Chapter Fifty-Three
Olive Garden
I love you guys! Four hundred reviews! How about all of us go to Olive Garden? We might catch a glimpse of Beckett and Melissa, even...
This chapter goes to my friend, Melanie, who was recently diagnosed. All of us are praying for you and know that you'll make it through.
Yesterday at around 6:00, Kate and Will had arrived at their apartment in New York. The only thing they brought in was take-out for dinner, muffins for tomorrow morning, and blankets. They decided that they weren't going to bring in boxes and furniture tonight – that would be Friday's job.
And Friday's job it became.
After a muffin each, the newlyweds trekked back down the elevator to the U-Haul they parked on the street during the evening. They decided to work on furniture first, seeing as boxes were easier to lift. After a few minutes of trying to get the couch into the elevator in the lobby, they got it in the elevator.
A few moments later, the door opened to the sixth floor. They picked the couch up and went down the hall with it. Kate didn't realize how heavy a couch was until she had to go down a whole apartment floor with it. Thankfully, it wasn't too long, there were two apartments before their's on the left side.
"Left," Kate instructed Will, who was walking backwards, trying to get the couch through the door.
"A little to the right," she said.
The couch eased through the doorway. They brought it to the living room and set it down by the window.
"We should have thought of a better way to do this," she thought out loud.
"There's not much in the way of furniture," he replied. "The lounge, the dining room, and the bed."
Kate had never moved before. She had a feeling she was in for a surprise with how hard it would be.
Repeating the same process, they brought the lounge upstairs. She quickly realized that this was not a fun job, nor how she wanted to spend her day, but necessary.
When they were bringing the lounge into their apartment, she saw a pale woman with long, red hair come out of her apartment. She noticed that they lived in the apartment next door.
"Oh, how nice!" the redhead said to them. "Children helping their parents move!"
Were it not for Will, Kate was sure that the chair would have fallen onto the floor. She could feel her face getting red with embarrassment. The redhead thought that they were siblings? They only had their brown hair, height, and tan in common. Come to think of it, their bone structure was somewhat similar. Their face shape was different.
"Did she –?" he began to ask.
"Yes," Kate said quickly. She didn't feel like explaining to yet another person that she was eighteen and married.
That sounds like something Melissa would say, were she that redhead, Kate thought.
And so her longing for Melissa deepened.
Melissa spent the evening straightening her hair and deciding what to wear. After looking through all the loose tops she had, she decided on an orange/brown one and jeans. At 6:30, she slung her purse over her shoulder and headed for the garage.
"See you in a while," she called over her shoulder to Jack. "Call me on the cell if you need me."
Melissa drove for half an hour to Olive Garden. Walking in, she saw Beckett sitting on a bench inside. A tenor singing in Italian played over the sound system.
She smiled. "Hey."
He looked up at her. "Good evening."
The maitre d lead them to a table near the back. Melissa knew from experience that a Friday night at Olive Garden was packed. She wondered if he got here early so that they would be able to have a table.
"How are you?" Beckett asked, once seated at a table.
"Fine," Melissa replied. "How are you doing?"
"Fine, as well," he said.
An awkward silence filled the space between them. Melissa picked up a menu and looked through it. Linguini alla Marinara sounded good tonight.
She wondered what it looked like for her to be with someone who was about fifteen years older than her. He probably looked like he could be her father. This was becoming embarrassing than she thought it would be. Did people think he was a sugar daddy?!
"How old are you?" she blurted out before she could stop it.
He looked up from the menu. "Thirty-five."
A fourteen year age difference. Not old enough to be her father, thank goodness, but old enough to be a sugar daddy.
"I'm eighteen," she said.
Melissa could feel her face turning red. She had never imagined that this was what it would be like go out to dinner with an older man. Jack didn't count, seeing as they had never gone out somewhere. Even if they had, it would have been much more relaxed. Melissa actually knew things about Jack. She had only talked to Beckett three hours.
"This shall be sufficiently awkward," he said, looking back down at the menu.
Yes. Yes, it would be.
After a waitress took their orders, Melissa took a sip of water. What to say from here? What was she thinking, going out to dinner with someone she barely knew. Was she that desperate to have someone to talk to?
"Tell me what Port Royal was like," she said.
"Warm," he said.
She wondered how many times a day he used sarcasm.
"I guessed," she said.
Maybe she could pretend to have morning sickness in the evening. This was an awful idea.
"I do have to say that the twenty-first century is a bit more practical," he continued. "You can go from Jamaica to England in a matter of hours."
Melissa had never thought about how it must have been such a daunting journey from Port Royal to England and back. She couldn't handle being on a ship for more than a few hours, much less weeks.
"How long did it take you to get from England to Port Royal?" she asked.
"Six weeks or so."
Six weeks? She would go crazy. How could someone do that? All they had to entertain themselves with were books and human interaction!
"I can see why you'd prefer twenty-first century life," she said. "Did you like your job? Owning the East India Trading Company, I mean."
"It gave me control. I owned the East India Trading Company, Melissa. I could have anything that I wanted. I loved it."
With power came greed and desire, though.
"I don't think that people loved you, though," she said.
"If I cared about that, I would not have had that level of authority."
She could still fake the morning/evening sickness. It'd be easy. Run off to the bathroom and call Jack on her cell and admit tell that he was right, she was wrong, and that she was coming home.
"Right you are," she said.
"The time has come that I ask you a question," he said. "What's it like to be with child?"
She had never really thought about it. What does it feel like to be pregnant?
"It doesn't hurt –"
"Not physically," he said, rolling his eyes.
It wouldn't kill him to be a bit more specific.
"It was horrible in the beginning," she said. "I was sick and depressed for a week. The depression and shock was for a week, anyway. I was sick for about six weeks. Now I can't imagine something not growing in me." She laughed. "In a few months, I'll want my body to myself soon, I'm guessing."
Hopefully Beckett now had some idea of what it was like to be in the first trimester of pregnancy.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
"Her. I used to regret her. Now I don't know how life would even be possible without her."
"Her?" he questioned.
"Yeah. I took a blood test, it said it was a girl. Jack and I are going to name her Amy Pearl, we think."
Pearl. Melissa still didn't like that name. She prayed it would grow on her.
"Amy Sparrow. That would be a lovely name, if not for the latter."
"Amy Lewes, actually."
She remembered that was the final straw for her with Jack. It was such a minor thing, but it would stay with her daughter until the day she got married.
"Lovely, indeed."
That was what he called her on the plane. Did he still have more-than-friendly feelings towards her? She would be sick if he still did.
And so the night at Olive Garden began.
Melissa came home around 8:30 that evening. Jack was watching something a baseball game when he heard the garage door open.
"'Ow was th' dinner with th' de'il 'imself?" Jack asked.
She walked through the small kitchen and took her cell phone out of her purse and put it on the charger. "You were right."
He never thought that he would hear that come from her.
"Not completely, though."
Of course she wasn't going to give him complete satisfaction.
"Do tell, dearie," he said.
She sat down next to him on the sofa. "He told me that he loved owning the East India Trading Company because he could have anything he wanted."
Jack laughed. He would have done anything to see Melissa's face.
"I was going to fake my morning sickness in the evening and go to the bathroom and call you to say that I was coming home early," she admitted. "Gosh, it was awful!"
"'N' it didn't get better fer ya...Oh, Mel, I have no sympathy fer ya this time."
"No, it did get better," she corrected. "He inquired about my pregnancy. So, no, he's not a complete devil."
"'E only asked 'cause he's infatuated with you."
"Possibly."
More than probable, he mentally corrected.
"Who's winning?" she asked, looking at the game on television.
"Red Sox," Jack said.
She smiled and nestled against him and shut her eyes. "Pretend that I'm Amy," she murmured. "Tell me a pirate story."
For the first time since September, Jack began to wonder what it would be like to call Melissa his again, to have her cuddle against him. He wasn't interested in getting back together with her...or did his feelings deceive him?
A grin came upon his lips. "Once upon a time, there was a pirate captain that sailed the seas. His name was Captain Jack Sparrow, and..."
