Oreos for Breakfast

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 36
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

Journal Entry - January 26, 2003

Nick-

James didn’t let me bring my computer, but he doesn’t know about the notebook. Well, knowing him, he does, but I guess he figures I’m doing less harm to myself writing you letters all the time than I am obsessively searching for gossip accounts of you and the hotel heiress.

Not that it matters if I brought my computer, because the only internet access where I’m going is at the main building, and that’s a pain.

I am going on vacation. By myself. Which is weird enough, but it is a vacation I may have dreamed about, but didn’t know existed. I have a little thatched roof cottage that leads right out to the private beach. And a hot tub. Not that I don’t have a hot tub in New York, and at the Point, but this is a hot tub in Antigua.

I told Lola I wanted to go on vacation, and an hour later, she told me I was going to Antigua. Antigua is where Duran Duran filmed “Rio”, just in case you didn’t know. That’s why she picked it for me. I didn’t really care where I was going, as long as it has beaches and sun and a good spa.

About fifteen minutes after Lola told me where I was going, they’d sent me an email, and I just checked off all the spa services I wanted and what should be stocked in my minibar. Then I packed all my swimsuits, a couple of cover-ups, shorts and t-shirts and sandals and a pretty sundress that Ben got me for Christmas, and I was ready.

Ben got me the sundress because we were supposed to be going to Puerto Rico next week. Or this week. I forget when. I know it wasn’t Valentine’s day, because as good as the package was that he won at some charity auction that I dragged him to for the holidays, it didn’t include Valentine’s day. Which was fine, because Valentine’s day in New York could be terribly romantic, and I know he was already planning it when I broke up with him on New Year’s.

My friend Heather (from Long Island- remember her? Red hair? She gave you shit for not telling my friends that you were a Backstreet Boy?) has all these weird superstitions about dating. If you’re with someone at New Year’s, you’ll be with them at Valentine’s. You should spend a week mourning for every month you were together. Something like that.

Well, I think some deep-seated collective girl unconscious race memory kicked me in the ass on New Year’s, because I just didn’t want to be with Ben on New Year’s. It wasn’t just the picture I saw of you and Paris. I’d been a bitch to him for days before that. Something was telling me that New Year’s was too much of a commitment.

Which is so totally dumb ass, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was just time. Five or six weeks, that was probably longer than it should have been. If it had been the middle of summer, I would have found a reason to leave after five or six weeks. Or maybe less. Maybe it was just Christmas in New York that made me hold on for so long.

Or maybe Ben was just a really nice guy, and that’s why I held on. Because I wanted to be who he wanted. I wanted to be that girl. Nice, and sweet, and smart and funny and interested in his career, but with that little rock star edge. Not too much of the rock star thing. He wouldn’t get that. But just a little. Just enough to make me the most interesting woman he’d ever dated. Someone he could brag about to his friends. Someone who really impressed his niece.

Someone who made him come until he saw stars. If I had known that Ben was the last guy I was ever going to have sex with, I might have enjoyed it a little more. Not that he was bad. He just wasn’t very… adventurous. I think if I had tried anything like your birthday last year, he would have never spoken to me again. Not just the strap on, either. Just the blindfold and other toys. He’s not a gadget sort of guy.

That might be another reason I’m getting out of town. It’s almost your birthday, and I can only imagine what kind of party Paris is planning for you. Pretty sure nothing like what I did last year. Although, maybe she has a hidden kinky side that we don’t know about.

Oh, wait. We’ve all seen her sex life. Forgot about that. I hope she’s better with you than she was on the tape. Not that I’ve seen the tape, honestly. But Jeremy and Darien had. They said they were just checking out the competition for me. They said it was pretty boring, and I think I believe them. I don’t know. Maybe it was really hot and they didn’t want to upset me.

Nah. Jeremy’s slept with me. Most of what I know, I learned from him. He knows what I’m capable of.

Anyhow… I think it’s better that I’m alone with my thoughts on your birthday. Maybe by then I’ll be so on island time that I’ll forget what day it is and it’ll pass me by. That’s a lot better than being at home, seeing you on TV or online or wherever with the hotel heiress.

Ooh, breakfast. I love flying first class. You get real food in first class. I’m having pancakes. And my third mimosa.

I really should have thought of this vacation idea sooner, instead of moping around in my house for the last couple of weeks.

Journal Entry - January 28, 2003

Happy birthday, bunny.

At least I think it’s your birthday. Have I been here two days or three? Two, I think, which makes it your birthday today, somewhere across the world from my little tiny island.

I’d hoped I’d forget about it, but I didn’t. But it is three in the afternoon here, and I just remembered now, so that’s progress. I wonder what you’re doing. Does Paris have some big party planned with all of her fabulous friends for you? Do you like her friends? Well, they’re probably as vapid as she is, and you like her, so… you like her friends and going out every night.

I find that a little weird. I mean, I know you like to go out and get drunk with your friends. But I never thought that you were the kind of guy to get dressed up and go to all the hot clubs to be seen. I guess it’s the ‘being seen’ part that I don’t get. Because Paris is all about the photo op, and that is something you were never into. You liked going out in Tampa because no one ever bothered you.

Anyway. It’s not making your birthday any better for me to obsess about what you’re doing with Paris. Want to know what I did today?

I woke up at nine or so when my phone rang and a very nice woman named Helena, who calls me every morning, told me that I had a massage at ten. The breakfast I’d placed an order for last night was ready, and would be there in about fifteen minutes, if that’s what I still wanted. If I wanted to change my order, that was fine, too.

I stuck with the eggs benedict with salmon and spinach and the tropical fruit salad and the quart of fresh squeezed orange juice. I might have the eggs benedict every day, because they make the best hollandaise sauce I’ve ever tasted here. It’s light and lemony and perfect and Mari would be so jealous. Not that she doesn’t make an amazing hollandaise, but this is out of this world.

So, I rolled out of bed and put on the robe that is so coming home with me, because it is fluffy, yet not warm, because I don’t need warm here. It’s about eighty degrees most of the time, except in the middle of the day when I’m lying on the beach, and then it’s maybe ninety, which means that getting into the water feels lovely.

But, wait, that’s later in my day. I put on my robe and brushed my teeth and opened up the doors to the porch and it was another perfect day. I don’t think I could live here. The constant perfect weather might just make me happy and content and nice to be around all the time, like everyone I’ve met who works here, and then I would never have any angst to write songs about. I have my guitar, but I’ve barely looked at it. What am I going to do? Write a song about perfect hollandaise sauce?

A minute later, there was a knock on my door, and John, my lovely room… guy. Steward? I think that’s on cruise ships. The guy who cleans up my room and brings me everything I could ever dream of. Butler? Anyhow, John came in with my breakfast, and set it up on the porch for me, and asked if I’d want a ride to the spa building, or if I was going to walk, and I decided to walk. He told me when I got back, my chair and umbrella would be on the beach, and he’d check on me and see what I wanted for lunch.

I know from past experience that when I get back from my massage, my beach bag will be sitting on my chair, with two fresh towels rolled up and ready to go. And sunscreen and a bottle of water. There will be a couple of new books on the table for me to choose from, and the book I left on my bedside table last night? That’s there, in case I haven’t finished it yet. I bet he’d pick out my swimsuit if I wanted him to.

I ate my breakfast and enjoyed the ocean breezes and watched how the sunlight glittered off the water and didn’t think of anything but how good the hollandaise was. Then I took a quick shower and put on a swimsuit and a cover up and stepped into my sandals and walked over to the spa building. Which I can’t see from my little cottage, but it’s only a five minute walk, through the beautiful tropical garden.

I noticed the clock said it was ten past ten when I got there, but no one said anything. Ten minutes late. Whatever. A lovely woman named… I can’t remember her name right now. The massage was too good to remember names. Did I mention it was in this little outside cabana and I could hear the waves? Why would I remember her name?

It’s good that it was a woman. Because they only thing that could make this trip better would be to get laid, and James told me I’m not allowed to fuck any of the hot cabana boys. Stupid New Year’s resolution only to have meaningful sex. Because sex with cabana boys is probably part of the all-inclusive price I’m paying.

Anyhow. I have hands. I can take care of things.

Massage. Right. She asked if I was going in the sun when I was done, and I basically said ‘is there another option?’ so she finished by applying a nice layer of sunscreen. One less thing for me to think about before I collapsed into my beach chair twenty minutes later.

I know everyone says that the sun is going to kill us all and tanning is bad and all, but… it’s just so nice to lie in the sun and not have to do anything else. If I wasn’t allowed to sunbathe here, I’d be inside, and that seems like such a waste of perfection.

After a bit, John came by, and I ordered a pina colada and a sandwich and that’s pretty much all I’ve done. Lie here for half an hour or forty five minutes, then go into the water and bob around for a while. Come back to my chair, repeat cycle.

There are other people here. Enough that I don’t feel like I’m marooned on a deserted island, but not enough that they’re in my space. I’m sure that none of them know who I am. I don’t know who they are. Brad Pitt could be down there somewhere. Whatever.

I’ll probably go to the main building for dinner and hopefully get the table at the edge of the veranda and I’ll watch the sunset while I eat something amazing. I don’t even pay attention to the other people around at dinner, because the sunset is too gorgeous. It’s pretty quiet at dinner. I think we’re all mesmerized by the sunset.

Then I wander back to my room and read for a while. Oh, while I’m at dinner, John turns down my bed and lights some candles and leaves me chocolates and a bowl of fresh fruit. And cheese and crackers and all sorts of stuff in my minibar. They feed me a lot here. I’m not complaining.

I end the night in the hot tub, looking up at the stars.

This is the best vacation ever.

Journal Entry - January 30, 2003

Nick-

James and I had this discussion before I left that I know I should be doing something with these six months. Even if we don’t get back together, I should be a better person for having these six months to work on myself.

Well, I spent a couple of months on tour. And we both know touring is not the place for introspection. (looking inside yourself. It is possible that you don’t know what introspection means.) (if you read this, I will be curious as to your reaction that sorta snarky statement, and whatever it is, I will surely kiss you for it.)

(I really do miss kissing you.)

And I got back from the tour and had a couple of weeks where I decorated my new apartment, and I felt like a sophisticated New Yorker, and that was really nice. Then I met Ben, and that was really nice.

Then I broke up with Ben, and didn’t know what to do with myself, and AJ came and that was… that’s a subject for another letter, that’s what AJ was. Then AJ left, and I didn’t leave the house for a while. And now I’m here.

Anyway, I should be doing something with these six months. I should be working on myself. Making myself better and smarter and stronger. Not like the Bionic Woman better, faster, stronger. Mentally and emotionally better and stronger. (I don’t think I can be faster emotionally. Faster emotionally is probably bad. I should think things through emotionally, rather than freaking out like I sometimes do.)

But how do you do that? It’s not like writing songs or playing the guitar, where practice makes perfect. There are no exercises to make you more emotionally stable. There’s nothing I can do to make me say that I don’t need you or want you back.

Even though I’m not sure that I need you or want you back. I’m not saying either of those things. I’m not pining for you. I’m really not.

Okay, I might have gotten a little obsessed with you and Paris. But time here in the sunshine, with no internet or TV or news, has helped a lot with that. I even think when I go back to New York, I’ll be okay. You are dating Paris Hilton. That is your choice. It doesn’t make you a different person than the man I fell in love with. It just means you’re trying different things. Maybe you see something in her that I don’t, since I’ve only met the woman once.

Yeah, I should stop talking about Paris freaking Hilton now.

Anyhow. I’m not sure what I’m doing here. Besides staring at the water and getting a fantastic tan.

Okay, after fifteen minutes- or an hour- or three minutes- I’m not wearing a watch- I know, you can’t believe it, I always wear a watch- of pondering, I have realized something.

Funny, how you figure things out when you don’t think about them. Like, I’ll get an idea for a song, and if it doesn’t flow, I walk away from it, or look at it in the morning, and then voila! It’s there.

I have to stop looking at AJ as my safety net. (okay, AJ became the subject for this letter) And I didn’t realize that I was thinking of him that way, but in the last few weeks, my thoughts have always become ‘if it doesn’t work out with Nick, there’s AJ.’

And that’s just fucking crazy. I mean, I love AJ. I do. And if things don’t work for you and me in March, I am so jumping him in April, if things don’t work with him and Sarah. But I have to get this ‘AJ will save me’ thought out of my head.

AJ’s not going to save me from anything. AJ can’t save himself. He couldn’t stay faithful to Sarah, and they lived together and were together all the time. I’m going to be touring soon. And Sarah is cool and all, but I take way less shit than she does.

And I don’t need to be fucking saved! It’s not like my life is dull and empty and no one loves me. I’m good. I told James before I left that I just saw endless promo and crap ahead of me, but fuck that. There is some great stuff on this album.

And I have my family and my friends and a great apartment. So if you don’t want me back, I’ll be fine. I don’t need AJ.

Besides, I was starting to get those Jeremy feelings about him. The ‘I can save him from himself’ feelings, and we all know how that worked out.

Yeah. Perhaps hot sex with AJ. But nothing else.

So. Huh. Looks like I figured something out after all.

I fucking love tropical islands.

Tomorrow’s topic- do I want you back? Compare and contrast, life with Nick and life without. Two thousand words.

Journal Entry - February 1, 2003

Nick-

This is my last day in paradise. Well, they already asked me if I’d like to extend my stay this morning, so I know they wouldn’t kick me out.

But I woke up this morning, and I felt so happy, and calm and settled, better that I’ve felt in months. Not just since we broke up, but before that, because I wasn’t happy those last few weeks or months or… whatever. Whenever it was that things started going badly.

I woke up this morning and I felt great, and when John, my friendly cabin guy, butler, whatever, asked if I’d like to stay, and that they’d love to have me for as long as I wanted to stay, I heard myself saying ‘no,’ and I couldn’t figure it out. I just smiled and said I was looking forward to my last day on the beach, and a nice dinner, and then a massage under the stars to send me off, and tomorrow I will sleep in and pack and go to the airport and start the long journey home, and I’m okay with that. I’m not dreading going home, and a couple of days ago, I couldn’t stand to think of New York and the cold and the snow.

But now I am calm and fine with going home and seeing my friends and my cat and sleeping in my own bed. I know its February, and soon it will be warm again. Winter isn’t that much longer. In a couple of weeks, I get to do a show with Shirley, and maybe no one else cares, but I do, and I’m looking forward to being on stage and doing some covers and having fun with it.

A couple of weeks after that, it’s March, and promo for the new album starts, and I get to see you. Which I’m looking forward to, because I want to see you and talk to you and make sure that you’re okay. I’m not sure that you are. But you look pretty happy in all the pictures I see of you with Paris, and maybe she’s a nice girl with a bad image, and you see the real her.

I hope so.

Maybe you will be happy and sweet and giddy with her and get married on a beautiful tropical island someday, like the couple I saw today. They were rehearsing for tomorrow, I suppose, just down the beach from me. I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but I noticed a group of people in shorts and t-shirts, not swimsuits, and then they started to organize and I figured it out. She walked down an imaginary aisle with her dad and joined her boy with the pastor or preacher or whoever it is that can declare them ‘husband and wife’ and there were parents and a best man and a maid of honor and that looked to be it. I assume there will be guests tomorrow.

It was really sweet, and they looked really happy and excited, even from where I was sitting, a bit aways.

I’d like to get married on the beach someday, but my beach. If Dad can’t be there, then I’ll have to go to him.

Or maybe I’ll never get married at all. And that’s okay. But if I do, it’ll be on my beach. For a while, I thought it would be us getting married on my beach. That’s where we finally became us, after all. It all seemed to fit. But now I know that was just a pretty little fantasy.

I’m going to tell you good-bye, Nick. That’s what I figured out this week. I’m really happy by myself, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m in paradise. I think I’m happy on my own. I don’t need a guy to make me happy, and I don’t want to be in a relationship and start thinking like that again.

I don’t want to be in the press all the time with some guy or another. Or even just you. I want to be the single, happy rock star. I want people to just listen to my music, and sometimes they’ll see me in the papers and go ‘hey, she’s cool.’ I want to be as under the radar as possible and still sell records.

It’s not that I don’t love you. Because I do. But sometimes love isn’t enough. We’re too different, and we want different things, and that’s okay. I just want to make music and be with my friends and my family and have lots of time to myself. I’m really happy with that right now. Maybe we can be friends. I hope so. Because I do miss you and I want all good things for you, but I can’t save you, and sometimes I tried to do that too much.

Maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe it’s just that you can’t be sad here in paradise, so I think I’ll go back to cold New York and be fine. I’ll have to deal with the boys in my band and the fact that all of them are in bizarrely happy relationships for the first time in our collective lives.

Maybe I’ll see you and your pretty blue eyes in March and my resolve will crumble, and I’ll do anything to feel you in my arms again. I hope not. I hope that I can be strong and safe and happy by myself. I’m still a hopeless romantic, just not for me.

One of the ways I might make this feel real is if I stop writing to you. That’s probably bad, that I ‘talk’ to you all the time. Not that I’m really talking to you. This is more like a journal. I do think about you when I write in it, though. It’s the only time I let myself think about you.

Well, I think about you all the time. Random thoughts, like ‘Nick would like these shoes,’ or ‘I wonder if Nick is watching the game,’ stuff like that. But when I write these letters, it’s like you’re sitting next to me.

I will really miss that.

But I should stop. Writing these letters and keeping you with me is like we’re just on a break and we’ll be back together someday. But that’s not going to happen. So I should stop writing these letters before I see you in March, so I’ll be used to you being gone, and then March will be easy. A drink, we’ll catch up on each other’s lives, maybe one last kiss and that’s it.

It sure was good when it was good, though. I’ll miss that.

Love you always, Rachel.

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