Double-or-Nothing
Chapter 2: Now there are two
I don't own Blindspot or any of its characters. I only borrow them to play with once in a while.
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Tuesday, 12:15 pm
Patterson's office, FBI Building, NYC
"Is there any soy sauce?" Patterson asks as she lays out her Chinese take-out lunch on her desk. She makes sure to arrange them in a grid pattern, all the containers 90 and 180 degrees to one another.
Zapata watches her, her brows lifting in disbelief as Patterson arranges her napkin to line up perfectly perpendicular to the right of her largest container. She places the chopsticks straight and centered on the napkin. She moves the chopsticks a bit more to the right, gives it a long look, and returns them to the center of the napkin.
When Zapata still hasn't answered and the silence runs longer than normal, Patterson looks up to meet Zapata's slightly incredulous gaze. "What?"
"You like to make everything nice and organized, don't you?" Zapata asks.
"Yes, a place for everything and everything in its place. Why?"
"No reason." Zapata looks at the disorganized jumble of her take out containers set up on the clean corner of Patterson's large desk. She looks into the delivery bag and pulls out two soy sauce packets and hands them to Patterson. "Here are two. There are two more. Do you want them?"
"No, two are fine. Thank you." answers Patterson.
Both women settle in to eat lunch.
"It's been a while since I ate Chinese from Golden Pagoda." says Zapata, slurping up some soup, "they make the best chicken rice soup."
"I know. It's so good. We should order from them more often." Patterson primly places several paper napkins across her lap and starts eating her soup. Her manners are such that you would think she was eating off fine bone china with the Queen.
Zapata watches her and slowly shakes her head to herself. She grins and thinks Patterson, you're just a tad OCD, you're just a little kooky, but I still like you. She and Patterson continue to eat their soup. They sit in companionable silence until all the soup is gone.
"Did they send any duck sauce?" Patterson asks. Zapata reaches for the delivery bag again and pulls out two duck sauce packets and hands them to Zapata.
"Thank you." Patterson adds primly, taking the packets gingerly from Zapata's hand. She delicately opens the take out containers and serves herself the pineapple shrimp and fried rice in tidy little piles on her paper plate.
Zapata watches her closely, again, fascinated while opening her own containers. Not standing on any ceremony, especially since she is famished, she heaps large mounds of the broccoli and chicken and fried rice on her plate. She doesn't have time to mince around. She is so hungry she was hangry.
After the first bites, both women look at each other and roll their eyes in ecstasy. The food is as excellent as they remembered.
"Oh my god. I forgot how good their pork fried rice was…" moans Patterson.
"Damn, why haven't I ordered this more often?" Zapata adds in with her moan.
A few more chopstick-fuls make their way into their mouths. Patterson's plate is soon clean and she adds a second serving, the portion size twice as large as the first.
"Do you think this is as good as the Red Dragon on 63rd?" asks Patterson.
"No way, they have great egg rolls but their chicken rice soup and fried rice don't stand a chance to this." Zapata answers with her mouth half-full, pointing enthusiastically to her plate with her chop sticks.
"I wonder if Jane likes Chinese food? She probably does since she can speak Chinese." wonders Patterson.
"I don't know but that's a good question", adds Zapata.
"Maybe we should have invited Jane to join us for lunch. It could help her figure out what some of her favorites are."
"We'll have to invite her to join us next time we get Chinese takeout." Zapata adds, just getting warmed up to the subject. She knew Patterson fairly well after working with her for five years. She knew her co-worker had a strong sense of right and wrong and was an avid defender of the underdog. These are the traits she depended on so that she could launch the first phase of her master plan.
Zapata also knew that if she stayed somewhat quiet and appeared noncommittal, that Patterson would lead them down the natural conclusion she sought…
"It must be so hard having no memories," Patterson was gazing off into the distance, her chopsticks hovering forgotten over her plate, "Imagine not remembering your name, who you are, where you come from. No memories of times with your loved ones…" At this, the hand holding her chopsticks mid-air falls listless to the desktop. Her eyes refocus and start to look wet. Patterson blinks rapidly, fighting her eyes from getting even more teary. She drags a labored breath in and starts to blow it out but it hitches as if her throat is tightly constricted.
"It must feel so empty. No memories at all. No new ones…" A second labored breath is dragged in and again is jaggedly pushed out. Patterson's eyes start welling up with tears and her face is about to crumple.
Zapata drops her chopsticks on her plate and places her hand over Patterson's nearest one. She gives a good squeeze. Patterson's eyes swing and lock on Zapata's gaze.
"I miss Da….", a big swallow, "I miss David." It comes out of Patterson as a tortured whisper. Zapata can easily read the pain that is ebbing off Patterson in waves. Her own throat feels a little tight and her own eyes start to sting with potential tears just seeing her friend in this state.
"Hey. Hey. You're going to be okay." Zapata states in a serious and low tone and another long squeeze of Patterson's hand, "We know how much you cared about him. It's okay to remember him. It's okay for you to remember him."
Patterson glances away from Zapata, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with her paper napkin. The tears haven't spilled over. But it had been really close. She takes a shaky deep breath and then a second one.
"I just don't want to break down into a full sob here at work. I'd be so embarrassed. I have a really ugly cry face." Patterson tries to joke. Zapata knows that under the thin varnish of humor is a mountain of pain and loss.
"You don't have to worry about how you look around me. I've seen you when you came in sick with that 48-hour stomach virus, remember? You came in even though you were one step away from death's door because we needed your help on that Flantasco case. You were greener than Shrek. And you kept hurling into your garbage basket." Zapata can't keep herself from chuckling.
Patterson's face breaks out in a small, self-deprecating smile. "Yeah, and Reade wouldn't come within 50 feet of me. Every time I had to hurl, he broke out in a sweat, a gagging noise came out of his mouth, and he ran for the men's room."
"Most peaceful time I've had working in this office in a long time. Even with you upchucking your stomach contents every 10 minutes. Putting up with Reade is far worse than working with you with your killer stomach flu bug any day", Zapata smiles looking at Patterson.
Both women try to keep a straight face but both crack up. They laugh so hard they have to hold their sides and their middles because they're so sore from the rolling laughter. The absurdity of recalling Reade's reaction and a miserable green-faced Patterson are enough so that when one round of laughter stops, they only have to look at each other and start hooting and hollering all over again.
"Reade!" Gasps Zapata.
"He looked like he was going…." Gasps Patterson.
"To hurl on his new $600 loafers!" gasps Zapata.
The two women hoot and holler some more until tears of mirth stream down their face. After a few more rounds of full belly laughter, the ladies calm down enough to sit back in their chairs. They each swab at their hot cheeks to wipe off the wet tracks.
"Oh my god, that was funny." Patterson shakes her head.
"That Reade…" Zapata shakes her head. Her coworkers were real works of art sometimes.
"We really should help Jane, though." Patterson proclaims a bit more soberly.
"Well, we did say we would take her shopping that night we went out drinking." adds Zapata helpfully.
"She looked at you when you said something about her clothes with a "What's wrong with my clothes?" I think you might have offended her a little bit, Zee."
"Well, it wasn't intended to offend her. She's got probably like 10 pieces of clothing total. They all fall into the same things: tank tops, jeans, and hoodies." Zapata snorts, "We know there is way more options available out there."
"Jane has a really nice shape. I could totally see her in bright colors and patterns. Maybe an ikat print or a nice boho print! I think she'd look good in gemstone colors like sapphire, emerald, and ruby. Maybe we could take her to Benetton, Brooks Brothers, J. Crew, and Burberry! Why, she'll need new boots, too. Riding boots, ankle boots, rain boots…!" Patterson was known in the department as having a bit of a shopping addiction.
"Are we shopping for Jane or are we shopping for you?" Zapata teased.
"Well, Jane of course! But that doesn't mean we can't pick up a little something for ourselves if we just happened to find something that is truly joy sparking." Patterson looked more than enthusiastic. She looked even a little manic. The shopping bug was strong in this one.
"Well, I think we need to introduce Jane slowly to the world of fashion. We know that right now, the only colors in her wardrobe are black, white, gray, gray, and more gray. So maybe what we need to do is introduce her to stores that use the colors and clothes she already likes to wear but do them with more sophistication. Better fabrics and better construction."
"True. What stores did you have in mind?"
"Well, Ann Taylor for one. This season they have a lot of those basic colors and a very muted color palette. They have great construction. Banana Republic also has more classic looks and their patterns and colors are more constrained. Calvin Klein most definitely and maybe even Ann Taylor Loft because they have more color and patterns but still in keeping with a casual style." Zapata ponders while tapping her finger to her chin.
"Those are all good places to start. We definitely have to get her clothes that she can move and run in. For those times that she's kicking arse." Patterson enthuses.
"True, we need clothing that will look good, have good functional comfort, and stand up to a beating." Zapata continues, "Maybe some really good jeans, too."
"Too bad there isn't a brand out there made for the alleged navy seal who gets in fist fights, gun fights, speaks two dozen languages, all while saving the world." Patterson giggles.
"Ha. Yeah, don't think they have that brand out yet. Are you free tomorrow night?" asks Zapata.
"Barring any tattoo being decoded by the computer system between now and then, I should be free as of 4:30pm."
"Same here. I'll ask and see if Jane is free tomorrow night. We can make it a girls' night out." Zapata grins, feeling very self-satisfied.
"Okay. Do you think Jane would let us do something with her hair? Maybe a mani and pedi?" wonders Patterson.
"Well, we can put that on the list but I'm not sure Jane will recall having gotten a mani or a pedi. Can you imagine her reaction when the pedicurist starts to scrape off the dead skin on the bottom of the feet?!" chortles Zapata.
"You mean when they hit that super-ticklish area and you are seriously scared you might kick out in reaction?" Patterson grins, her eyes alive with mischief.
"Only in Jane's case, she might round-house kick the pedicurist in the head and put her in a choke hold. On second thought, we might want to wait on that mani/pedi." guffaws Zapata.
"Yeah, let's just take her shopping for something other than jeans, tanks, and hoodies. I'd love to see Jane in a dress or skirt. Show off those legs of hers." The gears in Patterson's fashionista mind already turning.
I bet Weller would like to see her in dress or skirt again, thinks Zapata. She smirks and chuckles to herself.
Zapata is beyond pleased that she was able to recruit Patterson to help her with Phase 1 of what she has now named Operation Jeller.
End