You had to stick around until I was dead
But if you're tired of looking at my face I guess I already am
But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll
be alright
Divorce Song - Liz Phair
Melanie "Call Me Mel" Rossdeutscher's living room was small and hot and congested with flowers. Pink carnation wallpaper. Blue and white daisy couch and loveseat. A vase of wilting yellow roses on the coffee table.
It smelled like a funeral home.
"My friend Karen and I send each other flowers once a month, just for kicks," "Call Me Mel" said conspiratorially when she saw him eyeing the centrepiece. "Because God knows our husbands never did!" Loud, raucous and slightly bitter laughter followed this statement. She stopped to watch his expression, waiting, maybe, to see if he offered up some private tidbit of information - that he used to bring his wife flowers every week or that he thought they were simply an extravagant waste of money. Instead he just smiled and sank as far down as possible into the first available chair.
Unfortunately camouflage was not an option in this room.
There were nine people sitting facing him in Mel's stifling, cramped living room - six women and three men - and all of them, all 18 wounded eyes, were scrutinizing his every nervous twitch.
"OK, everyone," Mel began. "Welcome to the Monday meeting of Friends On the Mend. As you can see, we have someone new joining us tonight. Let's do our best to make him feel part of our group."
Silence.
Oh shit, he thought despairingly as he shifted slightly on the purple iris armchair. They're waiting for me to say something. What the fuck am I supposed to say?
"Hi...I'm, uh, Elliot."
"Hi Elliot." In unison, even. Dear God. Huang, I'm gonna fucking kill you. Mel nodded encouragingly when she saw his panicked pause. His mouth was dry. He licked his lips, then realized how guilty that made him look.
"I, uh, don't really know what else to say, I guess."
"Well, Elliot, since it's your first night with us, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? You know. Whatever you'd like to share is fine." Mel smiled warmly, maternally. "No pressure, OK? We're all pretty much in the same boat, here."
"Uh, OK. Yeah. I've been married for, uh, 22 years, I guess. Well. Yeah, I mean I'm still married. For now."
Everyone in the room laughed, but with varied degrees of pleasure. The guy in the blue ballcap gave a nasty snort, while the attractive blonde in the loveseat seemed genuinely amused. Elliot unclenched his hands from his lap and gingerly flexed them.
"This is my...first...divorce." Some chuckles, some sympathetic glances. Blue Ballcap was studying his thumbnail. Mel was nodding. Elliot was sweating. "I signed...I finally signed the papers last week. It took me, well, a long time to get around to it. I don't know. It's not that I even wanted to get back together with...my wife. I just...uh...we have four kids together, you know?"
More sympathetic nods. A few sighs. Mel looked like she might jump up and hug him. Why the hell am I telling these strangers things about myself? God, make me stop, please.
"My wife...this was all her idea, really. I mean, I guess I haven't been the best, uh, husband, for awhile. My job is pretty...stressful. She got the brunt of my bad moods for a long...long time. She asked me again a couple months ago why I hadn't signed. And, I didn't have an answer for her. So."
So there.
"Sonovabitch," Blue Ballcap muttered. No one in the group seemed taken aback by this.
"Now Ken," Mel said gently. "Elliot has the floor. Let's not scare him off with our own anger issues." She turned back to Elliot. "Go on. Please."
He would have, if his cell phone hadn't chosen that exact moment to ring. He fumbled it out of his pocket and knew before he looked who it would be, the one and only number he didn't want to see, because that was his luck, the only kind of luck he had these days.
Jesus Christ. Olivia, calling him now. Here.
If she only knew.
He turned it off.
"S'okay," he told the group. "It can wait."
Mel cleared her throat.
"Well, uh, that's it, really. I signed the papers. Things are...in motion."
Mel seemed immensely pleased with Elliot's divulgence.
"You'll find our little group to be very helpful in dealing with the various emotions you'll encounter as you wade through the muddy waters of a marriage breakdown," she said. It sounded like she was reading from a script. "We've all gone through it, some more than once." She glanced at Ken, but he refused to look up. "Some of us are fairly new to the grieving process - and it is about grieving, isn't it? The death of a marriage - and some of us are further along in our voyage. But, we all want to welcome you, Elliot. And we hope you continue to join us for our weekly get-togethers. Sometimes we rent a movie. Sometimes we just talk. Wednesday evenings we bowl."
Good God, Elliot groaned inwardly. He tried desperately to keep a vaguely non-cynical expression on his face.
"Is there anything else you'd like to share?" she prodded gently.
Like what? That I'm madly in love with my partner? That the only reason I'm sitting in your Goddamn purple chair is because Huang threatened to tell Cragen about my "feelings" for Olivia if I didn't get some help? That I can't do my job? That I can't sleep? Is this the kind of crap you people want to hear?
"Uh, nope. That's about it."
"All right, then." Mel actually clapped her hands. A few others joined in. Blondie smiled at him and he found himself smiling back. Just like that. "We'll break for some refreshments before we get back to Sharing Time. I made my famous onion dip. Don't be shy!"
As the On the Mend-ers made a beeline for the goodies on Mel's dining room table, Elliot expelled all the air left in his lungs and leaned forward, feeling more-than-slightly nauseous. He felt an arm slip across his shoulders and gently squeeze.
"Well done, Elliot," Mel said. She sounded a bit teary. "I know how hard that must have been."
"Thanks, Mel." Elliot sat up, hoping she'd remove her arm. She didn't.
"Can you stay for awhile? Meet some of our Friends, have something to eat?"
"Uh, sure. For awhile."
"Good, good." She gave him another squeeze before heading off to stand guard over the food. Elliot wondered how he could escape without drawing too much attention. He needed cold, winter air. He needed about three beers and a TV show with car chases that ended in fiery explosions. He needed a room with no fucking flowers of any kind in it.
"You're a cop, right?"
It was Blondie, holding a paper plate piled with food in front of his face. He stared at pale pink Jell-O salad, triangle sandwiches, meatballs, potato chips. Onion dip. He accepted it, perplexed.
"And this," she said, handing him a bottle of beer. "I'm sure you could use it."
He took the beer gratefully, sucking back half its contents in one gulp. She perched on the edge of his chair, comfortable, sure.
"Amanda," she said, as if he'd asked.
"Elliot," he said, but she already knew that. Everyone knew that now, and a hell of a lot more besides. It struck him how ridiculously unbalanced his position was here.
"So?" she said.
She'd asked a question and already he'd forgotten.
"Uh..."
"You. Elliot. You're a cop."
"Yes. Detective. How did you...?
"I was married to one for 14 years. I'm a bit of an expert at spotting them. And avoiding them, usually."
Elliot poked at the Jell-O with his finger. It wiggled pinkly.
"I'm not sure what I'm doing here," he heard himself say as if from far away.
"You're doing what we're all doing, or looking to do," she said easily.
He looked up at her then, and let his cynicism finally bust through. "Forgive?"
She shook her blonde hair, laughing.
"No, no," she said. Her laugh was like sunshine. "Fall in love and fuck it all up again."
"Called you last night."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." She paused, waiting for him to fill in the holes, connect the dots. "Did you get my message?"
"Uh, no, actually. I got home late. Went right to sleep." He sipped at his coffee too fast, burning his mouth. He winced. Shit, that hurt.
"Mmm." She turned her head away towards the window. It was dismal and grey, a perfectly typical January afternoon. Cold enough for snow. "Called your cell, too."
"Yeah." He cleared his throat self-consciously. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with her. Ever. "Had it turned off for awhile."
"Oh."
He'd surprised himself by staying at Mel's until almost midnight, talking to Amanda and Sam and Carlos and Jean. They all had stories and some were much sadder than his. They'd had beer and then some whiskey and laughed a lot and cried a little and all agreed how hard it was to go home. He had checked his cell, of course, hiding in the bathroom like a fugitive, and listened to her voice asking where he was, if he maybe wanted to meet for coffee somewhere, if he wasn't doing anything.
He'd listened to her ask him that six more times before he fell asleep.
They sat listening to each other breath. Elliot touched his lip tentatively. Why the hell did that hurt so much?
"Hot date?" she said suddenly, joking, but only just. She tilted her head in that way she had when she was trying to figure him out.
He wanted to tell her to not bother.
"I wish," he said before he thought about how it would sound. He replayed it in his head. Yep. It sounded pretty bad. She looked at him, almost managing to cover the puzzled hurt. "I was with Kathy, hashing out some stuff. You know."
She didn't believe him. He didn't blame her. He was a shitty, shitty liar.
"Yeah. OK." And the sad fact that she didn't call him out on the lie made him love her all the more.
He looked over at her then and almost said it. Almost said, Why can't we just be together, Liv? Why the fuck not? Why can't we just act on the fact that we actually really do love each other and don't want to be with anyone else in the whole, entire fucking world? Come on. Come on. Come home with me and eat with me and sleep with me and fight with me and everyone who says we can't do it can go to hell. I don't care if I ever touch or kiss or fuck anyone else ever again in my whole miserable life if I can just get you to come home with me.
But then her phone rang and she answered it in her cop voice and he tried to pretend that if it hadn't rung, he would have said all that stuff to her.
He didn't bother pretending what kind of stuff she might have said back.
"That's a great little group you've set me up with there, Doc." Elliot leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped tightly behind his neck. George Huang watched him, his face smooth and, as always, completely indecipherable.
"Group?"
"Yeah, those Friends on the Mend people. The cult you forced me to join. Remember?"
"Ah, yes. Melanie was a former colleague of mine. Good woman. Perceptive. Went through a pretty rough divorce, so she founded the group to help others."
"Hmm."
"So, are they? Helping you?"
"Well, they make a pretty mean Jell-O salad."
"I see."
"On Wednesdays they go bowling."
"Give them a chance, Elliot. They've been through what you're going through. They can offer some insight. There are issues you need to address, talk through."
"Like?"
"Well, the divorce, for one. It's a good start that you've signed the papers. But, we both know there are others factors at play here."
"Like?"
"Issues we've been trying to discuss for several weeks now. Issues I don't think you want to confront."
"I'm lost." Elliot slammed his feet down on the floor and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Really. Enlighten me."
"All right. Perhaps you waited so long to sign those papers because you didn't want to make yourself, uh, a free man."
"Kathy left me two years ago, Doc. I've been feeling pretty free for awhile."
"So, why haven't you acted on your feelings for Olivia yet?"
"Feelings."
"Sexual feelings, Elliot. We've talked about this."
"Hey, I'm still married!"
"Legally, yes. According to your faith, yes."
"I'm not following." But he was, he was, he was.
"Being free, really free, would also mean free to pursue other, say, interests in your life. To consummate these feelings, perhaps, if I may use a euphemism. There would be nothing, no one, holding you back."
"You don't think the sanctity of my marriage is enough? I'm no cheater, Doc."
"You honestly think your marriage, or what's left of it, is the only thing that's been keeping Olivia and you apart, all these years?"
"Hell, yes! And the little fact that I love my wife and my kids." He paused. Huang's face betrayed nothing. "Why? Don't you?"
"Elliot, let me ask you something. When this divorce is finalized, when everything is done and you're, available, what will you do then?"
"Do about what?"
"These feelings you have. For Olivia."
Well.
As wrapped up in his fantasies about Olivia as he was, this particular avenue of thought was one he had not dared travel yet. What would he do, then?
He didn't know.
Shit.
"Maybe it hasn't just been your faith, or your devotion to Kathy. Maybe it's also fear. Is that possible?"
Maybe I don't want to fall in love and fuck it all up again.
"Maybe Olivia and I have something good going. The way it is, right now."
"True. But is it enough?"
No. Never.
"Maybe that's something you can talk to the group about," Huang continued smoothly. "Maybe over a plate of Jell-O salad and a game of 10-pin."
Elliot permitted himself a smile.
"Yeah. Maybe I will. Maybe it's time to..."
"What? Figure things out?"
"Figure things out. What is that, another euphemism?"
"I think that's for you to decide."
"Elliot. You're early." Kathy held the front door of the house ajar with her hip. She didn't invite her soon-to-be ex-husband inside.
"I was in the area. Figured I'd pick the twins up now for dinner. They ready?"
"Almost." Kathy studied him. "You look good, El. You getting more sleep these days?"
He shrugged, not giving her an answer either way. Truth was he wasn't sleeping, at least not well. They stared at one another, trying to figure out what the hell happened to them.
"Come on in," she said finally, pushing the door open wider. Elliot slipped past her. She smelled good, but unfamiliar. Foreign.
Their house was foreign too. He felt like a stranger, or maybe an amnesia patient. His surroundings were vaguely familiar, but not enough to spark any sort of miraculous recovery. Kathy puttered around, unloading the dishwasher. Elliot surveyed the room, wondering what they could talk about.
Well.
Roses, on the kitchen table. Yellow roses, fresh, arranged in the vase he'd given her for their 10th wedding anniversary.
Well. Deju-fucking-vu.
She saw him looking and for the first time in a long time, she looked sorry.
"Elliot," she said. That was all. It was enough. An admission, not of guilt, though. Something else.
"They're nice."
"It's casual, Elliot."
He shook his head. "You don't have to."
"Very casual. Really." She looked so fucking nervous, like her parents had just caught her necking on the front porch past curfew. He would have laughed if he hadn't suddenly felt like crying.
"Kath, it's all right. You deserve them."
"Elliot..."
He sighed. He didn't want to get into it, any of it.
"We did, OK, didn't we? Overall, I mean. We were pretty happy, most of the time, weren't we? Weren't you?"
Kathy placed her hands down on the counter, pushing her palms flat.
"Most of the time, for a long time, we were. We were OK. The kids are wonderful, Elliot. They really are. The best part of it all."
"I know." He shoved his hands into his pockets, hard. "Did I ever buy you flowers?"
"You used to, when we were first together. It was sweet. Then we got Jasper, remember?"
Jasper. The cat that obsessively ate all living plant-life that entered their apartment. He finally died after consuming an entire poinsettia one Christmas.
"I remember."
"It happens, Elliot. It happens all the time, to people just like us."
"Doesn't make me feel any better."
"Me either."
What else could they say, really? So, there they stood, six feet apart in the house they used to share and said nothing else until the twins came down and rescued the two people they loved desperately and who had so much in common they couldn't be together anymore.
"He cheated on me," Amanda said, sipping at her beer.
"I figured."
"Seven times, at last count."
"It's a hard job." She cut her blue eyes at him. "Doesn't excuse it, though."
"You cheat on your wife, detective?"
"Never," he said. Not physically, anyway.
It was Monday night again. Sharing Time was done and snacks were being consumed with gusto. Amanda was pressed up against Elliot on the blue and white daisy loveseat. The yellow roses were gone, along with the sickening smell.
"Look, you want to get out of here?" She leaned over to grab a chip, her breasts pushing gently against his arm. "I live, like 10 minutes away."
"Amanda..." he said. Blue Ballcap sat across the room, glaring at him. Mel was making the rounds, offering shoulder squeezes and words of encouragement.
"You seem like a really nice guy, Elliot. A decent guy. Why on earth did your wife let you get away?"
"Amanda," he tried again.
"There's someone else," she finished. "Someone who is not your wife and who is not me but is beautiful and sexy and everything you think you want and doesn't even know, maybe, that you lust after her. Yet."
"I don't want to mess it up."
"Elliot. Elliot, life is messy. Sex is definitely messy. Love is...heartbreaking."
"Yes," he agreed, but if Olivia wanted to break his heart, at least she would be close enough to get her hands on it.
Mel descended on them. "Elliot, you need more dip!" she spooned some on his plate. "Will you be joining us for bowling this week?"
"I just might," he said.
She was waiting for him on the front steps again, like before. This time she looked much colder. And angrier.
"Hey," he said, sitting down beside her. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know," she said, hugging her knees. "I was just about to leave."
"Why?" He thought about his heart, how it was hammering against his chest just begging to be broken.
She shook her head, gave a short, sharp laugh. "Because I don't know what I'm doing here. Well, I know I'm freezing my ass off. I know that."
He wanted to move closer to her, but didn't know how to do that without actually moving.
"With Kathy again?" she said quietly.
It was a perfectly frigid January night. Cold enough for snow. He suddenly wished it would snow. Ten feet of it. Snowed in for days and days, just the two of them.
"No. I wasn't with Kathy."
"Elliot, I'm gonna head home. I just thought...I don't know. That you might want some company. I guess you don't need my company, though." She went to stand up and suddenly the thought of her leaving, of walking away from his front stoop into the January darkness was more than he could bear tonight. He grabbed her wrist. He could feel the bones moving under her skin. He wanted to kiss them. He wanted to kiss them and any other bones and skin his mouth happened to encounter.
"Come on up," he said quietly.
"To your apartment?"
"Yeah. To my apartment."
"Why?" She did her head tilt thing.
Because I eat off my frying pan, over the sink. Because it's dark up there and it smells funny. Because I love you. There. That's why.
"Because. Because I want you to. I want to tell you where I was tonight. I want to tell you about Jell-O salads and meatballs. I even want to tell you about Mel and Amanda and Blue Ballcap. God help me, I don't want to end up like him. I want to...figure things out."
"Elliot..."
"Yeah?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Upstairs. OK? I promise."
Still she hesitated. He wanted to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder and carry her up the Goddamn stairs. He wanted to feel the weight of her, pressing down on him.
"OK."
Well.
He let go of her hand, fumbled out his keys, unlocked the front door and let her in.
He thought about what made her say OK.
He thought about what kind of flowers she might like best.