by Ann Fox
1997
Disclaimer: Caroline in the City belongs to NBC, Barron Pennette, Three Sisters. No infringement
intended.
Note: This is my take on what Caroline was thinking during the Season Two Finale after she called Richard to confess
her feelings for him.
********
Caroline sat contentedly on her stairs, loosely clutching her cordless phone in
one hand, a peaceful smile settling across her lips. She was glad she had
finally made the decision to tell Richard how she felt about him. As confused as
she had been for awhile, when she finally realized that she was in love with
him, everything had made sense. Why she had been so upset about his "little
visit" to Paris, why she had been so hurt when he had "cheated"
on her. It was because she loved him. Deeply, passionately, and with all her
soul. Richard, the dark, brooding, cynical neurotic was her exact opposite--the
yang to her yin. He was her one true love, her soulmate, her "Sincere
Amore". She only wondered why it had taken her so long to realize it.
But she had known--at least in her heart. And at last her conscious mind had
registered it. Surprisingly, her initial reaction had been shock.
Oh my God! Where did this come from? This isn't right! What in the world am I thinking?
But slowly she came to the realization that it was right. All of her feelings of anger, frustration, and confusion began to transform into feelings of desire, passion, and longing. She felt a whisper of calm and peace begin to seep into her being; an uplifting sensation of serene tranquility she'd never in her life experienced. She knew in her heart and her mind it was meant to be.
But...
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Although she'd made up her mind and had gone through with it, she still felt slightly apprehensive. Several factors stood in her way. For one thing, it is very unprofessional to get involved with someone you work with, especially if that someone is an employee. Of course it hadn't stopped her in the past... But this time she was the employer, the one with more status. Technically Richard had much more to lose if things didn't work out between them. Though he was an incredibly talented painter, his lone source of income came from the comic strip, and pursuing a relationship could easily jeopardize both their careers.
Secondly, though instinctively she believed Richard shared similar feelings for her, she wasn't entirely positive about it. Richard had been a very good friend to her even though at times he was hard to deal with. She knew he had built the walls around himself as a protection and she could understand his reasons. He had lived a rough life, survived a rocky upbringing in an unpredictable household, and been subject to cruelties in many forms. Even as an adult, things had not changed much. Slowly, though, he had instilled his trust in her and began to open himself up; to bring down a few bricks at a time from that wall and show her the real Richard Karinsky--the sensitive, caring, and wonderful person her really was. Even beneath his dark exterior, through the mask of cynicism and utter indifference he kept himself hidden behind, she could see the real Richard. Once in awhile, she'd catch a hint of it, his eyes betraying his apathetic exterior. Whether or not he realized it, those clear blue spheres held within them an endless depth. She saw in them Richard the artist, Richard the poet, the provider, the nurturer, the soulmate. Richard the lover.
Beneath it all, he was the kindest and most caring soul she had ever known. She wanted desperately to share with him everything she knew about living and loving--to give him an outlet to convey the intense passion she knew lay within his being. To comfort and protect the sad and wounded boy and be comforted and protected by the strong and loving man. To become one with him.
But one major obstacle stood in their way now--Julia. Richard's ex. A gorgeous, tall, voluptuous, charming Italian brunette, whom he'd dubbed his "Sincere Amore". The day Richard had come to work for her, Caroline had been entranced as he told her how he had found in Julia "the kind of love you never have to question". Up until that moment she'd never truly believed that anyone could find a love so deep, so profound. But his eyes shone with a luster that made her certain that he believed in it. Now she believed too.
Then when Julia had arrived she'd been practically forced to come to terms with her feelings, and she saw the luster return to his eyes. In her opinion (biased though it might be) Julia was an incredibly insensitive person. She wouldn't go so far as to call her heartless, but she could see from the first moment that she had an ulterior motive. Perhaps she did love Richard, but Caroline felt it was for all the wrong reasons. Aside from her physical beauty, she could not understand what someone as intelligent and rational as Richard could possibly see in her. Of course he knew Julia much better than she did, but still she put little faith in that. She knew with near conviction that if he got involved with this woman again he was setting himself up for certain heartbreak. She couldn't bear the thought, but she realized no matter what she did, it was going to be his decision because it was his life. As much as she wanted to be a major part of it, it was, nevertheless, his.
Now Caroline had begun to feel like somewhat of an outsider. Like Del had said, it is possible for two people to share an intimate language stemming from a deep and abiding connection. Needless to say, she was jealous. Maybe not envious, but terribly jealous. All she could do was pray he did what he knew in his heart to be right, and not give in to fulfillment of natural and artless desires brought on by active hormones and years of loneliness.
Caroline sighed deeply and ran her fingers through her coppery hair. Resolutely she stood and replaced the phone in its cradle on the kitchen countertop. She rubbed her tired eyes and slowly ascended the stairs to her loft, anxious to ease her troubled mind and escape into the restful state of sleep.
From within the tranquillity of a dream-filled slumber, an alarm began to sound. It was a regular and steady pulsing siren, seemingly very near. It took several moments in her sleep-clouded haze before Caroline realized it was the phone. As a reflex, she blindly grabbed it off her end table and mumbled a soft, "Hello?"
"Caroline! Oh my God, you are not going to believe this!" came a rather disgruntled female voice from the other end.
"Annie?"
"Yes, Caroline, it's me."
Caroline stretched and slowly sat up. "How is everything in L. A.?"
Annie growled in exasperation. "It's awful! Get this--we filmed that pilot episode, and everything went totally wrong. We had to do like forty takes of each scene because they had me spewing out this crazy gibberish about 'hypovulemic shock' and 'contusions' and stuff, and I like wasn't into it, you know. So they recast me as this tough-talking cop, which by the way I was _perfect_ for... But then some idiot had to go and change the name of the show to 'Hey, Look Who Died'." Caroline raised her eyebrows in curiosity as Annie continued to whine. "And if that wasn't bad enough, the producers of 'Speed' sued the writer for copyright infringement, so now the show is canceled. I didn't even get to be on TV."
"Oh my God, Annie! That's terrible! Now what are you going to do?" Caroline asked, now wide-eyed, although the effects of sleep hadn't completely worn off.
Annie sighed. "Well, I guess I'll have to come back to the city and beg for my old job back."
Caroline narrowed her eyes slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, I guess I sorta told off the producer of 'Cats' when I got the job," Annie admitted after a momentary pause.
"Annie!"
"I know, I know. I couldn't help it. But how was I supposed to know the show was going to be crap?" Annie grumbled.
Caroline groaned. "I should have known you'd do something like that without me around to think for you. Well, hopefully the producer will be more than a little forgiving and let you come back."
"Yeah, I hope so. I don't know what I'd do without 'Cats'. I mean, I really haven't done anything besides the play. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. It does pay pretty well."
"Yeah, and then there are those of us who actually have to work for a living," Caroline remarked.
"Caroline, you are a wonderful friend," she replied sarcastically. "So how's Ma doing? Has she done anything really nuts while I've been gone? Please tell me she hasn't cleaned out my apartment and redecorated and stuff. I cannot stand doilies."
"No, no, nothing like that. But she told me if you didn't come back soon she was going to put that Jesus with the moving eyes back in your bathroom."
"Ugh," Annie groaned. "I told her if she did that again I was going to make her move in with you."
Caroline smiled. "Spadaro women on both sides of the hall. I don't think I could handle it. And by the way, she wanted me to mention she was happy you were finally dating someone with a job. She wants him to fly you back to the city so she can see what her grandchildren are going to look like."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Annie asked confusedly.
"Uh, never mind."
"Okay, well, I guess I'll be home in a few days. Oh, hey, did anything big happen while I was out here?"
Caroline shook her head and held her hand up to it as a bittersweet smile crossed her face. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Hey, honey, I need that phone! You better get off now or I'll make it part of your anatomy!" screamed a muffled male voice from Annie's side.
"Yeah, just hang on, pal! I'll get off when I'm good and ready!" Annie screamed back. To Caroline she said, "Well, listen, you can tell me all about it when I get back. I have to get going now--I'm racking up quite a long-distance bill here."
Caroline sighed. "Well, okay. Bye, Annie."
"See you later, Caroline."
Caroline hung up the phone and leaned against her headboard. The room was still quite dim as she glanced at the green numbers on her digital clock. 8:30 AM.
Immediately she recalled her actions of the previous evening.
Oh, man! Richard's gonna be here in an hour! Oh my God! What am I going to do? What if he doesn't say anything? What if he does? How am I going to face him? What if he hasn't gotten the message yet? What if he has? Oh no!
Her head swam with panic-stricken thoughts as she slapped her palms to the top of her head. She jumped out of bed and stumbled frantically downstairs and began cleaning up the apartment. She threw open the cedar chest next to the couch and tossed the pillow and blankets inside along with the pile of clothing Julia had left sitting there, then slammed the lid shut. Caroline realized Julia was possibly still wrapped in the sheet she'd worn as she ran into the hallway two nights ago. In a frenzy, she rushed into the bathroom and decided the sink needed to be scrubbed.
A slight shifting of the mattress to his right aroused Richard from his deep slumber. As he turned over and opened his eyes he admired the woman who dozed silently on her side, facing outward. Her dark curls were frosted across the pillow and her body rose ever so slightly as she breathed. She seemed so peaceful sleeping there, so calm, so beautiful. He honestly didn't believe he would ever again have the opportunity to observe this sleeping beauty after she had left him so suddenly that day in Rome. He had decided to get on with his life; to move on and get over her. It had been extremely hard--her hasty departure from his life had left him alone and brokenhearted in a city made especially for love. The truth was he had never completely gotten over her. Some part of him still believed she was his one true love, even though she was no longer a part of his life. So it was then that he'd vowed never to open himself up to such vulnerability again, even if it meant living with unending sadness and solitude for the rest of his life.
So he'd moved back to New York, penniless and desperate. Though still determined to live out his dream as a respected painter, he found he could only suffer so much for his art so he'd been forced to seek out a second source of income, and had come face to face with Caroline. Sweet, lovable, adorable Caroline, who had aroused in him feelings he had been loathe to experience after he'd lost Julia. Almost against his will he had found himself opening up to this woman, sharing with her his deep and abiding faith in "Sincere Amore". While supporting him financially for two years, she had also been a pillar to his emotions by believing in him as both an artist and a person. And he had found himself falling deeply and completely in love with her.
She demonstrated the sort of caring and loving he'd been without for nearly his entire life. But he was horribly afraid. He wanted so desperately to give in to his feelings and hold her in his arms but he was terrified of having his heart broken again. He knew he couldn't face her rejection, to see compassion flooding her beautiful dark eyes when she tells him she'd like to remain friends. He knew with certainty he would be ruined if he had to endure it a second time.
But when she'd accepted Del's marriage proposal, his mind had become a jumbled and chaotic mess. In a flood of confusion and scrambled emotions, he'd felt as though his world was falling apart. Knowing he could never survive working along side of her after she became unattainable, he'd acted out his desperation huddled over a notebook and a bottle of Chianti. Deep inside him, if only due to his drunken haze, he felt a sliver of hope that there could actually be something between he and Caroline.
But he'd given up after making a fool out of himself in Remo's. She was going to marry Del and he would never be able to face her again. What he'd worked so hard to avoid was happening right before his eyes. All of the feelings he'd ever allowed himself to experience after meeting her crescendoed when he'd seen her in the doorway of the restaurant and pulled her to him, kissing her with a passion so intense that even he'd been surprised by it. Though she'd also been visibly startled, he reveled in the fact that she hadn't pulled away, and for that second he felt himself become one with her. He felt a closeness to her which no words could adequately describe. But then she'd uttered the two words that shook him like nothing had before. "What letter?" He had never felt more humiliation than he did at that moment.
Afterwards followed the three horrible, tortuous months in Paris without Caroline and amid a mass of terribly rude French people. Cowering in embarrassment and disconcertion, it had been the most unbearable period of his miserable existence. Once again, the strain of poverty had been stronger than his struggling emotional state and he'd found himself back in New York. Upon encountering Caroline merely by chance, he decided that maybe it was fate. So back on his side of the desk, he'd been forced to endure her relationship with the immature Dr. Joe. As insensitive as it might have seemed, he took comfort in the fact that he knew the relationship wouldn't last. And it was he to whom she turned when things hadn't worked out.
If only she knew how each of her actions, no matter how significant or otherwise, affected me, he often thought to himself. He'd tried so hard to disregard his feelings for her, to convince himself that he wasn't really in love with her. But the harder he tried, the more miserable he became. Then Annie had found that condescending love letter. His artwork had taken on a single theme; his "Caroline and Someone Else" collection was rapidly expanding. Bit by bit he was resigning himself to the idea that he did not have a future with Caroline. It wasn't any less painful to watch her live out her daily life without him, but he was getting better at handling his emotions.
Then Julia had arrived and he'd gone into emotional upheaval again. Seeing her in that restaurant had sent him catapulting into the past, back to Rome, when all was well between them, where he had been as close to happiness as he'd ever been. In that moment all of his old buried feelings had resurfaced and he found himself in her arms again, as if he had never let go.
The announcement of her impending marriage to Marcello, the handsome and pompous clothing designer, had come as somewhat of a shock, though. Caught off guard and afraid of appearing as if he hadn't gotten on with his life, he'd concocted a ridiculous story in which he played the role of Caroline's husband.
As awkward as it had been, he had actually enjoyed certain aspects of the little charade. He enjoyed dancing with her and displaying all of the little affections he'd always dreamed of but had been too afraid to act out. Sleeping in Caroline's bed, though, with less than a foot of space between them, had made him exceptionally nervous. After he'd finally fallen asleep, he had been astounded to find himself nearly on top of her upon awakening. As the game became more complicated, it became too much for him to handle; restraining himself from touching her beautiful coppery hair or her milky cheek was driving him mad.
Instead of trying to endure closeness of her body next to his, he'd come up with a lame excuse about her mattress and found himself on the floor at the foot of her bed. The hardness of the floor didn't provide him with any more comfort (either physically or emotionally) than did the softness of the bed. Now roughly six feet from him lay a woman to whom he'd given his trust, something that he didn't readily distribute. She listened to him, felt compassion and empathy for him. And pity, he sometimes feared. He'd effectively made things difficult for her on numerous occasions, and it was all because of his fear of her getting too close. He realized, though, that was all that he wanted--an emotionally and physically intimate bond with her.
Downstairs, on the other hand was a woman of exceptional beauty, of unbridled passion. Where Caroline was all-giving and generous, Julia was oppressive and demanding. Although she added some much-needed excitement to his otherwise melancholic life, she was emotionally taxing. He'd learned to get used to it, though, and had found in her an escape from the reality of his macabre existence. She'd allowed him to unfurl the intense passion that he harbored while simultaneously expressing her own. They'd shared a both sensually and emotionally satisfying bond. Every day with Julia was a new adventure and he'd learned many valuable things from her. But the plain and simple truth was that she'd left him. He didn't think he'd ever be able to completely forgive her. She'd left an emotional scar on him deeper than any which had ever been inflicted upon him--in the most literal sense, she'd broken his heart. He was actually quite surprised it had gone on beating after surviving such a mortal attack.
Now, three years later he had slept on the floor above her, and suffered a painful cramp in his neck. Though he'd gone downstairs for aspirin, he realized that maybe on a subconscious level he'd also wanted to gaze upon her sleeping form one last time before she exited his life again. But as the massage she'd given him had grown more and more sensual, he'd felt his walls crumbling to the ground again. Without pausing for thought, he'd found himself in her arms, hungrily burying kisses into her warm and inviting neck. Without warning Caroline's voice had broken into his mindless, sensual realm. "Richard, what are you doing?!"
Her palm struck his face with such force he nearly fell over out of surprise. It was at that point that he began to suspect that this was no longer merely a charade to Caroline; that their game of "Let's Pretend" had jumped to an entirely different level for her. Still reeling from the shock of her abrupt entrance, he wasn't exactly sure what he was witnessing. After Julia had run into the hall in a regretful flurry, Caroline had explained to him that she'd only reacted that way because she thought that was how a wife would act upon discovering her husband was cheating on her. Richard was skeptical, but he wasn't in much of a mood to question her about it. Dazedly and terribly confused, he left Caroline and caught Julia before she'd made it to the lobby of the building.
On their way to his apartment, he'd explained everything to her. She'd seemed rather understanding and he decided that perhaps Julia had changed over the past few years. Even though he tried so hard to deny it, he had missed Julia terribly. And over the next couple hours, he began to remember why.
He sighed placidly and gently rose from the bed, making a conscious effort not disturb her. He managed to find some clothing and creeped silently into the cramped bathroom to get dressed. The faint fragrance of apple blossoms hung in the air as it intermingled with the spicy scent of his aftershave. He wasn't sure why but the combination of smells made his stomach feel queasy. He dressed quickly so he could get out of there, though he realized he wasn't going to find much fresh air anywhere in New York City. Leaving a note to Julia, he picked up his portfolio and headed out the door.
Continued in Caroline and the Drawing (Part Two)
Please visit my Caroline in the City webpage: Sincere Amore