In Hoxie We Trust
Disclaimer: I own my sense of reality; actual reality is out of my hands.
An: If you like too many are a victim of domestic violence or know someone who is speak out and stop it. There is no shame in coming forward.
Chapter Nine: Tidbits
Lindsay drew and hand over her face and sighed, she was gunna kill that girl friend of hers. Danny looked at her and rubbed the back of his neck, it was a nervous gesture.
"You don't haveta tell me nothin' if ya don't wanna." He said, his accent thicker because he was flustered.
"Elizabeth – Iris would kill me if I didn't talk." Lindsay replied from behind her hand. She paused and slowly took her hand away. "You can stay and I'll talk, or you can walk out the door and I won't think any less of you." Danny stood up, but he didn't leave. Instead he walked around the coffee table and stood toe to toe with her, making her look up to meet his eyes. He was so close she could smell his soap and the dryer sheet he had used in the laundry, it made her shiver. He pushed a lock of wayward hair out of her face and looked her straight in the eye.
"I wouldn't walk out that door unless you threw me out Montana. You were there for me when I really needed you, what kind of person would I be not returning the favor?" It was so sweet and genuine that she had to will her lungs to work and her cells to divide, she was at a standstill.
"I… I… I don't know where to begin." She finally said quietly. She was actually going to do this, tell someone who knew nothing; she was going to tell him everything. She stepped away from him and went back to the coach and opened her Biology Scrapbook. As she found the picture she was looking for he say beside her.
Danny looked at the photo that was in Lindsay's lap, it was a staged family portrait. She was about eight and the prettiest little girl he had ever seen, she hadn't changed in the twenty plus time laps, she was now the prettiest woman he had ever seen. His eyes moved to the man behind her in the photo, she was perched on his lab. This was her father; Mr. Monroe was tall and barrel chested his tan skin denoted hours of the day were devoted to being outside. He looked like a guy that would be very scary if you were picking up his little girl for a date, a shotgun wasn't too out of character for him. Next to the father was a younger version of the woman who had given him commands from Bozeman earlier. Nothing was different about Jessica Monroe except for the hair color, in this photo she was still an auburn haired thirty something. Behind Jessica was the spitting image of Lindsay except older. A big sister at a guess. Lindsay sighed and placed a finger on her father.
"That's my Dad, Everett. He was a large animal vet, mother and him met in college, she's the county coroner. There was no question about me and science; it was as good as coded in my DNA. She moved her finger to her sister. "Madison, Maddi, she's eight and a half years older than I am. We never got a long, I was supposed to be a boy, she was okay with a second child if I was a boy. But I was a girl and apparently had more shoes than she did. Growing up she had nothing to do with me. I was an only child and she was an only child." Lindsay sighed quietly and turned a few pages, a new staged picture was in her lap. Things had changed, in this photo there was a man, but not Everett Monroe, the sisters were older as was Jessica, there were children.
"This was taken seven years ago. My father had died three years before – cancer. He went peacefully, told me that he was proud of his front row seat in my life but surly the balcony was just as good. Fourteen years ago my sister married Paul Chadwick," She thrust a finger at the only man in the photo. "Four years ago she finally divorced the bastard, he liked to drink and smack her around." There was such bitterness in her voice it was like another person was speaking through her. "This is my nephew Allan." Her voice changed again as she pointed to a teenaged boy with light brown hair and brown eyes, he had the body of a football player. "Al's twenty one now, going to get married himself, as soon as his tour of duty is over, he's in the Special Forces, Alyssa is finishing her physical therapy degree, when Al gets back he wants to be an engineer." Lindsay's finger moved to a younger girl that looked like her and Madison, it must be a law that all the Monroe women had to be cute. "This is Irene, she's eighteen just graduated, wants to teach reading, some how she has maintained a positive out look on life, she grew up in a war zone but she hasn't let that jade her…" A piece of the Lindsay Monroe puzzle fell into place, if her sister was a victim of domestic violence and if her nephew and niece were also victims Stella getting beat was too close to home for comfort.
"Maddi's ordeal jaded me, when she divorced him she had a break down, tried to commit suicide, my mother found her in the tub with one wrist done, she was checked in to serious therapy as soon as her wrist healed, I was working in Denver at the time but went back to help raise Irene, this put all the bricks in the wall that had slowly come down in the relationship between Mad dog and I, putting us back where we started." There was no emotion in her voice as she told him these facts and stared down at the photograph. "By now I'm sure you've made the connection between Maddi and Stella," She turned a few more pages. There was a gilded frame around a great photo of a teenage girl in a Victorian looking garnet gown, across from it was the same girl but more casually dressed. There were photos of her building a set, being a ham, covered in paint, applying make up, as well as getting made up herself.
"This is Delaney; she's my youngest cousin, sixteen, living in Bozeman. I absolutely love her." Lindsay said smiling at the images that smiled back, but soon Lindsay's lips sank back to a neutral if not sad expression. "She's an amazing actress, really puts her heart and soul into everything theatrical. Her dream is to live in New York and be on Broadway…" she swallowed, more emotional than when talking about her sister. "Just like Sara Butler, she was just like Sara, so I was seeing my little cuz laid out on the slab in stead of the woman that was…" Lindsay flipped a few more pages and sighed again; she was finding this easier than she imagined, it was like bleeding out illness once the first pain was over every thing else flowed.
Danny knew that every word was hard for her, but he was drinking it up. He was blessed; selfishly he reveled in the face she was opening up to him. He didn't like to open up and he knew that she was private so to listen to her tell her story made him happy, no matter how sad the tale was. He now knew why she was the way she was, he hadn't given her credit, sure his life had been harder but he now realized that her youth wasn't a walk in the park. Her hand flips through the rest of the pages absently he sees the colors fly by like a flip book, every once in a while he can distinguish a picture, a bull here, Halloween costume there, Lindsay in her green opera dress standing next to a red haired bride. Another picture flies by,
"Stop." Danny said putting a hand on the page he wanted to see. He stared in disbelief as high school Lindsay stared up from the page, her chest nearing falling out of her corseted dress, it was a still shot from a play and Lindsay was center stage belting her lungs out from the looks of things. Lindsay laughed shyly.
"That was my senior year the thespians hog tied me and made me audition for the musical, I got in."
"What were you?" he asked eyes not straying from the photo, he never in a million years expected his Montana to be so full of surprises.
"Ado Annie from Oklahoma." She said laughing again.
"Should that mean something to me?" he asked. There was a muttering of something that sounded like, 'Men!'
"Ado Annie Carnes was the girl who couldn't say no. They gave me the little bobcat for that performance because I was so 'out of character'."
"You are just full of surprises Montana, is there anything else I should know?" he asked, the tension that had been in the room as she talked about her sister and her father's death and her cousin had snapped and he was now trying to make her feel happy, he was searching for that smile that turned him inside out.
"Everyone looks at me and thinks I'm lil' miss Pleasantville, I may not have been the wild one in any relationship but I have a personality." Lindsay complained, Danny felt a zing of happiness, here was an opportunity to learn more about the woman who had his mind by the short hairs. He was a CSI because he wanted to learn everything and Lindsay Monroe was his life case.
"Alright Miss Monroe tell me what people over look." He said trying to sound casual, Lindsay blushed.
"All I've done is talk about myself, all night."
"So you're interesting…" and my obsession and have me wrapped around your finger… Danny put on his best begging face and Lindsay lost every defense she had built.
"If I tell you something you've gotta do the same, quid pro quo." It was her last wall and it was as protective as a croquet wicket.
"Deal." His smile sent her souring.
"You first." She said.
"Nah – uh, you first." He replied, the smile the child like banter brought to her lips was so genuine that he swelled with pride at the knowledge he had been the cause, he felt completed, fulfilled. Eventually she lost the 'you first' game.
"I really hate you." She complained.
"You wanted people to see you complete…" he retorted. She pouted before begrudgingly telling him information he craved,
"I had my first beer when I was ten. It was a Sam Adams and I snuck it out of the cooler on the fourth of July, my parents never found out, three days before Maddi's boyfriend and her were picked up for having an open brewsky in the car." Danny wondered at what a ten year old Montana would look like; as he tried to visualize her she gazed at him expectantly.
"Well," She said, "where's my quo at?" Then it hit him, he was going to have to tell her something. Even if her life had shadows his was still darker. She had surveillance because her mother knew some cops; he had surveillance because his father was in trouble with the cops. But he knew that she wouldn't judge him, she never judged him like the rest of the world had and still did, it was one of the reasons why he loved her so.
"When you were little you did some law breaking, when I was little I dreamed of law breaking, I wanted to be a Capo… Like my father and his father…" Danny said, Lindsay's expression didn't change, she took the information like he had just told her he had wanted to be a rock star when he was little.
"To quote Garth Brookes, Some times I thank God for unanswered prayers." She said lightly, there was quite for a time.
"Well Montana, give me another tidbit." Danny finally said breaking the tick tock of the clock; give a little, get a lot was how he was viewing this interview. Lindsay blew a bang out of her hair.
"When I was sixteen my dad got me a restored motorcycle, it was a 125 Honda circa 1974, of course I could never fit all of my stuff on the back so the family also got me a gigantic purple 1973 Chevelle that had been passed down through the grandchildren like an oral tradition. It was the size of a boat; we used to call it the purple people eater a girl could disappear in the thing. Lanie got the PPE when she turned sixteen last month. I kept my motorcycle until I was twenty when I crashed it."
"How did you crash?" Danny asked, his engine was getting revved thinking about Lindsay startling a motorcycle, machinery was a turn on he wasn't going to lie.
"I was going to my grandmother's to surprise them on Christmas, anyway getting there you took this monster hill with a hairpin turn at the end, I missed the turn, hit a drift and sent my self over the handle bars, I broke my elbow." She clapped her hands together sending one hand out over the other as if it was her body. "So," She said turning back to him, "Wada ya got?"
"Aiden's ring tone was Bad Girls by Donna Summers because I like that song but felt stupid having it on my Ipod…" he said shrugging. Lindsay laughed, it was the kind of laughter that resonated through her and through him.
"You always struck me as a closet disco fan." That knocked him on his proverbial ass.
"Really?"
"Oh yeah." She said nodding but unable to keep a straight face. He began to laugh as well and in no time they were both shaking and snorting, snickering together on her elderly sofa. Danny recovered first.
"Alright Montana your turn again." With her thumb Lindsay swiped away the tears that had fallen leaving a dust pan style line of eye make up. For a moment she thought.
"I got a tattoo as a graduation present to myself." She finally said he raised a brow; she didn't strike him as a tattoo person.
"Of what?" he asked, he had never seen any ink on her. His mind was thinking of all sorts patches of skin that she could put an image on, and how he would like to see. Lindsay turned away from him and lifted her shirt, along her spin from the bottom of her shoulder blades to the top of her hips. The image looked almost alien; it was an abstract symmetry of lines. He tilted his head, it still didn't make sense.
"Your message is lost on me Montana." He said, Lindsay sighed and to his great surprise moved to lie on her side. Her legs stretched out over his hips, the image was then horizontal, she pointed to it although he wasn't too focused on her hand.
"You ever write your name in cursive along a crease and cut it out?" she asked.
"That is totally how I spend my free time." He said sarcastically, she still managed to hit him despite the awkward position.
"Its cursive mirror writing, like that activity. The word is Tuebor." She pointed out the T – U – E – B – O – R, from her movements he could tell she was used to having to point out the letters, a pang of jealousy hit him at the thought of other men seeing her tat.
"T – what?"
"Tuebor, I will protect. Latin." She said, "I was going to be a CSI, I was protecting my sister and I had this epiphany about how I should spend the rest of my life." As she got off his lap he wanted to say, Get back here, I'm having an epiphany about how I want to spend the rest of my life and it involves that position you were just in. A life time with Lindsay in close proximity sounded pretty good.
"Your turn." She said breaking into his thoughts. Danny blinked once, twice, three times, his turn. Brain must function. He licked his lips.
"I was George Gibbs in Our Town my junior year." Lindsay chocked, Danny Messer and his thick 'mook' accent, that bad boy playing a goody two shoes romantic led. George's biggest sin was not chopping wood for his mother and being obsessed with baseball. Danny grew up wanting to be a wise guy; his brother was in a gang that he himself almost pledged like a fraternity.
"You're kidding me." Lindsay exclaimed.
"Does this face kid?" Danny replied as seriously as he could. They both laughed.
"I'm sorry you just…" she pointed an open palm up at him in an almost shrug.
"I didn't wanna, but theatre was one of the few approved activities for a gangster's son." Lindsay felt a little pang for him; his police surveillance had been real not his mother's friends.
"Did you like it?" she asked, in her day she had been a drama freak, it made her something else, it gave her the freedom she craved.
"Loved it." He said, "I never thought it would be as fun as it was. I even thought about going out for Guys and Dolls…" The image of Danny in a dark pinstripe suit pushed every other thought out of Lindsay's mind and she stopped listening. There was a role she could see him in… and out of…
"Your turn" brought her to her senses.
As the stories flew by the time followed, and the last thing Danny remembered about the night was Lindsay's head on his shoulder as she yawned something about a trombone and a ska band.
Thank you for reading thus far, and a huge thank you to all my reviewers, you make me sooo happy. and a big thanks to ChocoBetty for being an awsome idea bounce - er - off - er person...
Streakie