Breakfast in Bed

chapter 5


BECCA LET HERSELF INTO THE BACK GARDEN OF THE brownstone to check out the workers' progress before they knew she'd arrived. The forty-yard dumpster that was delivered the other day was almost filled to the brim. Shading her eyes from the sun, she examined the structure. It had good bones, or so the architect said.
Becca had meticulously salvaged everything worth saving, including all the trim, fireplace mantels, and light fixtures, which were already in the process of being stripped and cleaned. With any luck, most of it would be reused. If the amount of noise was anything to go by, the demo of the third and fourth floors was well underway. She stepped back as a shovelful of debris flew out of the large tube that ran from a third-floor window into the dumpster.
She did a quick walk-through with the supervisor and talked him into helping her load the pieces of her small sculptor's table into the car. She had dropped it off on her last visit and was amazed at how much she'd missed having it around, even though she'd spent most of her last week at home packing. She used that little table for everything. It had a tilting top perfect for sketching, but when the top was down it was strong enough to pound clay on too. It wasn't very pretty, but it was amazingly functional, and she was all about function. The best part was when it was disassembled. It was small enough to fit into the trunk of her little BMW Z4 Roadster.
She thanked the supervisor, closed the trunk lid, and locked the car. Now all she had to do was get through what would certainly be an uncomfortable lunch before having the rest of the afternoon to work. She had already rearranged the furniture in her room so all she'd have to do was put the table back together and slide it into the corner.
It was almost time to meet up with her father. Becca put a hand on her stomach and willed it to calm down. These family get-togethers always made her nervous. Using her key, she went into the brownstone and took the elevator up to Annabelle and Mike's second-floor apartment. She knocked before letting herself in.
"Your sister's here. Everybody decent?" Becca set her purse down on the hall table and met Mike and Annabelle as they were entering the living room. "The two of you look green."
Mike wrapped his arm around Annabelle. "She's not feeling well."
Becca looked from one to the other. "Is morning sickness contagious?"
Annabelle rested her head on Mike's shoulder. "It looks that way. I've heard of sympathy pain, but not sympathy nausea."
Becca rubbed her hands together. "So, are we all finished puking?"
Mike scowled, and from the look of it, Annabelle was having a hard time hiding her smile. She patted Mike on the back. "So it seems."
"That's a good thing." Becca tossed her jacket on the back of the sofa. "Just in time for lunch. You look fabulous, by the way. I love how the green tinge to your complexion contrasts with the fuchsia blouse. Very Lilly Pulitzer."
Annabelle laughed. "You should know. What are you doing here?"
"Meeting you for lunch. Dad said he and Colleen would be here, too." She looked from Mike to Annabelle. "Are you two still planning to eat?"
Mike gave Annabelle a nudge toward the sofa and headed to the kitchen. "Belle only eats baked potatoes and Five Guys Hamburgers and fries."
"Those are the only things I can keep down, so don't break my chops."
He returned, tossed Becca a bottle of water, set another bottle on the coffee table, sat beside Annabelle, and handed to her what looked like a glass of ginger ale. "Here, drink this. It's room temperature—just how you like it."
Annabelle took a sip as Becca cringed. "Gag. Room temperature soda?"
Mike shrugged. "Whatever works."
Becca couldn't help goading her brother. "If it works so well, maybe you ought to try some. You look as if you could use it."
He wrapped his arm around Annabelle. "Very funny."
This part of the whole family thing was really working for her. She and Mike fell right into a typical brother-sister relationship—even if they started it twenty-six years too late—and Annabelle was her best friend-turned-sister, which was great. If only the whole parental front was so easy.
Annabelle looked as if she felt a little better. She set her soda on the table, turned so her back rested against Mike, and her face radiated mischief. Becca braced herself.
"How are the Domestic God lessons going?" When Mike grumbled, Annabelle quieted him with a look. "Rich said he did the dishes. I lived with him for years and never once saw him do anything in the kitchen but eat, drink straight from the milk and OJ containers, and make a mess. How did you manage to get him to actually clean something?"
Becca sipped her water and shrugged. "He asked me to show him how. Far be it from me to discourage someone who wants to do all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I just hope his first adventure in dishwashing isn't the start of a trend, although, he did manage to get the kitchen floor cleaner than I've ever seen it."
"The floor?"
A knock at the door heralded the entrance of Christopher and Colleen. Mike's parents and Becca's father and from the looks of it, her soon to be stepmother, not that Becca had a problem with Colleen, well, except for the fact that the woman hugged her every time she saw her. Of course, that was just Colleen. She hugged everyone, and today was no different.
Mike answered the door and took everyone's coats. As soon as she got out of hers, Colleen went straight to Annabelle, gave her a hug and a kiss, and handed her a greasy bag of something that smelled heavenly. She gave Annabelle's belly a pat. "Five Guys hamburger and fries for mum and the babe."
When Mike grumbled about nutrition, she shushed him as she hugged him, kissed his cheek, and wiped the lipstick off. "When I was pregnant with you, I couldn't keep much down either. All I wanted was steak and kidney pie. I was surprised when you didn't come out with your very own crust."
Becca was next in line so she accepted Colleen's hug and then Christopher's. "Hi, Dad."
"Becca, it's good to see you." He gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder.
Man, Colleen sure had her work cut out for her if she was trying to turn him into a cuddler.
"It's good to see you too."
The five of them stood there looking at each other for an awkward moment until Annabelle took a French fry out of the bag and chomped on it. "I don't know about you, but I'm starved. Why don't we eat before it gets cold?"
Mike laughed. "I only made salads and sandwiches. They're already cold."
Dad looked relieved and with his hand on Colleen's lower back, followed Annabelle to the dining room. Mike didn't look happy. Becca wasn't sure if it was due to Annabelle's diet or Dad's hand on Mike's mother's back. Either way, Mike was going to have to get over it.
Becca helped Mike put the food on the table while Annabelle and Colleen got drinks, and her Dad looked uncomfortable. She took pity on him. "Dad, I was surprised to hear you were in town. Taking a few vacation days?" She sat down, took a spoonful of the potato salad, and passed the bowl to him.
"Yes, I came to spend some time with Colleen and catch up with a few friends, but I also wanted to see how you were settling in."
"You did?"
Colleen walked behind her and trailed her hand over Becca's shoulders before sitting next to Christopher. "Of course he did. You're his daughter, and he loves you."
Becca nodded like a good girl and put together her sandwich. She didn't know what to say to that. Of course he loved her in his own way. She smiled at her father. "I'm sharing Annabelle's old apartment with her brother Rich."
"The psych professor?"
"Yes. It's only temporary until my place upstairs is finished, and it's close enough so I can keep an eye on the construction."
Her father put some mayonnaise on his sandwich. "Where will you work?"
"I finished the last piece I was working on in the loft, and I don't want to start anything big until I get into the new studio. I'm doing some preliminary work, you know, getting ideas about what I want to work on next, making sketches, models, going through my slides, stuff like that."
"You could use this time to market the work you're sitting on."
"I'm always doing that. I actually have a meeting with a gallery owner here in Park Slope later this week, but I also have my hands full with the construction."
"You're going to have to show your work to more than one gallery owner, Becca, if you want to get anywhere in your career. That's why I talked to an old friend. He's interested in showing your work."
Becca shook her head. "You talked a friend into showing my work sight unseen?" She was on a slow boil. Her dad didn't look up from fixing his sandwich so he didn't notice.
"He owes me a favor. I helped his son get into medical school. He said if I ever needed anything…" He looked up and finally realized there was something wrong with this picture.
Becca wiped her mouth and tried to calm down. Saying what she was thinking probably wasn't the best idea, but then neither was her father pawning off her work to a respected member of the art community for payback. Not that she knew who the man was, but in her experience, highly successful men ran in packs. Dad would never stoop to an association with someone who wasn't at the top of his game or business. "No thank you."
Great, now her dad was pissed. "What do you mean, 'no thank you'? I had to pull a lot of strings to get you this opportunity."
"I never asked for your help. Just because you're willing to offer it doesn't mean that I'm willing to accept it. I've already explained to you ad nauseam that one of the reasons I moved here was to make it in the New York art world on my own merit. I don't need you pushing my work on someone because he owes you. It's one thing for you to set up an introduction, which would have been helpful. What you did was insulting."
She stared at her father who gave her the same look he'd given her since she was a child when she did something he wasn't pleased with.
"What's wrong, Dad? Do you think I'm so talentless that I can't make it on my own?" She held up her hand. "You know, don't bother answering. It's obvious that you do. I guess it's a good thing I'm wealthy, huh? That way you'll never have to worry about your daughter being a starving, talentless artist." Becca stood and placed her napkin beside her uneaten lunch. Both Mike and her dad stood. Such gentlemen. "I'm sorry, Annabelle. I need to go. I'll call you later."
Annabelle nodded. Of course, she understood perfectly.
Becca's dad threw his napkin on the table and pushed his chair back. Colleen stood then too. "Christopher, let her go. You can apologize later after she's had a chance to calm down."
"What?" His growl followed Becca out of the room. Unfortunately, Mike did too.
"You know he hates it that you don't need his money or his help, don't you?"
Becca couldn't talk. She was too close to tears, and the last thing she wanted to do was start bawling. She nodded.
Mike pulled her into a hug. "I'm proud of you. But remember, sometimes men can't help doing stupid things for the women they love, even if that woman is a daughter. Are you going to be okay?"
She nodded against his shoulder. "I'm fine."
Mike gave her a crooked smile that looked just like her father's.
"What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking that I hope I have sons." He kissed her cheek. "I'll call you later."
Becca left with a smile on her face that stayed until the elevator door closed then she went home and set up her work table. She needed to work. She needed to pound some clay.

Rich tossed his briefcase on the desk in the classroom, took out his notes for the lecture and the tests he'd finally graded. He handed them back to his students as they shuffled into class. From the look on their faces, his students knew with amazing accuracy how they did before they even checked their grade.
"Okay class, when everyone takes their seats I can get started." He rested back against his desk, crossed his feet in front, and waited until he had everyone's attention.
"Today I'm going to talk about cognitive development. Humans' cognitive ability lags far behind physical ability because the association areas of our brains are the last to develop. Remember, one of the main causes of brain growth after birth is making new connections between existing neurons."
Rich turned toward the white board and wrote "Jean Piaget." "Jean Piaget is the main theorist on cognitive development. He suggests that people create schemas, which are mental models of how the world works. Would anyone like to tell the processes that govern schema change?" Rich saw Brad Stanhope searching his notes. His hand tentatively went up. "Brad."
"Assimilation and accommodation."
"Good." Rich wrote "assimilation" on the board.
A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought. Dean Stewart poked his head in. "Excuse me, Professor Ronaldi. If I can have a moment?"
"Certainly." The door closed. "This might be a good time to review Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, why he suggested that the stages occur in an invariant developmental sequence, and whether or not you think most of the guys at the frat party the other night actually reached the formal operations stage."
Rich opened the door and stepped out.
"Ah, teaching Jean Piaget. Your specialty. With an interesting bent, I hear."
"Yes, well, it's one way to keep their butts in the seats."
"You could take attendance."
"Yeah, but what would be the fun in that? This is much more challenging. Keep it interesting, and they will learn. I wish half my professors realized that."
Dean Stewart raised an eyebrow. Oops, "Present company excluded, of course."
"Of course."
Dean Stewart reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. "I wasn't sure if I'd see you later, so I thought I'd better give you these tickets to the benefit dinner before I forgot. Emily has been harping on me."
Rich took the envelope. "Thank you."
"Emily and I are looking forward to meeting your girlfriend."
"She's looking forward to meeting you both as well. Thanks for dropping the tickets off, sir."
The Dean slapped Rich on the back. "Go on now. You've got a lecture to give."
"Right." He folded the envelope, put it in his back pants pocket, and went back into class. "Where were we?"
Brad Stanhope raised his hand. "You were talking about assimilation, accommodation, invariant developmental sequence."
Rich laughed. "I see I got your attention there. Good." Rich picked up his marker again. "So maybe you'd like to share with us the difference between assimilation and accommodation," he said as he wrote on the board. Rich looked over his shoulder to find Brad searching through his notes. "Would anyone care to define these?"
The rest of the class flew by, and in the back of his mind, all Rich could think about was how screwed he was going to be if he couldn't talk Gina into giving him another chance. The dinner was just over a week away.
By the time he finished his lecture, the class was already packing up. "Your assignment, due a week from today, is a one thousand-word essay on Piaget's four stages of human cognitive development." He opened his file and took out the stack of assignment sheets he passed around to the accompaniment of his students' groans as they left. "If you have questions, see me. My office hours are posted on the department's website. Have a good day."
Rich followed the class out and saw Brad waiting for him outside. The kid was having trouble keeping up, which was amazing considering the guy's overall intelligence. "Do you want to come to my office and talk about the paper?"
Brad nodded but kept looking at his feet.
"Come on then." Rich led the way to his office, unlocked the door, and held it open for Brad. "Have a seat, and let's look over your notes. We'll figure out why you're confused. It'll be fine." After helping Brad outline the paper for the better part of an hour, Rich made lecture notes for the next week's classes, put together an exam for his three thousand level class, ordered review materials for next semester's courses, and ran to teach his last class. In between all that, he wracked his brain trying to come up with something to make for dinner. When he met Becca later at the market, he didn't want to look as if he had no ideas. He didn't know what Becca would like to eat. All he knew was Italian. Rich poked his head out his office door. "Hey Jeff, what are you going to have for dinner?"
"I was thinking of going to the pub for a burger. Do you want to join me?"
Damn, that's not what Rich was after. "Thanks, but no. I'm supposed to cook dinner, and I was trying to think up something to fix that was pretty much idiot proof."
Jeff walked in. "You have a date?"
Rich nodded toward the chair across from his desk and sat in his. "You might say that. I'm supposed to cook, and I never cook."
"A steak is easy if you know how to broil."
"Broil?"
"Yeah, there's a funny flat pan with cuts in it. You just put a steak on it, sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic powder on top, put it as close to the top of the oven as you can, and turn the broiler on. Then all you have to do is turn it over once halfway through."
"How long do you cook it?"
Jeff shrugged, "It depends on how thick the steak is and how well done you like your meat."
"Sounds like too many variables."
"The only thing easier than that is spaghetti. A jar of Prego and a salad, and you're good to go."
"Shit, I'm Italian. I don't eat sauce out of a jar. My mother would kill me right after she brought her sauce over, cooked me dinner, and watched me eat."
"Well, there you go, then. Problem solved."
Not quite, but Rich wasn't going to say anything. "Yeah, thanks for your help."
Jeff stood. "You want to get a beer or something after work sometime?"
Rich stood too. "Sure, that would be great. I hear you play hoops."
"Whenever I can."
Rich tossed him the basketball he kept on his shelf. "One on one?"
Jeff shot the ball back. "Anytime. Good luck tonight."
"Yeah. Thanks, man." He had a feeling he was going to need it.
Jeff went back to his office, and Rich still had no idea what the hell to do for dinner. He called Becca as he packed his briefcase.
"Hello?"
"Becca, it's Rich."
"Oh, hi."
"Are you all right?"
She sniffled. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"You sound like you caught a cold."
"No. I'm good. What's up?"
"I'm leaving my office now. Why don't I call you when I get off the train so you can meet me at the market, and we can grocery shop together."
"Yeah, okay."
"Becca, are you sure you're all right? You sound a little weird."
"I'm fine. I'll see you later. Bye."
Rich pushed his way out the door of his office and locked it behind him. He headed out of Shermerhorn Hall and wished he'd brought his umbrella. It looked like rain, but with the way the wind was whipping, it probably wouldn't do much good. He took off for the subway at a brisk pace hoping to beat the rain.

After setting up her workspace and pounding on some clay, the only thing Becca wanted to do on this dreary, cold, rainy day, which sadly matched her mood, was to curl up in her new bed. She had paid an extra hundred and fifty dollars for same-day delivery, but it was worth it. She wanted to make a cocoon with her thick down duvet, drink hot chocolate, and lose herself in a good book. Instead, she ran through the wind-whipped rain down
7th Avenue
so she could do the last thing she wanted to do—grocery shop with Rich. She found him standing under the market's awning looking just as wonderful as he had that morning. Running her fingers through her short hair, she confirmed what she already knew—it was sticking up in all directions. "Hi"
He studied her until she wanted to squirm. "You are sick. I thought you sounded bad. You shouldn't have come out in this weather."
"I'm not sick. I'm fine. Come on, are you going to make me stand out in this cold, or are we going shopping?"
She must look worse than she thought since seeing her father had put her in the mood for a good cry. After she set up her workspace and took out her frustration on some poor defenseless clay, she popped her copy of PS I Love You into the DVD player and cried her way through the whole thing while eating popcorn and a dark chocolate candy bar with raspberry filling. The candy bar was better than sex. What she remembered of it, which probably wasn't much. Now, not only were her eyes red and her skin blotchy from crying, she had after-a-popcorn-binge bloat and after inhaling the decadent chocolate bar, with her luck, tomorrow she'd have a zit the size of Tahiti on her nose. Rich opened the door, and Becca strode in.
Becca jerked on a mini-shopping cart that was pushed into the back of a line of them and met enough resistance to grab it with two hands and give it a double jerk. It didn't move. "What do you want to make?"
"I don't know. What do you feel like?"
Rich nudged her aside, wrenched the little cart out from inside the others with absolutely no problem, and gave her a superior look.
Becca forced herself not to roll her eyes. "I loosened it for you."
Rich sat his briefcase in the kiddy seat and smiled. "Sure you did."
She chose to ignore that. "Rich, it's not going to help you to learn to make what I like. For all you know I might live on a diet of ToFurky hot dogs on spelt rolls."
"To-what? You're kidding, right?"
"Of course I'm kidding. But the point here is that you're supposed to learn to cook what you want."
"Who says I don't want Foturkey or whatever the hell that stuff is? The only food I ever ate at home was Italian. In my house, a hamburger was a flat meatball. I asked my mom to make fried chicken, and I got chicken parmesan. When I wanted a casserole like the other kids, I got lasagna. Not that I'm complaining."
Becca raised an eyebrow to that, but kept her mouth shut.
"I learned how lucky I was the first time I went to a friend's house for dinner. His mom heated spaghetti out of a can."
She made a face, because let's face it—no one should eat spaghetti out of a can. That's just too gross for words.
He must have thought she didn't believe him. He stopped her and started talking with his hands. "No shit, the stuff was orange, and she plopped some Miracle Whip on some lettuce and called it salad. I feigned illness and ran all the way home.
"Okay, no canned spaghetti. How about meatloaf? That's American." Becca pushed the cart toward the produce section.
"Meatloaf is just a big meatball."
"Not the way I make it. And it's an easy recipe. I think even you might be able to manage it."
"Okay, American meatloaf it is."
"Actually, it's German. Our cook used to make it."
"You had a cook?"
She took a plastic bag and filled it with a few hearts of romaine. "Yeah, a cook, a housekeeper, a nanny, two groundskeepers, then there was the stable hand, a handyman, and a pool boy." She tossed the lettuce in the cart and began examining the cucumbers. "The pool boy didn't last long. Dad caught him fooling around with Mom in the pool house." She handed two cucumbers to Rich who stood there looking confused. She wasn't sure if it was the cucumber that confused him or the thought of her mother with the pool boy. "It's for the salad. Put them in a bag."
He nodded, stuck one under his arm, and then tried to rip a bag off the roll. Becca watched and finally took pity on him and pulled one off and opened it.
"Your mom was making it with the pool boy?" He dropped the cucumbers in the bag Becca held.
"Yes, it was embarrassingly cliché. We had the Main Line 's version of The Graduate. Nat was living in the pool house while on summer break from Penn. I still don't know if my mom knew that Nat was seeing both of us, but it wouldn't surprise me. Personally, I think he was hedging his bets. If it worked out with me he'd get my trust fund. If it didn't, he'd get tips from Mommy Dearest."
"Wow, and I thought my family was f*cked up."
"Yeah. Lucky me, I get a prize for having the world's most f*cked up family."
"But even worse than that, I can't believe you dated a guy named Nat. Is that spelled with the 'G' or without?"
Becca laughed. "Without, but now that I think about it, he was kind of a pest." She caught herself smiling and shut it down. "Okay, we need to buy ground round, ground pork, plain breadcrumbs, onion, and applesauce."
"Applesauce?"
"For the meatloaf."
"You put applesauce in meatloaf?"
"Yes. Do you want to learn how to cook it, or should we move on?"
"No, I mean yes. I want to learn, but I never heard of applesauce in meatloaf."
"You probably never heard of a lot of things, which is why you need a coach, right?"
"Right."
"I know we have brown sugar, Dijon mustard, ketchup, and eggs at home."
"We do?"
"Yes, those are called staples. It's the food most kitchens have on hand. What kind of vegetable do you want to make?"
"We need to make vegetables, too?"
"When was the last time you ate just meatloaf and nothing else for dinner?"
Rich shrugged.
He was such a guy. "Baked potatoes or mashed?"
"Which is easier?"
"Baked."
"Fine." Becca chose a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes and tossed it in the cart.
"What about a vegetable?"
"Isn't a potato a vegetable?"
"No, it's a starch. You need at least one veggie, preferably green."
"Like escarole?"
"What?"
"You know, it's kind of like spinach, but not. It's definitely green though."
"That's a new one on me. Do you have a translation?"
"For what?"
"Escarole."
"It's escarole—what's to translate?"
The grocer behind them cleared his throat. "It's flat leaf endive, and we have some over there." He pointed to something next to the lettuce.
Becca smiled at him and noticed that Rich stepped closer to her. Men. "Thanks for the help." She stepped away. "How is it cooked?"
"Mama makes it with olive oil, lots of garlic, and some onion." He took several handfuls and stuffed it in a bag. From the look of it, they'd be eating endive for a year.
"She sautés it?"
"How the hell do I know? She puts some oil in a pan with onion, then the garlic, and then the escarole, and stirs it until it gets droopy."
"Oh yum. Droopy endive. I can hardly wait."
"Hey, I didn't make fun of your meatloaf with applesauce."
"You're right. I'm sorry." Becca turned so Rich couldn't see her smile and headed toward the butcher in the back for the meat. "Why don't you go get the applesauce and breadcrumbs?"
"Okay." Rich took off with the cart, and Becca watched as he walked away. So did the other three women waiting in line for meat.
The person next to Becca, a beautiful woman in her early thirties wearing a gorgeous suit and four-inch heels that made Becca cringe just looking at them, sighed. "He's so helpful."
The one in front of the line nodded. "Not to mention gorgeous."
The one in the middle checked out Becca. "Did you just move in together?"
Becca nodded.
The middle woman cracked a smile. "Yeah, the only time men shop with you or take you to the airport is in the first three weeks of living together. It's all downhill from there."
Becca shook her head. "Oh no. We're not living together living together. We're just roommates."
"Miss, what can I get you?" The butcher asked the woman in the front of the line.
She ignored him, drew in a quick breath, and stuck her chest out. "He's single?"
Becca crossed her arms. "Technically, I guess he is. But I know he's trying to get back together with his ex."
"Miss?" The butcher asked again. She held up her hand to stop him.
She studied Becca and gave her a look that told her she was definitely lacking. Of course, it's not as if Becca had dressed up to go grocery shopping. She wore her old comfortable sweats, which, after a three-block run through the rain, were soaking wet. What is it with these short, beautiful women? She gave Becca the same look her mother did every time she tsked about her being too tall, too skinny, or too flat-chested.
"Technically single is fine with me. I can change his mind about his old girlfriend."
The woman next to Becca turned to her adversary. "I saw him first."
The one in the middle moved in. "So what?"
Becca turned to the butcher. "May I please have a pound and a half of ground round and a half pound of ground pork?"
The butcher eyed the three women in line before her as they took off down the canned fruit aisle. "Sure, lady."
Becca waited for the meat to be weighed and wrapped wondering what the three women on the Rich hunt were going to do to him and to each other.
She thanked her lucky stars she wasn't with a guy like Rich. She had been before and knew it was way too much trouble. She once dated a man almost as good looking as Rich, and she dealt with women throwing themselves at him continuously. She knew what it was like to have to look perfect at all times. Of course, her mother loved him, but the only thing that Becca felt was trapped. She would never forget the first time he visited her studio. She had looked forward to sharing her work with him, but all he did was comment on the fact that she was covered with the clay she'd been working with and how much better she looked with makeup than without. He wasn't pleased that she wasn't prepared to change her clothes before getting into his new car. By that time, she knew there was no future with Mr. Persnickety and wished he'd have just left her there.
"You better not make that face for too long. It might stay that way."
Becca blinked and saw Rich standing beside her. "That bad?"
He shrugged. "I just hope you weren't thinking about me just then. I'd have to start sleeping with one eye open."
She laughed. "You can rest easy. Believe it or not, my world does not revolve around you. There were a few women who'd be more than willing to take on that job."
He looked confused.
"The women who took off after you when they found out you were single? Didn't at least one of them hit on you?"
"There were three women helping me pick out the applesauce. I got the organic stuff." He held it up to show her. "I couldn't find the breadcrumbs though."
"Oh?" Becca looked over his shoulder to see if the women had followed him. Sure enough, they were on their way back, and Becca did not want to be there when they arrived. "Okay, I think they might have it in the baking aisle." She turned to leave.
"Becca?"
"What?"
Rich slid the meat off the top of the refrigerated case. "Forgetting something?"
"Oh right." She turned and walked away.