Breakfast in Bed

chapter 18


BECCA HEARD ANNABELLE COME IN AND WAS TRULY afraid for the first time in their friendship that she might lose her best friend and maybe even her new brother. She'd spent the last hour berating herself for doing something as stupid as falling in love with Rich Ronaldi. Not just because she ended up feeling as if she was dying inside, but because Rich was Annabelle's brother, and as he once reminded her, blood is thicker than water.
"Becca, where are you?"
She was in bed with a cool compress over her swollen, burning eyes. "In the guest room." She pulled the washcloth off her face and sat.
Annabelle waddled in, sat beside her, and pulled her into a hug. "I'm so sorry. Tell me what happened."
The entire time Becca talked, Annabelle was quiet. She nodded, but the longer Becca went on, the more scared she became. "Would you say something?"
"I understand where you're coming from, and I admit that from what you said that Rich looks like a real schmuck. But Bec, I know my brother, and I know he would never do that. He'd never use you to get a job."
Becca raised an eyebrow, which ended up twitching, and sent a stabbing pain through her head.
Annabelle continued. "Okay, I'll admit he tried to fake a relationship so he could look good, but Rich is way too conceited ever to take a promotion under false pretenses."
"Right, he had no problem begging me to pretend to have a relationship with him so he'd look like a good little professor."
"Oh, come on. Richie's always been good at whatever he's done. He wouldn't take a job he wasn't sure he more than deserved. And you know if he wasn't qualified, pretending to have a relationship wouldn't have made a difference. If Richie let the dean get away with saying that, he must have had a damn good reason."
Becca pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them before resting her chin on her knees. "Like a trust fund?"
"No, Rich is too proud to live off someone else's money. If anything, money would be a deterrent for him. All I can think was that Rich knew how sensitive you are to any sign of nepotism and was afraid you'd give up a perfect opportunity to showcase your work."
"I would have. But that's my decision."
Annabelle rolled her eyes "Of course it is, but he's an Italian man, which means he not only has the 'Y' chromosome, he's über protective, wants to give you the world, and he thinks he knows what's best for you."
"Then why did he ask me to marry him?"
"When did he do that?"
"Right after his boss dropped the big bombshell. Remember when the guys went to play basketball Monday?"
"Yeah, that's why you stopped by and talked to Ben and me."
"Right. After the game they went to DiNicola's, and he and the guys had a few drinks while waiting for takeout. Before dinner, and in the middle of sex, he asked me to marry him."
"Oh my God, what did you say?"
Becca cringed when she thought about it. "At first, nothing. Then, when I was able to breathe again and got my head together, he was pissed and belligerent. It wasn't pretty. We finally agreed to table the marriage discussion for the time being, but then I was talking to Wayne and Henry the next day, and they both agreed a guy doesn't just go out for a drink and on the way home decide to propose marriage. Not without something holding his feet to the fire."
Annabelle crossed her arms and rested them on her belly. "It's obvious. He was afraid of losing you. He must have been pretty upset when his dean said what he said. And instead of saying something and ruining your chances with Emily Stewart, he swallowed his pride. He did that for you, and by doing so, put your entire relationship in jeopardy."
"And you know this how?"
"Because I know my brother. He's not the devious type, and he's not money hungry. Why do you think he made such a shitty criminal? But why he did what he did really isn't the issue here. This issue is that you don't trust him."
Becca didn't know what to say to that. Annabelle was right. She didn't trust him; heck, she didn't trust anyone except Annabelle and Mike.
Annabelle kicked off her shoes and scooted up to rest against the headboard. "Do you want to know my theory on love?"
"Do I get a choice?"
"No, but this is a good one, so listen up. Trust and respect are more important than love in a relationship because no love will last without equal amounts of respect and trust." She rubbed Becca's hand. "Love, trust, and respect are decisions only you can make, sweetie. There's nothing Rich can do to prove to you he didn't check out your financial papers. He can't prove what he was thinking when he was given the position. He can only explain it and hope you love, trust, and respect him enough to believe what he says."
Becca had to admit it made sense. Still, she didn't know how to do that. It's not like there were some self-help books on how to trust—or were there? All the therapists she ever saw told her she needed to forgive the people who hurt her. She didn't know how to do that either. Of course, it might be easier to forgive people if they'd stopped hurting her or at least asked for forgiveness. As soon as she figured out that would never happen, she gave up.
Becca was lost in thought when Annabelle pulled the pillow under her head and lay beside her. "Mike called when he left the apartment. He said Rich looked worse than most corpses." Annabelle yawned. "Mike said Rich seemed relieved that you left Tripod with him. It didn't look like Richie wanted to be alone. Instead of wanting to beat the poor guy up, Mike ended up feeling sorry for him."
"What am I supposed to do now?"
Annabelle rolled onto her side. "I guess you need to think about it. Remember when I asked you if you saw your future without Rich as the same or sucky?"
Becca nodded.
"I guess you get to experience it firsthand and see if you were right. I know when Mike and I broke up, I was devastated. I never want to go through that again for as long as I live."
Becca lay there a while thinking about how sucky it was. So far, it really stunk. She rolled over to face Annabelle and tell her so, only to find her sound asleep. Becca got up, covered Annabelle with a throw, and waited for Mike to bring her things to her. At least then she'd have something to do, she could unpack. She wondered how long she could drag that out.

Rich sat in his office wishing he were dead. He'd stopped drinking by five o'clock in the afternoon thinking he could sleep through the hangover. Obviously, he was wrong. He woke up feeling like shit. Coffee, water, and aspirin didn't touch the pain in his head or his heart, and he wasn't even going to think about the damage he'd done to his stomach.
He kept his office blinds closed and the lights out, hoping that anyone who was dumb enough to show up for office hours on a Monday morning would at least have the intelligence to go away when they saw a dark office.
Rich leaned back in his wooden desk chair, his head resting on the wall behind him with his eyes closed, when some a*shole opened the door and flipped on the light. Florescent bulbs blinked on beyond his eyelids. "You had better have an extraordinary excuse for interrupting a perfectly good imitation of death."
"I don't suppose the three students leaving messages regarding questions they would have asked if you'd been available during office hours would suffice? Especially since I witnessed your arrival and know you're here in body if not spirit."
Rich pried one of his eyelids open, and sure enough, Dean Stewart was standing there looking all collegiate with his tweed blazer and brown slacks. All he was missing was the bow tie and the damn pipe. "I'll talk to them. Thanks for letting me know."
"That's the only explanation I'm going to receive?"
Rich sat up and stared at Dean Stewart. "Do you think I'm a good professor?"
"With the exception of your behavior today, yes I do."
"Good, then I suppose it won't make any difference that Becca left me, and it doesn't look as if I have a prayer of getting her back. Hell, I don't even know where she is. She won't answer my calls or emails, and no one will even tell me where she's staying. I guess, if nothing else, I should be happy knowing that at least my job is secure."
Craig sat down and leaned forward. "Look, Rich. I know I'm your superior, but I'd also like to think that we're friends. You two looked so happy the other night. What happened?"
Rich shook his head and then regretted the movement. "Becca is very sensitive when it comes to her family name and their money. I screwed up on several counts, only one of which was failing to tell her about my promotion. She's been hurt before, and probably because of that, she questioned my intentions. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove my intentions."
"Why didn't you tell her about your promotion?"
"Because she was so looking forward to Emily seeing her work without knowing she was Rebecca Larsen of the Main Line Larsens. If she knew that wasn't the case, she'd have canceled the entire thing. She's so hell-bent on making it on her own that she's going overboard and destroying great opportunities."
"Ah." Craig leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles out in front of him. "It's not easy falling in love with a woman with a pedigree and the money to back it up."
Rich raised his eyes to meet Craig's. "Emily?"
Craig nodded. "Emily Talbot-Stewart."
"Christ, that benefit? That was her family's foundation?"
"Of course, you don't think she is able to run a foundation like that on my salary, do you?"
Rich shrugged. "I'm so far out of my element here, Craig. I have no idea. I thought she worked for the foundation. I had no idea it was her family's."
"Emily was very impressed with Becca's work, and it had nothing to do with her pedigree, I assure you. As for you, I've known you since you were eighteen. I give you a couple of days to lick your wounds, and then you'll be busy figuring out how to get back in Becca's good graces. I'm sorry if what I said caused trouble between the two of you."
Rich rubbed his bloodshot eyes and groaned. "I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. She doesn't trust me. I don't think it's personal. She doesn't trust anyone. Unfortunately, it's something I have no control over. She's got to decide whether to give me the benefit of the doubt or not."
"Well, my door is always open if you need anything. I wish you luck. I really like Becca. The two of you remind me of Emily and myself twenty years ago. It wasn't easy, but I have to admit, even with all the problems that come along with the marriage of two people from two very different social classes, it's well worth it."
"Thanks Craig. I'll keep it in mind."
Rich shook Craig's hand and watched him go. Rich felt trapped in his office so he checked his schedule for the day, called one of his doctoral candidates in to teach, left his lecture notes with the secretary, and headed to the one person who might be able to help him. A half hour later, he was on the stoop knocking. "Aunt Rose, it's Rich."
She opened the door but didn't let him in. "You tink I don't know that? Maddòne. You didn't come to dinner yesterday. You didn't go to church—too busy drinking the whiskey, eh? You better call your mother and go to confession."
"Yeah, okay."
Aunt Rose opened the door for him and smiled as she patted his cheek. He bent down to kiss each cheek and thanked God she didn't pinch him. "Aunt Rose, Becca left me, and no one will tell me where she is. They won't tell me if she's okay—nothing."
She motioned him to follow her to the kitchen, and he sat in the antique modern Naugahyde and chrome dinette set she'd had since before he was born. She tied an apron around her waist and started cooking lunch. "She's a'livin' in the city." She poured him a glass of wine and set it down in front of him. "Here, drink'a this. It will make you feel better."
The last thing he wanted was more alcohol, but Aunt Rose wouldn't answer until he did as she said. They didn't call her "The Colonel" for nothing. He took a tentative sip, which went down surprisingly easily.
"Where in the city?"
She gave him that look that said, what are you, stunad? Then she shook a disgusted head and pointed a huge meat fork at him. "What do you think I looka like?
A street
map? I don't give addresses. My Becca, she's in a nice man's apartment. He got some kinda money, that one."
"A man?"
"Si, but he no' there." She put a pot of water on the stove and pulled the butcher paper off a package. Rich's stomach rolled when he saw steak. "I make this special for you. You don't think so now, but it make you feel better." At least she wasn't forcing him to eat her mustard greens; he hated those. Aunt Rose dropped the steaks in a hot cast iron frying pan, the kind she used to threaten to hit him with. "She got a bad headache from cryin' over you. What'a you thinkin' askin' her to marry you like you did? No ring, no romance. What she supposed to tella' your children when they ask how poppa proposed?" She mumbled under her breath, and he could swear she said something in Italian about all men being a*sholes, but then he didn't really want to know if he was right.
"Do you know everything?"
"I know what I know." She pointed at him, which always gave him the creeps. "You don't deserve her." She made a slashing motion and turned back to her cooking. "Stunad."
She tossed some homemade pasta in the boiling water and stirred the sauce she had heating on the stove beside something else. Shit. He knew it. "Aunt Rose, I ain't eatin' those greens."
"Fine, you no eat the greens, then you drink the water I cook them in. You need the vitamins—it'sa good. Clean out the poison. What's it gonna be, Richie?"
"I'll eat the greens. There's no way I'm drinkin' that stuff. Just put some sauce on it. Maybe it'll cover up the taste."
She tsked as she fixed his plate, steak, pasta, greens. She set it in front of him and put the cheese on the table. "Mangia, mangia." She waited for him to take a bite. Once she saw him eat, she turned back to fix her own plate, sat, said grace silently, and dug in. After one bite, she was pointing her fork at Rich again. "If you want your Becca back, you gonna have to work. It'sa not gonna be easy for either of you."
"Yeah, and just how am I supposed to do that?"
Rich took a bite of rare steak; he was starting to feel better, not that he'd tell Aunt Rose that, but then, knowing her, she knew already.
"You not. That'sa the hard part. You want to go find her, make her see your way." She shook her head and twirled her pasta. "No, that would make her angry. Better you leave her wondering, that one. You just do what you do. Let her see you're the boy she fell in love with. She's gonna miss you and that strange cat of hers. She might come to visit when she thinks you're away."
"She will? When?" Rich took a bite of the mustard greens. Even drowned in sauce they were bitter and rank.
"You ever hear that saying, absence makes'a the heart grow fonder?"
He swallowed the forkful of greens as quickly as possible and chased it with the rest of his wine. "Yeah." He held his glass out for a refill; he'd be drunk by the time he finished his vegetables.
"Listen to Aunt Rose. You leave her alone. Let her come to you. Just make sure you're ready for her when she does. And whatever you do, buy the girl a ring, and then when you do ask her to marry you, use your other head, eh?"
"No way, Aunt Rose. I'm not gonna ask her again. I told her if she ever wanted to marry me, she was gonna have to ask me."
Aunt Rose got up, and Rich wondered if she was gonna hurt him. Instead she took his face in her hands and kissed both cheeks before slapping one. "You think so, eh? You might just change'a your mind. You're stubborn, but not as stubborn as your Becca. You see reason eventually. That'sa why you're my favorite nephew."
"I'm your only nephew." He laughed, feeling much better as she shrugged and sat to finish her lunch.

After the deal went through, Becca and Annabelle became majority owners of the Benjamin Walsh Gallery. Before the ink was even dry on the contracts, Becca officially took over the studio down the hall from Ben's apartment, and Annabelle gladly moved back to her old office in the gallery.
Annabelle was chomping at the bit to give Becca a showing, but Becca didn't have the energy to even think about it. It was all she could do to get by day-to-day. She slept when she could and worked when she couldn't. Her days and nights seemed to meld to the point she'd have to look out the window to figure out if it was morning or night. She missed Rich, she missed Tripod, and as the days and weeks passed, and the pain and loss didn't diminish, she wondered if she was actually getting worse.
It was cold and wet, and looking out the window, she wondered if the weather mirrored her moods, or if her mood mirrored the weather. She paced Ben's apartment and tried not to think of how much she missed Rich's. Ben's place was very minimalist—all hard lines, bold shapes, cold and stark where Rich's was comfortable, warm, and laid back.
She checked the time. Rich would be at school for the next several hours. She pulled on a hoodie over her sweater, grabbed her coat, iPod, and purse. She was going to visit her cat; she just hoped she didn't get caught.

When Becca let herself into Rich's place, the first thing she noticed was that it was immaculate. Tripod yowled, and when she bent to pet him, he bit her. "Ow!"
The little bugger broke the skin. Becca sucked on her finger and dropped her purse and coat on the couch before going into the bathroom to wash her wound. The bathroom was cleaner than it had ever been when she and Rich shared it. She found herself taking inventory, and as much as it killed her to admit it, she was relieved to see that there was only one toothbrush in the holder, until she remembered that he didn't mind sharing.
God, the pain stabbed at her again so badly, she could hardly breathe. Maybe coming here was a bad idea. Tripod certainly didn't seem happy to see her. Just the opposite. She washed her hands and glanced at his bedroom. He kept it clean too. It was a far cry from the first day she stepped foot in Rich's place. She opened the first aid kit and squirted some Bactine, sucked in a breath when the sting began, and then blew on it. "It was easier when I didn't like him."
Tripod snaked around her leg and seemed to agree with her. "You're nice to me now? What was the bite about? Were you punishing me?"
Becca put a Band-Aid on the puncture wound, thankful that Tripod had all his shots. She tossed the wrapper, put the first aid kit away, and went back into the living room. All her work was where she left it. Everything looked exactly the same as it did when she walked out, only cleaner. Even her notebook lay on the coffee table right next to her favorite pen. She picked up the leather notebook and the pen and opened it to take out her Loving Rich list. She had thought of a few more cons, not that she was going to write them down. She just didn't want one of his bimbo girlfriends to find it. She paged through the notebook and couldn't believe her eyes. What the hell?
Someone else was writing in her notebook. She turned back to the beginning and then saw her name. It was dated just two days after their breakup.

Becca,
Aunt Rose said you might be stopping by to visit Tripod. I'm sure he'd love to see you. He seems to miss you almost as much as I do. So when I found your notebook, I thought since you won't return my calls, the only way I have to communicate with you is to write to you. Since I don't know where you call home these days, I'm hoping Aunt Rose is right about you visiting. I'm counting on that, and the hope that if you do come by, you might read this. In any case, I guess it's cathartic. Either that, or I'm just into self-torture, which is a distinct possibility. So here goes.
Hi Babe, God I miss you something awful. I don't think I've ever felt quite like this. It's as if someone stole a part of me, and I'm left with a gaping hole where my heart used to be. The only thing I can compare it to is the one time I lost my wallet. I know you're probably rolling your eyes, but work with me here. Okay? There was that initial adrenaline rush, when I frantically searched high and low for it, then after I knew it was gone, out of habit, I kept reaching for it.
I thought about all the things that couldn't be replaced, the social security card I signed when I was twelve, the pictures of my family, the Mass card from my grandmother's funeral, the fortune that was too good to throw out. And every time I'd reach for my wallet, I had the same reaction, over and over and over again.
That's the way it's been since you left. I wake up without you, and I gotta tell you, babe, I don't know how to stop reaching for you, and every time I do it hurts. I love you, Becca.
Rich


The tears just flowed, and she didn't even notice them dripping on the page. When she tried to brush them away, the ink ran. She didn't know what to do. If Rich looked, he would see it, but then if she took the notebook, he'd know she'd been there too, and he might stop writing her.
She cried through every note he wrote, one for every day they were apart, and by the time she got to the last entry, she was sobbing.
Becca closed the book, and then cried all over Tripod. God she was such a mess. She saw the clock and knew she had to get out of there pretty soon. Rich would be home, and the last thing she wanted to do was run into him now. It was hard enough leaving him when she was irate; now, all she knew was that she missed him so much, it scared her.
She put the cat down and wiped her face on her sleeve, left everything just where she found it, and took off out of the apartment, going the opposite direction from the one she knew Rich would be walking.

Rich turned the corner and saw a woman hurrying down the sidewalk ahead of him. She wore a hat, but the way she walked and dressed reminded him of Becca, but then he'd been having Becca-spottings everywhere he went. The other day at Starbucks, he'd even called out her name and grabbed a strange woman's elbow. That's when he decided he needed to get a little more of a life than the one he had. Spending every night writing notes to Becca, notes that she may never see, might not be the best use of his time.
Rich unlocked the door and pushed it open. He pulled off his jacket, took a deep breath, and swore he smelled Becca's shampoo. "F*ck, that was her." He hightailed it out of the apartment, down the front steps, and into the street, searching for her. He ran two blocks before he admitted he'd lost her.
He pulled off his cell phone and dialed her. "Becca, it's Rich. Babe, please come back." He turned a full circle looking up and down the cross street. "I'm waiting for you, Becca. Come home. If you won't come back, at least give me a call. I miss the sound of your voice. I miss everything."
Rich flipped his phone shut, walked back to the apartment, grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, and microwaved the leftover salmon he'd made the other night and didn't eat. He hoped he'd have better luck tonight but decided that from now on, he probably shouldn't cook anything he made with Becca here—which was his entire culinary repertoire. The last time he'd stopped at Vinny's, he borrowed one of his cookbooks and brought it home with him. Maybe if he started cooking, he could get his mind off Becca and onto something useful.
He took his plate out of the microwave and cut off a piece of fish for Tripod, put it on a small plate, and brought them both over to the couch. He set Tripod's plate on the coffee table, and when Tripod went to sit on Becca's notebook, Rich pulled it out from under the little guy's butt. Rich cut a piece of his fish and opened Becca's notebook to find the ink had run. What the f*ck? Shit, the pages were covered with tears. He'd made her cry again.