"Beauty is overrated," she announces, to no one in particular since there isn't anyone around but him, and he looks up from his paperwork and smirks at her.
"You say that now, but wait till you start getting old," he says, teasingly. "Then you'll think again about it."
"I'm still a year younger than you, Stabler," she points out. "Let's not talk about getting old just yet."
He laughs and leans back in his chair. "So, what's made you decide that beauty is overrated?"
"The fact that two girls had to die because of it," she says. "I mean, come on. All to keep a few secrets? What is that?"
"That's the world of modeling for you," he says. "One minute, they're all friendly and in your face about how nice they are to you, and the next think you know, they're stabbing you in the back."
"Best friends without strings," she says, and he nods.
"Yeah," he says. "Pretty much. Every now and then, I suppose one of them gets lucky and finds a true friend, but then…"
"Something like this happens, because they wanted to put a stop to something wrong that was going on, and suddenly, we get involved."
"You know, I find it somewhat amusing that a lot of teenage girls consider it their life's dream to become a model," he comments, and she gives him a sideways look.
"Yeah? Why's that?"
"Well, it might be just because I'm a guy, but honestly, any job that makes you restrict what you eat and when just isn't worth it."
She smirks at him. "You'd never make it," she tells him. "Besides, you make a better cop, anyway."
"I think I'll take that as a compliment," he says, grinning at her, and then, "I think this case bothered me a lot more than the last one did."
"Why?"
"Because I went home right after this whole thing began, and there's Maureen, and we're eating breakfast, and she's just eating yogurt. So I give her something other than this, and suddenly I'm talking to Kathy, and there's this whole conversation about little miss anorexic-in-training."
"I'll assume that's Maureen. What was up with her?"
"Oh, nothing. She was just reading all her little fashion magazines and decided that she was too fat, so she was trying to lose weight. I finally got her to sit down with me and I told her it wasn't worth it."
"Yeah? How'd that go over?"
"Not well. She told me I was ruining her life, to which Kathleen decided to come in and remark that if their mother looks the way she does after four kids, there's no reason why Maureen shouldn't. Needless to say, it didn't help."
"So they're not on speaking terms now?"
"They're only on speaking terms because they share a room, to put it shortly. I wouldn't be surprised if they've managed to make up by the time I get home tonight."
"Well, there's a pair of teenage girls for you."
Silence, and then both of them laugh, because there isn't really anything else that they can do. He shakes his head at her as soon as he trails off.
"I'm never going to let them meet you," he says, half-joking. "You'll be the very one giving them all sorts of ideas as to how to give me hell."
"You deserve it," she says, also half-joking, because somewhere along the line, even though it still hasn't been that long, they went from being partners to being friends. "Besides, isn't that what all teenage girls live for? To give their father a heart attack?"
"I should live to see the day that it isn't," he says, and then, "Can I ask you something?"
"You just did," she replies, and he rolls his eyes.
"No, seriously," he says, and when she nods, he goes on. "What in the world could make a parent want to push their only child into a world like that?"
"Maybe they're living out their dreams through their children, maybe they're helping their children live out their own dreams…" She trails off and shakes her head. "There are a lot of reasons."
"Yeah, I know, but I just…I don't get it. I don't understand how it can get to the point where the child is no longer interested, but the parent's still pushing it."
"There's no such thing as a perfect parent," she says, and wonders why she's sitting here giving him advice, especially since she isn't a parent herself. "Either they don't notice, or they don't care."
He shakes his head, disgusted. "And more often than not, it's that they don't care," he says. "Maybe this wouldn't have happened if someone had."
She offers up a wry smile and goes back to her paperwork as she makes one last remark.
"Well, why do you think I said it was overrated?"