As Jane entered the hotel's grand lobby, she admired the large Christmas tree in the center of the room and extravagant decorations hanging from the wall and ceiling. She'd never had a tree this beautiful or this large. When the Rizzoli kids were younger, her father would take them out to a local farm and they'd pick their favorite. Finding 1 tree they all could agree upon was an early lesson in diplomacy and negotiation as Frankie would always want the biggest tree they could find, while Tommy would request one that had been flocked. Jane just picked the roundest and fullest tree so that there would be plenty of room to hang all their handmade decorations, electric tree lights, and strings of popcorn.
As Jane circled this tree, she studied the ornately embroidered ribbons woven through it's branches. It reminded her of the huge tree she had recently helped Maura put up. 'This tree is bigger and maybe as fancy, but nowhere near as lovely as Maura's', she thought.
Near the elevators, there was a sign welcoming BPD Guests and inviting them to the ballroom space just down the hall. As Jane headed down the passage, she heard a low wolf whistle behind her.
"Rizzoli?! Is that you? Wow, I'd forgotten how well you clean up! Why don't you come back down to Vice and we get a new pair of heels on you?"
Jane stopped and turned around, recognizing an irritating but generally harmless detective she'd previously worked with, Jane poked back:
"Oh, Fernandez," Jane teased her old colleague, "I don't think you guys could afford to get me new heels, my tastes have changed and gotten a bit more expensive since my undercover days".
"Yeah... so I've heard." the older man winked, as he and his date passed Jane on their way into the party.
Jane mumbled under her breath, "God help me, this is going to be a long night."
-
The end of the hallway emptied into another lobby that seemed to be a common area for several meeting spaces and ballrooms. As Jane walked towards the door with a BPD banner hanging above it, to her left she heard a familiar squeal.
"Oh JANIE! You look so lovely sweetheart! Come here! Vince- quick- get a picture of us!" Jane nodded to her ex-partner and seemingly, her mother's date, Vince Korsak.
"Go ahead, get all the documentation of this while you still can." Jane said as she posed for a few cell phone shots with her mother. Her brother, Frankie joined them just then and was pulled into the pictures by Angela Rizzoli as well.
"Vince, come stand over here too and take it with us, I've never been in an "Ussie" before! i saw it on TV, it'll be fun." Angela prodded. Sure enough, they all bunched up, hoping their formation was tight enough to fit everyone in the picture.
"Hey Ma," added Frankie "why don't you let Janie take it, since she's got the longest gorilla arms out of all of us?" he teased. After Vince took the last picture, Jane quickly reached under his jacket and pinched her brother's side, "I'd rather have the arms of a gorilla than the brain of one." she growled at him.
"Large primates are actually far more intelligent than many people know. Numerous studies have shown they have both the mental and emotional intelligence to relate to one another on a level very similar to that of any Homo Sapien." Jane hadn't noticed her best friend walk into the hall while they posed for pictures.
"Dr. Isles," Jane started, "it's really unnecessary to try and make my brother feel better about his monkey brain, we've all accepted it, and the transplant surgeons said that hopefully, one day he will too." Maura tried not to laugh at Frankie's expense so she just hid her chuckle by hugging Jane.
"Oh, enough bickering already, we are going back inside before dinner starts, my glass is a little empty." said Angela, swilling the ice in her cocktail glass as she and Vince went back into the ballroom. Frankie was not far behind.
Maura beamed at Jane,"If it is any consolation, long limbs are found by many people to be indicators of virility and physical fitness level, and like other factors of attraction are often markers for choosing a desirable mate."
"So... basically, you're saying I do have gorilla arms?" Jane asked, mock-offended.
Maura interlocked her arm with Jane's and began walking them into the ballroom and towards the bar.
"Well, Detective, you do give great hugs."
