May 30, 2020
"I don't know why we can't just give them cash," Nathaniel says, exasperated, as he trails Rebecca through Nordstrom's Bed, Bath, & Home department.
"Since you're buying — thanks for that, by the way — I want to splurge and get them something fun! Cash is boooring," Rebecca whines.
As they stroll through the displays of flatware and serving dishes and luggage sets, he wonders how any of it is more exciting than receiving cash. Rebecca lured him into this shopping trip under false pretenses by requesting his expertise for an extravagant purchase. Intrigued, he agreed, expecting a trip to a car dealership or a high-end clothing store. Nathaniel, having an eye for the finer things, had no trouble spotting the trademark red bottom of her Louboutin heels and her classic Kate Spade tote when they first met. So it seemed within the realm of possibility that she may be in the market for such a purchase, though these items have been out of her regular rotation for quite some time.
In retrospect, he should have realized Rebecca no longer has the means for luxury purchases with Rebetzel's still struggling to hurdle out of the red, not to mention all the private music lessons. While she may have a history of expensive tastes, those days are long over.
"And even though this is my money, I don't get a say in this?" he asks, though he already knows the answer.
"Nope," she replies sweetly.
"Don't they have a registry?"
Rebecca ignores him and continues to mosey through the store, undeterred by his objections. As she floats past items with textile elements, be it bedding or towels, she runs her hand over them as if she can find the perfect gift through some kind of kinesthetic clairvoyance.
"Are you coming to my next show?" she asks over her shoulder. She's pretending this is a casual question, not even looking up from browsing when she says it. But her poker face is about as convincing as her vow to give up carbs for Valencia's wedding. He knows she very much cares about her friends' support of her burgeoning passion.
"Of course," he says and he catches her quiet smile at his answer.
Second Friday of every month. He hasn't missed one yet. Her performances are a delightful mélange of original songs and songs she's rewritten the lyrics to, the latter of which tends to be more of a crowd-pleaser. In April, she rewrote the lyrics for Good Morning, Baltimore to Good Morning, West Covina, both praising and panning the town in equal measure, which was highly appreciated by the local audience and closed to thunderous applause. (Her quirky and increasingly funny ways of incorporating the extra syllable in West Covina to fit the song's structure only added to the song's charm.) For her first stab at injecting humor in her songwriting, the response blew her away. Add one more weapon to her growing musical arsenal.
His personal favorite show was last month when she performed her rendition of Etta Mae's Lament, more than a year overdue, with all the lyrical changes Nathaniel intended to sing before he was cut off. Each time she glanced up from her music, she found his eyes in the crowd, setting off a burst of fireworks in his stomach. Though there were tens of people in the room, he felt like it was a secret performance only for him.
Paula, like Nathaniel, has perfect attendance. The two often sit together at a high-top table, the same spot every week, so they can whisper updates on cases to each other in between acts. Valencia and Heather make sporadic appearances when either of them are in town for the weekend. Greg makes an effort, but Friday nights prove to be almost impossible for a restaurant owner. Still, she plays the crowd like a fiddle, both friends and strangers alike, and Nathaniel wouldn't miss her monthly five minutes of pure happiness for anything.
In between shows, she keeps her works-in-progress to herself. She takes pleasure in the unadulterated, unspoiled reaction from her friends and treats each performance like it's a grand unveiling. (Rebecca loving a big reveal? Who would have thought.) Not creative in the least himself, the idea of her divining songs out of thin air is so completely foreign that he often imagines it as some kind of mysterious magic he cannot touch or fathom.
After silently surveying the merchandise for a few minutes more, her ponytail bouncing behind her, something catches Rebecca's eye and she stops suddenly in her tracks. Nathaniel's inertia propels him forward, almost making him run right into her, but he catches himself by bracing both hands on her shoulders.
"Oh my god," she mutters to herself.
She wriggles out of his grasp toward an end-cap display, showcasing an item he would never buy for himself, let alone give as a gift. Just the thought of having one in his home is so revolting he cannot even entertain it. It's a gift so tacky, so obnoxious, he knows Valencia would absolutely loathe it.
A karaoke machine.
Two speakers with a mounted touch-screen, accompanied by a metallic gold, sparkly wireless microphone.
The gift of torture, he thinks.
Rebecca picks up the mic and flicks a tiny switch, her face lighting up when the speakers begin to hum.
Nathaniel ducks into the adjacent aisle while she's preoccupied, partly to make her laugh when she turns around to see he's disappeared and partly because he can see what's coming from miles away.
"Nathaniel," she says into the mic, misjudging the volume, which sends her voice booming through the store. She reflexively pulls the mic away from her mouth and tries again, much softer this time, "Nathaniel. Paging Nathaniel Plimpton the third. Please report to me."
As he peeks around the corner moments later, revealing himself, he observes her tapping the touch screen, scrolling, scrolling, until she finds a title that sparks a wicked grin. He can't read the text from where he stands, but he can tell from her expression he isn't going to like it.
"Nathaniel, you've left me no choice but to embarrass you," she says into the mic as she pushes on the screen, confirming her selection.
An all-too-familiar guitar arpeggio begins to play, triggering a pit of dread in his stomach.
Oh no. She wouldn't.
He acts fast, marching up to her and putting a hand over the mic, whispering in hushed frustration, "We are not doing this. We're in the middle of a department store."
She jerks the mic away from his hand and sings right on cue, a smirk plastered on her face, "You are my fire. The one desire. Believe when I say. I want it that way."
Oh yes. Yes, she would.
"But we are two worlds apart. Can't reach to your heart. When you say that I want it that way," she sings passionately, her free hand forming a fist, as if she's singing to him from the depths of her very soul.
Nathaniel whips his head around and thankfully he sees no one in the immediate vicinity except an elderly woman fingering a comforter nearby who seems oblivious (hopefully hard-of-hearing) a few feet away.
In the short pause between the first verse and the chorus, she says all in one breath, pointing at him, "Come on, Nathaniel, I know you know this one. I bet you had frosted tips in junior high and thought you were Nick Carter!"
He can't help the barking laugh that escapes from his throat at that remark — at how humiliatingly true it is — but he rolls his eyes, pretending he's not amused. She latches on to this hint of enjoyment and grabs his hand, pulling him closer while she energetically sings the chorus, "Tell me why! Ain't nothing but a heartache. Tell me why! Ain't nothing but a mistake. Tell me why. I never want to hear you say. I want it that way."
Regardless of how truly embarrassing this is, he can't deny how much he loves seeing her like this. Anytime Rebeca is enthusiastic about something — from getting an extra dumpling in their Chinese food to performing her songs on stage — it invigorates him. It's like happiness through osmosis. Joy by proxy. A radiance surrounds her like sunshine, warming anyone around her. And the best part, the part he admires most, is that she doesn't give a single fuck what other people think about her in these moments.
Without warning, just as the second verse is starting, she shoves the mic in his face and her eyes go wide, prompting him to sing. Instinctively, he does, singing along with her, "Am I your fire? Your one desire?"
"Yes!" she yells, grinning ear-to-ear, nodding vehemently for him to keep going. He's slightly off-pitch and his voice is a little shaky, but her over-the-top encouragement fuels him to keep going. All he wants is for her to keep smiling at him like this, keep looking at him like this.
He runs away with that impulse and takes the mic out of her hands, hamming it up for her to the best of his meager ability, careful not to let his eyes wander. If there are any onlookers, he doesn't want to know, lest he lose his nerve. "Yes, I know it's too late. But I want it that way," he sings and arches his eyebrows at her, wondering if she can resist the temptation to jump in at the chorus.
She can't.
Together, they yell-sing in unison, "Tell me why!"
Rebecca dissolves into a giggling fit, only articulating every other word as they sing the rest of the chorus, "Ain't nothing but a heartache. Tell me why! Ain't nothing but a mistake. Tell me why. I never want to hear you say. I want it that way."
"The bridge!" she exclaims.
She lovingly cups one of his cheeks in her palm and gazes into his eyes, trying so, so hard to seem serious as she sings, "Now I can see that we've fallen apart from the way that it used to be. No matter the distance, I want you to know that deep down inside of me . . ."
Nathaniel takes a dramatic step to the side, commandeering the mic and putting a hand over his heart as he sings to her, "You are my fire. The one desire. You are . . ."
As the voices echo in the background, he takes a deep breath and Rebecca's eyes go wide with wild excitement for what's about to happen. He belts out, "Don't want to hear you sayyy —"
"Sir?"
A stern voice pierces their bubble.
A forty-something man with an employee name tag on his chest stands a few feet away, his arms crossed.
Nathaniel abruptly stops singing and his cheeks flush hot with embarrassment.
"Can you please quiet down?"
Rebecca clutches Nathaniel's bicep and apologizes, "I am so sorry, sir. I cannot take him anywhere. He can't help himself. He loves the Backstreet Boys."
The employee arches his left eyebrow and then walks away, the backing track to the song playing him off.
As soon as he's out of earshot, Rebecca is back to laughing, doubling over until she's resting her hands on her thighs. "Oh my god, you should see your face," she huffs.
Hilarious.
But Rebecca isn't the only one finding the whole situation highly entertaining. A young woman nearby is also covering her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle her reaction. She's pretty, poised, and impeccably dressed, not one hair out of place.
"Mona," he says under his breath.
Rebecca's too busy recovering from her laughing fit, sucking in a few last wheezing breaths. "Huh? What?"
"Mona," he says, the sensitive mic picking up his voice and reverberating it so there's no mistaking what he's said.
Rebecca immediately goes into full deer-in-headlights mode, eyes impossibly wide, the rest of her frozen stiff with shock.
It's a moment he hoped would never come, a moment he was relieved to have narrowly missed when Rebecca skipped out on Darryl's baby shower. The woman he loved meeting the woman he desperately wished he loved.
Seeing Mona in the flesh forces all the shameful memories from the fuzzy background of his mind into painfully sharp focus. He wonders if Mona knows who she is. He wonders if she knows the woman beside him is the person he was willing to lie and cheat and throw away their entire relationship for the sliver of a possibility she may love him in return.
Nathaniel quickly turns off the mic and returns it to its home on the display shelf. No need to broadcast their dirty laundry to the entire population of the store.
"Mona, hi."
"Hi," she replies, her eyes flitting back and forth between he and Rebecca.
"This is, um," he stammers, "this is Rebecca."
"Ah," Mona says with recognition, as if she suspected as much. (Maybe Rebeca's stunned reaction gave it away.) Mona sucks in a quick breath and purses her lips, and Nathaniel can feel his heart speeding up like he's just finished a ten-mile run and downed five shots of espresso along the way.
Surprising the hell out of him, Mona offers her hand to Rebecca and meets her eyes with kindness and says, "Hi, how, um, strange to meet you."
Rebecca tentatively reaches out and takes her hand, wary, as if maybe this is some kind of trick. "That was quite a performance, I have to say," Mona adds, flashing a timid smile.
Nathaniel chances a glance at Rebecca and she's still utterly tongue-tied. He muses it may be one of the very few times he's ever witnessed her rendered completely speechless.
"How have you been?" he asks.
"Great, actually. I — " Mona begins.
"I'm sorry," Rebecca blurts out. "I'm sorry I —"
Mona shakes her head, holding up a hand to stop her. "You don't have to . . . Please. That's really not necessary."
Mona uncomfortably shifts her Birkin bag on her arm and her hand catches Rebecca's attention.
"You're engaged," Rebecca observes.
He didn't notice it at first, but she's right. Mona's sporting a large yet tasteful pear-shaped diamond engagement ring on her left ring finger.
The tension in Mona's face disappears and she twists the ring around her finger, regarding it fondly. "Yes, yes I am. Rufus," she says, her tone dreamy and content.
"Congratulations," Nathaniel says, a little more perfunctory than he intended.
"Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be awkward. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually glad I ran into you two."
"You are," Nathaniel states, disbelieving.
"I wanted to thank you for your letter. It helped me. With closure. I tried calling."
"Oh, I was off-the-grid for a while. Sorry."
"No, no need. I just wanted to tell you that I do forgive you."
"You do," he exhales in relief, humbled by her maturity and grace.
"Honestly, I thought if I ever saw you again I would still feel angry. Especially with how things ended. Left at our own housewarming party for the other woman. The other woman being dragged away in handcuffs, no less. It's like I was living some Lifetime movie," she says with a shallow, breathy laugh.
"But that crazy night I met Rufus. He's an EMT. On paper we're all wrong for each other. From completely different worlds. You can't choose who you love, though, can you?" she asks rhetorically, smiling knowingly at them. "And seeing you both so happy and in love makes me feel like all that heartache was worth it in the end. I found Rufus and you two are clearly meant for each other. So I guess everything worked out for the best."
His instinct is to correct her. Rebecca and I are just friends flows off his tongue now with an irritating amount of ease. But Mona seems so at peace — happy even — at the thought of the two of them together that he can't bring himself to say it. If this is one tiny kindness he can give her against the mountain of hurt he caused, he wants to give that to her.
"Yeah, I guess it did," he says, wrapping an arm around Rebecca's shoulders, tucking her close to his body.
Usually she melts into his touch, their physicality with each other is something that has never wavered. It's like a second language, the way they touch. He can tell more about her emotional state through a touch of her hand on his arm — the pressure, the movement, the accompanying look in her eyes — than a thousand words could say.
It's different now, of course, with the platonic nature of their relationship. She's no longer ripping off his pants or pressing her nails into his neck or pinning his wrists against a wall or any other form of pain-slash-pleasure mixed with sexual urgency. These days her touch is combing her fingers through his hair or gently tugging on his hand or coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his middle. Touch, once simply a means to an end, now exists solely for its own sake. The red-blooded man inside him hates to admit it, but all these little signs of affection bring him more contentment than a thousand orgasms inside a grimy supply closet.
The rigidity of her body says she's uncomfortable with this charade but she's too shell-shocked to verbalize it. The tightness of her arm around his waist says she needs grounding, something stable to hold.
"You bring out something great in him. I can see that," Mona says to Rebecca, attempting to include her in the conversation. A peace offering.
He rubs her arm in a way he hopes is soothing, but her face is still laden with unease.
"She does," he murmurs, giving Mona a half-smile, "She really does."
She does. And that's not a lie.
"OK, I better get going. Take care," she says, giving them a little wave and turning on her heels.
"You too. Bye," Nathaniel says softly.
Once the clicking of Mona's heels against the tile dies down and she's out-of-sight, Rebecca slips out from under his arm and beelines toward the exit.
"Rebecca . . ." he calls after her.
She can't outpace him, but she refuses to stop, or even meet his eyes, as she sweeps through the breezeway, then the outer glass doors into the parking lot. Even then, she keeps moving until she finally comes to rest in front of his car.
"Please say something. Talk to me," he pleads.
She glares at him, her eyes narrowing.
"I know, I know," he says, "That was weird. I'm sorry."
"Open the door," she commands.
He rummages through his pocket for his key fob and unlocks the car. She wastes no time and drops into the passenger seat and he follows her lead.
As soon as the door clicks shut, she unleashes her frustration. "Weird?! Weird?!" she exclaims.
"Sorry, I . . ."
"You just bold-faced lied in there. After everything we put her through, you can't even be honest with her for two fucking seconds?" she cries.
The fervor of her reaction knocks him off-kilter and his mouth goes dry. He understands that the situation is awkward at best, but did it really warrant this amount of outrage?
"I am so disappointed in you," she says, her voice quivering.
"Rebecca, listen, it's not that simple. It's not —"
She holds up her pointer finger. "Do not say black-and-white. Don't you dare say black-and-white right now," she warns.
He bites his bottom lip as he contemplates his word choice. "Yes, it was a lie. But what would the truth have done? The way I treated her was horrible. And if the thought of us together makes her happy, why should I take that away? I think, given what I put her through, it is the kind thing to let her think we're together."
Rebecca stares down at her hands, wringing her fingers together, and sighs.
"What is this really about?" he asks softly.
She clamps her eyes closed. He's right. It's not about the lie.
"OK," she breathes, "you know when we were . . . when we were . . ."
"Having the affair."
"Right. That. I told my therapist it was the healthiest romantic relationship I had ever been in. How messed up is that? I mean, you were cheating and I was in complete denial about my feelings for you. So healthy." She shakes her head, as if she's shaking the memory loose. "The first time I saw her — Mona — at Darryl's baby shower, it all hit me. The reality of the situation. Not only was I jealous, but I finally had to face how badly we were hurting her. Seeing her just now . . . I guess it threw me right back into that headspace."
There's nothing he can say. Nothing can erase the past.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, "It was all my fault."
For several moments, she silently contemplates something and he waits for her to voice it, as he knows she will.
"Nathaniel, do you think we're bad for each other?" she asks in a small, meek voice.
A vice clamps around his heart. Squeezes.
"I don't want us to ever be back in that place again," she says, searching his eyes for reassurance.
"I don't want that either. Listen," he says, reaching over to cover her hand where it rests in her lap, "what we have now is different. We're different."
She nods, but there's still a hint of sadness in her face that worries him.
"Hey," he murmurs and her glassy eyes meet his clear blue, "you're my best friend."
He cups her jaw with his free hand, tracing the outline of it with his thumb, and she affectionately covers his hand with her own. Leaning across the console, he presses a kiss to her cheek, then whispers in her ear, "We're never going to be back there again. I promise you."
"Yeah," she says, nodding her soft face against the rough beginning of stubble on his cheek.
As he pulls away, she squeezes the hand still palming her jaw and closes her eyes for a brief moment. In the language of her touch, he knows she forgives him. She believes him. She believes in him and who he is now. When she opens her eyes, she smiles and the vice gives way, freeing his heart of its grip.
"Let's get out of here," he says and releases her to pull the seat belt over his chest. Wordlessly, he starts the car and shifts it into reverse to pull out the parking space.
As he automatically throws his right arm behind the passenger seat headrest and checks behind him for ongoing cars, she catches his eye and there's a small twinkle there.
"You win. We'll give them cash."