Rachel wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and forced herself to take deep breaths. Tonight was her one month anniversary with JC, and they had decided to just enjoy a quiet dinner at Rachel’s house. “Why can’t we go to my house?” JC had whined.
“Because your place is a bachelor’s pad, and my place is a house.” Rachel had said.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“So?” Rachel giggled. “I won’t cook if we go to your house.” That had won JC over.
So why was Rachel nervous? Maybe nervous wasn’t the right word”concerned. The first month had flown by, faster than Rachel liked. She felt like she hadn’t spent that much time with JC, and soon (ok in 9 months), he would be leaving to go on a tour. Rachel decided she would tackle that issue when it came. Figuring that she could use her vacation time and arrange some of her business trips to coincide with the tour, she thought they’d be ok.
The door bell rang and Rachel took one last calming breath before answering the door. JC greeted her with a kiss and flowers. “Hi.” He said a moment later.
“Hi yourself.” Rachel stood aside to let him enter. She kissed him again. “How are you doing?”
“I’m pretty good. A lot better now that I’m here.”
“You’re so cheesy.” Rachel wrinkled her nose.
JC kissed the tip of her nose. “How are you?”
“Good.” Rachel headed towards the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in a little bit.”
JC hopped onto the counter and watched Rachel stir the sauce in a pot. “It smells good.”
“Thanks.” Rachel placed the spoon down then walked into the v of JC’s legs, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. This anniversary just fit”staying home for a nice, romantic evening with the guy she was falling for. “This is nice.”
“What’s nice?”
“Other than you?” Rachel laughed. “Tonight…I like that we’re staying in and just…”
“I get it.” JC kissed Rachel quickly. “Me too.”
“So how’s the album going? Aren’t you guys done recording soon?”
Rachel could immediately feel JC tense up. Her hands unclasped themselves and she began kneading the knots that seemed to form in his shoulders. JC sighed. “We’re practically done recording.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Lou is suing us.”
Rachel froze. “What?”
“According to him, we broke our contract with Trans-Continental. So he’s suing us, and we can’t release anything until that gets cleared up.”
“How long do you think that’s going to take?”
JC sighed. His hand found its way to Rachel’s cheek, and began stroking it. “We don’t know. That’s what’s so scary.”
“I’m sorry honey.” Rachel kissed him lightly.
“There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“What are you guys going to do until you can release it?”
JC smiled. “That’s the funny thing. We’re going to do promotion, start planning the tour, rehearse, do publicity…we just can’t release the actual album.”
Rachel made a face. “Weird.”
“You can say that again.”
A timer beeped, and Rachel disentangled herself from JC. “Come on, dinner time!”
JC smiled and went to help get everything ready. With Rachel by his side, he could forget anything that was happening.
JC’s words had bothered Rachel enough over the weekend to talk to her father about it. On Monday, she stopped by his office.
“Hi Margaret.” Rachel greeted his secretary.
“Rachel! Hi! How are you?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Your dad is working me to the bone!”
“Is he in?”
“Yeah, hold on a second. George, you’re daughter is here.” George’s secretary buzzed in.
“Send her in!”
“Hi dad!” George got up to greet his daughter.
“Hi honey! Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Well, you always said that if we needed to talk about lawyer stuff, we had to come to you office, because you didn’t want to talk about it anywhere else.”
George’s smile faded. “Are you in trouble?”
“What?” Rachel laughed. “No!” She sat down in the chair facing George’s desk, and he sat down in his chair.
“What’s up then?”
“I need to ask you something, for my boyfriend.”
George managed to hide his frustration. “Before you start, can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“How come you only come here when you have a non-Jewish boyfriend?”
“What?”
“You never need legal advice when you date Jewish boys.”
“Dad!” Rachel stood up. “That is so uncalled for! Ted…he was a bad choice, I’ll admit that! But that doesn’t mean that all non-Jews are bad! Why can’t you and mom see that?”
“We just don’t want to see you hurt again!”
“You can’t protect me anymore, Dad! I’m not some young, naïve 21 year old right out of college! I’m 23”almost 24!”
“Just because you don’t need our protection, it’s all of a sudden bad to want to give it?”
“When you make me feel like crap or you make yourself seem like an arrogant supremist, then yes.”
“Rachel…”
“You know what, I shouldn’t have come.” Rachel picked up her bag and reached for the door. She didn’t turn around to talk, but she knew her father heard her. “Do you want to know what I needed to ask you about?”
“What?”
“JC’s group is being sued because they’re old record label is accusing them of breaking their contract, which they didn’t do. I was going to ask if you had any advice, or could guess how long their album release would be tied up for.”
“Why can’t you ask JC?”
“Because I wanted to ask you.” Rachel turned around. “Dad, you’re a lawyer, you know that stuff better than he does, no matter how many times his lawyer tells him.” Rachel turned back towards the door. “Kinda funny, isn’t it? I came here to ask for advice”not for a bad thing”and you proved why I’m so cautious about letting you meet JC.” Rachel opened the door and left.
George put his hands in his head. Rachel was right; he had jumped to conclusions about JC because of Ted, he had jumped to conclusions about all of them. He sighed and picked up the phone. His wife might as well know how much he had screwed up.
Number of reviews: 2
Print:
Chapter or Story