“And if you hadn’t ridden,” Richard asked aloud, “would I be here today? The first son and heir to an English peer?” He paused. “Would she be here?”
Richard kicked himself for believing that Rebecca would say yes. He had fallen so hard for her, and his feelings were so strong, that he was convinced she felt the same way too. For the past two years, his life had been consumed by Rebecca. He dreamed about her, talked about her, and thought about her. But, scariest of all, Richard had allowed himself to plan.
For the first time in his life, when he thought about his future, there was someone else in it. The nameless, faceless mannequin who was a stand-in for ‘future wife’ was suddenly a black-haired beauty with eyes the color of the oceans. When he thought about his children, they all had sparkling smiles and high cheekbones like their mother. Rebecca.
She was the first woman to ever break through the fortress around Richard’s heart, and instead of marshalling his defenses to repel the intruder, he welcomed her with open arms. Richard allowed himself to wish and hope and dream and plan in a very specific way, and those wishes and hopes and dreams and plans shattered his heart into a thousand little pieces.
It was well past midnight when Richard returned to his dorm room on the Allston side of campus. After strolling around the law school, Richard cut back through Harvard Yard and gladly accepted beer from undergraduates partying outside their dorms. He walked across Weeks Bridge – stopping at the same point where Rebecca did hours earlier. Richard reached into his pocket and pulled out the small velvet box that had been burning a hole in his trousers all night long.
He flipped open the box with his thumb.
The full moon that night made his grandmother’s ring shine brilliantly over the Charles River below.
“I can’t marry you.”
Rebecca’s words echoed in Richard’s mind and he snapped the ring box shut, nearly tossing it in the river before shoving it in his pocket in an angry huff and finishing his march back to his dorm room.
THIRTY
Love in general is a wonderfully miserable phenomenon. The object of one’s desire occupies all of one’s thoughts, even when one doesn’t want him or her to. Love drives people to do and say ridiculous things, and – rather than being embarrassed – be proud of their lunacy. Love fills a person with incredible joy and infuriating irritation; a warmth unlike any other and a pain worse than the human heart was designed to endure.
And all of that is when the other person loves you too.
Unrequited love violates the law’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
It’s the kind of torture the Geneva Conventions were drawn up to prevent.
Unrequited love . . . well, one had to search no further than the look on Richard Arrington’s face to see what it meant.
After returning from his late-night wanderings through Harvard Square, Richard finished off every bottle of alcohol he had in his room and, unable to sleep, organized the remainder of his belongings for his trip home to England. And now he was sitting on the ledge of his dorm room window, watching below as Rebecca and her parents packed up a rented moving truck. Becks was going straight to New York and starting at Goldman Sachs the next week. Full steam ahead, as always, he thought. No breaks. No distractions.
Richard was both light-headed and heavy-chested at the same time, as if he were floating above himself while also having a pallet of bricks stacked on top of him. Some of that was the hangover, he knew, but most of it originated from the Southern siren in the courtyard below.
After a few more minutes, Richard forced himself to get up from the window and go take a shower. His heart wanted to keep watching Rebecca – to catch every last glimpse of her that he could before she disappeared forever. But his head knew he needed to stop. Needed to focus on something else to keep his tears at bay. Excited and full of love a day before, Richard now faced a future of sunken emptiness, with a hole in his heart that refused to go away.
THIRTY-ONE
Four months later
Richard settled into his life in London and buried himself in his work. He had lined up a job as a junior analyst at an investment firm, and he logged between 80 and 100 hours per week. Richard didn’t mind the work, though. It kept his thoughts busy and off of her.
Richard still couldn’t say her name. The pain of Rebecca’s rejection was too raw. That’s not the worst part, though, he thought one day on his lunch break. I can live without being her husband. I can’t live with not even being her friend. Over the last two years at Harvard, Rebecca had become Richard’s closest confidant. His person. Now, when he had a bad day at work or saw something funny on the street, who could he tell? No one gets me like she did.
He returned from lunch and gave a friendly nod to his secretary, a woman named Tricia. In her mid-thirties and married to a police officer, Tricia was average height with red hair and wore large-framed glasses when she worked. Having gone to secretarial college after her state secondary school, Tricia was qualified and experienced enough to assist far more senior members of the investment firm. But, given Richard’s good looks and high profile, Tricia was assigned to him. “The boss knows that I won’t fall for Lord Arrington like all of the younger girls in the office,” Tricia explained when her husband asked why she was working for ‘a kid’.
Richard paused at his doorway and turned to face Tricia. “I’ll be here late again tonight. Go home when your work is done. Please. There’s no need for you to stay until I leave.”
“Sir, office policy says – ”
“I know what office policy is,” Richard interrupted. “It also says I can change that rule if I want to. And I do. If I catch you here past six, I won’t be happy.”
****
At midnight that night, Richard turned off the light in his office and went home. The biggest benefit of staying late, he thought as he rode in the back of a taxi, is that there’s no traffic at this hour.
The cab pulled to a stop in front of a beautiful row house on Lower Belgrave Street between Eaton and Chester Squares. Richard paid the tab and stepped out into the brisk night air. It was early October, and the weather was starting to turn cold.
Richard stood on the sidewalk for a moment and admired his home. Three low, wide steps led from the street up to the ground floor entrance. To the left of the black door was a wrought iron fence with a gate and stairs leading down to the lower ground floor. There were two bedrooms and two baths in the basement flat, with another three bedrooms and three baths upstairs. Some of his neighbors rented out their lower ground floor as a separate apartment, and some used it as the servants’ quarters. Richard didn’t need rental income and didn’t want nosy servants. In another life, he and Rebecca would’ve lived upstairs with their children while a housekeeper and nanny lived downstairs. But that was in another life. The one that was now only a dream.
Richard went inside and walked upstairs to the drawing room. He poured himself a glass of whisky and collapsed on the couch, exhausted from another long day at the office. The London Stock Exchange was set to deregulate at the end of the month, and the world of finance was in an uproar trying to prepare.
As he was starting to drift off to sleep, Richard heard a knock on the door. He ignored it, but the person kept knocking.
“Who the bloody hell is calling at this hour?” he grumbled as he marched down the stairs.
Richard looked through a side window and saw his buddy, Geoffrey, leaning against the door. “What the fuck, mate?”
“Richard!” Geoff said with a smile. “You’re finally home! I came by earlier and you weren’t here.”
“I was working.”
“Working shmorking,” replied Geoff. He stumbled forward and pushed past Richard to go inside. “All work and no play make Richard a very dull boy.”
“Well then, I guess that’s me.”
Geoff shook his head. Newly single after breaking up with this girlfriend, he had been on a tour of London’s hottest nightclubs for three
weeks straight.
“C’mon mate. You need to get out.”
“No,” Richard replied, “I need to sleep. I have to be back at the office first thing tomorrow.”
Geoffrey made his way into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine. “You’re acting like a bloody poof, Arrington. So the girl said no? Who gives a shit? Move on. You’re a multi-millionaire. Your father is a fucking peer. This city is full of women who will do whatever you want them to. Don’t let one American twat ruin your life.”
Richard crossed the room and had Geoff pinned against the wall before his friend knew what was happening.
“Don’t you ever talk about her like that again. Do you hear me?”
Geoff tried to wriggle free but couldn’t escape the hold Richard had on his shirt and jacket. “Chill out. I only meant . . . ”
“Say it,” Richard growled. “Say ‘I’ll never talk about her like that again.’”
“Ok, ok. I’ll never talk about her like that again.”
Richard gave his friend one final shove before releasing him and stepping back from the wall. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Get out of here. Go have fun. Double the fun on my behalf.”
“You sure I can’t convince you to join me?”
“Not tonight, mate. Not tonight.”
THIRTY-TWO
Across the Atlantic in New York, Rebecca was having dinner at one of Manhattan’s most spectacular spots – Windows on the World. Located in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the restaurant had floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views of the city below. Rebecca’s table was right next to the glass, and she felt like she was on top of the world. She looked across the table at her date and smiled. “This place is amazing. Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
John Bailey smiled back at her. “Of course, honey. Only the best for you!” He raised his glass and clinked it against Rebecca’s. “Cheers. To us.”
“To us.”
Rebecca took a sip of her martini and tried not to think about the last time she said cheers with a man at a restaurant. It was Richard, of course, during their trip to Hartford. Stop it, Becky. That’s over. You’re here with John.
Dr. John Bailey was also from Georgia, and he could not have been any more different from Richard. At five foot nine with blonde hair and green eyes, John was good looking but not strikingly so. He attended the University of Georgia for college and Emory Medical School after that, and he was now doing his residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The only child of an unremarkable family in the Atlanta suburbs, John met Rebecca through mutual friends and pursued her relentlessly until she agreed to go out with him. Rebecca liked that about John. He knows what he wants, and he goes after it. He wouldn’t sit around for two years without making a move.
Again, Rebecca shook her head to clear the thoughts of Richard.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just dealing with a lot at work right now.”
“You know,” John said, leaning closer to her, “you won’t have to work if we get married.”
Rebecca almost choked on the olive in her drink. “Married? John, we’ve known each other for two months.”
“And?”
“And . . . I like you, very much, but I think talking about marriage is a little premature.”
John shook his head. “I disagree. In fact, I wanted to ask you tonight what your plans are for Thanksgiving. I figured we could start out with my family in Marietta and then drive down to Sandersville to see your folks.”
“Umm . . . I . . . ”
“Come on, baby. Why waste time when we’re such a good match? We’re both Southern. We’re both good looking. We get along. What else do we need?”
Rebecca sighed. Passion? Friendship? Love? she thought. “You’re right,” she lied. “We don’t need anything else.”
He’s hard working, he’s nice, he’s handsome, and he wants me. That’s as much as I have any right to ask for. Richard was a fairy tale. John is real.
THIRTY-THREE
Richard stayed in London for Christmas. He had a lot of work to do, but he also didn’t want to be around his mother’s drinking or his father’s judgments. His sister, Sarah, joined him on Boxing Day to watch the football matches.
“I come bearing gifts,” she said as she walked inside. “Beer, fish, and chips.”
Richard took the food and drink into the kitchen while his sister shrugged off her coat and scarf.
“How was Rosewood?” he called out.
“Same as always. The Sinclair-Joneses came by last night, though. We all got drunk and played sardines.”
“The drinking part doesn’t surprise me,” Richard replied. “Are Mum and Dad still trying to push Ivy on me?”
Sarah walked into the kitchen. “Who knows. I’m just hoping that I find somebody to marry before they start arranging a match for me. Speaking of weddings,” Sarah added, “who is this for?”
She held up an envelope with Richard’s address written in fine calligraphy.
“No one. Put that down.”
Sarah ignored his instructions, opened the envelope, and pulled out an engraved invitation.
“Ooh, fancy. ‘Dr. and Mrs. Jefferson Lewis,” Sarah read, “request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter, Rebecca Leigh Lewis – ”
Sarah paused and looked at her brother. “What? She’s getting married?”
“Apparently so.”
“You’re going to go and stop her, right?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Richard!”
He picked up his plate and started walking toward the living room. “She made her choice. I may not like it, but it’s done. She’s happy. It’s not my place to interfere.”
“Of course it’s your place. Forget the fact that you’re in love with her. You’re also her best friend!”
Richard let out a deep breath. “I asked her, okay? On graduation night, I asked and she said no.”
“Richard – you need to try again.”
“It won’t work.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Leave it alone, Sarah. I already sent my regrets.”
THIRTY-FOUR
In April of 1987, the day after Rebecca’s birthday, she joined five of her best friends and bridesmaids for a pub crawl through Manhattan.
“Because somebody’s getting marrrriieeeeeddddd!”
Rebecca laughed at her friend Julia’s excitement. They had been roommates together at Barnard and now shared an apartment as working women in New York. Julia was a teacher at a prestigious prep school on the Upper West Side and was dating one of John’s co-workers at the hospital.
On their third stop of the night, the girls grabbed a table in the corner of a bar in Soho and ordered two rounds of tequila shots.
Emily, Rebecca’s friend from Harvard, slammed her empty glass down on the table and motioned to the waiter to bring more. “Now, future Mrs. Dr. Bailey, here’s what I want to know.”
Rebecca giggled. “What?”
“Whatever happened to Richard?”
The other bridesmaids perked up at the mention of a different man. “Who’s Richard?”
“No one,” Rebecca said. She glared at Emily.
Undeterred, Emily replied: “he’s most certainly not no one.”
“Shut up, Em. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened to him? He disappeared?”
The other girls laughed at Emily’s drunken line of questioning, but Rebecca wasn’t amused. “He didn’t disappear. He’s in England. Doing quite well for himself trading stocks and bonds, last I heard.”
“Who is this?” asked Marsha, a friend from back home.
“Her ex-boyfriend,” Emily volunteered. “Tall. British. Gorgeous. I tried to land him for myself, but he only ever had eyes for the bride here.”
“No,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “He was just a friend. We went to business
school together.”
“Just a friend my ass. You two were inseparable.”
“Number one,” Rebecca replied, raising her finger, “‘were’ is the key word. Past tense. And B,” she added, eliciting giggles from her friends, “he was never my boyfriend.”
“Is he coming to the wedding?” Marsha asked.
“No. He said he’s really busy at work and couldn’t get the time off. Besides, that’s a long way to travel for a weekend.”
“To attend your best friend’s wedding?” said Emily. “Nowhere is too far for that.” She alone saw how close Rebecca and Richard had gotten, although no one knew about graduation night. And Rebecca intended to keep it that way.
The bride-to-be sighed. “Can we please stop talking about Richard? I’m engaged to John. I’m marrying John. Now where’s the waiter? We need more shots.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Two months later, a day arrived that Richard was dreading. He had almost forgotten about it, but as soon as Tricia handed him his mail that morning, the pit in his stomach returned.
“Hold my calls, please,” he said, before walking into his office and shutting the door. He threw the mail down on his desk, sorted through it, and picked up a magazine. It had thick paper stock, a crimson border, and the words HARVARD printed across the top in gold font.
Richard flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for: Class News. In bold type, under the heading ‘Class of ‘86’, was the note that took Richard’s nearly-healed heart and smashed it to bits once again.
Marriages
Rebecca Lewis (B’86) married Dr. John Bailey in Sandersville, Georgia on Saturday, June 6, 1987. Dr. and Mrs. Bailey, both from Georgia, now reside in New York City. He is a Gynecologist and Obstetrician at New York – Presbyterian, and she is an associate at Goldman Sachs.
Every Star in the Sky Page 8
