August 15, 2020
It never fails. The moment Nathaniel feels comfortable in his relationship with Rebecca, that's when she decides to change everything. No matter how much they have both grown and matured – both as individuals and together – it's the one thing he can count on. As soon as he thinks he understands the rules of their relationship, that's when she throws the entire rulebook out the window.
Consequently, he's scrambling. The quiet Saturday night, which he had decided to spend in solitude with a documentary and scotch on the rocks, got turned upside down when Rebecca called to invite herself over. A drop-in isn't altogether unusual for her. Unlike some memorable past encounters, at least she called first instead of showing up at his door unannounced. What's given him true pause, though, is her strange behavior since the day she cried in his arms in the lobby bathroom.
All week she's been vibrating with the pent-up energy of a spring-loaded wind-up toy. After months (or, it could be argued, years) of cultivating their almost effortless intimacy, she's suddenly on edge around him. Jumpy. Restless. Communication has become erratic, alternating between an overabundance of texting and calling to flat-out ghosting for days at a time.
In his head he's come up with a multitude of explanations. She's nervous about her next performance. She has anxiety about the future of her business. Maybe she's still transitioning to her new medication.
But none of the explanations account for the flirting.
He thinks he must be imagining it. The way she's been playfully shoving and grabbing him, touching his arm from across the Rebetzel's counter. (Though they do touch each other a lot.) The way she's been giggling at his jokes, twirling the ends of her hair with her fingers while AJ looks on with disdain. (Though she's always found him funny, right?) The way she bounces on her heels when she sees him coming, her smile beaming. (Though why wouldn't she be happy to see him?)
It reminds him of another time in their lives, when her flirting (and his) were shameless and all their intimate moments had to be stolen, shrouded in secrets.
As he nervously scrapes his hands through his spiky hair in front of the mirror, he can't suppress the nervous flutter in his stomach. Her unpredictability is unsettling, yes, but there's also an excitement layered underneath. An anticipation for what could happen. Before she arrives, he manages to quickly tidy up, cramming stray dirty glasses into the dishwasher and throwing discarded t-shirts in the direction of the laundry hamper.
When he opens the door to Rebecca leaning coyly against the doorframe with Scrabble (Deluxe Edition) under her arm, his curiosity is piqued even further. No one would describe her as dressed up, per se, but after months of her showing up at his door bare-faced and practically pajama-clad, her appearance certainly attracts his attention. She's wearing a royal blue sleeveless blouse with a conspicuously deep V-neck, skinny black jeans, and black ankle boots. And makeup. Nothing dramatic or flashy. Just enough for him to notice. Her eyes are rimmed with a tasteful amount of smudged eyeliner and her lips are a kissable, rosy hue. Her hair is shiny, bouncy, begging for his fingers.
"Hi," she murmurs, her voice like honey.
"Hi. I see tonight's the night. We're finally gonna do it."
Her eyes widen and her cool facade falters. "Wh - what?"
He points to the game. "Play Scrabble?"
"Oh! Right," she says with a nervous laugh.
"You look. . ."
Her eyebrows raise expectantly as he contemplates the end of his sentence.
". . .pretty. Were you out somewhere? Hot date?" He prays for her to say no and simultaneously wishes he didn't care.
"Maybe," she says, coquettish, as she brushes past him into his apartment.
Closing the door behind her, he remarks, "Well, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be here right now if it was such a hot date."
"OK fine," she grunts, plopping the game down on his coffee table, "I wasn't on a date. Can't a girl just want to look pretty sometimes?!"
Nathaniel holds both his hands up in surrender. "Forget I said anything."
Rebecca kneels next to the table and starts to unbox the game.
"Usually when I go to your apartment I bring wine or food or. . ."
"Yeah, well, I'm broke, remember?" she fires off without even looking up from the board.
She says it so flippantly now, like he's supposed to accept this fact as normal. But he can't. Each time she reminds him, the urge to do something rears its ugly head. Money is the one thing he has in excess and he wouldn't blink an eye at lending her a hefty sum. Watching her struggle day in and day out without stepping in makes his stomach churn. It makes him feel helpless, powerless. And yet, he understands what it means to have pride.
Holding up the bottle of scotch, he asks, "Want some of the hard stuff?"
Her head whips up and when she sees the bottle she lets out a nervous laugh. "Right. Sure. Don't want you drinking alone. It'll be sad enough when you lose to me in a landslide."
He pours Rebecca a tasting-size amount over an enormous cube of ice, then refreshes his own tumbler.
"What about you? Any hot dates lately I should know about?" she asks as she reaches into the cloth bag of tiles and pulls out her starting seven.
"Nah. I deleted that brainless dating app from my phone. There is a woman in my life, though."
Her eyes quickly dart up from her tiles, surprised. "Yeah? Who?"
"Maybe you know her. She's smart. Sweet. Curly brown hair. Very short," he lists, ticking off each adjective with his fingers while shooting her a mischievous grin.
She smiles shyly back.
"And just starting to form full sentences."
"Huh?"
"Hebby," he says, "I was talking about Hebby. That was my attempt at a joke."
"Oh" she exhales, "Oh. Of course."
He crosses the room, hands her the glass with her paltry portion, and sits beside her so his back butts up against the front of the couch.
"Cheers," he says, offering up his glass, "To finally playing a word game – literally, for once, and not figuratively. May the best man win."
With a pointed scowl she clinks her glass against his, then tilts it back against her lips.
"I hope you haven't forgotten what a cunning linguist I am," he adds with a smirk.
Rebecca chokes. A sputtering sound erupts from her throat and she coughs several times into her hand.
"Whoa, slow down, tiger," he says, rubbing her upper back, "You have to sip. You can't just toss this stuff back."
She swallows a few times to ease the rest of the alcohol down. As she regains control of her breathing, his hand drifts upward with each stroke until his fingers run through the tips of her silken hair. Once his fingers graze the nape of her neck, she meets his eyes and he tears his hand away like he's been burned.
"Let's, um, let's start," he says and picks up the scorecard and miniature pencil from the game box.
Rebecca shifts her focus back to her rack of tiles while he reaches into the bag to draw his own.
"Ladies first."
On the center star, Rebecca plays P-A-M-P-E-R.
"Not bad. Lucky first draw," he comments and jots down her score.
Luck is on his side as well. He quickly plays G-I-V-E-S by adding a S to the end of her opening word. His speed flusters her, her eyes going wide with panic. A little wrinkle forms at the base of her forehead as she concentrates on her tiles. She puts both her elbows on the table and leans forward. The position blesses him with a tantalizing view of her cleavage, which he hasn't had the pleasure of seeing in such full display in quite some time.
Ah. So that's her angle, he thinks. Play dirty. Drive him to distraction.
The strategy is all to familiar. In the days of the affair, Rebecca played a game of her own design with him in their shared office: How long will it take for Nathaniel to crack? She would tease him relentlessly throughout the day, pulling out every trick in the book until he couldn't stand it anymore. Some of it was so obvious he couldn't believe others weren't noticing. She would drop a paperclip onto the floor in front of his desk, then bend over slowly to pick it up. Bite the tip of her highlighter while making wicked eye contact, one eyebrow cocked skyward. Uncross and recross her legs while wearing a short skirt, knowing full well he could see everything through the glass desktop.
"Pen in your pocket?" was her well-worn refrain while her eyes, silently daring him, drifted downward.
All the while, she teased him with this infuriatingly sexy, impish smirk. She played him like a fiddle and he greedily lapped up every hint of interest.
Now, however, her trademark smirk is nowhere to be found. Her eyes dart from her rack to the board, as she mentally calculates her next move. Her show of skin appears to be an unintentional side effect of their respective sitting positions. No deliberate manipulation on her part as far as he can ascertain.
Unhappy but resigned, Rebecca lays down P-R-O-U-D using the R in P-A-M-P-E-R. She also gets an additional few points from P-E, though the play won' enough to make a dent in their point disparity. She sits back on her legs with a defeated sigh.
"You're going to have to do better than that if you're going to beat me."
Her rebuttal is to stick out her tongue.
"Ouch," he laughs, "You wound me." In record turnover time, he plays L-A-X. "That's L-A-X, plus P-A, plus A-X. . ."
"I know, I know," she mumbles, annoyed.
"Nineteen plus seventeen is thirty-six," he rattles off, "To recap, after only two rounds I have a healthy lead at sixty-six points verses your measly forty-five."
"Got it. Thanks," she says sarcastically.
Much to her frustration, she continues to struggle. After about a minute of thinking, she starts drumming on the tops of her tiles with her fingernails, which are painted a loud, fire engine red.
"Fuck me," she mutters under her breath.
The words send a little tingle up his spine. He squeezes his eyes shut for a quick moment, warding off the memories of all the times she's said those same words in a very different context. Memories of those blood red nails scratching up his back, pulling down on his neck, unbuckling his belt.
She throws up her arms. "I give up," she whines.
"No you don't," he scoffs.
Practically slamming the tiles down in frustration, she plays C-A-T parallel to L-A-X. The placement also creates words P-A-T and L-A.
"We should have played Boggle." She puckers her lips into an exaggerated pout.
"You still got nineteen points out of that," he offers, suddenly feeling protective, "Plus, it's still early in the game. Relax."
Nathaniel plays W-O next to P-A-M-P-E-R-S, making W-A-X and O-M as a consequence.
"Alright, what's the stupid score?" she asks with venom. "How badly am I losing?"
He almost doesn't want to say it and dampen her mood even further. "Ninety-six to sixty-four."
The silence that lingers until her next move is tense and heavy. Without saying a word, she plays A-C-H-I-E-V-E off of the I in G-I-V-E-S. The move has the potential to close some of the gap between their scores. She's still not entirely pleased – that much is clear from her modest frown – but she also seems slightly less despondent than her previous turn.
That is, until he sees it.
She set him up for a triple word score just one row to the right. If Nathaniel can make a word by adding a letter to the end of hers – making achieves or achiever or achieved – then he's destined for a high-scoring play.
As soon as he spots it, his eyes dart from the spot up to her eyes. Her eyes immediately go wide in recognition of her error. She scrambles to her knees and grabs his forearm.
She tugs, pleading between giggles, "No, no, no! I take it back! I take it back!"
"No mercy, Bunch. Rules are rules," he scolds, "You can't take your eye off the ball."
"You are such a dick, you know that?" She releases his arm and sinks back onto her knees.
He shoots her a self-satisfied grin and adds R to A-C-H-I-E-V-E and plays R-I-N-G.
With relish, he picks up the pencil and scoring pad. "That's . . . one hundred sixty-five to ninety-four."
She drags both her hands down her face theatrically and lets out a loud groan.
He leans back and grabs a pillow off the couch, then offers it to her. "You need to scream into this?"
With a squeal, she snatches the pillow out of his hand and proceeds to hit him in the face. Though she's losing even worse than before, it seems like the absurdity of her loss has tickled her and brightened her mood. After withstanding several plush blows to the face, he catches the pillow mid-thwack and tears it out of her grasp.
"Assaulted in my own home," he says between laughs.
"You know you deserved that. Alright, your move, hotshot."
Nathaniel surveys the game board.
P-R-O-U-D
A-C-H-I-E-V-E-R
Maybe he's reading too much into it, but he can't help imbuing his own meaning onto the words. Is it possible her words are an unconscious manifestation of her thoughts? Anxieties? As it has several times over the course of the week, the image of her gazing up at him with her sad, red-rimmed eyes takes hold. How she looked so small tucked into the stall. So scared.
He tries to snap out of it. It's his move and she's waiting.
G-I-V-E-S
R-I-N-G
The ring.
As soon as the idea pops into his head, he springs up to his feet.
"Sorry, hold on one second. I need to get something," he says over his shoulder.
Running on pure adrenaline, his feet carry him to his bedroom. To his closet. To the safe. He punches in the code – 0-4-1-8 – and the long-unused door unlatches with a pop. Without wasting a second, he grabs the black velvet box and returns to his spot beside Rebecca.
He plops the box down on the coffee table right in the middle of the board. Understandably, Rebecca's mouth drops open in shock.
"I want you to have this" he says excitedly, as if he's received divine inspiration from the gods.
She shakes her head, confused. "What? What are you saying?"
"Hear me out. I bought this for you," he explains, resting his hand on top of the box, "It's yours. We could sell it and you could use the money for your business. And it wouldn't be charity or a loan or anything like that because, in a way, it already belongs to you."
"Um, I don't know," she says, her voice wavering. Her eyes are affixed on the box, openly staring.
"Do you . . . You can open it if you want."
Her movements hesitant, she gingerly picks up the box. For a moment she simply feels it, running her fingers over the texture of the outside. Then, she tentatively opens it.
"Nathaniel," she gasps, "Oh my god." She clutches at her chest with her free hand, her mouth gaping open in astonishment.
Her reaction is everything he dreamed it would be, just on a year and a half delay.
Much like the Garfinkels, the Plimptons have a family heirloom ring that has been passed down from generation to generation. But this is not that ring. The Plimpton ring is antique and dull and carries the weight of all his family's baggage. No, he wanted a ring that is uniquely her. Only for her. The ring he chose was a radiant-cut solitaire. The large diamond sparkles and gleams in the way he thinks she does. Brilliant, flashy, dramatic. Worthy of everyone's attention.
"I know you have a family ring – I do too, actually – but this one felt like you," he says earnestly.
"Wow," she whispers, her eyes shining with unshed tears, "it's beautiful."
A thoughtful, dreamy expression on her face, she reaches out and tenderly palms his cheek. Her affection sparks an unwanted but very real longing within him. The longing for the future he imagined with her when he picked out that ring. God, it pains him to think of how badly he wanted it.
In darker moments post-breakup, when he had nothing better to do in Guatemala but dwell alone with his thoughts, he questioned whether she ever truly loved him. With the exception of the paltry few weeks they dated, he never felt like he had her whole heart. He was always chasing, chasing, trying to hold on to any little piece of her he could catch. And yet, now, as she looks at him with such tenderness and care, he can't imagine it was entirely one-sided. He has to believe she loved him the best she could at the time.
Buoyed by her reaction, he says in a low voice, "Let me help you with this. If you want it, it's yours. It was meant for you and it's not like I'm ever going to use it, so –"
At those words, her gentle expression falters. She blinks a few times and releases his face, letting her hand slide down into her lap. With a sad frown, she snaps the box shut.
"What's wrong?"
She purses her lips and sets the box back on the table. In the silence, his mind frantically searches for an explanation for her disappointment.
"Rebecca, I promise I'm not trying to steamroll or swoop in with my money. I heard what you said in the bathroom. I'm not trying to say you can't succeed on your own. I know you can."
She swallows hard. Her face is tight, masking hurt.
"I'm sorry. It was . . . it was an impulse. This is different from Rome or Hawaii or . . . I'm not trying to whisk you away or fix everything. I'm not that guy anymore. You know that, right?" he says, panicky.
She nods but won't meet his eyeline and looks vacantly down at her tiles.
"I believe in you, Rebecca. I hope you know that. I hope you know how much you matter to me."
"Stop," she whispers.
"What?"
"It's, um, it's a very sweet gesture. But I don't want . . . I can't accept this."
"OK," he says and cautiously moves the box onto the floor beside him. "I'm sorry."
"No, you have nothing to be sorry for. I appreciate the thought. Really," she assures him, giving him a weak smile.
Nathaniel rubs the back of his neck.
"Let's, um, It's my turn," she says, her voice a little shaky.
"You better pray for a bingo," he says, attempting to resume their regularly-scheduled competitive banter, "because you need it with the lead I have on you."
With renewed determination, she props one elbow on the table and focuses hard on the game board. After several moments of strained silence, she blows a loud, wet raspberry with her lips.
He laughs, relieved by the break in tension.
It's funny, he thinks, how this is part of her he always yearned to have. The quiet domesticity. This level of comfort. All the fiery sex in the supply closest could never substitute for the emotional closeness he wanted, and selfishly trying to fit Mona into that hole only made it worse. Having Rebecca in his apartment doing something as mundane as playing Scrabble on a Saturday night triggers every sentimental impulse in him. It makes him want to pull her close. Fit his nose into the crook of her neck. Envelope her in all four of his limbs.
Suddenly, Rebecca's eyes light up. She claps her hands together, the sound spiking in the silent room. She breaks into the biggest smile he's seen all night.
"Oh no."
"Oh, you are toast, Plimpton," she taunts.
She enthusiastically plays S-C-H-M-U-T-Z just north of A-C-H-I-E-V-E-R, creating Z-A with the A.
"Bingo!" she yells, raising her arms into the air, "I fuckin' bingoed on you, Stanford. Take that!"
"Schmutz?"
She balls up her hands into tiny fists and starts punching the sky.
"I challenge. I challenge! That cannot be an official word."
He burrows into the game box and finds her small, red Scrabble dictionary. As he's feverishly paging through the book, Rebecca gets out her phone and starts typing.
"It's not in here," he reports with a smug satisfaction after skimming the appropriate page.
"No, no, no!" she exclaims, reading her phone screen, "Look, it was added to the dictionary in 2014! It counts!"
"Nah ah, this is our dictionary. Those are the rules. It's not my fault you use a decade old dictionary."
In a flash, Rebecca seizes the scoring pad and pencil from the table.
"No, no, no," he protests and grabs for her wrist.
She violently turns away from him, narrowly avoiding his grasp. In response, Nathaniel leaps to his knees. Sensing his intent, Rebecca frantically scoots out from the table and lays the scoring pad on the hardwood floor, as far away from him as she can manage given her limited mobility.
As soon as she sets the pencil to paper, he's on her.
"You little cheater," he teases and catches her bicep.
She lets out a little yelp as he attempts to spin her around, which sends her careening flat onto her back. Using her imbalance as an opportunity to pounce, he takes hold of both her wrists and pins them above her head just as her back makes contact with the floor. She giggles and squirms, nearly slipping out of his grip. Primed all night for competition, he doubles down, anchoring his knees on either side of her hips and applying rougher pressure at her wrists.
Her fingers release the pencil and it clink-clink-clinks onto the hardwood floor and rolls away.
"Ha," he breathes, "I win."
Her shallow, labored breaths puff gently against his face as her flushed chest rapidly rises and falls. Her eyes darken and track over his lips, his Adam's apple. A breathy, whimpering sound escapes from her throat. God, she's all curves and softness and warmth beneath him. And up close she smells like every cozy morning they spent together wrapped in his sheets. Feminine and fresh and vaguely floral.
Would it ruin everything if he . . .?
It would be so easy.
Except it's not easy, is it? Nothing about their romantic relationship was ever easy.
Without consciously conjuring them, his mind leaps back to all of the worst, gut-wrenching moments of their past.
I'm happy, but it's not real . . . I think I'm good on office supplies – forever . . . All we do when we're together is scheme and cheat and lie . . . I'm just saying that we can't be together or go out or talk on the phone . . . I am bad for you and you are bad for me. So you know what, we are done.
All the times he lost her.
Suddenly breathless, his body finally catches up with his brain and he abruptly releases her wrists.
"Sorry," he mutters, realizing the bulk of his weight is probably smothering her small body. He does a push-up to free her.
She sits up and appears equally shell-shocked, blinking slowly while frozen in place.
"Sorry. You can have the bingo," he says.
Rubbing her hand over her chin, reflective, she says, "I think, um, I think I should go. Yeah."
"Oh. Sure. Of course."
She motions that she's going to clean up the game, but he stops her. "Leave it. I'll get it back to you next time I see you."
At the doorway, she pauses as she always does. But her expression is unreadable and he can't place it. She's not frowning, but her lips are pressed tightly together. She's not crying, but there's a sadness in her eyes. He messed up by offering her the ring. That much is clear. And maybe he crossed a line wrestling her onto the floor. Every move he's made tonight has been wrong wrong wrong, or at least that's how it feels. Is she disappointed? Sad? For how close they've become and how well he knows her now, there are still moments when he desperately wishes he could read her mind. This is one of them.
The night didn't go at all like he expected. Maybe it didn't go the way she planned either.
Falling into their routine, he pecks her on the cheek and whispers, "I'm sorry." A blanket apology for any and all missteps over the course of the evening.
"Bye."
"Bye."
As she turns to walk away, he calls after her, "Hey, uh, you won."
She smiles faintly back at him over her shoulder and whispers to herself, "No. No, I didn't."