Part Seven: Maybe This Dream (Reprise)

December 30, 2020

They haven't spoken since Christmas Eve. Or rather, they haven't had the talk about their relationship since Christmas Eve. Rebecca is grateful that Rebetzel's is nestled inside the lobby of MountainTop's office building. This way she catches him on every business day at eight o'clock sharp for five minutes of awkward small talk. But small talk is maddening when she desperately wants to have the big talk.

The way she sees it, the ball is in his court. He is the one who walked away from the session, claiming to need time to think. So she's giving him that space, fighting every stubborn impulse to crash through that boundary. Each morning she grits her teeth through the small talk and stares longingly at his back as he gets in the elevator.

Today their interaction starts the same way as the last two days he has breezed through the lobby. He stops to get his black coffee, which AJ retrieves as they stare at each other, unsure what to say.

"Good morning," he says today.

"Hi."

She breaks his stiff gaze to sweep away an invisible piece of dust on the counter. She expects him to take his coffee and leave, prolonging these six days of agony (not that she's counting) into seven since the incident that fractured them.

However, today is different. Today he clears his throat with intention and says, "We should . . . I want to talk." He pauses and his eyes dart to AJ who is listening with interest. "Privately," he adds.

Perking up, she quickly responds, "Yes. I would like that. I want to talk too."

"OK," he says, exhaling deeply, "I will call you then."

"OK."

AJ hands him his coffee cup and he nods curtly in thanks and walks away. As he presses the button in the elevator, Rebecca daydreams running in behind him just as the doors are closing and pulling the emergency alarm. She imagines demanding him to spill his guts. Right here. Right now. No more mature, patient Rebecca.

"Tragic," AJ mutters as he wipes down the counter.

She straightens up. "What? You are," she replies.

"What's the tea? What happened with Mr. Uptight? Let me guess. You broke up with him again. No, you're in a love octagon with seven men and you can't decide between them."

She rolls her eyes. "No. If you must know, we're in a bit of a . . . we're taking a brief . . . respite."

"You're on a break? How very 90's of you."

"No, it's not like that. We just need a little space."

"That sounds like a break to me."

Before she can fire back a retort, Darryl barrels into the lobby, a concerned look on his face. He walks straight up to Rebecca and she braces herself for whatever crisis he is about to unleash.

"Oh Rebecca, I'm so glad I caught you."

"This is where I am. Every weekday morning. What's wrong?"

Darryl sets down his briefcase on the counter and gestures with both hands as he speaks. "Please know I would never ever ask you for a favor – especially this kind of favor – unless it was a true emergency."

"Out with it."

"April and I bought expensive tickets to a New Year's Eve fête in LA for tomorrow night. Our babysitter fell through at the last minute. We called our backup babysitter and they already have plans too. And so I thought since you're Hebby's –"

"Don't say it –"

"Right. For reasons completely unrelated to the fact that you share genetic material with my daughter –"

"Wow, just breezed right past that boundary."

"– I thought maybe you could watch her and Ella." He folds his hands together into a grovelling pose.

"You're asking me to watch two babies? At the same time? What about Madison and Chloe? When I was a kid, my babysitter was a twelve-year-old from down the block."

"The girls are going to be at a sleepover. Please, Rebecca. April and I haven't been out together in so long and I promised her one night away from the kids. I know you and Nathaniel probably have special, fancy, and probably expensive plans, but –"

Rebecca's eyes drop as soon as he says Nathaniel's name.

"What? What's that sad face?" Darryl asks, dropping his hands.

"We don't have any special plans. Or any plans at all. We're kind of –"

"On a break," AJ cuts in.

"Not a break!"

"Oh no, that's awful!" Darryl coos, his whole body slumping.

Rebecca gives him a sullen shrug. The holidays really are the worst fucking time to be in a fight with your boyfriend.

Darryl tries to console her. "I'm sure whatever it is, you two can work it out."

"Maybe," she says, half-heartedly. The prospect of babysitting and spending another holiday apart from Nathaniel bums her out more than she cares to admit. Even though she doesn't normally celebrate Christmas, she assumed they would do something together, maybe even with his family since she's met both his parents. All day she imagined what he was doing, wishing she could be with him, and wondering whether he felt the same tug of melancholy.

"No, I mean it," Darryl says emphatically. "You will get through this rough patch. You're my favorite couple! I mean, aside from Paula and Scott. And AJ and Sam, of course," he finishes with a wink to AJ.

Rebecca's head whips toward AJ. "You're dating someone? Since when?"

"Over a year now. Wouldn't hurt you to ask about my personal life every once and a while," AJ retorts.

Rebecca rolls her eyes.

"My point is," Darryl continues, "I really love you guys! When you sang to him, it made me feel all warm and gooey inside, like I was part of a real-life romantic comedy!" he gushes, placing his hand over his heart. "I even came up with a couple name for you: Nabecca."

"Yeah, well, they never show what happens after the credits roll," Rebecca mutters.

Darryl gives her a sympathetic frowning face. Even if it does annoy her, she appreciates his effort to cheer her up.

"I'll do it, Darryl," she says, straightening up. "I'll watch Hebby and Ella. As long as you promise not to do that thing where you make weird cooing sounds while I'm holding Hebby."

"I promise! No awkward comments or noises. Thank you! Thank you so much. By the time you get there, they will already be tucked in bed like the little angels they are. You'll barely have to do a thing. Not one finger will be lifted."

"OK, OK, go to work," Rebecca says, shooing him away.

"Seven o'clock?" Darryl asks as he starts to walk toward the elevator.

Rebecca nods and waves him away again.

"I'll say it again. Tragic," AJ says as the elevator closes.

The next day, Rebecca throws an old, soft sweater she doesn't mind getting stained and resigns herself to the fact that she's spending New Year's Eve with an infant and a toddler. It's not her ideal New Year's Eve by a long shot. No romantic dinners, fancy parties, champagne, nor even a simple kiss at midnight. Even so, Nathaniel said that he would call her tonight. At least that's something. Hopefully they can have a real conversation and she will finally be put out of her misery wondering if they have screwed things up beyond repair.

Darryl and April are rushing around the house in a flurry when she arrives. Darryl is in a tuxedo and April is in a black cocktail dress, bouncing tiny Ella in her arms.

"Hebby is down, but Ella won't settle," April explains, the infant fussing softly in her arms. "I've fed her, I've changed her. I've done everything to try to get her to calm down."

April disappears into the baby's room and the whimpers get quieter.

"Oh shoot, maybe we should cancel," Darryl says with worry, looking wistfully toward the bedroom.

"No, you should go. Ella will be fine. I'll rock her or . . . something. I'll figure it out. You two should go. You deserve a night out."

A few moments later, April emerges from the hallway and sighs, "She's finally down." With a laugh, she adds, "Let's get the hell out of here before she wakes up again."

"Yes. Go. Go. I'll be fine. Probably." Rebecca opens the front door to usher them out and she's surprised to see Nathaniel standing on the porch, poised to knock.

For a moment they both openly stare at each other, perplexed.

"What are you doing here?" Nathaniel asks.

"What are you doing here?" Rebecca echoes.

After a beat, they both look at Darryl in unison. He's smirking.

"Darryl," Rebecca says, warning in her voice.

"You two need to talk, and, Rebecca, you said you were nervous about watching both babies at the same time, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone."

Nathaniel pinches the bridge of his nose. "Sorry," he says to Rebecca, "I didn't know."

April grabs Darryl's hand and drags him out the door, saying, "Thanks for watching them, you two! Have a great night!"

Nathaniel reluctantly steps inside and closes the door behind him. "What the hell just happened?"

Rebecca laughs nervously. "I guess Darryl is playing matchmaker."

They fall into an uncomfortable silence. Rebecca shifts back and forth and Nathaniel licks his lips.

"So."

"So."

Rebecca desperately wants him to lead this conversation. He's been quiet since their session with Dr. Akopian, not giving her any clues as to where he stands on their relationship. The urge to wrap her arms around him and hold him close is overwhelming.

"Should we sit?" he suggests, gesturing to the couch.

They sit on the couch with a respectable cushion between them. When her butt hits the seat, a sharp pain jolts her back upright and she lets out a yelp. A hard plastic toy in the shape of a giraffe is wedged between the cushion and arm of the couch. She pulls it out and reveals it to Nathaniel and he laughs.

"Guess I'm glad it wasn't a pine cone."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Just a dumb . . . musical reference. Forget it."

She sits back down carefully.

Again, she waits for him to speak first, but every second of silence feels unbearable.

"There are so many things . . . I don't know where to start," he finally says.

"Start anywhere."

He's wringing his fingers together and not meeting her eyes. He swallows, then says, "First, I'm sorry that I left. I was overwhelmed, and there was a lot I needed to process."

She nods. He's still staring at his hands.

Though his silence is killing her, she says, "Take all the time you need."

He takes a shaky breath. "I knew from the beginning that, because of our past, there could be issues. I knew you might have concerns about . . . fidelity."

He's choosing his words so carefully and hesitantly that she wants to shake him until all the words fall out. At the same time she appreciates that he's being thoughtful. She can tell this is difficult for him.

He continues softly, "It really . . . hurt . . . to hear that you see that as an inevitability."

"Truthfully, I didn't realize it either until Dr. Akopian said it."

He nods and looks solemnly at the ground. "Hearing her say we don't trust each other was hard. It made me feel like we have this huge mountain to climb. I think – stupidly, I guess – I thought that this would be easy. Our friendship felt so easy. Didn't it?"

"Yes," Rebecca says with a breathy laugh. "It's funny. I said almost those exact same words to Dr. Akopian after you left."

"And what did she say?"

Not for the first time, she wishes he would have stayed and listened more to what her doctor had to say. For not being a couples counselor, she sure had a lot of wisdom about relationships.

"She said that romantic relationships require a lot of vulnerability. You let the other person see the most intimate parts of yourself. And it requires a different level of trust."

He smiles and says, "That makes sense. Why didn't we realize that first?"

She chuckles. "Yeah. I don't know."

He goes on, "I've been thinking a lot about . . . us."

Rebecca's stomach twists into a knot. She's heard that line before – many times – and it's usually the beginning of a talk that leads to the end.

"The thing is – the part that feels overwhelming is – I don't know how to show you that you can trust me. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what I need to do or say." His face tightens as he holds back emotion and his voice wavers. "Honestly, at the session I felt like I was losing you all over again."

Again her chest swells and she wants to hug him, to hold him so tight that he can never get away. He's not breaking up with her. Quite the opposite. He's terrified of losing her.

Rebecca softly touches his forearm, scooting closer to him on the couch, and says, "I don't want to lose you either."

Nathaniel looks down at her hand squeezing his arm and then back up at her. He seems genuinely surprised at the gesture and her words.

"Really?"

"Of course. And I want you to trust that. Trust me."

"I want to trust that. I do," he whispers.

He takes a deep breath and says, "What you said about our relationship . . . before. That you could have hurt yourself. I – you've never told me that before. I didn't know that was the reason."

"I tried to tell you. I told you I was starting to obsess over you the way I did with Josh."

"I didn't realize that's what you meant." He sighs. "I had blinders on. You made me feel things I had never felt before. All I cared about was having you any way that I could. I'm sorry."

It's an apology she didn't know she needed. She's learned through therapy that all her schemes and manipulations can seem innocuous, even cute, from the outside. People think she's simply quirky or boy crazy. They can't see how dangerous those outwardly endearing obsessions are for her and how they hide a deep pain.

"So what do we do now?" he asks. "What did Dr. Akopian say?"

He wants something concrete, prescriptive, to follow. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as following a set of directions.

"She said to start with honesty. The longer we bottle up our feelings, the more those feelings have control over us. They can create a narrative in our mind about the other person that may or may not be true. I don't know about you, but my brain is really good at spinning out over some flimsy assumptions."

He nods as he digests this information.

She continues, "So if something is bothering us or we're feeling insecure, we need to just say it. Even if it's hard."

"That makes sense."

"And it goes both ways. If we have strong feelings in a good way, we should also voice it."

His smile falters a little. The guilt he feels about the I love you debate is written all over his face.

Not wanting to linger on that topic, she finishes, "And we both have to decide to trust each other."

He smirks a little. "Decide? If it were that easy wouldn't we have already done it?"

She laughs. "No, it's about a fresh start. A new commitment. It's shifting our mindset to an innocent until proven guilty kind of thing."

Rebecca didn't only learn this from Dr. Akopian. Paula and Scott are an example of how a relationship could be saved by a mutual decision to move forward with renewed trust, putting past transgressions behind them.

Nathaniel ponders this idea for a moment. "I think I can do that," he says softly.

"I think so too," she says.

With renewed optimism, Rebecca tucks one of her legs under her and excitedly shifts to fully face him.

She holds up her pinky, offering it to him.

She expects him to scoff at it the way he did the first time, the first night they slept together in this new iteration of their relationship.

Instead, his eyes go soft. "I'm feeling a sense of deja vu," he jokes with a loving smile.

He hooks his pinky around hers.

"I promise," she says, "I will choose to trust you. I'm not going to spiral out assuming things about what you're doing or thinking or feeling. And, in turn, I will be honest about how I'm feeling."

Even merely saying all of it out loud feels weighty. For her, this is a serious commitment, perhaps even more than accepting Josh's marriage proposal. It's not only a commitment to him, or even them. It's a commitment to herself. It's a commitment to break her own cycle of self-sabotage, distrust, and toxic relationships. If he were to laugh at her, at this pinky promise, it would crush her. She's trusting him now, in this moment, with her heart on her sleeve.

He swallows and he thinks for a moment. "I promise . . . that I will . . . "

She waits, giving him the time he needs to formulate his thoughts.

He clears his throat. "I promise I will tell you the truth, even when it's difficult or I'm afraid of how you'll respond."

He meets her eyes and the vulnerability she sees makes her throat tighten. "I missed you this week," he finally says, his voice thick. "I wanted you with me on Christmas. With my family. I wanted you there."

She sucks in a breath, afraid she might cry.

"I'll tell you those things from now on," he says, squeezing her pinky. "OK?"

She nods, teary.

He releases her pinky and cups her cheek, gently pulling her forward. He kisses her softly and she feels an incredible rush of relief. They did it. They made it out the other side. There's no way she can know their future, but she's confident they will both try to make it work.

When he pulls away, he caresses her cheek with his thumb and whispers, "I want you to promise me one more thing."

Anything. She wants to say yes to anything at this moment. She nods for him to go on.

"Promise me you'll sit at your keyboard. For five minutes."

"Nathaniel —"

Suddenly, Ella starts wailing loudly from the bedroom. Rebecca was so engaged in their conversation she almost forgot they were supposed to be babysitting. They both stare at each other with wide eyes, figuring out what to do next.

"Should I —?"

"You're the one who's always watching Hebby."

"That's only because I have the office next to Darryl's and I know how to handle a squirming monkey. An infant is totally different."

The crying gets louder, which propels Rebecca off the couch. In the nursery, Ella's tiny arms are flailing, so Rebecca gingerly puts one hand to support her head and the other under her butt and lifts her into her arms. A concerned Nathaniel follows behind her.

Remembering all the movies and TV shows she's seen with babies, she holds Ella to her chest and starts bouncing on her heels. She coos, "it's OK, it's OK. Your parents left you with two people who have no idea what they're doing."

Nathaniel laughs and gets closer, resting his hand on Rebecca's back and rubbing in a circular motion. He tries to soothe her while she tries to soothe the baby.

Ella eventually starts to quiet down until her cries sound like more discontented mumbles. Nathaniel uses his free hand to cup the baby's head. "At least with Hebby I can juggle her without worrying I'm going to dent her head," he says with amusement, tracing his thumb over the baby's wispy hair.

"Don't even say that," she warns with a laugh. "Don't put that thought in my head."

Soon Ella is quiet and lays her head on Rebecca's chest, her eyes starting to droop.

"I'm better with her than with Hebby," she says with a rueful laugh. "What does that mean?"

Her relationship to Hebby doesn't become any more clear with the passage of time. She still doesn't know where she fits in – or whether she even wants to fit in – to Hebby's life. It's a conversation she and Darryl should have had long before this point, before she even donated her eggs. She rushed in, thinking she was doing a kind thing and believing it was just her useless, damaged DNA. But now that DNA is a living, breathing, crawling, babbling human. Someday Hebby will know the truth. And then what?

Still rubbing her back, Nathaniel whispers, "It doesn't mean anything. They're just babies."

She wants to believe him. What's funny is she worried that once Hebby was born she would feel too bonded to her. When she didn't, she wondered if that was worse. Was something defective inside her? Instead of addressing those feelings, she pushed them down, but every once and a while they spring up and claw at her.

Ella drifts off, and, after a few more silent minutes of bouncing at a slower and slower pace, Rebecca places her back in the crib. She stirs with a sleepy whine, but doesn't wake up. They both freeze for a moment, then tiptoe out of the room once she settles into sleep.

Rebecca sighs as she sinks back into the couch.

"My mother always said I was a difficult baby," Nathaniel says as he sits beside her. "Labored for forty hours, then kept her up all night for a year."

Naomi always told Rebecca she was an unruly baby and even more unruly toddler. And don't even get me started on your teen years. It made her feel guilty for merely existing, and she grew up believing she was hard to love – that loving her was an arduous task. Without even knowing the finer details of his childhood, she would bet her life that Nathaniel lived a similar narrative. Instead of bucking against it, he leaned into it. Instead of scheming people into loving her, he relished in being hated.

"So where were we?" she asks, scooting toward him.

He hesitates for a moment and then says softly, "Your keyboard."

Oh. Right. She almost hoped he would forget to follow up on that part, but it appears it's in the forefront of his mind.

"I'm not trying to push, but you've been . . . "

He trails off, but she can fill in the rest.

"I've been struggling."

He nods and Rebecca looks down at her hands, embarrassed. Since the night she was kicked out of Open Mike's, she hasn't brought it up with him once. The truth is that she has been devastated by the loss, but she didn't want him to see how much it was truly affecting her.

"It's been really hard," she says, her voice breaking, "not having that in my life. I feel stuck, like I can't move forward. That night I yelled at you and blamed you for getting kicked out, and I don't want you to feel any more guilty than you already do. I've been afraid to tell you any of this."

"Why?"

"You know, when I'm having my good days, people like me. I'm fun to be around. But when I'm having my bad days, when my illness becomes . . . obvious, I guess, sometimes people don't want to stick around. So I try to cover up my worst days. With jokes or sex or a drugstore box of black hair dye."

He chews his lower lip and nods slowly. He's remembering, processing, seeing the past in hindsight.

"I want you to tell me these things."

With a deep breath, Rebecca offers her pinky to him again. "I promise I'll sit at my keyboard for five minutes," she says earnestly.

He grins and hooks his pinky around hers. She leans in and they kiss. It's gentle, tender. After a few moments, he lets go of her pinky and pulls her close so he can really kiss her.

When the room starts to feel too warm for her sweater, he pulls away and says, "I would take this further, but I'm pretty sure there's crusted cheese on that armrest."

She looks behind her and, indeed, there is a stomach curling dried substance just inches away from her. She leans away from it dramatically, which elicits a hardy laugh from Nathaniel.

That night she and Greg had sex here, not too far from where they're sitting, she had thought it was so romantic how they did it despite all the mess around them. Nathaniel did say he overheard her conversation with Paula about that night, including her thoughts on the romance of the situation. The fact that, even knowing that intimate information, he's confident enough to suggest something else, to want better circumstances for their own love making, is romantic in itself.

Reading her mind, he says, "Right now I'm trusting that you're not reminiscing fondly about another event that allegedly transpired here."

She laughs. "I can assure you I would much rather make new memories far away from this home with two sleeping babies and crusty substances."

When Darryl and April arrive home after midnight, Nathaniel and Rebecca are dozing on the couch, his arm draped around her shoulders, her nose in his shirt. The TV is softly humming with a replay of the ball drop in Times Square.

The noise of the front door makes them stir, but they quickly become fully awake when Darryl can't help himself but gush over their apparent reconciliation, his voice entirely too loud.

"I knew you two would work things out! Look at me, bringing people together. It worked!"

Nathaniel is as stubborn as she is, if not worse, and they don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing his manufactured romantic scenario was so successful. But, as Rebecca's getting in her car to drive home, she sees Nathaniel shake Darryl's hand with gratitude as he says goodbye.