Rebecca Russo (adroit) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2017-01-23 23:47:00 |
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It was rare for Rebecca to have an evening without Joshua, but after quite a bit of begging and pleading she had agreed to let him stay over at a friends (once she’d vetted the parents, of course). Even though she felt nervous, it had given her a perfect opportunity to schedule dinner with Ria. Their work schedules were quite a challenge to coordinate sometimes. Dinner wasn’t anything fancy, but there was good wine and Rebecca thought that more than made up for it. She had only just turned the stove top off when she heard the door, and glanced at the clock. Just a little after six. Padding across her kitchen, she checked that it was Ria at the door before she opened it and gently ushered her friend inside. “Bonjour,” Rebecca greeted, giving Ria a brief squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “There’s wine on the counter. I was just finishing up, but please, help yourself.” Schedules were a tricky thing to navigate, so when things happened to fall into place and Ria found herself with a free evening that matched up with Rebecca’s, well, she hadn’t hesitated to take her friend up on her dinner invite. Since both had moved to Austin it had become trickier to juggle schedules, both immersing themselves in the city and their new jobs. Still, friendships were important and something Ria had every intention of making time for. Plus, she knew what a big step it was that Rebecca was allowing Joshua stay at a friend’s house for the evening. So with her pager tucked into her bag and explicit instructions not to contact her unless she was absolutely needed, Ria had made her way over to her friend’s place, waiting patiently at the door after she had knocked. “Hey,” she greeted the other woman as she returned the hug and stepped through the door. “You know I will never say no to wine.” Ria laughed as she moved over to the counter to open the wine bottle. “Especially not after the week I’ve had.” It had been a rough week in the emergency room. Ria had had another lovely run in with Dr. Clutterbuck. That man really was the worst. Still, even with her terrible week she didn’t want to focus entirely on herself. “How psyched was Joshua to stay at his friend’s house?” Ria asked with a gentle smile as she turned towards her friend, newly poured glass of wine in hand. Rebecca smiled despite the continual, low buzzing of worry in the back of her head. “He was very excited,” she admitted as she turned to finish up the last of the meal preparation. “I was called the ‘best mom ever’, but he says that when I let him eat junk food also.” Sliding a finished plate across the island to Ria, she pulled silverware from a drawer. She hadn’t set the dining table for just the two of them, since it was just as easy to eat at the island. It felt more relaxing to her also. “Your kid isn’t wrong, you are the best mom ever,” Ria remarked with a fond smile as she began to pick at the food on her plate with the fork that Rebecca had retrieved for her. “Granted, I have a bias because you’re my friend,” she paused. “And also because I think motherhood seems extremely hard.” Ria thought that someday she might like a family, but that didn’t mean she didn’t think the role would be a difficult one. “It has it’s stress,” Rebecca admitted. “But it’s been worth most of it. Why has your week been so difficult?” Rebecca turned the flippant statement back around on Ria, more curious about that than talking about Joshua. If she didn’t talk about him than she wouldn’t need to worry so much about what was going on at his sleepover. Her generally relaxed, almost happy features twisted into a grimace as Ria recalled the events of the last week. “God, where do I even begin?” she brought her wine glass up to her lips to take a drink before she continued. “There’s this surgeon, Dr. Clutterbuck, he’s a pain in the ass and an ego maniac. I told you about him. He’s the one that stole that appendectomy out from under Dr. Singh and I’s nose,” Ria paused. “Well, today he snatched another patient from me, pissed of three of my nurses, and nearly had one of my interns track him down for a fist fight.” She kept out the part where he might have been upping his terribleness because of recent ‘accidental’ things that had happened to him. Ria would fess up to that if Rebecca asked further questions. “Then I have the administration breathing down my neck to move people through the E.R. faster, yet they don’t seem to understand that I’m still working with an E.R. that’s at seventy-five percent. We’re moving people as quickly as we can without being careless or reckless with them. When did medicine become more about the numbers and less about the people?” “When most of your job is graph charts and percentage of effectiveness, you rarely consider the people behind them,” Rebecca guessed with an empathetic look. “But chéri, as long as you know you’re doing you’re best they don’t have any real recourse but to let you continue to do your job.” She had never seen Ria work first hand, but people were rarely given promotions like the one that Ria had received if she wasn’t exemplary. Ria sighed. “I’ve always thought administrators should have to spend a day in the various departments and see exactly what goes on in the hospital from day to day,” she remarked. “Putting faces to the numbers would change their perspective I think.” Or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, Ria thought something was harder to ignore if it wasn’t just a line on a piece of paper. “I am sorry about Dr. Clutterbuck and his attitude, though.” Rebecca made a face before taking a bite. “But he’s probably old enough that he’ll always be difficult.” Another sigh slipped out as things shifted towards Dr. Clutterbuck. “Probably,” Ria agreed with a nod and then a small sheepish smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. “And to be fair he might have a few reasons to throw a little more attitude my way.” He deserved every bit of what he got, though and Ria felt no remorse in that respect. It may have been childish. No, it was childish, the man was a jerk and needed to be taken down a peg or two. “What have you been doing?” Rebecca’s voice raised higher in alarm. She’d never imagine doing anything that could put her job in jeopardy, so she hoped that Ria was being smart about whatever she was doing in her workplace. “You know, they say the high road is usually the best one,” she added, then laughed at herself when she realized she sounded so much like a mother in that moment. Ria gave Rebecca a reassuring look. “Calm down, it’s nothing that will get myself or Dr. Singh fired,” she began. “Just small prank type things,” Ria paused. Rebecca’s expression didn’t shift from the worried furrow she’d been wearing. “Actually, I’m not even sure the man realizes that it’s us. I think he might be blaming the nurses for it. Though I haven’t heard confirmation on that.” It was not a well hidden secret that nobody was Dr. Clutterbuck’s biggest fan. Well, except for maybe HR since he kept them pretty busy. “Bex, when have you known me to take the high road?” Ria added with a laugh. The two women had only known each other a couple of years, but in that time Ria felt confident in the fact that Rebecca knew her well enough to know that sometimes things just called for action to be taken. “Pranks? Really Ria, in all seriousness, chéri, I hope you’re being careful about limitations.” Rebecca disliked being such a voice of reason, but she didn’t really know Dr. Clutterbuck, or how much influence he had at the UMCB. “And I am,” Ria assured her friend. “I’m looking to put the man in his place, not lose my job in the process.” She held back a barely contained amused smile at just how “mom” Rebecca was sounding right now. “He’s kind of like Dr. Ryan, do you remember him from Denver? The guy just needs to be reminded that he isn’t king of the UMCB.” Rebecca’s lips thinned. She remembered Dr. Ryan. She also remembered the advice she’d given Ria about him. It was surprisingly close to the advice she’d just given. “I still think there are betters way to go about something like that,” she stated. “But I trust you.” Despite her disapproval, Rebecca wasn’t looking for a debate tonight. “You might consider apologizing to the nurses that have been unfairly named as the culprit. I’m still not endorsing the idea, but they could be competent allies, rather than landing yourself as their target, were it ever to come up down the road.” People didn’t usually like to take blame when they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. There was a part of Ria that supposed she should have expected Rebecca to caution her against doing anything that would endanger her career. Her friend’s advice back in Denver had proven to be both helpful and true -- so Ria wasn’t ruling it now in this situation. But, she also wasn’t quite ready to take the high road just yet either. “I remember, and I promise I’m considering what you said.” Which was the truth. As she looked at Rebecca, Ria pulled a face. “Do you really think I haven’t already apologized and agreed to buy them coffee for a month for them being unjustly blamed?” Ria treated her nurses well, if you had your nurses on your side you were golden -- and she intended to remain on good terms with them. “I’ve even offered to set one of them up with Ayo since she’s always hanging around the nurses station when he shows up there.” Her baby brother liked flirting with her nurses, at first Ria had found it annoying, but not she just found it amusing. “That’s generous of you,” she responded, an eyebrow raised, and an entertained look crossing her features. Rebecca hardly made the kind of salary that could afford buying coffee for an entire ER department of nurses, but she was sure that Ria knew what she was doing. “What does Ayo think of that?” Rebecca was less familiar with Ria’s brother, so she was genuinely curious. “I hope you’ve mentioned it to him at least. Nobody likes an ambush date, Ria.” She was teasing, although she knew sometimes it got lost in translation. Ria laughed. “Well, I do kind of owe it to them,” she answered truthfully. It might make things a little tight for the next month, though admittedly Ria knew she made more than a lot of other people in Austin, so she wasn’t about to complain -- especially not when it was her fault that the nurses were being blamed. “Ayo is Ayo, he thinks any attention is good attention,” Ria began. “And he knows the nurse, he’s just too chicken to work up the nerve to ask her out himself.” At least that’s why Ria thought her little brother kept coming to the ER and hanging around until the particular nurse in question appeared. “I wouldn’t dream of ambushing him, he’s a trained soldier and I don’t think he has any qualms with using his combat knowledge on his older sister.” Ria said, though her tone made it clear it was a joke. “Brothers,” Rebecca sighed commiseratingly. “If I hadn’t had my sister I’m not certain about whether or not I would have survived to adulthood.” Not too many the ways they’d chosen to embarrass her. Although she had missed them when they left for school. “But you should be careful, he might not want his big sister meddling,” she reasoned with a wiggle of her eyebrows. “He could turn around and blame you if it all goes up in smoke.” Again Ria found herself laughing softly. “I think it was probably a good thing that he and I had over ten years between us, I’m not sure we would have survived each other as kids any other way.” She loved her baby brother, but the age gap really did seem more like a benefit than a hindrance in their case. “Although, it did lead to some people asking if I was a teen mother when I was a teenager carting a toddler around places,” Ria tacked on. At the time she had always been bothered by the assumption, but now as an adult she could understand why so many people had asked her if Ayo was hers throughout the years. She mothered him, probably more than she realized at the time. “While I appreciate the sage advice, Ayo has given me the greenlight on this particular setup,” Ria replied with an easy smile. “I believe his exact words were ‘I don’t have time to find myself a date’, actually.” Holding her hands up and biting back an amused smile, Rebecca paused a minute before she responded. “Well, if it’s been sanctioned, I can hardly warn against it.” Then took another short breath before she added, “I think I might know the feeling, though.” It wasn’t that she’d been trying to date, she hardly had time for that between Joshua and her job, but Austin certainly hadn’t proven itself to be an easy place to find someone. The speed dating event at The Bar, not included, for obvious reasons. Rebecca hadn’t involved herself in that, although she’d gone as a spectator, and it had looked like the participants had enjoyed themselves. “I know that feeling too,” Ria laughed softly. “It took me nearly three months to get a date on the books, maybe it’s just an Austin thing?” Or maybe it was a busy schedule and demanding job thing? Ria could commiserate though, dating had never been easy with her job, but in a new city it was proving to be even trickier. Though she could always count on Luc to be awake and available when she needed him, so Ria supposed she couldn’t complain too much. “Ah, yes, the date.” Rebecca directed a curious look at her friend. She’d heard some, but really very little. Of course, Ria had the option to not talk about it; her personal life was exactly that. “It’s a wonder we don’t see more ads on the freenet,” she joked lightly, imagining for a minute what would happen if it started to look like an online dating forum. Cocking her head to the side and laughing softly, Ria supposed she should have expected that kind of reaction from Rebecca upon her mention of the date she had gone on with Luc. “Don’t start that,” she remarked. “It was a date, with burnt food and mind blowing sex.” Ria paused as she recalled it. “Actually, I’m not sure mindblowing is the right word for it. Still, he and I are just having fun, some people do that.” Most of Ria’s actual relationships had imploded or exploded eventually, so this felt safer and easier. There was less of a chance of losing someone if they weren’t more than a casual thing. “I’m aware of what options are out there for consenting adults,” Rebecca returned with an amused look on her face. Ria didn’t need to explain or make up any reasons for how she conducted her personal life, not to Rebecca. “Anyway, It is a wonder there aren’t dating ads going up daily on there,” Ria agreed as she took a pause and then added, “Maybe we shouldn’t give anyone any ideas. It could be nobody’s thought of it yet…” Laughing, and trying not to spray the wine she’d just sipped, Rebecca came up coughing a little before she responded, “Mum’s the word on the personal ads front. I’d rather not have to learn how to filter those out so Josh can use the freenet if he’d like to.” She really would have rather he not use it at all, but there was only so much she could deprive him of. “He’s deeply ensconced in Pokemon, and I’d rather it stay that way.” “You mean you don’t want him learning about the wonders of dating and sex from the freenet?” Ria asked entirely as a joke. She hadn’t ever had to raise a child, but she could understand the desire to keep the freenet clean so as not to need to police it. “And pokemon, that’s the thing with with the creatures, right?” Ayo had been into that when he was younger, actually, Ria wasn’t sure he didn’t still collect the cards or play the games. “Yes, that’s the one with the creatures and the trainers.” Rebecca knew more about those things than she ever thought she would, but that was a side effect of being the mother to a boy; she’s only relieved that he seemed to have given up his predisposition to make anything into a gun. “And no sex in sight, though I’m sure that someone out there has found a way to include it. But really, I’d like a few more years to prepare The Talk, since it wasn’t supposed to be my responsibility.” Marc was supposed to have been the one to handle that conversation with Joshua, not that Rebecca ever thought she was incapable, she just believed that it would have come better from his dad than it would from her. It was hard not to let a sympathetic look cross her features when Rebecca mentioned that she wasn’t supposed to be responsible for The Talk to begin with. Ria didn’t know much about Rebecca’s ex, besides the fact that he wasn’t around, but she could only imagine the kind of pressure a mother might feel having to give that kind of talk to her son. “I’m sure you’ll give the best damn talk around,” Ria remarked as her features shifted into a grin. “And if Joshua ever needs a guy to talk to I’m sure Ayo wouldn’t mind being a listening ear.” After all her brother had been a teenage boy once as well, which meant he had more insight than either Rebecca or Ria could ever have on that topic. “Such is life though,” she followed up quickly with a smile. “I’m grateful most days that I get to figure out all of these parenting hurdles.” “I’m grateful for that fact as well,” Ria agreed, all to aware of how close Rebecca had come to almost losing her son. “Though he might not be so grateful for it when his mom is sitting him down to tell him about the birds and the bees.” She winked, her tone teasing and her expression light. “Now tell me, if the freenet did have a dating service, would you use it?” Oh, if only Rebecca could have fit all her disbelief into one look, but she couldn’t so she settled for wide eyes. “Have I ever struck you as the type to do that?” she responded, carefully avoiding a yes or a no, since she wasn’t sure herself if she would or not. She hadn’t thought about it. So much of her time went to making sure Joshua was safe, and she’d never been the type to put herself out there. A shrug was Ria’s first response. “Not really, but you could have hidden layers that I don’t know about,” there was a devilish smirk playing at the corners of her mouth now. Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “Fine, so you wouldn’t internet date,” Ria paused. “Please tell me you’ve at least realized how hot Evan, the guy from your office, is?” Being a parent brought a whole extra level of hecticness to dating, Ria was aware of that, but she also thought Rebecca was young enough that she shouldn’t remove herself completely from the dating world. Then again what Ria did wasn’t exactly dating, so maybe she wasn't one to speak? “I’m not blind,” Rebecca retorted, laughing. “But he’s not interested in women, chéri. Believe me, I’ve watched more than a few coworkers learn that the hard way.” She took the opportunity to take a biteful of pasta, chewing while she let Ria digest that information. “But Bryant, he might not be as handsome as Evan, but he is most definitely straight.” Rebecca shifted, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. “He gets particularly distracted when I wear my red pencil skirt.” Rebecca laughed again. Bryant was easily a good ten years younger than her, not an ideal option, or an option at all, but she was still a woman, she enjoyed a little bit of attention. “Lisbeth does too, now that I’m thinking about it.” There was something very normal and refreshing about the topic; it made everything else just a little bit easier to manage. Ria laughed. “So, how often do you wear that skirt to work?” If it were Ria she would make sure it was in the weekly rotation, but she liked attention like that. “I’m not at all encouraging you to date a co-worker, but have you considered either of them as options?” Ria added, mostly out of curiosity and not at all in an attempt to push her friend into the dating world. “I think you and I have a different approach to provocation of others.” Rebecca carefully sidestepped whether or not either had crossed her mind seriously (or in passing), she really had enough to think about and balance without adding the idea that she might consider dating a coworker. She wouldn’t. But explaining that hardly seemed like a good conversation over dinner. “Maybe it is,” Ria replied with a small shrug and a laugh. It didn’t miss her notice that her friend had sidestepped answering her question, but she also was not about to push for one. This was after all supposed to an easy conversation over dinner, not an interrogation of Rebecca’s personal life. Even still, she couldn’t stop herself from saying. “I would ask if there’s been makeout sessions in the supply closet, but I don’t even know if your office has those,” she added, one hundred percent teasing. Rebecca laughed softly while she refilled their glasses. “We do,” she confirmed. “Your questions have me concerned that you’re running your ER like it’s Austin’s version of Grey’s Anatomy, though,” she teased in return. “If I come in needing an emergency appendectomy will I need to wait for the funny business to finish?” “Never,” Ria replied with a laugh. “Funny business, or at least mine, happens elsewhere.” Mostly at Luc’s, but she wasn’t about to admit she was only consistently hooking up with one person -- that made her thing with Luc seem more serious than she thought it was. “And my staff know better,” Ria paused. “And by ‘know better’, I mean they know I’m not above breaking into said closet and interrupting them if they’re neglecting their work.” the look on her face was proof she was serious. “And let’s be honest, nobody would like that.” After she paused to take a sip of her wine Ria added. “I suppose it’s safe to say neither one of us have much of a dating life, huh?” Because what she was doing with Luc was not dating. With a nod, Rebecca agreed, “It certainly looks like it.” Then she raised her glass. “Might as well make a toast for better luck in the future,” she said with a small laugh. “To better luck in the future,” Ria agreed as she raised her glass and clinked it against Rebecca’s lightly. The fact that they could even refer to a future was still something Ria tried not to take for granted, but they could refer to it and that was all the more reason to toast to it. |