Life is a Soap Opera Act 02

"I don't know," she whispered.

Neither spoke for a long time.

"We've lasted through my first year of college," Bailey smiled weakly. "We can make it three more."

"I know, Bailey. You don't know how much you've changed my life. All for the better." He reached out and took her hands. "I will do whatever I have to in order to make 'us' work. I will fly home every weekend if I have to. I will bring you to New York. I just want you in my life."

"I want that, too," she said. "I'm sorry you have to wait around for me—"

"Don't be."

"—And I know that I want you in my life, too," she smiled weakly. "I will do whatever I have to for 'us' but I have to make sure that I'm doing the best thing for me, too. And right now, that means going to school and getting my degree."

That much was true. Despite her judgment being clouded by love, she was level-headed enough to know that her future was dependent on finishing college rather than landing a sugar daddy. When she looked in his eyes, she saw that Gabe knew it, too.

He shocked her by standing suddenly. He extended his hand and Bailey took it.

"We've got the rest of this week before I go back to New York," Gabe said, drawing her to her feet. "I'll be home again in two weeks for your birthday and then I want you to come see me once the summer session is over. We'll figure out the rest later."

Bailey smiled with relief. This had gone a lot better than she had anticipated. Of course, in her mind, she had run through all of the worst case scenarios, up to and including him throwing her out and them breaking up.

Without another word, Gabriel led her back to their master bedroom, the meal forgotten.

****************

The next six months passed in a blur.

Gabe returned to New York to work. His part on the show was expanding and he was working nearly every day, a blessing in his business. In the evenings, he did some voice-over work and a few small off-Broadway projects. As soon as shooting ended on Friday afternoon, he made time for Bailey.

Racking up frequent flyer miles left and right, Gabe went to see her at least every other weekend. When he was in college, there was a guy in his dorm who was carrying on a long-distance relationship with his high school sweetheart. When Gabe asked how he could stick with her over the distance, Keith simply said, "You have to want to."

And that was that. Both Gabriel and Bailey wanted to make their relationship work. There was an implicit understanding that their circumstances weren't permanent and luckily he had the means to make the time between visits as short as possible.

Neither Morgan nor Kimmy returned to the house in the fall. Due to the tough times, Morgan turned to the Navy for help. With promises of assistance for college, a healthy signing bonus and less of a chance at being sent to Iraq than the Army or Marines, she left at the beginning of August for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, her first trip so far away from home.

Kimmy dropped out of school because she partied too much. She kept in contact with April and Bailey, but she had different priorities in her life. At first, Gabe was willing to let her stay in the house if she could hold down a full-time job, but the twins both said that one of the original preconditions for living away from home was staying in school. They hated to turn their friend away, but neither would be deterred from their primary focus: being the first people in their family to graduate from college.

He was also reluctant to continue taking their money, but both girls insisted. Like their parents, neither of them wanted to be considered freeloaders or taking something they didn't earn. Everyone knew they weren't paying market value, but it made them feel better so Gabe didn't argue. Besides, he was putting all their money in a savings account and was going to return it to them as a graduation gift.

On a couple of long holiday weekends, Bailey came to see him in New York. She got to know his friends and even talked about looking for a summer job there.

Gabriel was in love and it sickened everyone around him (in the good way). All of his phone conversations that ended with, "Love you" usually brought rolled eyes and gagging sounds from his friends who were always ready to ride him about robbing the cradle. Still, he knew that without exception they were happy for him and they liked Bailey.

He set up a webcam in the study at his house and every night he and Bailey stayed up talking or even watching TV "together". He made sure to write a thank you note to Al Gore for inventing the Internet and sent a bouquet of flowers to John McCain showing his gratitude for coming up with the Blackberry.

The one thing he missed was holding Bailey at night and waking up with her in the morning. Even if she was asleep, she was always touching him. It might just be her hand on his hip, or her foot intertwined with his, but they always in contact with one other, and he missed that. Of course, he also missed the sex, but the cuddling was the hardest thing for him to give up.

It helped a little that Bailey had made him the DVD. Actually, there were four of them. Loaded up with short scenes, often only ten minutes or so long, Bailey had filmed herself masturbating for him. She said the borrowed the video camera from her folks and thanks to Morgan's mad video editing skillz, they put the files on some DVDs for him to watch. She made sure to moan and groan for the camera; she wanted to entertain him as much as herself. She showed of a wide variety of toys and ingenuity and no two scenes were alike. There was even one of her in the hot tub.

Gabe was only allowed to watch once scene per night and often he called her as the video was playing. He let her know what he was doing and often their conversation devolved into some down and dirty phone sex. For a girl who had seemed so shy and innocent when they met, Bailey turned out to be quite a firecracker. She had a wicked sense of humour and was sexually adventurous.

"Just because no one wanted to do it with me doesn't mean I didn't think about it," she said when Gabe asked her once.

Like a lot of couples, Bailey's folks had a small collection of porn and a few sex toys that they used to spice up their marriage. They probably assumed that everything was well hidden, but the Crawford house wasn't that big, and the girls found the stash, mostly out of curiosity at first.

Bailey liked to talk dirty, especially when she knew it was going to get Gabe all hot and bothered. And of course, he didn't mind at all.

As the fall semester came to a close, things were moving along nicely. He went to see her for Thanksgiving again, this time at a cousin's house. They talked about her whole family flying to The Big Apple for New Year's and to visit with Michael and his family.

Despite the distance between them, Gabriel felt that the two of them were in a good place.

One morning, on one of the last shoots before the Christmas break, Gabe was talking with Celeste and Jeffrey about a nice place to vacation. Both recommended the Caribbean. Lori suggested a cruise and Rose butted in to tell him he should take Bailey to a secluded cabin in the Poconos where they could "hump each other like rabbits". A lively discussion ensued.

"Gabriel!" one of the interns called. "Gabriel . . . Someone's been trying to get you all day!"

He reached for his cell phone and didn't see any missed calls.

"Who is it?" he asked. He looked up at the clock and saw he wasn't due for his next scene for a few minutes.

The intern reached into a pocket, pulled out a slip of paper and read the name that had been hastily scrawled on the back. "Joanne Crawford . . . I think she's called everyone from the mail room to the programming VP's office."

Gabe frowned, wondering why Bailey hadn't called him on his cell.

Flipping through his contacts, Gabe first dialed the Crawford house. Maybe she wanted to help him surprise Bailey over Christmas and didn't want to go through her daughter. There was no answer. He left a message on the answering machine.

Then he called his mother's house. No answer there, either. He called Bailey's cell phone; it rolled into her voice mail.

With a frown, Gabe went back to his dressing room and dialed April.

"Hello?"

"April! It's Gabe. I—"

"Oh, thank God!" Immediately, Gabriel knew something was wrong. April's voice was shaking. "You need to call Mama. Do you have something to write with?"

"April . . . April, calm down. What's wrong?"

"You have to talk to Mama," the other girl insisted. "She's been trying to reach you all day."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Because I only have your number at the house!" Gabe could tell she was nearly in tears. "Mama left a message at your apartment, but I told her you wouldn't be there until later. That's when she started calling the studio. Bailey's the only one who has your cell and she won't tell any of us what your number is!"

Oh, dear God, Gabe thought. He kicked himself for going to such lengths to protect his privacy. He had call block on all of his phones and just then remembered that he had sworn Bailey to secrecy about his cell phone number. "What's wrong, April? You have to tell me."

"You need to talk to Mama," she repeated.

"Okay, give me her number." Gabe searched for something to write with. His hands were shaking. Something had to be very, very wrong for April to be rattled so badly. He took the number down. Before calling it, he told one of the producers he was running a little late.

The phone rang three times before, Joanne picked up.

"Hi," he said, trying to keep his voice under control. "It's me. Is everything alright?"

Bailey's mother breathed a sigh of relief. "Gabriel . . . Can you come home right now?"

"What wrong, Joanne?" He felt the blood draining out of his face. The room began to spin.

"It's Bailey, Gabriel," she said softly. "We had to take her to the hospital . . ."