sendthemback (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sendthemback) wrote2009-11-26 01:41 am
sendthemback) wrote2009-11-26 01:41 am
Day 25
Rachel realizes she's forgotten something. Tea and waiting. So much for being alone.
Words required: 41,675
Words achieved: 44,955
Words of today: 1,856
XXVI.
Rachel returns to the kitchen window, watching the sky darken until her headache finally gets the best of her. She closes her eyes and thinks of coffee, discovering that she's tired enough to find the prospect of caffeine almost exciting.
When she's finally broken out of her headache trance, she reaches up into the cabinet to grab the bag of coffee and its filters. The stretch hits her wrong, and her stomach suddenly ties itself into a knot. Maybe tea then, she thinks, tea and ibuprofen, with another breadstick, if her stomach has room for it... She hunts out the tea kettle from its place under the stove, placing it in the sink to rinse it out, then wanders into her bedroom.
She hasn't even opened her messenger bag before it hits her. She doesn't have the medicine. She left the plastic sack with the painkillers and the wrapping from her birth control under the table at the restaurant. By now, someone has picked it up and either tossed it or put it somewhere to wait for her, if they have't skipped those steps and called the National Enquirer.
They wouldn't, would they?
Rachel sits down on the bed with a huff, tossing down her bag beside her. She could call the restaurant and check, if she could just remember the damn name. She thinks about it for a few minutes, but can't even remember the street the place was on, hardly remembers what part of town, except that it was somewhere near Keith's apartment. There was a lot of red brick around, but that's all she's got.
She takes a slow breath and fishes her BlackBerry out of her bag, weighing it in her palm for a few seconds before finally waking it up and scrolling through her texts. Another few seconds pass before she finally selects one of Keith's messages and hits Reply.
Hey. Where did we eat breakfast?
She won't let herself sit around waiting for his response, so instead, she stands up again and returns to the kitchen, setting her phone down on the counter as she finishes rinsing out the kettle. She fills it up from the filter on the refrigerator, an art that requires just the right angle of handle and opening, something she finally perfected after over a year of making tea for her and Susan in this apartment. She listens to the sound of the water hitting the bottom of the pot and then pooling up, falling back into her headache.
When her phone buzzes on the counter, she jumps at the sudden noise, water splashing up around the sides of the kettle and getting her hand damp. She's filled it up enough, so she just pulls the kettle away and drops it on the unlit burner, drying her hand on her pants.
Neil's. Why?
Rachel sighs and turns on the burner, spinning around to snatch up the top of the kettle and slam it down. The water on the bottom sizzles as the burner heats up, but she just turns her back to it, tapping out her reply.
I left my bag there.
She closes her eyes and waits for a response.
No. You had it when you ran off.
Not my laptop, the plastic bag.
Rachel grabs a towel and wipes up the little splash of water that has dripped down the side of the refrigerator.
Oh. I'm close by. I'll run in and get it and then bring it over.
Rachel leans against the counter by the sink and starts to type out, I can get it when her phone buzzes again. She shakes her head and checks the message.
I'm getting it. I'll call you when I get to your apartment.
Rachel shoves her phone into her pocket with a grunt. She could try to get to the restaurant before Keith, but that would require taking a cab, and to do that, she'd have to look up the actual address of the place. Otherwise, her only avoidance options are to leave (and go where?) or turn off her phone and all of the lights and crawl in bed with her headphones on. Neither seems particularly appealing.
Instead, she opens up the cabinet again and grabs the first box of tea her hand finds. It's some herbal sampler pack she should probably send to Massachusetts without a return address. The cellophane wrapper around the outside hasn't even been opened. She sighs, tossing up her hands, and then starts to scratch at a corner of the package, slowly breaking the plastic and pulling it apart. It'd probably just piss Susan off, anyway.
Inside the box, all of the bags are arranged by color into little tiny rows. Rachel plucks out one of the orange-colored ones, slipping it back when she discovers that it really is just Orange Tea. She flips the lid back down, reading the top of the box. It's all caffeine free, too, but maybe that's for the best.
Opening It up again, she guesses that green is mint, and it is. The kettle starts to go off, and she turns the knob on the stove and pops open the whistle on the spout, smiling a little when she remembers how much Susan hated when she'd do that.
"'Is it really that hard to get the mugs and teabags ready before you start the water boiling?'" Rachel breathes, slamming open another cabinet and grabbing up a yellow MSNBC mug.
"It really doesn't matter, Susan. I mean, it's not like we're having tea with the Queen..."
She tears the tea bag out of its paper wrapper and slings it into the mug.
"'We're not?'"
Rachel stops for a second, letting herself remember that particular time, the way Susan's face had changed when she'd said it, shifting from genuinely annoyed to openly amused as Rachel had noticed what she'd done. Susan was sneaking around the kitchen the whole time Rachel was busying herself with the water and shifting through the cabinets, and there were already bags in two mugs waiting by the kettle.
Not this time. Rachel sets her mug down next to the stove and lifts the kettle, tipping it gently over the cup. She leaves it on the counter, letting the tea steep as she returns to the living room to gather up the boxes and the bottles, carrying it all back into the kitchen.
There's one slice of pizza left, and two breadsticks. She rolls them all into the smaller breadstick box and then shoves it into the refrigerator, dumping the leftover beer into the sink and then tossing the bottles into the recycling bin. She puts the cardboard box on top of the trashcan and then takes her tea into the living room.
Susan's other tea-related pet peeve had always been Rachel's handling of brewing and post-brewed tea. Rachel never waited long enough before drinking it and always burned her tongue. Then, once it was cool enough to drink, she refused to take the bag out.
"Why bother?" she'd ask.
Susan would just shake her head. "It's going to get bitter, and then you won't ask me that again."
If there was any bitterness, Rachel never noticed it.
She sits down on the couch and turns off the TV, immediately regretting the silence. Still, she gives herself a full minute of sitting quietly and blowing on her cup before she finally gets up and grabs the iPod.
She doesn't know what she wants to hear, just that it isn't what Jon shut off, so she just hits Random and crosses her fingers. Patty Griffin works for now.
Then, it's back to the couch and her too-hot tea. After she's burned her tongue to a satisfying level, she puts down the mug and eases down onto her back. Her stomach's still sloshing around in itself, but her headache isn't half as bad as it was. She starts to close her eyes, but suddenly realizes how much she doesn't want to sleep.
So, it's more tea, after she's hoisted herself up off of the cushions. Her whole body feels awkward, tense with waiting and whatever is left of her hangover or the morning after pill. She sips her drink and tries not to think about what she'll say to Keith.
She tries to think about the week ahead, about the stories she didn't quite absorb from the newspaper, but all she can really think about is Keith and her dreams and little anecdotes about tea. Finally, she gets up off of the couch to retrieve her laptop. She's just pulling it out of the bag when she hears a soft knock. The laptop tucked under her arm, she moves toward the door.
"You didn't call," she says as she swings open the door.
"I forgot. And I didn't hear a lock just then."
"I didn't lock it when Jon left," she answers, motioning for him to follow her in. He lifts the grocery bag up for her to see and then shuts the door, turning the deadbolt and setting the chain lock he's never seen her use.
"So, you let Jon in. That's good."
Rachel smiles. "Of course I did. We smoked and ate pizza and it was pretty good." She leads him into the kitchen, gesturing at the refrigerator and then putting down her laptop. "There's a slice left if you want it."
Keith shakes his head and places the bag on the counter near the sink. "And you two talked?"
"Only a little. I mean, we were just starting to get into things when Ana showed up."
Keith raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Rachel sighs. She grabs a glass out of the cabinet and fills it with water, offering it to Keith. He shakes his head again. She shrugs. "Kind of my fault, I guess, though I'm not really sure if I expected her to show up or not."
Keith waits until she's done rifling through the bag and tossing backs her pills. Then, he clears his throat. "She called me."
"What?"
"She wanted to know if I was with you and if I knew what was going on. Your phone call really confused her."
Rachel half-scowls as she pushes past him and back into the living room. "I didn't know she even had your phone number."
"She asked for it that time she guest-hosted for you," he answers, following after her. "I didn't really understand why she'd want it, though I guess I do now." He sits down on the couch, but Rachel circles away, turning off the stereo.
"Okay," she says. "And then what?"
"I told her Jon was going to try to get you at your apartment, then, she spat some pleasantries and hung up."
Rachel sits down. "'Spat some pleasantries?'"
"Exactly," Keith answers, looking down at his shoes.
She presses her toe into his ankle and he looks up at her.
"I was supposed to be alone tonight."
Words required: 41,675
Words achieved: 44,955
Words of today: 1,856
XXVI.
Rachel returns to the kitchen window, watching the sky darken until her headache finally gets the best of her. She closes her eyes and thinks of coffee, discovering that she's tired enough to find the prospect of caffeine almost exciting.
When she's finally broken out of her headache trance, she reaches up into the cabinet to grab the bag of coffee and its filters. The stretch hits her wrong, and her stomach suddenly ties itself into a knot. Maybe tea then, she thinks, tea and ibuprofen, with another breadstick, if her stomach has room for it... She hunts out the tea kettle from its place under the stove, placing it in the sink to rinse it out, then wanders into her bedroom.
She hasn't even opened her messenger bag before it hits her. She doesn't have the medicine. She left the plastic sack with the painkillers and the wrapping from her birth control under the table at the restaurant. By now, someone has picked it up and either tossed it or put it somewhere to wait for her, if they have't skipped those steps and called the National Enquirer.
They wouldn't, would they?
Rachel sits down on the bed with a huff, tossing down her bag beside her. She could call the restaurant and check, if she could just remember the damn name. She thinks about it for a few minutes, but can't even remember the street the place was on, hardly remembers what part of town, except that it was somewhere near Keith's apartment. There was a lot of red brick around, but that's all she's got.
She takes a slow breath and fishes her BlackBerry out of her bag, weighing it in her palm for a few seconds before finally waking it up and scrolling through her texts. Another few seconds pass before she finally selects one of Keith's messages and hits Reply.
Hey. Where did we eat breakfast?
She won't let herself sit around waiting for his response, so instead, she stands up again and returns to the kitchen, setting her phone down on the counter as she finishes rinsing out the kettle. She fills it up from the filter on the refrigerator, an art that requires just the right angle of handle and opening, something she finally perfected after over a year of making tea for her and Susan in this apartment. She listens to the sound of the water hitting the bottom of the pot and then pooling up, falling back into her headache.
When her phone buzzes on the counter, she jumps at the sudden noise, water splashing up around the sides of the kettle and getting her hand damp. She's filled it up enough, so she just pulls the kettle away and drops it on the unlit burner, drying her hand on her pants.
Neil's. Why?
Rachel sighs and turns on the burner, spinning around to snatch up the top of the kettle and slam it down. The water on the bottom sizzles as the burner heats up, but she just turns her back to it, tapping out her reply.
I left my bag there.
She closes her eyes and waits for a response.
No. You had it when you ran off.
Not my laptop, the plastic bag.
Rachel grabs a towel and wipes up the little splash of water that has dripped down the side of the refrigerator.
Oh. I'm close by. I'll run in and get it and then bring it over.
Rachel leans against the counter by the sink and starts to type out, I can get it when her phone buzzes again. She shakes her head and checks the message.
I'm getting it. I'll call you when I get to your apartment.
Rachel shoves her phone into her pocket with a grunt. She could try to get to the restaurant before Keith, but that would require taking a cab, and to do that, she'd have to look up the actual address of the place. Otherwise, her only avoidance options are to leave (and go where?) or turn off her phone and all of the lights and crawl in bed with her headphones on. Neither seems particularly appealing.
Instead, she opens up the cabinet again and grabs the first box of tea her hand finds. It's some herbal sampler pack she should probably send to Massachusetts without a return address. The cellophane wrapper around the outside hasn't even been opened. She sighs, tossing up her hands, and then starts to scratch at a corner of the package, slowly breaking the plastic and pulling it apart. It'd probably just piss Susan off, anyway.
Inside the box, all of the bags are arranged by color into little tiny rows. Rachel plucks out one of the orange-colored ones, slipping it back when she discovers that it really is just Orange Tea. She flips the lid back down, reading the top of the box. It's all caffeine free, too, but maybe that's for the best.
Opening It up again, she guesses that green is mint, and it is. The kettle starts to go off, and she turns the knob on the stove and pops open the whistle on the spout, smiling a little when she remembers how much Susan hated when she'd do that.
"'Is it really that hard to get the mugs and teabags ready before you start the water boiling?'" Rachel breathes, slamming open another cabinet and grabbing up a yellow MSNBC mug.
"It really doesn't matter, Susan. I mean, it's not like we're having tea with the Queen..."
She tears the tea bag out of its paper wrapper and slings it into the mug.
"'We're not?'"
Rachel stops for a second, letting herself remember that particular time, the way Susan's face had changed when she'd said it, shifting from genuinely annoyed to openly amused as Rachel had noticed what she'd done. Susan was sneaking around the kitchen the whole time Rachel was busying herself with the water and shifting through the cabinets, and there were already bags in two mugs waiting by the kettle.
Not this time. Rachel sets her mug down next to the stove and lifts the kettle, tipping it gently over the cup. She leaves it on the counter, letting the tea steep as she returns to the living room to gather up the boxes and the bottles, carrying it all back into the kitchen.
There's one slice of pizza left, and two breadsticks. She rolls them all into the smaller breadstick box and then shoves it into the refrigerator, dumping the leftover beer into the sink and then tossing the bottles into the recycling bin. She puts the cardboard box on top of the trashcan and then takes her tea into the living room.
Susan's other tea-related pet peeve had always been Rachel's handling of brewing and post-brewed tea. Rachel never waited long enough before drinking it and always burned her tongue. Then, once it was cool enough to drink, she refused to take the bag out.
"Why bother?" she'd ask.
Susan would just shake her head. "It's going to get bitter, and then you won't ask me that again."
If there was any bitterness, Rachel never noticed it.
She sits down on the couch and turns off the TV, immediately regretting the silence. Still, she gives herself a full minute of sitting quietly and blowing on her cup before she finally gets up and grabs the iPod.
She doesn't know what she wants to hear, just that it isn't what Jon shut off, so she just hits Random and crosses her fingers. Patty Griffin works for now.
Then, it's back to the couch and her too-hot tea. After she's burned her tongue to a satisfying level, she puts down the mug and eases down onto her back. Her stomach's still sloshing around in itself, but her headache isn't half as bad as it was. She starts to close her eyes, but suddenly realizes how much she doesn't want to sleep.
So, it's more tea, after she's hoisted herself up off of the cushions. Her whole body feels awkward, tense with waiting and whatever is left of her hangover or the morning after pill. She sips her drink and tries not to think about what she'll say to Keith.
She tries to think about the week ahead, about the stories she didn't quite absorb from the newspaper, but all she can really think about is Keith and her dreams and little anecdotes about tea. Finally, she gets up off of the couch to retrieve her laptop. She's just pulling it out of the bag when she hears a soft knock. The laptop tucked under her arm, she moves toward the door.
"You didn't call," she says as she swings open the door.
"I forgot. And I didn't hear a lock just then."
"I didn't lock it when Jon left," she answers, motioning for him to follow her in. He lifts the grocery bag up for her to see and then shuts the door, turning the deadbolt and setting the chain lock he's never seen her use.
"So, you let Jon in. That's good."
Rachel smiles. "Of course I did. We smoked and ate pizza and it was pretty good." She leads him into the kitchen, gesturing at the refrigerator and then putting down her laptop. "There's a slice left if you want it."
Keith shakes his head and places the bag on the counter near the sink. "And you two talked?"
"Only a little. I mean, we were just starting to get into things when Ana showed up."
Keith raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Rachel sighs. She grabs a glass out of the cabinet and fills it with water, offering it to Keith. He shakes his head again. She shrugs. "Kind of my fault, I guess, though I'm not really sure if I expected her to show up or not."
Keith waits until she's done rifling through the bag and tossing backs her pills. Then, he clears his throat. "She called me."
"What?"
"She wanted to know if I was with you and if I knew what was going on. Your phone call really confused her."
Rachel half-scowls as she pushes past him and back into the living room. "I didn't know she even had your phone number."
"She asked for it that time she guest-hosted for you," he answers, following after her. "I didn't really understand why she'd want it, though I guess I do now." He sits down on the couch, but Rachel circles away, turning off the stereo.
"Okay," she says. "And then what?"
"I told her Jon was going to try to get you at your apartment, then, she spat some pleasantries and hung up."
Rachel sits down. "'Spat some pleasantries?'"
"Exactly," Keith answers, looking down at his shoes.
She presses her toe into his ankle and he looks up at her.
"I was supposed to be alone tonight."