Time Warp: Role Reversal [Rhea]

[Cecil Wathen]

October 2014

Cecil had been worried since Josef had called him. He’d known Rhea since he had first arrived in Pilot Ridge and he had never known her get overly upset or emotional. She had always seemed steady as a rock, one of the most logical and mentally sound people that he knew. That wasn’t to say she didn’t have her odd moments of flying off the handle of course, everyone had them sometimes, but Cecil had never known her to go to any kind of extreme. Based on what little information he’d been able to get from Josef… Yeah, Cecil was concerned for his friend.

The trip over to the apartment block where Rhea lived was not a long one, and as he pulled up outside the building Cecil sat a while in the car. He wanted to check on her, make sure she was okay, but he was worried that perhaps she might just want some time to herself. Some peace and quiet while she worked through whatever was plaguing her at the moment. Still though, if he were going through such a rough spot he would want someone checking in on him, making sure he was okay. Rhea had been there for him when he had been going through so much chaos. Returning the favour was the absolute least he could do.

Getting out of the car, Cecil pressed the buzzer and was let into the building, heading up to the floor where Rhea’s apartment was. The tell-tale signs that met him as he approached her front door - well, the space where the front door should have been, anyway - were not promising. The solid door was hanging off its frame, the mesh summer door the only thing separating him from inside the apartment. Well, that and some sort of curtain hung from the frame, where deep marks were gauged in the wood where the hinges had once been. After knocking on the frame of the summer door, Cecil slowly opened it and hooked his fingers under the curtain to pull it aside as he called into the room. “It’s the door abuse police. Can I come in for a chat?”

[Rhea Hartman]

At first, only silence came from behind the splintered door. Then, distantly:

“Unnng.”

Around the triangles of crumpled wood and nailed-up bathroom towels, Cecil could see the blast radius of Rhea's entryway, the bedroom hall, and half of her living room. Just visible where the top hinge of the door had been ripped out of its frame, two brown feet stuck off the end of a sofa.

“Ull.”

The feet shifted. Something crinkled loudly, and there was a dull thud. “Oh, God.” The feet inched out of view.

The door did not open so much as succumb to its wounds. With a crunch and a flutter of towels, the top of the door folded on itself, hung for a moment on a splinter of wood, then clattered into the apartment. Behind the now vacant upper half of the door stood Rhea. Her hair stood up on one side, stiffened with what might have been vomit, and there was an Advil stuck to her cheek.

“What?”

[Cecil Wathen]

The signs that greeted him were… not promising, to say the least. As a bar owner who more often than not worked front-of-house Cecil had spent a great many years seeing people in a various states of damaged, but it was so very different when it was someone he knew and cared about. When it was Mr McRandom it was easy enough to forget about them at the end of the night, but this…

“Well… Josef gave me a call, said you were feeling a bit rough and might want some company.” Cecil thought it would probably be best to tone down the state of the message that had been passed on to him. It wouldn’t help matters if he got Josef into trouble for ‘making a drama out of nothing’, or something similar.

Cecil regarded the poor, battered door and the state of his friend. “You want me to come in? Help tidy up a bit, maybe?"

[Rhea Hartman]

“Of course he did,” Rhea said with a scowl. She winced, shaded her eyes with her hand, and shuffled back into the apartment. “Sure. Why the fuck not,” she growled. “Make yourself at home.”

It was hard to tell if her apartment looked any messier than usual, which was saying something since she had shards of wood scattered across her entryway. Rhea limped back to the sofa. “You want to be helpful,” she said as she lay down and pulled a blanket over her head, “Order a new door.”

[Cecil Wathen]

At the semi-invite Cecil save a soft “thanks” and made his way into the apartment, regarding the hallway with what he hoped was a neutral expression. Christ almighty, has a tornado happened in here or something?

When Rhea told him how he could be helpful, Cecil gave a small nod. “That I can do.” He gave the remnants of the door a quick inspection; it was nothing fancy, just a standard interior door. Getting a new one fitted would be easy enough, assuming there wasn’t too much damage done to the supporting framework. “You want anything in the meantime? Water? Coffee? Aspirin? Tequila?” The last one was said in jest, but honestly, considering the state she was clearly in, Cecil wouldn’t be surprised if she said yes.

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea's apartment often brought natural disasters to mind. 'Messiness' didn't quite encompass the overflowing clutter that characterized her dwelling places. Cecil had once heard her explain, without a hint of embarrassment, that she kept two hairdriers in her duffel bag in case she decided to wash her hair at the gym and one of them broke. This philosophy, combined with her liberal views of what counted as storage space, meant that her apartment invariably looked like a locker room had exploded inside of it.

"No." This was said with dull terseness unusual for Rhea even in a very bad mood. She lay on her back with a pink WNBA blanket pulled over her head and her arm draped over her face. Several water bottles, a towel, aspirin, and a wastebasket sat near her with a neatness that suggested Josef had put them there last night. She gestured with her free arm toward the kitchen table. There, an old white Macbook sat open, surrounded by bills, an empty vase, and a twenty-five pound dumbbell. The gesture, she hoped, communicated, “Look up the phone number for the hardware store, call them, and pick up a new door. Do so while speaking as little as possible.”

[Cecil Wathen]

Rhea’s tone was unsettling to say the least, and Cecil couldn’t help the rather unpleasant places his mind was going to as he tried to piece together just what the hell might have happened to cause this. He now regretted not pushing Josef for more of an explanation. He saw the gesture to the Macbook and gave a nod, opening it up and starting it up so he could look online for the number. He’d got to know the DIY store owner pretty well thanks to popping in there quite often while he was doing up the bar’s garden, but he didn't have the number stored on his phone. Hopefully he'd be able to find it easy enough online.

While the Macbook was waking up, Cecil spent a few moments quietly searching around in the kitchen to try to find garbage bags. He did eventually unearth them (what the hell were they doing balanced on top of the cereal boxes?) and began to make some attempt to clean up a bit of the mess around the doorway at least. He had never been a neat-freak, but the state of this place was unsettling and he thought that maybe, once Rhea was being… well… Rhea again, she might appreciate the effort. Anything that was obviously rubbish went into the bag and everything else was neatly stacked out of the way, as quietly as he humanly could do so. Once there was a space clear enough for a new door to be installed, he went back into the living room and crouched in front of the computer to get the number.

[Rhea Hartman]

The hard drive of the old white Macbook sounded like a VCR turning on. Cecil could hear the whirring of its fan from the other side of the room as he picked through sporting equipment and shoes. Rhea kept the apartment relatively clear of trash, at least; it carried her pervasive scent of shampoo and sweat but nothing worse. Still, when Cecil shifted the Christmas tree of jackets by the door that presumably had a coat stand underneath it somewhere, a bag tipped and suddenly the entryway was filled with rolling party supplies. From under her blanket, Rhea growled, “Cecil, don't mess around with my—fine, whatever.” She groped for her water bottle. She was too hungover to care about Cecil cleaning her house.

In the kitchen, the Macbook finally buzzed to a halt at the login screen. There was no password, and Rhea's Facebook page appeared when Cecil opened the browser. Five or six other tabs loaded slowly in the navigation bar: a travel blog, the New York Times, an Amazon shopping cart. At the top of Rhea's aborted Facebook news feed, a photograph of two newlyweds kissed, in foot-in-the-air, sailor-returned-from-war style. Below it, the cursor blinked in a small chat window with Samuel José. The letters congra hovered there unsent.

[Cecil Wathen]

When Rhea made her half-assed attempt at a growl at him for trying to bring some order in the chaos that was her apartment, Cecil made the decision to just ignore her. He wasn't going rummaging and wasn't throwing away anything that could be important; though quite what a person needed with quite so many coats he had absolutely no idea. He mentally filed away the idea of suggesting helping her go through all her crap one time and sorting it out. That suggestion could wait until she was less mentally everywhere.

Once the Macbook had come to life, Cecil settled down in front of it and clicked away the non-passworded login screen. When Cecil saw the Facebook page come up he went to close it down, not wanting to pry, but the picture and half-finished word caught his attention. He didn't recognise the people in the picture, but they clearly looked happy, and a quick glance at the datestamp showed that the photo was uploaded roughly around the same time Josef said Rhea had gone up the wall. Hmmm, curious. Cecil glanced down at it, then up to where Rhea was lying on the couch. He pondered for a moment what to say, before deciding to just try and keep it a bit lighter. “... It always takes me a second to remember how to spell it, too... It's a 't' after the a, not a 'd'.”

[Rhea Hartman]

The blanket inched down from Rhea's face. “What the hell...are you talking about?” she muttered, sitting up on her elbows and tossing a handful of Asprin into her mouth with a gulp of water. She peered over the back of the sofa, saw the treacherous blue banner, the square of the photograph, and the hand wrapped around her heart squeezed.

She slid back onto the sofa and pulled the blanket over her face again. “Just...just delete it,” she croaked. Her voice had gone heavy and tight. Her hands curled into fists pressing into her brow bones through the fabric. “Just delete all of it.”

[Cecil Wathen]

With no context to go by it was damned near impossible for Cecil to work out exactly what was going on, but he figured it must be of some real significance for it to have thrown Rhea off this badly. She was normally the strong one, the one that could be counted on no matter how the shit hit the fan, and to see her like this… Cecil gave a small nod as she told him to delete it, and he backspaced away the half-finished word and closed the tab before opening a fresh one and heading to Google to get the phone number for the DIY store. Once he had it, he went back into the kitchen to make the phone call.

A few minutes later and the door was ordered, with Cecil promising a bit extra for same-day delivery and installation. He could cover that easily. He then headed back into the living room, gently manoeuvring Rhea’s feet out of the way so he could perch on the end of the sofa she was lying on. “If you want me to leave you in peace I will, but I’d rather you tell me how I can help you out. Whatever you need, I’m here for you, missy.”

[Rhea Hartman]

Sitting still was almost unbearable. But the fist clenched her heart so tightly that her breath came in short bursts under the pain of it. It pinned her to the sofa and paralyzed the urge to get up, grab the armchair, hurl it across the room...

By the time Cecil settled on the arm of the sofa, Rhea had forced herself to sit upright. She had her elbows on her knees and her head in one hand. "Thanks Sess," she whispered without looking up from the coffee table. Both of her cheeks were smeared with tears. "The door's great," she croaked, then drew a wet sniff. "Look, I think I'm...gonna take a shower." A very long shower. She began climbing laboriously to her feet, still not looking at her friend. As she limped to the back hallway, she paused and added, "If y'wanted to clean up..." She trailed off, then waved her hand dismissively, and the bedroom door shut behind her.

[Cecil Wathen]

It hurt seeing his friend so beaten down and miserable and he wanted so badly to know what was going on so he might be able to help, but he knew Rhea had to actually come round a bit first. She was clearly groggy and whatever hurt was there was still red raw, so he simply nodded as she announced that she was going to go and head for the shower. “Okay. Take all the time you need; I’ll still be here.”

Once the door to the bedroom had closed Cecil let out a long breath, rubbing his eyes for a moment. Well, he wasn’t going to sit and twiddle his thumbs and wait for her to get out of the shower. After heading back into the kitchen, some rummaging around unearthed flour, sugar and eggs. By the time Rhea reappeared from the bathroom the apartment was starting to smell of lightly browned pancakes.

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea did not have a large apartment, and Cecil could hear the muffled hiss of water when she started the shower. It remained unchanged while he unearthed the flour and sugar, throughout the loud, metallic battle of extracting a frying pan from above the stove, and the nearly forensic search for her measuring cups. Pipes gurgled overhead. Cecil poured batter and flipped pancakes. The unseen shower hissed. The delicious smell of breakfast filled the apartment, and still the bedroom door remained shut.

Finally, the sound of water stopped. A few minutes later, Rhea emerged with her wet hair pulled into a bun on top of her head and a towel around her neck. She had changed from her grubby tank top and sweat pants into a different, cleaner tank top and sweat pants, and she looked still hungover but less crusty than she had forty minutes ago. When she saw the stack of pancakes, her face flickered with the closest thing to a smile Cecil had seen all morning. “Aw, thanks Cecil.” She sat down heavily at the counter that separated the kitchenette from the living room. Then she reached over the counter, grabbed a carton of orange juice, and took a long drink straight from the nozzle. When she set it down, she sighed and finally looked at her friend properly. “Thanks Cecil,” she repeated softly. “I really appreciate it.”

[Cecil Wathen]

If there was one thing Cecil could do well, it was make breakfast. He was Welsh after all; he would be a traitor to his countrymen if he wasn't able to keep people well fed. Eating after a night of alcohol was never a fun prospect, but the pancakes would be light enough that the chances of them reappearing would be kept to a minimum, but they would still line her stomach and hopefully start counteracting the effects of whatever the hell she had been drinking. Two bananas recovered from their hiding place inside a large saucepan (just... why?) were sliced up, and he found syrup and other potential pancake toppings and set them out on the counter so Rhea could easily help herself.

When she did eventual get back from her shower, Cecil matched her ghost of a smile with a warm one of his own. He recovered two plates and loaded them up with the golden pancakes, setting them down on the counter with cutlery. In truth he wasn't actually hungry, but he figured Rhea would be more comfortable and also more likely to actually eat if he joined her and wasn't just sat there watching her like a weirdo. He chuckled and gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow. “Damn right you should appreciate it; it's not every day I make breakfast for a lovely lady... Or a lovely gent, for that matter.” He took a seat next to her, indicating to the banana slices with his fork. “Make sure you get plenty of them down you. The potassium will do you the world of good.”