Chapter 19 - Beatrix
Chapter 19
Beatrix
Friday, December 30, 2016
My phone pings, the latest in a string of texts from Rocco. A steady stream since Lanie’s party two nights ago.
Rocco: Can we talk today?
Rocco: I miss you.
Ellipses appear. Disappear. Reappear.
Rocco: Also . . . don’t go online today. Please. Don’t. Okay?
Rocco: I’m so sorry.
Rocco: For all of this.
Rocco: Ok. I’ll stop.
Rocco: For now.
Rocco: But know I’m thinking about you. Let’s talk soon?
I wait a few minutes, just to be sure. No more ellipses.
And then I open a browser tab and type in Rocco Riziero. It becomes immediately and abundantly clear why he told me to stay offline.
He—they—are splashed across every celebrity media outlet. Every news outlet, really, known to humankind. It’s a slow news week, clearly, these long days between Christmas and New Year’s, and Rocco and Piper are helping them score much needed hits.
I click on the first article, scrolling until I come to a series of photos from yesterday’s breakfast at Pat and Lorraine’s.
They look happy, Rocco and Piper. Comfortable, relaxed. They probably wouldn’t have been had they known someone was snapping these pictures. Or maybe they wouldn’t have cared—shrugged it off in the name of good press for the movie, whatever will be will be. In the first one, Piper’s leaning in, presumably to say hello, eyes closed, lips pouty, nuzzled up to his cheek. Then across from one another at a small table, camera angled low to show their knees visibly touching. And lastly, my least favorite of the batch, Piper is mid-laugh, her amusement at whatever Rocco had just said radiating from the screen. And Rocco, he’s got a tiny smile on his face, but it’s his eyes that skewer straight through my heart. Looking at her like he can’t believe he got this lucky twice.
My eyes snag on a quote from “a source close to Piper”: “Her private life is exactly that, private, so I cannot confirm or deny that she and Rocco are back together, but I’ll say it’s been clear to everyone on set that the heat is still there. On camera . . . and off. I haven’t seen her this happy in years.” And then from the Rocco side, another “cannot confirm or deny,” which, quite frankly, reads like a confirm, otherwise why not deny?
And Piper, she’s apparently reposted that photo of herself laughing on social media. No caption. But she doesn’t need one, does she?
That photo more than speaks for itself.
I close out of the article and throw my phone across my bed.
Rocco was right. I shouldn’t have looked.
Because that Rocco in the photo, looking at Piper like she’s the most delicious treat in the world, is somehow the same Rocco who drove me to the hospital in Tucson. The same Rocco who held me so close, kissed me so deeply.
Cannot confirm or deny.
What we’d had back there had felt so real. The most real part of our otherwise completely surreal trip. Maybe that’s all it ever was, a trick of the light and the unusual circumstances. And it never would’ve held up, not when we came back here, and everything else made sense again. Everything but me and him.
I sit up, throw the blankets back. I’ve barely left my bed since getting home from Lanie’s, and the need for both a shower and real food has reached critical levels.
A shower first. Long and hot, and though I lose track of shampoos, I’m confident it’s at least three rounds. When my mind has a will of its own and wanders back to Rocco’s old house and that glass shower, I instantly shut it down.
Some fresh clothes, a cup of coffee, a bowl of scrambled eggs and old French fries—the only edible things in my fridge—and I’m feeling semi-repaired.
Except I have no plans, nowhere to go. I think about how good it’ll feel to be back on set next week, back to work, busy and distracted, and then—shit. Of course that won’t feel good. Rocco and Piper, together on set, the three of us in the same not nearly large enough studio space while I’m forced to stuff it all down and act at least reasonably professional.
I check the clock. Not quite noon. Too early for whiskey, and I have neither vodka nor bubbles nor orange juice to concoct something that could pass as reasonably suitable for the morning. Popping that bottle with Sylvie the other night had been a mistake.
Sylvie. I could call her now. Spill it out, purge all the messy, unbelievable truths of the last week. Ask her what she’s witnessed on set, given she’ll have seen it all play out firsthand. In hindsight, I’m surprised she didn’t mention Piper when she fixed me up for the party. Though we’ve probably already dissected it all endlessly. There’s nothing more to say.
I’m not ready for that deep dive, though. Not yet.
And besides, there’s someone else I suddenly want to call even more.
Need to.
I go back for my phone where I left it on the bed, ignore three more new texts from Rocco, and find her in my contacts before I lose my nerve.
She picks up after two rings.
“Beatrix? Did you leave something here?”
“Hey, Mom. And no. Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Oh.”
“I was just calling to say hello.”
A pause, and then again, “Oh.”
She’s not wrong to be surprised. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall ever calling her just to say hello before. It’s not something we do. Not something we’ve ever done.
“It’s been hard, you know. Working on this movie. Thinking about Dad every day. Thinking about you. Watching it all play out again on set.”
“Well,” she starts. Pauses, like she’s probably trying to think of the least offensive way of saying whatever’s to come next. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You asked for the daily reminder. You’ve worked yourself to the bone for years to keep reminding yourself of it. To get to this place now. That was a choice. I . . . I don’t know how you do it. The why—that I think I understand.”
My breath hitches. This, the territory we’re closing in on. My guilt, her anger, that ugly, messy line between us that’s kept us at arm’s length since I was a teenager. It’s a shock to be this close to it. To talk about something other than the weather or groceries or relatives I mostly never see anymore.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, more of a whisper as my throat seems to constrict around the words. I take a deep breath and push on before the moment passes, before it’s out of our reach and we never find our way back to it again. “I’ve spent almost half my life feeling sorry. For Dad, for you. For myself. I never needed you to punish me for the choice I made. Because I’ve punished myself every day since we lost him.”
“I know. And I’m sorry, too.”
The phone nearly slips from my hands. I clench my fingers around it more tightly, not wanting to miss a word.
“I was so busy being a wife, that . . .” She sighs. “I think I lost sight of being a mother.”
I’m nodding then, not that she can see me, hot tears spilling down my cheeks.
She continues talking, which is good, because I’m nowhere near capable of forming words. “I didn’t agree with you, of course. I didn’t need the police to tell me that he wasn’t guilty. He would never have done it. Never. But still. I should have realized you needed to come about it your own way, in your own time. You were young. And it was so deafening, what everyone outside our house was telling you. I should’ve given you more grace while you sorted things through. Processed. Before your father passed, and even more so after. By the time I realized that . . . ? Well, I guess it felt too little, too late to apologize. But here we are. And I am. Sorrier than you could ever understand.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Letting this moment sink all the way in, so that when we hang up the phone and I go about my day, I won’t wonder if this conversation actually happened. “Thank you. For that. I needed to know you felt that way.”
“And I needed to tell you. It was just . . . easier to not.”
“He would hate this, you know—the fact that we barely know one another now. It’d be torture for him. A prison sentence would have been a breeze, comparatively.”
She laughs. But there’s a hitch to it, like she’s crying at the same time. “He would absolutely be out of his mind furious atus.”
“So . . . what do we do about it?” It feels so bold and scary, this question. But this call, it isn’t nearly enough. Not for me.
“Maybe more calls just to say hello?”
“I can do that.”
“And maybe we could plan a time for you to come back here? We don’t have to wait for a holiday. We’ll make it our own special celebration. Or anti-celebration. Whatever you want to call it.”
“I’d like that. Maybe you can visit me here sometime, too.”
She laughs. “Let’s not go wild here. I’ve still never been on a plane, you know.”
“I’ll pick you up. Delilah would love to make the trip.”
“That car of yours, I can’t believe it’s still running. A long drive in that thing terrifies me more than a plane ride.”
“She’s a good car, Mom. And not a thing. She’s so much more than that. A best friend really.” And, you know, a time traveler. Best to leave that bit out, though.
“That’s rather alarming. Best friend? You need to get out more. Interact with real humans. Are you in sweatpants right now?”
I look down to confirm. I’d gotten dressed in a daze. “Yep.”
“I knew it. Put on something cute. Nothing too wrinkly. I bet you don’t even have an iron, do you?” She steamrolls on without waiting for an answer. “Anyway, dress up a little and go to a coffee shop or something, have yourself a nice meet cute, whatever the fancy city folk are always doing in the Hallmark movies.”
I laugh. “No one meets like that anymore, Mom. Hate to break it to you.”
“Well, whatever means necessary, I just don’t want you to be alone. I worry about you, you know.”
“Really?”
“I guess that’s another thing I haven’t said enough.”
“You know what else we should say more?”
“What’s that?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Beatrix.”
* * *
It’s not the meet cute my mother would’ve had in mind, but I do change into a mostly unwrinkled black jumpsuit and make plans to see another human being.
I can’t ignore Rocco forever.
Let’s be honest, I can’t even ignore him past this weekend, since we’ll be back on set bright and early Monday morning.
Rocco suggests we meet at the beach where we sippedour nips of whiskey, the ocean view that helped us start to process—or at least temporarily numb—the reality of our surreal circumstances. I drive Delilah, still bruised and battered; the last few days have distracted me from making sure she got the promised TLC she needs. I get there a half hour early to stare at the waves—preparing myself for everything I don’t want to say but have to anyway.
Because there’s only one choice here, and it’s not a good one. I’ve played it out over and over in my mind, and there’s just not a happy ending in sight. It’s one big mess, no matter how you slice it. So, I’ll take the fastest cleanup route. The most efficient.
“Hey there,” Rocco says, startling me as he drops a picnic basket in the sand by my side. I look up, shielding my eyes from the sun as I take him in. He looks handsome, as he always does, and in such an effortless, comfortable kind of way, black joggers and a plain gray sweatshirt, a few days of scruff on his sharp cheekbones. He’s so beautiful it makes me ache, an empty pit in my chest that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fill again.
He has a smile on his face, a small, hopeful-looking one, but I don’t smile back. If Rocco notices, he pretends otherwise, settling in next to me and opening the basket. “I brought some Maker’s, of course, ethically sourced this time. I had this grand plan of baking you banana chocolate chip muffins myself, but that, er, didn’t work out, so I stopped by the café from our perilous meeting last week, picked up some there. A few different kinds of cheeses because I realized I don’t adequately know your taste in milk curds these days, some grapes, salami, nothing too spicy because I remember that back in the day you—”
“Rocco,” I say, pushing his name from my lips to stop him now, before I lose the will altogether. Before I throw back some whiskey and cheese and forget what I had every intention of doing today. I remind myself: Those photos. Piper’s post. Cannot confirm or deny. “We have to talk.”
He nods, flipping down the lid of the basket. “I was so glad you finally texted me back, I maybe got . . . a little ahead of myself with the charcuterie basket. Overly optimistic.”
“Rocco . . .” I flail my hands uselessly in the air, grabbing at everything, nothing. I’ve never felt quite so undone. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” He looks genuinely confused, which only makes this more excruciating.
“This. You. Us. Any of it. Outside the movie, that is, which can’t be helped.” His face crumbles—the expression has never felt so apt or so absolutely devastating. Those lips that have pressed hot against every bit of me this last week, a few days and a lifetime ago, twisting down. “I’ve played this game once before with you, didn’t I, and I lost. I’m just not willing to play another round, regardless of how strongly I may feel about you right now. I won’t put myself through that again.”
He might be headed for a romantic do-over, but it won’t be ours. It can’t be.
If our trip together taught me anything at all, it’s to not make the same mistake twice. I won’t hurt anyone else this time. Including—especially—myself.
He rakes his hands through his hair, and I resist the urge to twine my own fingers through those thick, dark waves. “Whatever happened with Piper and me, it means nothing. Whatsoever. You’ve got to understand, Bea. That wasn’t me, and it’s not going to be me.”
“How could I possibly understand? I saw the pictures, Rocco. The whole world did. Her post, too. And what source exactly said they couldn’t ‘confirm or deny’ a romance between the two of you? Did you okay that?”
“I told you not to—”
“Of course I was going to look! And I would have seen them no matter what because the story’s not going away, and you’re our stars. It’s literally my job to know what’s being said about the two of you.”
“But you know how tabloids smear things. It’s not real, none of it’s real. I don’t manage Piper’s social media—I’m sure she pays someone for that—and I have no clue who the sources were, but of course I didn’t okay any of it.” He looks pained as he says this, disappointed that I’d even suggest he might be complicit. “Piper and I just had a friendly conversation. Mostly small talk while I tried to wrap my head around what happened between us. Because it’s unnerving, you know, having someone else remember something about you that you don’t or can’t. And then she asked about tomorrow night—some New Year’s Eve party at her house that apparently everyone from the movie is going to, that I’m supposed to be at, too. Of course, I didn’t remember that either. Because I don’t remember anything about this life with her in it.”
“Right. So, you ended things? Told her it was all a hilarious, mind-bending mistake, and you’d absolutely never entertain the thought of kissing her off set ever again? And you certainly wouldn’t be showing up at her place to ring in another new year together?”
“Well, no, not exactly, in so many words, but . . .”
Heat rushes through me, and not at all the pleasant sort of heat Rocco’s stirred up more recently. The old righteous heat. “Tell me then, what words did you use? Exactly?”
He sighs, shaking his head. “I have to be delicate about it, Bea. I couldn’t just go stomping in there, telling her . . . what, exactly? That you and I went from on-set enemies to lovers overnight? That I wasn’t in my right mind when I kissed her—I wasn’t in my own damn mind at all? None of it would make sense to her! It barely makes sense to me!”
Something about his exasperation only makes me more confident. More committed. “Oh come on, I think it makes perfect sense.”
“What? How?”
“She’s Piper Bell, Rocco. Your first love. Hell, your only real love, probably. The only one that mattered.” I pause for a beat, baiting him. He doesn’t say anything, but his face reddens. I suspected as much, and this is just confirmation: It was always, only, Piper. “She’s ridiculously attractive, I get it. More attractive than any human has a right to be, if you ask me. Just as talented. Not totally dim. And seemingly very interested in you again, despite the epic dumpster fire of your first breakup, at least based on what I managed to glean from the tabloids I pretended not to obsessively track. Honestly, seems like a no-brainer. Ride that meteoric rise from pairing up again in our little old film together and seize that future I’m sure you never fully stopped dreaming of.”
He’s silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the strip of sand between our legs. He’s silent for so long I wonder if that’s it, we’re done here. Not a word left. Maybe it’s best that way. Nothing either of us says will change the inevitable.
But then, “That’s really unfair.”
“How?”
“Because I have no romantic interest in Piper. I want you. That’s it. Just you. I’m asking you to please believe that. To trust me.”
“But don’t you get it? Even if you can’t remember it, that was still you who kissed her. If that other version of you could drum up the desire for her these past few weeks, this you could do it again now, too. If I wasn’t here, you’d fall right into it. I know you would.”
“You are here, though.”
“We had one great week, you and me. I got to say bye to my dad because of you. And you got to meet him. It was win-win for both of us. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I don’t understand. I did nothing wrong yesterday. But you’re still punishing me.”
“That doesn’t mean you did it right. You didn’t end things, didn’t set her straight. Gave the media some juicy gossip to blast around the world.”
“I didn’t cut it off all the way because I didn’t know how to. I needed to let it sink in first. Plan a way to do it more sensitively, knowing all the facts. And for the record, it’s not my fault the tabloids caught us—I can’t control that, unless I never step foot outside my house. Even then, they’d find a story somehow! That’s part of my life, Bea. The burden to go along with the blessings. Anyone who chooses to be with me has to accept that, and to trust my word over whatever horseshit the glossies are spoon-feeding the masses.”
“I would just have to accept that everyone would believe lies about you? About us?”
He throws up his hands. “Yes! Yes, Bea. Because you and I, we would know what’s real. That’s trust. And it’s the only way this would ever work. To be honest, it’s probably why I’ve been trash at relationships for most of my adult life. That’s why Piper and I worked, at least for a while. She got that part. She’s in this life, too. I didn’t have to explain myself to her, ever.”
“See?” My throat tightens around the one-word question, the most I can manage.
“See what?”
“It came back to Piper. Again.”
“Jesus, Bea . . . that’s your whole takeaway from everything I said?”
No. Yes.But does it matter? The other details?
“When we were together on our trip,” I say, “the things we did and said, the way we thought we felt . . . you didn’t know then that Piper could still be in the picture, that a life with her was a real possibility. I don’t hold it against you. I can’t.” I mean that. Mostly. Even if I despise the reality of it. “And maybe we were meant to change the facts, to rewrite the path between then and now so that she’s here, in this movie with you. Playing my mother, for the love of god.” I laugh, because how can I not? The universe has been equal parts absurdly kind and absurdly cruel in this last week, and the whiplash of it all is too much.
I saw my father again. Something that should have been an absolute physical impossibility. Kissed his cheeks, held his hand. Breathed him in. I don’t need anything more. I shouldn’t. That would be greedy.
And maybe Rocco is right, the media, the rumors—none of that is his fault. But just because that’s his lot in life doesn’t mean it has to be mine. The media ruined my dad’s life. Why would I let them ruin mine?
Rocco isn’t laughing along with me. The opposite; he’s looking dangerously on the verge of tears, and I can’t let it happen, can’t let him cry—those tears might dissolve too much of my resolve. “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he says, “back when we were first together. I’d apologize every day for the rest of my life if that’s what it took for this to work with you. But I was still a kid. I made a terrible and selfish choice, and I own that. But I’m asking you to believe that I’m not that person anymore. I don’t want the same things—the same people. I want you. Only you. And I would never hurt you like that again. I promise you can trust me.”
“I believe that you believe that.”
“Because it’s the truth.” His voice has more edge now. Good—that’s a positive—anger feels so much easier than sadness. Anger is fuel. I should know, after all the years I let it drive me forward. And it worked, didn’t it?
“Maybe it is. Or maybe more time with Piper would change your mind. Once I’m removed from the equation.”
He closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath. As if the cool sea air could be enough to calm either of us down. “Please,” he says, much more quietly. His voice is barely audible above the crash of an especially large wave, the water creeping closer to where we sit.
“No. I . . .” The word hovers there, on the tip of my tongue, and I swallow it back down. “Like you so much.” More than that, maybe. Probably. Yes. But there’s no room for that level of honesty. Not with him. Not with myself. “But we’ve had our time in the past, twice over now. And both times, just as I was letting you in . . . Piper came along. Don’t you think that’s a sign from the universe?”
“Why can’t you believe that the sign, if there was one, was the universe making all of it happen in the first place? Putting you and me together, in that shitty old Jetta, crashing and—what? Flying back through seventeen years in a blink? Why us? Why then?”
I shake my head, push everything away, any lingering thoughts of us together, the how and the why. Then laugh again because it’s that or sob. “Delilah is not shitty, thank you. Or she wouldn’t be, at least, if you’d followed through and had her fixed like you promised. But . . . you’ve been rather busy these past few days, haven’t you?”
“That’s . . .” he sputters, pushing himself up from the sand to stand, angrier now—as angry as I’ve ever seen him. His cheeks are flushing again, bright-red heat coursing just below the surface. “That’s your takeaway from what I just said? Okay then. Back to the old Beatrix, I see. Where anything that comes out of my mouth is subject to resentment. Or mockery. Or, on a lucky day for me, both.”
I stand, too. Lower than him by half a foot, but still closer to eye level. More equal footing. “It’s not my fault you make it so easy.”
His mouth hangs open, frozen for a moment. Then, “What the hell, Bea? Are we suddenly kids again now, stuck in 2016? Did I blink, and the reverse happened?”
“Nah, I don’t think so,” I say, giving an exaggerated squint. “You didn’t have those deep crow’s feet back then, so.” I shrug. I’m being a complete and utter shrew, I know it, but it’s so much easier to slide back into these dynamics. This back and forth with Rocco, it’s safe. Effortless. My comfort zone.
“Wow, got it. Thank you for making it so clear to me exactly how over we are. The clarity, it’s super helpful. So sensitive of you. Thank you for that.”
“We need that clarity to be professional, don’t we? Back on set next week.”
“Yes, professional. That’s right. You were so great at that before. Maybe you could try to shame me just a touch less? Let me do my job. Now that I’ve—” He stops himself, frowning, a twinge of apology mixed with the bitterness.
“Now that you met my dad and are such an expert?”
“That’s not what I was going to say. I’m grateful I was there. Partly, yes, so that I can play him even more accurately. Your movie deserves my best. But mostly because I wanted to be there for you. Not that it matters now. Or that you’d believe me.”
“So let’s leave it at that then,” I say, bending over to pick up my purse and the booties I’d kicked off in the sand.
“Have a nice New Year’s with Delilah,” Rocco says, staring at the waves, far away from me. “Enjoy that drive-in feature together.”
“We certainly will. And you”—I blink my eyes shut, will back a pool of tears I refuse to cry—“enjoy Piper’s party. You really should go. Good for appearances and all that.”
“Yep. Will do. And Bea?”
“What?”
“Maybe think about how not trusting someone worked out the last time.”
I walk away. Refuse to look back. I channel my rage and keep adding distance between us, one step after another, until I’m sitting inside Delilah.
I press the gas pedal down and move forward, and only forward, a straight line between me and the only possible future.
A future, a new year, without Rocco.
Or at least after the movie’s wrapped—after the press and the premiere.
No more rewinding.
Never again.