Oreos
for Breakfast: Chapter Four
By The Paperbag Princess and The
Pumpkin Coach
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 2 1/2 | Page 3
"Nick?" a quiet voice called, and I opened my eyes reluctantly. I was having the best dream, I was in a house next to the ocean, and Rachel was there, and she was being so nice to me… must be the Vicodan. "You don't have to wake up, sweetie, Frank and I are going to the store, just wanted to see if you needed anything."
I sat up with a start, everything coming back to me in a rush. AJ in rehab, crying on Rachel's shoulder… a house next to the ocean, Rachel being nice to me.
Life was really weird sometimes.
She smiled at me. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
"No, it's…" I rubbed my good hand through my hair, trying to wake up. "What time is it?"
"Six-ish. You've been asleep for a few hours."
I need to get up, or I'll never sleep tonight. "What did you say you and Frank are doing?"
"Groceries. We're going to eat in tonight, do you mind?"
I shrugged. "As long as you don't expect me to cook."
She laughed. "The thought never crossed my mind. Did you know that Frank can cook?"
I just blinked at her. Frank could cook?
She giggled again. "I'm somehow not surprised that you didn't know that. We just had quite a discussion about balsamic vinegar, Frank and I. Hope you like it, it's the featured ingredient this evening."
I wasn't entirely sure what balsamic vinegar was. They discussed it? Did that mean that Rachel could cook, too? Of course she could, she could do anything. "Whatever."
"So, do you want to come with or just stay here?"
"I'll come."
"You can stay, hon. I trust you alone in the house."
I rolled out of bed, smiling at her. "Dunno, I might go looking for your diary or something," I teased, making her laugh again.
"You wish. It's beyond your wildest fantasies, darling," she flirted, then walked away. "Five minutes, then, little man!"
'Little man.' She'd definitely been talking to Frank. I'd been asleep for about three hours, had they been talking about me? Then again, Frank never talked, he was the strong silent type. Except to Rachel… he liked Rachel.
Oh, hell. What did he tell her?
He greeted me with a raised eyebrow when I tumbled downstairs. "She wake you up, sleeping beauty?"
"Shut up. Since when do you cook? What the hell is balsamic vinegar?"
"Live and learn, little man. I can do lots of things you don't know about." I scowled at him, but then Rachel flew down the stairs, grabbing her keys and stopping to look at me.
"You're wearing glasses!" she exclaimed.
I nodded at her. "My eyes are tired."
"I thought they were a fashion accessory," she mused, then shook her head, heading for the door. "C'mon, the farm stand I want closes at seven. They should have strawberries, and the good tomatoes."
"Should we get ice cream, or I know a quick recipe for shortbread?" Frank asked her, and I tried not to laugh. What the hell? My bodyguard knew a recipe for shortbread? Who knows recipes for shortbread off the top of their head? He and Rachel talked food on the drive into town, and I gave up after about two minutes, leaning my head back and looking up at the sky. I'd let Frank have the front seat, since he had so much to say about produce.
This was definitely the longest conversation I'd ever heard him partake in. God knows he never said more than a few sentences at a time to me. He and Rachel were talking like old friends, speaking in a language that I didn't even understand. I could make things out of boxes. I could grill things, Dad taught me how to do that. "Can we grill things?" I asked, and Rachel smiled back at me.
"We're gonna let you set the table, OK, baby?"
I stuck my tongue out at her and she giggled at me in the rearview mirror before turning into a small parking lot. "Tommy!" she called, jumping out of the car, and a guy about her age ducked under the counter and ran over to her.
Another boyfriend? I needed to start taking notes. Frank got out of the car, shooting me a look that told me to stay quiet as I followed him over to Rachel and the guy.
"Rachel! I didn't know you were in town!" Tommy hugged her quickly, letting her go with a smile.
"Just got in. Tell me you have some strawberries left, my friend Frank and I were just discussing the joys of balsamic."
Frank's her friend now? Tommy smiled over at us and Rachel did a quick introduction. "Tommy, this is Frank and Nick, friends of mine, and Frank, Nick, this is Tommy, my brother Patrick's best friend. He grows great strawberries." Brother's best friend? Probably meant he wasn't an old boyfriend, good.
Tommy steered Rachel over to the counter. "It was dry this year, not a great crop." Rachel protested that they were always great and I just watched her. She was so different here then when I'd seen her on the road, more relaxed and completely normal. Did her friends even know what a rock god she was?
I was never normal like this. I bought food at the grocery store about twice a year, when I wasn't touring. And then I always ended up with nothing I needed. There was going to be dinner at the end of this shopping trip, I could tell. And a good dinner, with fresh veggies. My mom would be proud.
Rachel turned to me with a smile, holding out a strawberry. "Try it."
He ate it out of my fingers, smiling slowly and it was all I could do not to kiss him. Jesus. How did he do that, go from a cranky tired little boy to sex god in two seconds flat? I loved him in glasses, they made him look almost studious and serious. "Excellent," he proclaimed with a nod, and I had to look away. Tommy and Frank were discussing tomatoes, and I started picking through green beans. "I hate green beans," Nick whined next to me, and I giggled. He was back to cranky and tired, that I could handle.
"You'll like mine, I promise. Just try one, OK?"
He scowled at me. "You sound like my mother."
"Oops! I'll stop that. You don't have to eat any green beans."
He laughed at my horrified expression. "I'll try one, just for you."
"You're so sweet," I teased, as Tommy asked me how many tomatoes we needed. Frank paid for everything before I could protest, and carried it out to the car. "How do you know so much about tomatoes, Frank?" I asked him as we all settled back into the car.
"My family has a farm outside Houston. Cattle, mostly, but my mom has a huge garden, a farm stand an awful lot like that one there."
I caught Nick giving him an incredulous look in the rearview mirror and had to giggle. "Were you supposed to be a cattle rancher, Frank?" I questioned, and he nodded.
"Somethin' like that. Just like you were supposed to make wine." He smiled at me and now I caught Nick giving me an incredulous look. I caught his eye in the mirror and smiled.
"What, Nicky?"
"Did you guys exchange family histories while I was asleep this afternoon? I never knew that Frank was a cattle rancher!"
"I wasn't a rancher, I just grew up on a ranch. And you never asked, little man."
"Why would I ask something like that? When has that ever come up in conversation?"
"Right now. The nice lady asked me a question about myself, and I answered." Glowering at the back of Frank's head, Nick looked over at me.
"You were supposed to make wine, Rache?"
"Family business, yeah. Got a little sidetracked by the rock and roll thing. Most of us don't grow up being groomed for stardom," I teased.
"Yeah, well…" he didn't finish, glancing over to the side of the road. "Wow, that's a cool house."
I let him change the subject, looking over. "My first boyfriend lives there. Well, his family. We were eight, his family owns a winery near ours, we were gonna get married and join the fields. Ah, young love…" I mused.
Nick and Frank both laughed. "What happened to him?" Nick asked.
"Tony is a lawyer in the city. Married, two cute kids. Hmm…" I mused, half to myself. "That might be why I have the dream of marrying a boring lawyer. All Tony's fault!"
"You want to marry a lawyer, Rache?" I was just shocking the hell outa Nick today, wasn't I?
"Much better than a rock star, sweetie. Solid earning potential and stable. Someday I'll settle down." Just not right now. I pulled into the parking lot at the grocery store and started telling Frank about our good bread, and the lovely yuppification of what used to be a very average food store. It was ten minutes and half a basket of provisions before I looked over at Nick and realized he was about to die of boredom. Giggling, I left Frank to examining the seafood and poked Nick, making him stop yawning and smile at me. "Sorry," I apologized. "You didn't have to come."
He shook his head. "No, I wanted to. Think he's noticed that no one's noticed me, or is he too absorbed in the mussels or clams or whatever the hell it is that you're gonna feed me tonight?"
I'd forgotten. I'd honestly half-forgotten who I was standing here with, and I glanced at the shoppers around us. They could care less, they had no idea that as they reached for a quart of milk, they were standing next to one of the most successful singers in the world.
Not that he looked the part at all with his ball cap and baggy shorts, his socks pulled up to his knees. I so had to get him to stop doing that, that stupid sock thing.
"I noticed," Frank told him, rejoining us. "And it's mussels, and you're gonna like 'em."
"Yes, sir!" Nick saluted, rolling his eyes at me, making me laugh.
"What do you want for dinner, sweetie?" I asked him. "Frank and I are taking over, sorry."
He shrugged as we continued down the aisle. "I don't care. I'll try anything. Can we get ice cream to go with the strawberries?"
"Hey, we can make ice cream!" I remembered. "I got an ice cream maker for Christmas, only used it once."
And off they went again, talking about vanilla and cream and god knows what else. I started throwing things in the basket as they caught my eye, just to see if they'd notice. Marshmallows, Doritos, Hamburger Helper, Cheez Whiz. Rachel rolled her eyes at the Hamburger Helper and took it out, but kept everything else, and we had a discussion about breakfast cereal until Frank hurried us along.
Rachel in non-rock star mode was weird, but Frank relaxed was downright bizarre. I'd never seen him like this, I was used to him silent and annoyed, but now he was almost… happy. He laughed at Rachel's jokes. He even made a few himself. I'd heard him laugh, but generally it was at my expense. Maybe he and Rachel had been drinking some of her wine while I was sleeping.
He knew all this stuff about food, and it made me realize I knew almost nothing about him. He had family in Texas, I only knew that because they'd come to the shows when we played there. Houston? Dallas? I wasn't even sure which city. There were some nieces and nephews, two sisters, one or two brothers… if his parents had ever come to our shows, I hadn't met them.
He knew everything about me. He knew my family and my friends and my girlfriends and he made sure all of us were safe. He answered my phone when I was busy, my mom always called him 'that nice Frank', and I always just thought of him as an annoyance.
Which probably wasn't fair of me, not any of it. He was a nice guy, I'd never seen him be mean to anyone, not even the worst fans. He got them to go away with the death glare, he never touched one, he never yelled like some of the other bodyguards did.
Hell, he was entertaining Rachel. If I was here alone with her, I didn't know what I'd do. I wanted to just wrap myself around her and hope that her happiness would rub off on me, at least with Frank around I didn't have to make conversation all the time. As much as I wanted him to leave, I wanted him to stick around.
"Hey…" Rachel whined as we unloaded the cart, and I looked over at her. "You owe me chocolate!"
I did owe her chocolate. I promised her chocolate in Hershey, and I was going to give it to her in Boston, but I forgot. I had to wonder where it was… probably forgotten in my Boston hotel room… yeah, I put it in the fridge. It was long gone.
I started tossing chocolate bars randomly on the belt, making her laugh. "Now, you were supposed to guess my favorite, that was the idea."
"It was a test? Homework isn't bad enough?"
She squeezed past me to start bagging our groceries and I had to force myself not to grab her. "Homework?" she questioned.
Shit. Did I say that? "I'm gonna fail the girl groups test, Rache. I don't remember any of them."
She giggled, throwing things into bags. "That wasn't a test. I was just trying to expand your horizons. Did you like any of them?"
"He only listens to you, darlin'," Frank drawled, reaching for his wallet. "Over and over and over again."
I scowled at Frank, but then caught Rachel beaming at me, and didn't care. I helped bag up the rest of the groceries as Frank and Rachel argued over who was going to pay for them. Better not throw my money into that argument that would just drive her insane.
Frank was right, none of the girls I knew ever paid for anything. I never cared, what was the point? But when Rachel paid for things, it made me feel… normal. At least a little bit.
Frank won, producing his card first, insisting that a good guest could pay for groceries. She insisted that a good host wouldn't let a guest do such a thing, and he countered that a really good host wouldn't have made her guests grocery shop. She pouted at him and told him to fuck off, and he just laughed.
Frank was a funny guy when you got to know him. Too bad it took me four years to do that.
Rachel pointed out landmarks to us on the drive home, she seemed to know who lived in every house we passed. I didn't have history like this anywhere. In fact, I couldn't even imagine it. Back at the house, she directed Frank and I as we unpacked the groceries and she searched for the ice cream maker. Finding it, she set it on the counter and pulled out the directions. "If I remember right, this was really easy…"
I pulled the directions out of her hands. How hard could this be? "I'll do the ice cream." She and Frank both looked at me. "What? I can follow directions." Frank started to say something and I cut him off. "When I want to."
Rachel laughed and took Frank's arm, leading him over to the stove. "We'll do something else if he messes it up, right? Where should we start?"
Engrossed in the directions, I didn't even notice that she'd left the room until five minutes later. "Do I have to do the cooked one, or can I just dump in the milk?"
Frank answered, and I looked over at him. "It's better with cream, did we get any? But don't worry about the eggs with the machine, it's more trouble than its worth."
He was at the sink, doing something to the mussels, and I nodded at his back. "Where did you learn to cook, Frank?"
He turned around slowly, raising an eyebrow at me.
"What? I'm just askin'."
Shaking his head, he went back to what he was doing. "In the Army."
"I thought you were a boxer in the Army," I countered. I knew that. He'd teased me about my broken hand, it was a 'boxer's break,' he said.
"Everyone in the Army has a job. I cooked. Then when I got out and went to college, I didn't have much money, so I improvised."
I pulled the cream out of the fridge and started searching for vanilla. "You went to college?"
"That's why I went into the Army, to get the college money."
"Where did you go?"
"City College, New York."
"When?" Rachel appeared from the basement, carrying three bottles of wine.
"Long before your time, little girl," he said without missing a beat. "Do you have a pot big enough for these?"
"Yeah, under the counter. What's your degree in?" She set the wine on the counter next to me.
"Physical education. Teaching."
Rachel and I both froze and then whirled around to look at him. She found her voice first. "A teacher? You'd scare the poor kids!"
He stood up from looking for a pot, setting one on the counter. "This is a great pot. How old is it?"
"It was my grandmother's. You were gonna be a teacher?"
He smirked at the two of us. "I was number one in my class for student teaching, thank you very much. I would have been a good teacher."
"So why weren't you?" I asked. How the hell did he get from a teaching degree to protecting my sorry ass?
"Got an offer I couldn't refuse. Tons of money, world travel, all that." He started throwing things in the pot, an onion, a bunch of green things, and I could see Rachel taking mental notes.
"How does one get into bodyguarding, anyway?" I wondered, opening a cabinet and handing Nick the vanilla. He looked like it might eat him, and I shook my head, taking the jar back and extracting a vanilla pod. "I have fresh herbs out back, if you want them." I offered to Frank.
Frank considered my offer as I found a knife and laid the vanilla on the cutting board. Nick was hanging over my shoulder, following my every move.
Thank god Frank was here, or I might not be able to resist Nick's cuteness.
"What do you have?"
"Basil, I'm sure the mint is outta control… sage, rosemary, dill. Lavender, but you probably won't be using that." Lavender in the ice cream? That might be interesting…
Frank considered for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, we're good with what I've got."
I sliced open the vanilla pod and Nick leaned over to see it. "Have you never cooked with real vanilla before?"
He rolled his eyes. "What do you think? No, I've never cooked with real anything before. What do you do with that?"
"You scrape out the seeds and dump them in the milk, like this." I did so. "Now you can add the sugar and stuff. Frank might not need any herbs, but I do, I'll be right back." I headed for the door and whirled around, catching Nick about to throw away the vanilla pod. "Don't throw that away! I'll use it later."
He nodded and put it back on the counter as I left only going steps away to my herb garden. I needed basil for the tomato salad, and mint for dessert… I grabbed some lavender, still debating if lavender vanilla ice cream was taking it all a bit far. Oh! dill, for the salmon.
Chapter
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Note: page 2.5 added 12-31-03
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