile now pulling tight across his sharp, stubbled jawline.

“Maybe,” he says, “I could ask Lanie to do it again another day? Take a beat to work through it more. Do you have any notes for me?”

There’s a pause, both of us openly staring at one another before I realize he’s waiting for me to answer. Like I have that kind of power on this set. I’m the writer, sure, and an executive producer, in a vague, performative kind of way, but this is Lanie’s show. Everyone knows that. Lanie Lea, the newly minted Academy Award–winning director who took a chance on a tiny indie film written by a tiny Hollywood nobody, and somehow managed to rope in Rocco fucking Riziero along the way. Against my initial wishes, though I didn’t put up much of a fight. The message from both the studio and Lanie had been crystal clear: having Rocco attached as the star meant a definite greenlight for Murder in the Books. Without him? “Hollywood can be so damn fickle, you know,” Lanie had said. So I’d gritted my teeth. Chosen the greenlight. Besides, it was about much more than just being made, in the long game. Because a name like Rocco’s—and this unexpected shift from his usual substance-free franchise blockbusters to a role requiring actual emotional heft—meant that beyond simply existing, people would actually know about this movie; they’d watch it, talk about it, write and read think pieces on it. That kind of attention—that success, if he continues to knock it out of the park the way he did today—is a fact I have to remind myself of every morning when I’m forced to plaster on a smile in Rocco’s direction.

He’s watching me still, studying my face with an intensity that only fuels my frustrations more.

I shrug, noncommittal, hoping I look at least marginally cool and breezy. “Maisy was such a star in that scene, it was hard to give anything else my full attention. You were . . . adequate, though, I suppose.”

“Adequate?” Rocco asks, his dark, neatly arched and plucked eyebrows furrowing in a dazed sort of surprise. I fight back a satisfied chuckle, as tempting as it is to unleash. A man like Rocco has surely had very few encounters with that word. Which means this jab qualifies as my Rocco victory for the day, an ongoing game he doesn’t know we’re playing—my passive aggressive pleasure project that keeps me pleasant enough on set. Well, pleasant enough to everyone besides Rocco, that is.

I nod then, slowly, like I’m not understanding his confusion. “As in, good enough. I don’t have notes, though it’s of course Lanie’s call. She’s the judge. So, you know, clap clap clap and all that jazz.”

“Clap clap clap?” Those brows furrow even deeper as he rakes a hand over his swoop of dark, tangled curls. Messier than he usually wears it, at least based on the glossy tabloid photos I see. But my dad’s hair was permanently wild and untethered, “the sign of any good writer worth their salt,” he’d always say in interviews, his hair the subject of frequent off-the-pages discourse.

“Yes, I’m applauding you.”

“I see. Wouldn’t want to tax those precious hands of yours—I know they’re needed for all the notes you’re continually scribbling away on the scripts. Mostly on mine, I’ve noticed. Maisy’s lines always seem perfect on the first go.” Oh yes, one of my favorite modes of victory so far, keeping him on his toes with last minute rewrites. Subtle ones, but enough to toy with his composure. “No smiley stickers or gold stars to reward me, though?”

“I wouldn’t have thought stickers would be a motivator for someone of your grand stature, but I’d be happy to pick some up tonight at the Dollar Tree if you’d like. Whatever it takes to keep the talent happy.”

He smiles then, in a slow and uncertain kind of way, a dimple flashing on each cheek.

Fuck those dimples.

A quiet cough interrupts our unpleasant little tête-à-tête, and it’s only then I glance up to see Lanie among the crowd of sycophants, wearing her usual uniform of black on black on black, each piece costing as much as my monthly rent, the only color popping from her fresh mermaid waves, teal and purple and pink. She has a less-than-enthused look on her pale white face. Rocco was her win, after all; she won’t let any of us forget it. Word had gotten out in the industry earlier this year that Rocco was on the market for a meaty indie role, something transformative, career defining. Lanie was first in line to nab him, or at least the most persuasive and persistent of contenders.

“I just mean,” I say, my lips turning up into a sugary sweet smile—I’d briefly been an actress, too, back in the day, though accidentally so—“that my dad was a . . . complicated man. Impossible for anyone to fully capture. You did as well as anyone could have, or at least anyone who never had the chance to meet him.”

“Ah,” Rocco says, though he appears unconvinced. “Okay then. But if you do think of any notes for that scene . . . let me know? I’m sure we could schedule a do-over if I grovel enough. It’s too important of a scene to mess up.”

“I won’t. Have notes, that is.”

“Er. Okay. Well, while we’re on topic, before we break for the holidays, I was—”

Lanie steps in between us, her obscenely large grin directed Rocco’s way. “You were fabulous up there. Just fabulous. Maisy, too, she hit her lines nicely enough, but you . . . my heart’s in shreds! I mean, when she says she doesn’t have a father anymore!” She clutches at her chest with both hands, that grin now a deep U of a frown. “Oh, Rocco, I felt every last ounce of that cruelty along with you. The vicious crushing pain, the thought of hearing those words from your own flesh and blood, your child . . .”

Wow, what the hell?

“Uh, hi, remember me,” I chime in, fluttering my hand in the air to remind everyone of the fact of my existence. “I wouldn’t say it was cruelty so much as raw honesty at the time. The story is a bit more nuanced than that, I should hope.”

“Mm, sure,” she says, barely looking my way, already back to Rocco. She puts a hand on his shoulder, ushers him away from the rest of us plebeians while continuing to gush at full speed, her only speed—there’s a reason she won her first little gold man at the age of thirty-three. Rocco turns back to look at me again as he goes, like there’s more he wants to discuss.

There’s nothing to say, though.

It’s not a lie; I don’t have any notes. He nails every line, including the hastily re-written ones. His performance is legitimately above all critique and reproach. He somehow embodies my father—every irritatingly complex layer of him: dad, husband, author, suspected murderer—with a perfection that is almost eerie, wholly uncanny for someone who only has my script and a handful of old interviews and court videos to inform him on my dad’s tone and vibe and mannerisms. Dad’s books, too, all ten apparently. Rocco was proud to report those efforts to me, back during the first meeting about the movie, that awful lunch at Nobu when Lanie announced he was our star. When she first “introduced” us.

As if I needed any introduction.

But Rocco . . .

“Stay cool, girlfriend,” a husky voice says quietly from behind.

I turn to see my best friend Sylvie Rodríguez staring down at me with a cocked brow, her bold purple lips pulled up into a pouty smile. That purple would make me look like an un-fresh corpse, but it’s fabulous with her warm-brown skin and freshly dyed hot-pink curls; her color palette changes weekly, but the end result of fabulousness is always the same. As one of the stars’ favored hair stylists, she’s massively lowering herself to head up hair and makeup on our set, but it’s a personal gift. She knows how much this movie means to me.

And how much her presence helps lower my blood pressure. Especially in moments like these, after too much face time with a certain leading man.

“Blurgh,” I mumble back and go in for a tight hug. She smells like peaches and cream, and as I breathe her in deep, I’m infinitely grateful all over again that she’s here, with me, helping bring my past to life. Because unlike everyone else on this set, Sylvie’s met my dad. We’d grown up in the same small town outside of Tucson. Casual friends back then, but everyone there knew William Noel. “I love you big-time, do you know that?”

“You better, for the pay cut I’m taking to do this gig.” She laughs, squeezing her arms around my shoulders even more tightly. “You got this, okay? Don’t let him ruffle you.”

“Mhm. Wanna get a drink tonight?”

“Can’t do it, girlfriend. I’m on my way out. Eden’s got me roped into a triple date with some work buddies.”

She pecks me on the cheek and slips away.

I check my phone. Eight o’clock. Time for me to leave, too. Go home for dinner and a very tall, very stiff drink.

One more day on set, I remind myself, the countdown that’s become a soothing mantra. And then—aside from a “not mandatory” (but of course totally mandatory) cast and crew party at Lanie’s palace in Brentwood next week—ten blissful Rocco-free days for the holidays.

“Thanks for the smooth ride, Delilah,” I mumble, tapping the steering wheel lovingly for a few beats after I finally park the car, only—I glance at the clock on the dash—an hour and twenty minutes after pulling out of the studio lot. Because: LA. I’ve had far worse times.

Delilah is my most loyal companion. My 2000 silver Jetta that’s carried me gracefully (more or less, minus a few minor bang ups and a handful of inordinately expensive repairs) through my entire adult life. She was the most luxurious gift I’d ever given myself, a reward for wrapping up my unexpected big acting role in the fall of ’99, Cutie Central—which scored a whopping eighteen percent on Rotten Tomatoes, thank you very much, but somehow still managed to snag top honors at the Teen Choice Awards. “Big” was perhaps . . . too lofty of a descriptor for the giggling, boy-band obsessed best friend of the lead, clocking in with a grand total of seventeen lines (“As if!” being three of the seventeen, a shameless Clueless knockoff), but at the very least it had felt like the start of something big. I’d just run off to LA, both desperate to be away from my hometown in Arizona and determined to hurl myself into the film industry. I’d always intended to be a writer—it was in my blood, had never felt like a choice—but needed to separate myself from my father. So I’d be different, a screenwriter, not an author. But no one just becomes a screenwriter, and I’d been prepared to pay my dues, so long as it didn’t involve skin-on-skin currency. Starting with a part-time job in craft services, courtesy of Sylvie—we’d stayed in touch after her post-graduation move to LA, and when she’d scored a job doing hair and make-up for Cutie Central, she’d worked her connections until she got me a spot on set, too.

There I’d been on my first day, little old Trixie Teller—I’d slashed Beatrix to Trixie, and co-opted my mom’s maiden name at the time, the more Hollywood and less infamous option—a nobody newbie rolling out a fresh selection of prepackaged desserts, chatting amiably about the merits of Rice Krispies treats vs. Dunkaroos with a congenial older man who just so happened to be the director. And it also just so happened they were down a minor member of the cast that morning, some C-list actress who’d gotten her face scraped up in a Rollerblading accident. The director deemed me the perfect replacement on the spot, and I was ambitious enough to not ask questions. Promoted day one from craft services to cast, prepping to scream out a shrill “AS IF!” on the big screen.

That role was enough for me, for a variety of reasons; acting had never been the goal. But it was a pleasant enough temporary reprieve from being a snack minion, and thanks to the heftier paycheck, I had Delilah to show for my efforts. Still nicely shined up seventeen years later, just a few spots of rust around the front wheel to hint at her age. She takes care of me, and I take care of her. I’ll pour whatever money I have into her until there’s no hope of resuscitation. And then I’ll make sure I can afford a house with a nice garage, so she has somewhere to lounge idly for the rest of our days.

I start the tired trek to my building, up the two flights of outdoor stairs, and heave a sigh of weary relief when I unlock the door to my apartment.

It’s modest by anyone’s standards, but it’s the first place I could afford without a roommate or partner since moving to LA—not an achievement to scoff at in this part of the world, especially for someone who’s been scraping by on the outer edges of the film industry for the better part of two decades. Sure, it may only be eight hundred square feet or so, and why yes, maybe I do have the plumber’s number saved in my favorites because the septic system seems to malfunction on a weekly basis. But it’s bright and airy and recently renovated (other than those pipes, that is), and most importantly, it’s all mine. I’d take it any day over the comparatively palatial Art Deco home I’d shared with my ex-husband Damon in Silver Lake for several inordinately long years.

I drop my backpack on the floor, make my way to the freezer, rummage around for something, anything to pass off as dinner. I land on a box of store brand mac and cheese that looks like it could barely satisfy a toddler let alone a thirty-six-year-old woman and jam it in the microwave. My phone rings out as I stare at the timer, and I fish it out of my pocket, click to answer before processing who’s calling.

My mother. Shoot.

I should have poured some whiskey first, dealt with dinner second.

“I expected voicemail,” she says, and I can instantly visualize the exact expression she’s making on the other end, the little smirk that seemed so endearing back when I was little but became fully weaponized later in life.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, my hip banging against the counter as I strain to grab for the bottle of Jameson from the kitchen shelf. “It’s lovely talking to you, too.”

“Mm, yes. Lovely. Anyway. Just calling to make sure you’re still coming back for Christmas. And to see how long you’re planning to stay.”

Utilitarian, as always. Ticking boxes on her holiday to-do list. Bake cookies for book club. Wrap presents for charity drive. Call wayward daughter to confirm schedule. Scrub toilets and shower walls.

“Still coming. I get in Friday evening, fly out Monday morning.” Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, done. Leaving well before New Year’s Day, the anniversary of Dad’s death; a day that’s difficult enough as is without having to put on masks for one another.

“Great.”

“Great.”

I sneak a sip straight from the bottle, hoping she doesn’t catch the swallow. She finds it appalling enough as is that I’m a childless singleton—the worst kind of singleton, really, a divorcee—at thirty-six, let alone one who comes home from work and drinks whiskey, solo, in her tiny apartment. Eating prepackaged meals. Oh-so-many strikes.

“We’ll go to Aunt Rosie’s house for an early dinner before church on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day she’ll come by the house, along with your cousins and the kids.”

Just like every year. “Awesome.”

“Okay.”

The microwave timer zeroes out. I pull open the door before the final beeps sound off, so she doesn’t overhear them.

“Alright, well—”

“Are you still shooting that movie of yours?” she asks, a shocking jolt from our usual conversational routine. That movie. So casual, like it’s just a fluff side hobby. It’s rare for us to cover anything but surface pleasantries. Unpleasantries of any kind are not packed in our mother-daughter bag of tricks. And that movie comes built-in with a heaping suitcase full of unpleasantries.

“Uh. Yes?”

“You promise it would make your father proud?” There’s an edge to her voice now.

I take a second quiet swig.

“Yes, Mom. I promise. That’s my entire reason for writing it, you know. For fighting a ridiculously uphill battle this last decade to see it get made. This is all for him.”

She’s quiet then, long enough that I have to check the phone screen to make sure the call hasn’t ended.

“And that . . . Rocco Riz-however-you-say-it? He’s capable of pulling this off? No shirtless scenes, I should hope, and that seems like his claim to fame.”

She’d been reluctant to approve of him playing her beloved William. Not that we’d needed her formal yes to move ahead—or that Lanie would have cared one way or another if Mom had rejected him—but I had to at least pretend she had a say. For the actress playing her, too, though that was easier: Darla Dee, a B-list former soap star trying to re-brand. We’re connected by such a thin, frayed string as is, my mom and I—Christmas dinner and infrequent perfunctory calls—and not asking would have been going at that thread ruthlessly with a pair of kitchen shears.

“He’s surprisingly good,” I say, stabbing at a clump of limp macaroni and taking a bite. Too hot, and just as soggy and oversalted as anticipated. “Better than good, really. Even with his shirt on. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

“Oh, I’m never going to watch it. That would be too much for me.”

“You’re not going to . . . ?” I stop myself before my voice breaks. My mom and I would never cry in front of one another. We didn’t even cry together after the funeral, not once during those strange, quiet weeks I stayed home with her before Sylvie rang about another set, a solid reason to run back to LA. Far away from the house that could never feel like home again. That time, I’d stayed away for good. Made a new home.

It shouldn’t surprise me so much now, her refusal to watch it. Sure, it may be her one chance to see her only child’s work on the big screen. The work that child has poured every last searing-hot drip of grief and regret into for her entire adult life.

Because that child devastated her all those years ago. Ruined our perfect family. It was me, always me. Not the arrest, the false charges. No, that was more just happenstance. My mother can make nice, plop a perfectly crisped and stuffed turkey on the table for Christmas dinner—but she’ll never forgive.

“I have to go,” I say, grabbing the tray of congealing mac and cheese and starting for the couch. “I have to review tomorrow’s scripts. I’ll see you soon.”

“Call me when you land.”

I’m not sure who hangs up first, but neither of us says “goodbye” or “goodnight,” and we certainly don’t say “I love you.”

I’d always been a Daddy’s girl growing up. Up until the day I stopped. I guess I wasn’t anybody’s girl, not after that.

I settle in on the couch, a teal leather vintage gem I scored at an estate sale in Malibu, and shovel in the rest of the clumpy noodles. I’ll chase it with a few powdered blueberry donut holes I stealthily wrapped up from the craft services table this morning. A sacred place to me still, the beginning of everything. My ticket out.

On reflex I open up Netflix, and—bloody hell—of course it’s his face grinning down from the promo at the top, a sleek western that has no right . . .