Chapter 5
Five
Nico
The minutes crawl by in the afternoon as my eyes scan the slow parade of cars on the highway and the treetops beyond.
I’m worried about Becca.
I slept very little, keeping Becca close as she tossed and turned and talked in her sleep.
Once during the night, she woke with a start. When I held her and asked what was wrong, she said, “Nothing. Bad dream. Gotta pee.”
She got up to pee last night more often than normal, and I’d asked if she was feeling sick or had drunk too much water before bed, but she simply collapsed and went right back to sleep.
“Just restless,” she’d said, and then winced and clutched one boob when she shifted her weight.
At one point, I found the thermometer and took her temperature, which seemed slightly elevated but nothing alarming.
Then, Becca slipped out before I woke up this morning, which was pretty unusual for her on a normal day. But today, I had intended to wake up and convince her to take a day off work for the sake of her mental health.
At lunch, there was no note in my lunchbox. Every night I pack my food, and every morning she finds a way to sneak in one of her notes. I shook out everything, hoping the note might be folded so small it had gotten wedged in the sticky plastic film of one of the sandwiches. But there was nothing.
First, it was simply a selfish, hollow ache at missing my lunchtime smut. But then I began to worry about her.
I text Becca on my way home, and she tells me not to expect her until 7.
I remind her that she has her final dress fitting tomorrow and that she’ll need her rest if she’s going to have a serious talk with her Mama about wearing the one she likes.
When I get home after my shift at 4, I place a huge order of food from the Bluejay Cafe, then hop in the shower.
While I’m washing off the day, I’m surprised to hear the familiar noises of Becca arriving home.
Her footsteps in the hallway of our small apartment, crowded with boxes that have been arriving ever since her mother, Mary Louise Payne-Wright, shopper extraordinaire, took it upon herself to register our wedding at some department store down in Asheville.
Becca’s key sounds in the bowl. Then, her fumbling through the drawers, and finally, her entering the bathroom.
With the spray clearing away the shampoo from my head, I call out to her.
“Baby! Come on in, the water’s fine.”
No answer.
It’s all good. If she’s not in the mood, she’s not in the mood.
The toilet flushes. Odd, because she’s the kind of person who never, under any circumstances, uses the toilet while her partner is in the same room. Clearly, she’s not well.
I didn’t want to bring up the missing note. That will only make her feel guilty, on top of whatever else is going on.
“I ordered Bianca’s chicken pot pie, some biscuits, fried okra, and cheesecake. I think you need to eat and you need a night on the sofa watching Sandra Bullock movies. Lost City, Miss Congeniality or The Heat?”
I’m reminded of how the actress became Becca’s comfort watch.
Once, when we were ten, she let me sneak into the house via a basement window in the middle of the night while two of her older brothers, upstairs and dead asleep, were supposed to be watching her.
After some poking around the basement, we found an old stash of DVDs and electronics that would otherwise have been thrown out or donated.
It took hours, but eventually I figured out how to hook everything up.
We thought we were being so sneaky, watching a movie nearly on the silent setting, sitting on the concrete basement floor.
Speed. That was our first rated “R” movie, and I remember feeling like we were really getting away with something.
It was super suspenseful, and we both got pretty scared at times: that was the first time we ever held hands.
We weren’t all that quiet, it turns out.
Her brother James found us asleep on the basement floor at three a.m. and nudged us awake before anybody’s parents were the wiser.
Now, in the bathroom of our own comfortable but small apartment, Becca’s voice is strangely raspy. “None of the above.”
“Uh oh. Is it a Practical Magic night?” I joke. “Do you need a margarita?”
“Um…definitely not.”
“Hope Floats? Oh god, did someone die?”
“That’s not it, Nico.”
The flat tone when she says my name is familiar, but not one I hear often from her. It’s not just angry or worried or unamused. It’s that thing where she’s all of those combined, and also on the verge of falling off a cliff.
When I push back the curtain, Becca is sitting on the toilet lid, already in her after-work outfit: a tee-shirt and cut-off sweats. Her eyes are downcast.
I open my mouth to suggest a deeper cut like The Thing Called Love. But then I see her face. I know when to shut my mouth.
She clutches something in her hands.
At first, I think she’s cut herself accidentally. She holds her hands so tightly, as if she’s trying to stem a bleed. But then I realize what she’s holding.
“Bec…is that what I think it is?”