Ch 26 ~ Sister Knows Best

The next day was utter insanity in Rachel’s world.  After a good night’s sleep, Jon had woken her up early because he was ‘up’.  No complaints there – or with his pre- and post-dinner performances the night before – but beyond that, he was a sheer nuisance from the time his feet hit the floor. 

While she tried to wrap her head around what necessities she would need for a few days in Vegas, he was bellowing out raunchy song parodies. 

“Those were the best minutes of my life, back in the position of 69!”  

“I’ve been hard day and night… I’ve been fuckin’ like a horndog…”

“Oh mama Mia mama Mia…Mama Mia let me go…  Rachel has her pussy open wide for me, for me, for me!”

When he emerged from the shower, grinning expectantly at her as he toweled his hair, she just shook her head.  “You write songs for a living and that’s the best you can come up with?  Seriously?”

“Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, baby,” he had laughed and continued to whistle the Queen tune while he shaved. 

The next time Rachel brought a pair of jeans to put in the suitcase, she found every see-through bit of lingerie she owned spilling over the edges.  She turned to him with an inquiring eyebrow lifted, but Jon wouldn’t meet her eyes, focused on pulling up his socks. 

“That’s an awful lot of underwear for three days.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, reaching for his shoes.  He still wasn’t looking at her, but she could see the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement.  “But I plan on ripping it off you every chance I get.  Better safe than walking the streets of Vegas in no underwear.”

Her current panties went from dry to drenched and Rachel blindly tossed her jeans into the suitcase.  “Point taken.”

By the time she finally got her things packed and his dirty mind out the door – two orgasms later – she was scrambling to make the lunch date with her sister, Robin.

If the new restaurant specializing in a dozen different salads hadn’t been just across the street from her own office – where she had a meeting after lunch – Rachel might have claimed she didn’t have time to meet her sister.  That, however, would’ve launched first into a huge guilt trip and then a zillion questions that would eat up more time than lunch would take.  Meeting Robin would be easier than cancelling. 

Pushing her sunglasses up into her hair, Rachel spotted her older sister at a table in the back corner, engrossed in the menu.  Despite her initial desire to bail, a happiness bubbled inside her.  She loved Robin and was truly glad to see her. Rachel crossed the small restaurant with a genuine smile of pleasure. 

“Hi, Robbie.”

Looking up from her menu at the greeting, Robin readily returned Rachel’s smile.  When Rachel bent to kiss her cheek, she reached her hand up for an affectionate touch to Rachel’s face.

“Hey, sweetie.  How are you?”

“Good,” Rachel replied, settling herself at the table already adorned with two iced teas and a bread basket.  She immediately reached for a breadstick, seeing as Jon’s antics had kept her from having breakfast.  “I’m just trying to keep all the balls in the air, as usual.  How’re the wedding plans coming along?”

“Oh my word.  Girl…”  Robin went on to describe one catastrophic event after another in the timeline of her daughter, Leanne’s, upcoming nuptials.  She and their mother, Lisa, had dealt with a comedy of errors lately when caterer, florist, musician and venue issues had all reared their ugly heads in the planning of what would likely be the family’s last wedding. 

Unless you marry Jon.

When Rachel lost her children, it had left Leanne and her brother, Seth, as the only grandchildren to Robin and Rachel’s parents.  Seth had married a couple of years ago and since provided the first great-grandchild, Hunter.  That sweet little boy had been the brightest spot in Rachel’s life since leaving New Jersey, as far as she was concerned.  Spending time with him and watching him grow had helped soothe her soul when finally confronting and dealing with the grief of her own lost babies.

“Oh honey,” she laughed, unable to help herself as the waiter delivered their salads.  “It’s starting to sound more like a three-ring circus than the elegantly understated wedding Leanne asked for.”

Her sister pinned her with a look that would’ve withered a lesser woman.  “No?  Really?  And here I thought we were right on track, you dumbass.”

Rachel nearly choked on her iced tea.  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry for stating the obvious.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“As a matter of fact, I was hoping you’d go with me this weekend to finalize the table settings and wine selections.  I’m losing my objectivity on this whole wedding.  Pretty soon I’m going to end up tossing a bunch of grapes out there and calling it a centerpiece.”

“Well, for goodness sake, don’t do that!  Your daughter will disown you.”

“See?”  Robin’s fork whipped through the air with an exasperated flourish, holding firmly to the tomato speared on its end.  “I need you there to talk me down off the ledge of insanity.  Meet me there at eleven.”

“Well… I wish I could, Rob, but I’m going to be out of town this weekend.”

Rachel poked at her arugula and thoughtfully pursed her lips.  Not only did she hate having to miss out on helping with the wedding selections, she was a little hesitant to divulge why it was necessary.  Robin had cussed Jon regularly since Rachel’s return to California, calling him everything but a law-abiding citizen for causing her sister’s “nervous breakdown”.  Rachel had – repeatedly – defended Jon, saying that she had issues beyond him, but her protective older sister had still deemed him a “flaming bag of dog shit”.

“Oh yeah?  Where are you off to?”  Robin flipped long, blonde hair that was very much like Rachel’s over her shoulder and sipped at her tea.

“Las Vegas.”

Her sister’s blond eyebrows crept curiously up her forehead as she paused in taking a bite of her salad.  “Business, I assume?”

“No.  Actually it’s a pleasure trip.”

“Are you kidding me?  You hate Vegas.  What’s up with that?”  Robin suddenly gasped and her brown eyes went wide as chocolate saucers.  She slapped her hand on the table and leaned in, exclaiming, “Ho-lee shit!  You’re going with James, aren’t you?  Are you getting married?”

This marriage thing seems to be a theme…

“No and hell no,” Rachel giggled, finding it hard to imagine why anyone would get married in Las Vegas.  It was the tackiest place imaginable, as far as she was concerned.  “James is just a friend.  I’m going with Jon.”

She hadn’t thought her sister’s eyes could go any wider, but she was wrong.  Robin’s eyes encompassed her entire face as she dipped her chin and tentatively asked, “As in…  Flaming bag of dog shit Jon?”

“Robin, don’t start that again.”

“Wow.  Just…  wow.”  Blonde waves shook along with her sister’s disappointed head as she popped a bit of cucumber in her mouth.  “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Don’t judge.”

Both hands went up in a gesture of innocence.  “Hey, I’m not judging.  But correct me if I’m wrong...  Isn’t this the same man who sent you back here with your tail tucked between your legs, broken and broken-hearted?  Isn’t this the same man who practically caused you to have a nervous breakdown?”

When would people stop blaming Jon for her ineffective grief management? 

“He didn’t ‘cause’ anything and you know it.  He was just a catalyst that motivated me to get the help I needed – that I had needed for a long time.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, then by all means…”

“Oh, stop it!”  Rachel’s tone was sharp with annoyance.  She didn’t like the ‘poor stupid girl’ look she was getting from her sister.  “Don’t act like I’m some witless, abused woman going back to her abuser.  This isn’t some line of concocted bullshit.  If you want to know the truth, it was actually being away from him that caused me to fall apart.”

“So you’re not witless and abused, you’re dependent.  Yeah, that’s better.  How long will this little weekend hookup hold you for?  A week?  Two?  When can I expect you to start bottoming out again?”

Older sisters just didn’t seem to get that their younger sisters weren’t always little girls.  Especially when it came to men.  It was that thought – and that thought only – that held Rachel’s patience in check. 

“I’m not just ‘hooking up’ with him, Rob.  We’re back together.”  She purposefully omitted the fact that he’d asked her to marry him. 

Robin nodded slowly.  Then, just as slowly, she dabbed her mouth with the napkin from her lap and took a long sip of her tea.  “And how did that happen?”

“He was performing in San Jose last week and invited me to the show.  When I didn’t go, he turned up at my house and we’ve been trying to work things out ever since.”

Robin’s sigh would’ve grated on Rachel’s nerves if she didn’t know her sister was genuinely concerned for her well-being.   “Rachel… Jon’s never been anything but nice to me…”

“Then leave it there,” Rachel interrupted her sister’s thought before Robin could say another word.  “I love this man like I’ve never loved any man and, yes, I mean any man.  You can read into that whatever you like.  The fact remains we’re committed to each other and I’d like to think you’d be happy for me, if for no other reason than because I’m happy.”

“Don’t be a dumbass, Rachel.  Of course I’m happy that you’re happy.  And I’m happy that you’ve found a man that you love, in your words, so significantly.  He seems like a decent guy, nervous breakdown thing aside.”

“Robin-“

“I know, I know.”  Robin waved away Rachel’s protest.  “You had your own issues, it wasn’t his fault, yadda, yadda.  I get it.  But are those issues resolved?  I don’t think so and, until they are, this relationship – any relationship – is a bad idea.”

“I’m fine, Robin.”

“Fine, huh?”  Disbelief practically radiated from her sister’s pores.  “So when’s the last time you visited Lauren and Tyler’s graves?  And Nick’s?”

The day of the funeral.

“Tyler’s birthday was two weeks ago,” Robin continued to prod.  “Mom and I were there at the cemetery, decorating his headstone.  Funny, I don’t remember you being with us or seeing flowers that you brought.”

It was true.  Rachel had never been able to make herself go back to their graves after they’d been buried.  She’d never seen the headstones – including the double-width stone that bore her name alongside Nick’s – that she’d numbly chosen at the time of their deaths.  Robin and her parents had assured her they were lovely, but she hadn’t seen them and didn’t care if she ever did.  The thought of standing face to face with grave markers that summed up the lives of her precious family in fifty characters or less…  It just made their deaths seem too overwhelmingly real. 

So Rachel had never seen the reason to put herself through it.  The problem wasn’t hers, she had decided, it was everybody else’s.  She thought it was wonderful that her parents and Robin made regular trips to the gravesite, placing flowers on special occasions.  But not everybody was comfortable in that realm, and Rachel was one of those. 

“Say you’re fine all you want, but until you make yourself go visit those babies…  Well, you’re not healthy.”

“Everybody has their own coping mechanisms, Robbie.  I see no real reason to visit the cemetery when you and Mother are there all the time.  Besides, I’m of the philosophy that there’s nothing in those graves.  Everything I loved about them is as alive as it ever was – in my heart and in my memories.  End of story.”

“I still say you owe it to yourself to worry about being whole before you become somebody’s other half.”

The chiming of her phone made her intentional lack of response less obvious, and she withdrew it from her purse.  She smiled at the text message notification.  “It’s Jon,” she told her sister.  “Give me a second.”

[12:45 PM]JON:  Made it to LA but my mind’s already in Vegas.

[12:47 PM]RACHEL:  Big plans? ;-)

[12:48 PM]JON:  Getting bigger every minute. 

[12:50 PM}RACHEL:  Having lunch with Robin.  Is there a point to this beyond foreplay? 

[12:52 PM]JON:  Yeah.  I was thinkin about that sexy pair of shoes you bought in Miami.

[12:54 PM}RACHEL:  Wanna borrow them?

[12:55 PM]JON:  Wanna fuck you in them.  Bring the shoes, baby.