Returning Injury (9 page)

They were both early risers, so one morning, still in their pajamas, they decided to go for a quick walk around the hotel. Around five-thirty, when they got back to their room, they were shocked by a man going through their things. Jack tried to grab him by the arm, but he got away and took off running. The defeated look on Jack’s face and not knowing what the thief had already stuffed into his backpack made Rebecca angry, so she kicked off her flip flops and yelled, “Call the police!” as she took off after him. Running as fast as
she could, she chased him out of the pool area and into a hallway. Then, not sure if her body wanted to go faster than her feet or vice versa, she fell hard and jammed her shoulder. She was thankful she had fallen on the carpet and not on the cement by the pool. She jumped up and continued after him.

He ran into a fire escape stairwell; she was only one or two floors from him. She heard a door close and she started trying to open all the doors as she went down. The first floor door was the only one that opened, but she saw nobody. She asked a few people if they had seen a guy wearing black and carrying a red backpack running in this area. Nobody had. So she headed back upstairs to the second floor using a different set of stairs. She looked around and at the fire escape door, there it was, a bent hanger lying on the floor. He had propped a door open for his escape. Pissed that she hadn’t caught him, Rebecca headed to the front desk where she saw Jack and two police officers.

The cops treated her like she was too little, too weak or maybe just too much of a woman, and she shouldn’t have chased the guy; it made her uncomfortable. She was just trying to protect herself, her husband and their property. And maybe she’d take a bad guy off the streets for a while. The only place the hotel had a camera was on the first floor, so they had video of Rebecca, in her pajamas, running out of the fire escape but no pictures of the crook. The police said they would continue checking the area.

The bellhop and front-desk workers at the hotel were amused. They teased her, but not in a mean way. “What would you have done if you caught him?”

“I would’ve beat the living shit out of him.”

They laughed. Jack stood by, proud of his Rebecca. They asked Jack, “Why did you let her go after him.”

“I can’t stop her from doing anything she wants to do. I just said go get him, honey, I’ll call the police.”

Everybody laughed.

And it made it easier to laugh, too, because Jack told Rebecca that he didn’t think the thief got anything, maybe a little cash. He asked her how much money she had had in her coin purse.

“I think thirty or forty dollars. Did he get my necklace?”

“Nope. We were lucky he got your thirty or forty bucks and that’s it.”

Rebecca was relieved. She had put her ten-thousand-dollar diamond solitaire necklace inside her coin purse. Her computer was right where the thief was standing, along with Jack’s wallet and money clip with cash. They were thankful that they caught him when they did. If she had known that he only took a few bucks, she wasn’t sure she would have gone after him, but in that moment nobody could have stopped her.

The next day Jack and Rebecca went for breakfast at the hotel cafe. Jack proudly told their server about Rebecca chasing the burglar. The server loved what Jack was telling her and she turned and beamed at Rebecca. Jack continued bragging. “We never saw the hotel security guards until pretty, feminine little Rebecca chases down the burglar! I can’t imagine how they feel.” He smiled at Rebecca. “Well, they’re making their rounds now, aren’t they?”

The server looked back to Rebecca. “If I had seen you chasing some guy down, I would have helped you! We’d have got him!”

Rebecca, smiling at the memory, had a brilliant idea. She grabbed her notes and wrote, “Join forces with Angie. Find other women and pitch full segments.” She pictured all women coming together to join in the chase to stop all violence against women and children. Rebecca believed that women together were unstoppable and could change the world. The trick was to get all women to realize their worth, their strength and their endless possibilities when they worked together.

Rebecca sat up and adjusted her pillows. Reaching for more of Angie’s pages, she realized her neck and back were tight and stiff again. She did a few neck rolls, then she checked the time. Damn, she wished she had made an appointment with her chiropractor or massage therapist during business hours. A complete spa day was what she wanted, but that she would save as a reward for when she finished her work: a concrete PR plan for Angie.

Rebecca had an idea. While traveling, she and Jack often had massage therapists from the hotel spa come to the room to give them each a massage at the same time. Rebecca liked the deep-tissue therapeutic massage, and Jack liked the light massage so he could relax. Jack would always start snoring within the first few minutes of the massage, then later he would tell Rebecca that he tried to sleep but couldn’t.

Rebecca went downstairs and looked in the city yellow pages under massage therapist, wondering if she could get somebody to come out to the house Monday or Tuesday, preferably a female. She
knew she would have to pay more because she lived out of town, but it would be worth it. But did female massage therapists go out to people’s homes at all, because it might be unsafe?

Rebecca hated how many massage businesses looked like a front for prostitution. Several would come out to the house, but they didn’t look legitimate. They were not actually certified massage therapists, with some mentioning nationality or being discreet in their listings. Rebecca was taken aback—she had been naive and Angie was starting to open her eyes.

Losing interest in a massage, she closed the phone book, walked into the living room and lay down on the floor. She stretched, tightening and relaxing every muscle in her body. She heard Lily jump off the bed and come downstairs. Lily stepped up on Rebecca’s chest and licked her face. “Lily,” Rebecca giggled.

Suddenly, there was a loud thud and Lily started barking. Rebecca sat up quickly; stunned and afraid, she forced herself to get up and check it out. She grabbed the telephone and walked toward the sound. Lily followed, whining and huffing. Rebecca was glad she wasn’t alone.

Rebecca cautiously walked down the hall and opened the main spare bedroom door. She turned on the light. Everything was in its place. The blinds were all open; she couldn’t see outside, but she knew that if somebody was outside they could see in. Hating her exposure, she turned off the bedroom light, quickly walked over to the deck light switch and turned it on. One of the outside chairs was lying on its side. Her first reaction was to call the police, but as she stood there looking outside, she realized the wind had picked up again and strong gusts were coming from the west. Their outdoor
furniture had been knocked around from the wind many times before. She took a deep breath, sighing in relief.

Rebecca was safe in her beautiful home. All the doors and windows were secure and she had an alarm system in place. She convinced herself that a strange noise didn’t mean anything.

Rebecca went to the kitchen, poured another glass of wine and started thinking about Roy as she listened to the wind making the furniture dance around on the decks. Roy would have made a song out of it. He loved music, and she thought he should have been a musician, not a firefighter. And he had that certain oddness or depression about him that made him seem more like an artist.

On a couple of their dates Roy would start humming a song made up of the sounds around them. Although at times it bugged her, she knew he was talented and passionate about music. One night before they said goodbye, he started singing “Blue Eyes” by Elton John to her. She figured he sang that song to every blue-eyed girl he dated, but it was a nice gesture. Rebecca hoped Roy was doing good things with his life, maybe working on his music or doing something good for himself to get his life back on track.

Rebecca suddenly ducked in fear. Somebody was knocking on the deck door off the kitchen nook. Lily started barking again. Rebecca ran into the living room, grabbed the phone and stayed hidden from that door. Her heart was racing. She checked the clock on the wall; it was a little after one. She sat down on the floor, hidden from all doors and windows to that deck. “Oh, my God!” she whispered. “Oh, my God!”

Lily was still aggressively barking at the deck door.

Rebecca could hear the wind gusts and the furniture jumping around. She heard the knock again, but it sounded different. It didn’t sound like it was at the door, but like it was furniture knocking on the deck. Rebecca peeked around the wall and saw nobody at the door. Even Lily had settled down. She listened—and figured nobody had been at the door. It was just the wind.

Relieved, she leaned her head against the wall. She took a few deep breaths before stepping out from behind the wall to assure Lily and herself it was only the deck furniture being knocked around by the wind. They both mellowed out and headed back upstairs and back to work.

Rebecca stretched out on the bed with the lights on and blinds opened. She was in the country, not in the city, so she shouldn’t be concerned about somebody watching her. But the open blinds made her nervous. She got up and closed them, and pushed a chair in front of the door. Now she felt secure.

Rebecca was tired. Her eyes were drooping and what she was reading wasn’t registering. A little TV, she decided would take her mind away from everything else. She didn’t want to think anymore tonight. Seinfeld was on—a show about nothing was exactly what she needed. Rebecca set the sleep-timer on the TV and drifted off to sleep with Lily snoring close by.

Rebecca was staying at her grandparents’ house with her mother, who was asleep in the upstairs bedroom. Rebecca was with Roy, but not because she wanted to be. She was scared of him because she knew he had murdered a woman and buried her on her grandparents’ property. Rebecca needed a moment alone so she could call the police. Roy went to the bathroom and she ran to the phone in the kitchen, picked it up and started to dial. Just then, he stepped next to her and watched the numbers she was dialing. She knew he was going to kill her. She ran but he grabbed her by the hair and she yelled, “Maaaaaaaa-ooooom!”

Rebecca woke up. It was Lily barking, not her yelling for her mother’s help. Still confused about where she was, she expected to be at her grandparents’ house. The TV was off and it was dark. When she got her bearings, she quieted Lily and listened for any strange noises. It was still windy and Lily was upset because of the howling winds.

Rebecca lay in bed listening to the creaking house and blowing gusts. She thought about her mom and her parents’ divorce when she was young. Her mother took off and her father raised her and
her sister. Rebecca always imagined that her mother left to be with some other guy, but it wasn’t until later she learned that her mother left for a career and was a successful broker in New York. Her relationship with her mother was always kind of odd, Rebecca thought, because she never called her mom, never even referred to her as her mother. She always called her Ruth, and didn’t know if Ruth asked her to call her by her name or if Rebecca chose to do that. It was never talked about, and Rebecca didn’t ask why. Ruth wasn’t a great mother, but she had become a great friend and Rebecca loved her very much.

Rebecca didn’t get to know Ruth until she was in her early twenties. Ruth left the family when Rebecca was six and there was little communication. Rebecca’s father raised her and her sister alone, with child support from their mother. Ruth told Rebecca that she had felt tricked into marriage. She didn’t want to be a mother or a wife. She wanted to travel and have a career. She wanted to earn money and have her own life. Ruth knew that Jim, Rebecca’s dad, would be a great daddy to her kids, so she left to fulfill her dreams. She said she would have gone crazy if she had stayed in the marriage. She would have become severely depressed and maybe even have committed suicide.

For months Rebecca was very angry at her mother and felt unloved and unimportant. Later, Rebecca tried to understand her mother’s truth, and she succeeded. They’d been friends ever since.

Rebecca also started loving her father more. She couldn’t fathom the sacrifice and life changes he went through to keep and raise his daughters. Lisa never could forgive her mother and took that traditional route of children and husbands. Lisa was working to save
her third marriage. But for Rebecca, Ruth inspired her to focus on her career, while her dad stressed the importance of family. Not wanting to be her mom nor her dad, Rebecca wanted to be something in the middle. Rebecca had never wanted children, but she had always wanted to be married, to have that special someone. She was a romantic, and with every man who came her way, she wondered if he would be the one. Unfortunately, she had been interested in anybody who was interested in her, and Roy was the one who made her realize that. Roy made her realize a lot of things about herself.

Rebecca had forgiven Roy. His problems had helped her find answers to some of her problems. His attack had made her do the work she needed to do to improve her life, motivating her to move in a different direction with her life and her career—one she might never had figured out on her own.