As the new year began, she felt like she finally really had a handle on being Mary Morstan. Four years ago, when she'd first adopted her new identity, it had taken a continual series of conscious actions to keep it up. She'd want to go for a run, and the swim she'd do instead wouldn't feel at all satisfactory. She'd find herself reaching for the auburn dye instead of the blonde at the chemist's…leaving it natural was never an option, it was drab as dishwater. She'd startle when she caught a glimpse of her altered reflection out of the corner of her eye. The British accent she affected, while technically perfect, sounded false and implausible in her ears.
The past, in her case, was literally another country. But now, time and use had mostly transformed the disguise into just another outfit. The day before the day she met John Watson, she had the first twinge of her old self that she'd had in a long time. It would not be the last, and that was mostly John's fault, but it was unusual enough that it stuck in her mind well after the fact.
She was in an antique store, and she fell instantly and madly in love with a gorgeous Hans Wegner "Ox" chair. She wanted it. She knew exactly where she would put it and it would be perfect.
Except that it would be perfect in the office of a fabulous but long-gone apartment on Chicago's Lake Shore drive, not in her tiny one-bedroom in Pimlico. And that these days, she didn't collect midcentury modern furniture. And, looking at the tag, the thing cost twelve hundred pounds, which Mary Morstan, not being an independent black ops agent, absolutely could not afford… the Bible may claim that "The wages of sin is death," but she'd found that it was more like the wages of sin were about fifty times more than she could get out of the NHS.
So, sixty seconds after falling in love, Mary walked away. She'd gotten good at that years ago.
Her friend Janine had wandered off down a narrow, firetrappy aisle stuffed with old clothing and handbags, and was trying on a pale blue velvet beret.
"What d'you think of it?" she inquired in her soft Irish lilt.
"God, no," Mary replied, wrinkling her nose, "Very nineties. Makes you look like Monica Lewinsky."
"Might not be the worst thing," Janine retorted, tilting her head and scrutinizing her reflection in a compact, "Make men think of quote unquote not having sexual relations, and it's more comfortable than a push-up bra."
Mary snorted a laugh. "I can silk-screen you a t-shirt that says 'Will Go Down On First Date' if that'll help. But it's really an awful hat."
"Fair enough. Did you see anything you wanted?"
"Nah."
"Then let's move on."
As they walked out into the tourist-packed streets of Camden Market, their breath frosted in the chilly air. They'd come on Janine's instigation, on a quest for a stall she remembered that allegedly carried stunning hand-cast silver jewelry at knockdown prices. As they entered hour two of their search, Mary was becoming convinced that the stall was not only not there but had never existed in the first place. Janine, on the other hand, was one of nature's optimists and seemed keen to keep on.
"Talking of men-"
"Were we?"
"Yes," the younger woman said, raising her voice to be heard over the crowds, "You should be my plus one at the launch party for Prospective. You might meet someone."
Prospective was an online news service that Janine's company was starting, and which had been the primary focus of her conversation for the past few months. Mary paused at a table covered in very cheap but very cheery pseudopashminas. She side-eyed Janine, and said "Just last week somebody told me that every man in publishing was gay, an alcoholic, or a pervert, if not all three."
Janine lifted a deep green shawl for closer examination. "I did say that, didn't I? Though you should take into account that I don't ever meet any men in any field who aren't some flavour of fuckhead."
Mary frowned. "What happened to - oh, what was his name you brought out to Cath's Christmas drinks? Charlie? The barrister?"
"Carl. Married."
"Ooof. Sorry." Janine really did have the worst taste. Fortunately, her pretty face and cheerily tarty persona ensured that there'd always be another one queued up when the current one inevitably went wrong.
"Yeah, well, one more pathological liar and I'm converting," Janine continued, "I'll make a brilliant lesbian. And you can join me since it's just as easy to not have sex with women as it is to not have sex with men. How long has it been for you, now - year and a half?"
Mary did the mental arithmetic before replying, "About that, yeah. Not since David."
It wasn't as though she'd exactly planned on celibacy, it just sort of kept on happening. After she and David had broken it off… which was technically his idea but she'd been sick of him by that point and probably subconsciously nudged him in that direction… she'd been on several dates with very decent, very worthy men. Just like David, they'd all been very sweet and very well-behaved and so, so bloody dull that she kept finding herself fantasizing about lighting something expensive on fire when she'd listen to them talk. She'd managed to change most of her behaviors, but her taste in men seemed immutable... and since the type she actually liked was really not a safe companion for the sort of person she wanted to be, she had simply decided to stop trying. Calton, her cat, made for better company anyway.
"If you keep not using it, it'll close up," Janine said, archly.
"And there's a lovely image, thank you," Mary replied.
"I agree that they'll probably all be horrible bastards. BUT, they will be rich horrible bastards, which is not something to sneeze at. And you'll get to scoff, though I say so myself, some excellent food and booze."
"I'm dieting. New Year's resolution."
"Then you can have the crudites."
"Well, while it is of course impossible to get access to raw vegetables anywhere else in London, I'm afraid-"
"And this party is the first time my boss has ever asked me to handle anything that matters to him and it's scaring the piss out of me and I could really use a friendly face there if it all goes to hell," Janine blurted out, rapidly.
Mary smiled, a bit ruefully, at this. Janine was a dear - and not nearly as hard-as-nails as she liked to seem. She gave her friend a one-armed hug and said, "Aww. Why didn't you say so in the first place? Daft cow. Not that you'll need me, it's going to be fab, but of course I'll come. On one condition."
"What?"
"We give up on this sodding search before I lose any more toes to frostbite. We are never going to find that stall. Ever."
"Cynic. But fair enough. Let's go and have a drink."
The following morning, Mary sat in the tiny lab space shared by three of the OB exam rooms and glared malevolently at a urine dipstick. It was showing definite proteinuria, which meant that, yes, Mrs. Sawyer's exciting new high blood pressure was probably in fact pre-eclampsia. Fortunately, she was at thirty-eight weeks and well ready to get that baby out.
Pre-E, obnoxious and worrying though it was, wasn't the cause of her malevolence. It was the fact that it was absolutely ridiculous to have spent your teens, twenties, and early thirties as a heavy drinker and then four years later be such a lightweight that three sugary pink cocktails made you feel venomous and acidic the following morning. She hadn't even gotten properly drunk, and had been cheery and coherent enough last night to throw a few dozen cranberry-walnut muffins into the oven.
Carole, the doctor who headed up the women's health services, had clucked sympathetically and said, "Same thing happened to me when I turned forty." Which was all well and good, except for the fact that she wasn't actually forty, despite what it said on her paperwork. She had another full year and a half to go, and thus this stupid pseudo-hangover was clearly some sort of karmic retribution.
She was entering the dipstick results onto Mrs. Sawyer's e-chart when Doctor Towneley, the head of the practice, descended upon her. Trailing behind him was another man: fortyish, blondish, shortish. Cute. They were both eating the muffins she'd prepared, and Towneley brightened when he saw her.
"Ah, Mary. I've got someone for you to meet. Mary, this is Doctor Watson, who'll be taking over for Doctor Bhat while she's out." He popped the last bite of the muffin into his mouth and continued, spraying crumbs, "Jhmpg, this is Mhwh." He swallowed, then continued, "She bakes all these lovely treats every Monday."
In theory, she reminded herself, "Mary, who bakes" was exactly what she was going for. Kind and friendly and funny Mary. She therefore shouldn't be irritated at the fact that her employer didn't ever bother to use her surname and thought the sole thing worth mentioning about her wasn't her work but that she made "lovely treats every Monday." True, the boss at her last job never patronized her, but on the other hand, Towneley was unlikely to send a hit squad after her if she screwed up. So all she did was make a sweet smile and accept the hand that Jhmpg (presumably "Jim") extended to her and say, "Welcome aboard, Doctor Watson."
"Thanks. Pleased to meet you, Mary."
"Likewise."
They moved on. Mary put the moment out of her mind and went to tell Carole that Mrs. Sawyer should probably be having a baby a bit sooner than planned. The man she would marry sixteen months later had made much less of an impression than yesterday's antique furniture.
Though he would prove to be much harder to walk away from.