What are the things that I want to say
Just aren’t coming out right?
I’m tripping on words
You got my head spinning
I don’t know where to go from here
– You and Me, Lifehouse
Sunday, November 16, 2008
No Name Restaurant: Lobby
The restaurant was decorated with dark wood paneling and muted earth tones, just as it had been a decade earlier when Elizabeth had last visited. A man waited just inside, divesting Jason and Elizabeth of their coats. At the archway leading into the dining room proper, a woman with stones glinting at her ears and around her neck waited.
“Mr. Morgan, your table is waiting just as you requested.” She gestured for them to follow her, and Elizabeth slid her arm through Jason’s.
“No waiting in line or checking for a reservation,” she murmured as they weaved through a medium-sized dining room with tables covered by thick, white tablecloths, lit by candles, and tableware that looked like it might have paid the rent on Elizabeth’s studio.
“It’s one of the very few perks,” Jason said, and she smiled.
The hostess led them to the opposite side of the room where there were semi-private tables, each sectioned off with its own paneling on each side, leaving only the front open to the dining table. Of course — Jason wouldn’t want his back to anyone in the restaurant, Elizabeth thought as he pulled out a chair for her. She sat down, and he took the other seat, pulling it closer to hers so that they were close together, both their backs mostly facing the wall.
“Shall I bring your usual?” the hostess asked, “or would you like to see the menu and wait for Ricardo?”
“Ricardo is fine,” Jason said, accepting the single sheet of heavy, embossed paper the woman handed him. He ordered a beer and Elizabeth asked for a wine after scanning the list at the bottom.
“You know, I came here once when I was sixteen,” Elizabeth told him. “You arranged for Lucky to bring me for dinner.”
“I remember that.” Jason stretched an arm across the back of her seat. “He wanted to take you somewhere nice.”
“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t bring him up—” She adjusted the napkin on the table, then the gold charger beneath the white plate.
“It doesn’t bother me when you talk about him. Especially before the fire. It was different,” he told her. “He was different.”
“He was,” Elizabeth said with a wistful sigh, then she smiled at him. “I only brought it up because it was the first time I’d dressed up since…well, since that night. It was a really good memory, and I think it’s just interesting like so many of the good things in my life, you played a part.”
Jason shifted slightly. “I made a call,” he muttered, and she smiled again.
“All right, fine I won’t embarrass you. Talk to me about what to do once the Zaccharas get here. Is there a certain time I should go over—towards the beginning, middle, end—” She broke off when a tuxedo-clad waiter came to take their orders and set down their drinks.
“Dessert,” Jason said when they were alone again. “Going over any earlier suggests nerves. We’re going to sit here, pretend to have a good time—”
“Pretend?” She lifted her brows.
“You know what I mean.” She just smiled, and Jason continued. “And then you’ll get up and go to the ladies room. You’ll pretend to just notice them.”
“Ah, because it shows that you’re not worried about them. Not thinking about anyone being here you have to watch for.” She picked up her wine glass. “You absolutely hate every second of this.”
“Yeah, I do. It’s all…surface. Pretense.” His fingers were tight around the green glass bottle of Rolling Rock. “Like the men in here aren’t violent—”
“Don’t forget the women,” Elizabeth said. “Claudia Zacchara will be here, won’t she?” When he just sighed again, she slid her hand under the table, touched his leg. “It’s one night, Jason. We can do this. It’s just a date. You and me, right? The boys are at home. No spaghetti sauce to clean out of hair or clothes. Or noodles in strange places—”
“I like all of that,” he interrupted.
“I know that, and so do I. But we didn’t…we didn’t get to do any of this,” she said. He frowned, met her eyes. “You know, most of what we have, it’s been in hotel rooms and studios and places people can’t see. I don’t know, I kind of like that I can sit here with you and people can look at us, and I don’t have to worry anymore. We get to eat food neither of us had to cook or pick up — I get to see you in a suit. You hate it, I know. But—” She stroked one of the lapels of the black jacket. “I don’t mind it once in a while.”
“You like this stuff?” He asked, nodding at the candles on the table, the fancy tables. The glass of wine. “I can do more of this—”
“Special occasions once in a while, sure. I want to make sure we always remember that the life we have, it starts with us. I don’t just want to be a parent. I want to be Elizabeth. Not just Mom.” She smiled again. “And next time, it can be a private dining room where you don’t have to talk to or see a single person. So until I have to get up and put on a show, why don’t we try to have a good time?”
No Name Restaurant: Parking Lot
Johnny switched off the ignition, but didn’t reach for the handle of the door. In front of them, the restaurant loomed large. It had few windows (avoiding those pesky drive by shootings) and no exterior sign to advertise itself to anyone who didn’t have a membership.
“You really don’t want to do this, do you?” Nadine asked from the passenger seat. He glanced at her, then away.
He never should have touched her.
He’d been able to avoid it since her sister’s death, telling himself that he could give her comfort because she deserved that, but he had no right to anything else. He was lying to her, keeping secrets, and making a mockery of every reason she’d married him in the first place.
But Johnny realized he’d only been fooling himself. Instead of congratulating himself on finally learning self-control, he’d realized Nadine had really been the one holding back. It was she who hadn’t reached for him, and the second she’d initiated anything—hell, all she’d done was look at him, he’d jumped her with the impulse control of a high school boy fumbling with his first girlfriend.
“No, I really don’t,” Johnny said, finally. “But we don’t have a choice.”
“I’m sorry that it’s like this with your family. Dreading being around them, I mean.”
Johnny looked at her and her eyes were on him. Even in the dim light from the lights in the parking lot, her blue eyes glinted with empathy and warmth. Sorrow. For him. His throat was tight, and he tore his eyes away again, staring hard at the window shield.
“There are worse problems to have,” he muttered.
“There are,” Nadine confirmed. “But that doesn’t make them any less yours. Or awful.” She touched his face, her fingers soft and cool against his skin. He closed his eyes, let himself enjoy the sensation for just a moment before reaching up to pull her hand away, pressing the inside of her palm to his lips.
Sometimes he almost hated her for being a good person. For having an open heart and the impulsive need to share it, to leave it undefended and unguarded so that worthless men like him could come along and drain every ounce of warmth and love she offered, leaving nothing but a shell behind.
Because that’s all that would be left when this marriage was done, Johnny thought. He’d kill everything that made Nadine who she was, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to protect her from the world, from his family, from himself—
But before he could keep her heart safe, he had to protect her life and make her untouchable. “I don’t want to do this, but they’re already here. They came all this way, and you’re right. Pissing them off is the last thing I need.”
“Then we’ll go inside, get it over, and go home.” She smiled hesitantly. “It’s just dinner, right? No big deal.”
“No big deal,” he echoed. He kissed the palm of the hand he still held, then released it. “We’d better go in.”
No Name Restaurant: Dining Room
Johnny and Nadine arrived late, nearly halfway through the main course. Jason had watched the Zacchara table out of the corner of his eye, noting Anthony’s impatience climbing as the chairs at the table in the center of the room remained empty. Anthony and Claudia had been joined by Trevor and Ric, a fact that hadn’t been communicated to Jason in either conversation about the damn evening.
As soon as Ric had walked into the room, Jason had tensed, and he’d felt Elizabeth’s hand on his thigh again, reminding him that the point of this damn farce was to act like he didn’t notice the Zaccharas at all.
It was nothing more than a sick joke, this whole night. But it was necessary, Jason thought. He knew that. But to be in the same room with a man who had nearly killed Elizabeth the year before, and another man who had locked Carly in a panic room and hurt Elizabeth over and over again—
There had to be a way to exterminate both men from the planet, but until then Jason forced himself to do as Elizabeth had suggested. Focus on her. On just being with her. She liked being out in the open with him, though he’d never understand why.
“You look like you want to murder someone,” Elizabeth said. She slid her chair a bit closer so that they were nearly pressed together.
“I do,” he muttered. He stretched his arm across the back of her chair again. “Not you.”
“I figured. Everyone else?”
“Pretty much.” With his other hand, he scratched his eyebrow. “I’m sorry. You wanted me to think about you.”
“No, I wanted you to focus on me because if you’re looking at me, you’re not thinking of all the ways you could dislocate Ric’s thumb without breaking a sweat,” she said dryly, and now he did look at her with a half smile. “I know the difference between general discomfort and plotting Ric’s demise. I’ve been looking at that face for a few years now.”
“I should have tossed him in the harbor the first time I saw him near you,” he muttered. ” I saw you on the docks, smiling at him, and there was no reason to distrust him then. Except he was near you.”
“Well, then maybe you understand why I tried to slap Courtney so hard her teeth would fall out,” Elizabeth retorted. “I should have yanked her by that straw she called hair.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”
“We made a couple of mistakes,” he said. She lifted her brows. “More than a few,” he admitted. “But we’re back here, aren’t we?”
“We are.” Elizabeth smiled, her eyes glinting in the candlelight. “And we’re stronger for it. Because I know exactly what I have with you, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect it.” She sat back as their main courses plates were cleared away. “Including going over there and standing in front of the man who kidnapped me from a room where I was standing over my dead best friend’s body and then threatened to push me over the edge of a parapet.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Dessert’s being served,” she said, setting her napkin on the table. She leaned over to kiss him lightly. “That’s my cue.”
Jones Apartment: Living Room
Maxie had planned to spend the night forgetting the wrecking ball she’d taken her to life that week — Spinelli had called a few times, but she’d refused the calls, and she’d called out sick from work on Friday, not wanting to look Kate in the face. Not wanting to look anyone in the face after that humiliating breakdown she’d had in the elevator.
To think Maxie had lost her mind with Elizabeth Webber of all people — how absolutely mortifying. Maxie would never be able to show her face again around the hospital or around that woman who would absolutely never let Maxie live it down.
Instead, Maxie had decided to wallow for just a few more days, spending the weekend watching television, snacking on terrible food, and thinking about nothing more than the godawful interior designs on the home makeover shows. She tossed more kernels of popcorn in her mouth, mentally reworking every room.
And then the show changed to a drama, one Maxie never remembered to keep up on, but enjoyed when she could. She liked watching other people screw up their lives. It was much more fun to live in someone else’s misery. She almost forgot her terrible week and the meltdown—
Until a fire broke out on the show, and people were screaming, trying to get out—
Maxie stared down at the popcorn in her hand, her stomach suddenly roiling. It wasn’t the same. Wasn’t the same at all. It hadn’t been a fire that took Georgie. But they’d been trapped on Spoon Island all night, trapped in Wyndemere with a crazy Anthony Zacchara—
And a killer. Diego Alcazar had been there that night. Had he always planned to hurt Georgie? Had he looked at them that night and chosen Emily instead?
It should have been me.
The wrong sister died.
Maxie curled her hand in a tight fist, feeling the greasy popcorn against her skin, the sharp edge of the kernel digging in.
You’re afraid the universe will take him next. You’re picking a battle you know he can’t fight.
…until you forgive yourself for living.
You keep pushing him away, he’ll stay gone.
Maxie looked at the phone, sitting silently on the charger next to her. She could call Spinelli. He’d probably forgive her. He probably already had. He was sweet that way. He knew that she didn’t mean what she’d said, that she wasn’t even angry at him. Not really.
She should call him.
But instead, she left the popcorn bowl on the coffee table, turned off the television, and went to bed.
No Name Restaurant: Dining Room
The entire evening had been miserable, from the irritation in his father’s eyes when he and Nadine had been nearly a half hour late, to the tension radiating from his sister’s uncharacteristically quiet frame. Claudia must have drank at least a bottle of wine on her own. Ric kept pretending he wasn’t looking at the table across the room where Jason was sitting with Elizabeth, his fingers tightening every time Jason leaned closer to Ric’s ex-wife.
Trevor filled the silence with obnoxious stories and terrible, offensive jokes, while Nadine picked at her meal.
Mercifully, Elizabeth finally rose from the table and made her way towards them. Anthony’s bad mood fell away, and he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Nadine’s eyes were wide when the other woman finally reached them.
“It’s so nice to see a few familiar faces,” Elizabeth said, resting one hand on Johnny’s chair and leaning in to kiss Nadine’s cheek. “Mr. Zacchara, we don’t see you often in Port Charles. Must be a special occasion.”
“It is indeed, Miss Webber,” Anthony said, wiggling his bushy eyebrows. “It’s not easy to travel with this contraption, you know, so I wouldn’t do it for just anyone.”
“Of course, you manage so well, one might completely forget the plunge you took from the parapet at Wyndemere,” Elizabeth said, and her smile had changed slightly, the look in her eye slightly more fierce. “But you’ve risen above the tragedy of the circumstances. It’s a testament to your…willpower, I’m sure.”
“Naturally. I thank you for your kind words, Miss Webber.” Anthony’s smile had also shifted, but it was almost admiring. Johnny knew something had happened with Jason, Elizabeth, and Anthony the night of the ball, and he knew his father was surprised Elizabeth would refer to it. And a little impressed.
“And Nadine, it’s so good to see you. It’s nice to be out of our scrubs, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked, squeezing Nadine’s hand. “Jason and I wanted to offer our condolences for the loss of your sister. I know you and Jolene weren’t close, but it’s always hard to lose family.”
“Thank you.” Nadine smiled gratefully, a sheen in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Jason and I are coming to the services on Tuesday. You’re not alone,” Elizabeth told her. She looked at Johnny now. “Nadine’s one of my favorite people, Johnny. You couldn’t have chosen better. I hope you know that.”
And now he read the warning in Elizabeth’s eyes. He’d only met the nurse a handful of times, but he remembered her fierceness that night in the stables. “I do.”
“We’ll have to do something soon. Just the four of us. Jason and I don’t know many couples our age.” Elizabeth looked at the rest of the table, as if thinking of greeting the other three members of their party. Ric straightened, began to smile, but then Elizabeth looked at him, then directly at Anthony. Ric’s smile fell.
“Mr. Zacchara, I hope you’ll let Jason and I pick up the bill for dinner tonight as a belated wedding gift to your son. It would be our pleasure to pay for your family to celebrate Johnny and Nadine. Family is so important. It should be treasured.”
Anthony lifted just one brow. “Of course. I look forward to returning the favor one day, Miss Webber. Perhaps when you and Mr. Morgan decide to make it legal?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Jason and I have wanted to return the favor you did us last year when you gave us that speech about love at Wyndemere. It was…” Elizabeth paused. “Unforgettable. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
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