POV: Norma
Since Natalie came to the motel and Alex left, she'd replaced him as the early-morning visitor into the office. The two of us were very different people, and at first glance, i'd never have imagined we'd get along. In fact, unfortunately, i'd automatically judged her simply based on her looks. Perfectly curled hair, tight fitting clothing, far from practical high heels and and manicured hands. I thought to myself, she's one of those women. The ex high school it-girl kind of woman. The kind who'd look you up and down with a look of disgust if you're wearing something that strays even the slightest bit off the latest trend. The kind that, despite either being the same age or younger than you, spoke down to you like you were a little child. The kind that would touch your shoulder and flash a far from genuine smile and say 'It's okay. I'm sure you'll find someone one day' when you reveal that you are in fact single in your forties. At this point I was full of guilt, though, because not one bit of her truly fit that stereotype. Visibly she did; I definitely still held a lot of jealousy over her appearance. She must've been a couple of years older than me, yet she looked a lot younger. In fairness, she probably hadn't dealt with the amount of stress and heartbreak that I had; so her features lacked the exhaustion that dominated mine. However she definitely subverted the stereotype i'd mentally built up for her. She was kind, caring, had a great sense of humor. Easy to get along with, and she made me feel very comfortable too; not pressured to adapt to a different personality around her. Although they were very different people, or at least in my experience they were; Natalie did have a lot of similarities to Alex. She represented the best parts of him, the funny parts, the nice parts.
That wasn't to say that I didn't still miss Alex visiting, because part of me really did. It had just been nice, really. Knowing that every morning, he'd made the effort to drop in the office just before he went to work. Just to talk to me, to check if everything was okay. The conversations had gradually become a lot more casual, too. With this considered, of course when I saw him this morning through the office window at the previous meeting time of 8:30, I couldn't help but feel some kind of satisfaction. Happiness, even, if you could call it that.
"Hey." He said, shutting the door behind him and walking over to the desk.
"Coffee?"
"Sure."
"Come on back." I beckoned him over, stepping back into the little room behind the desk as I did. I took two mugs from the stack, placing them down on the table and pouring two mugs of coffee. I remembered back to the first time I ever made him coffee; when I made it my way and he drank it with something resembling disgust on his face. After that he gave me strict instructions, and so by now i'd gotten used to making sure I perfected it so I wouldn't have to receive his disapproval. In contrast to my own preferred taste, I added an extreme lack of any kind of sweeteners. It was pretty much black; a foul taste in my opinion.
"Have you heard back from the station yet?" I inquired, handing him his coffee and sitting down with my own. Crossing one leg over the other as I sat down, my eyes followed his movements closely as he sat down in the seat in front of me.
"No, of course I haven't. We were only there last night. Relax. Put that at the back of your mind now, it's fine. It'll be fine. I'll come and let you know if anything comes up today." His words were reassuring and comforting but the look on his face contrasted with the hint of kindness behind his words. He rolled his eyes, practically, like my worrying was ridiculous.
"Can you really blame me for being paranoid? I lied my ass off, right to her face! And for all I know, they already have evidence that you weren't with me! I don't know, don't they do that sometimes? See how far you'll take the lie before they bring up their evidence and catch you out?"
"I suppose, yeah, but I can't see what kind of evidence they'd have for this specific case. I know that nobody was around when I was at the docks; and if they were they'd have come forward by now. Was there anyone around the motel that night? Any guests?"
"Nope. Nobody. Just me."
"Good. That's a good sign. Let's just hope nobody was secretly hiding somewhere with binoculars." He said, raising his eyebrows and taking a sip of his coffee.
A quiet and breathy noise sounded through my nose; a very quiet almost-laugh. It was rare that Alex showed his humorous side, but when he did, his lack of any form of facial expression made the statement a lot funnier than it would've been if anyone else said it.
"Do you think if I hadn't lied, they'd be more suspicious by now? I mean-do you think my lie was actually useful for something?" I leaned forward in curiosity, sipping my coffee and wrapping my hands tightly around the mug; craving the warmth against my otherwise cold skin.
"Yeah, maybe. All in all you probably helped, I just don't understand what possessed you to lie in the first place?" He asked, sipping his coffee once again. "And I think i'm right to assume that it wasn't for my sake."
"I just really wanted to lie to that woman-" I admitted, a quiet laugh escaping my lips that almost immediately faded away due to the unimpressed expression on Alex's face. "That's quite bad, I know..."
He scoffed, almost choking on his coffee. "Quite bad? Yeah, you could say that. How did you know she wouldn't just see straight through you?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. "Because i'm good at lying?"
He snickered, mumbling-to himself i'm sure-but of course I heard. "Don't I know it."
"What does that mean?!" I slammed my coffee down on the desk, with so much force that the liquid inside overflowed out of the mug and quite literally flew through the air. It was like one of those moments that suddenly went in slow motion; dragging out the spill as I watched with no ability to do anything to prevent it. Fresh, hot, coffee splashed right against his light beige shirt; on his chest and shoulder.
"Jesus-" He dragged his chair back in reflex, avoiding the hot liquid that was dripping down the table. He lifted his hands up to shake off what'd somehow managed to spill on his hands. I felt myself wince just watching it happen, almost as if I could feel the burn myself.
I put my hand over my mouth, a combination of guilt and an attempt to hide my amusement. Unfortunately for him, the latter was the main reason. It was the look on his face-the fact that he was always so stoic about everything-that made a situation such as this much funnier.
"I didn't mean to do that..."
"Sure you didn't." He shot me a glare out of disbelief before he looked down to the stain, beginning to violently scrub at it.
"You're making it worse!" I exclaimed, finding it painful to watch the stain beginning to smudge into an even bigger patch on his shirt. I looked around aimlessly, searching for anything that could be used to clean up the growing stain while simultaneously being aware of the fact that there wasn't going to be anything in the office that could help. "I don't think I have anything that I could-"
"It's fine, Norma. Just leave it."
"But wait, it's fine, because..." I pointed a finger, standing up and picking up his jacket from where it'd been previously hanging up. "This'll cover it." I stated, waving the jacket in the air. The smile on my face faded as he rolled his eyes, clearly not at all fazed or grateful by the fact that I had a way to solve the problem. Instead he was still unimpressed by my accident, as well as my obsession with wishing to give him back his jacket.
"I best be off now," He began, checking his watch briefly. "Need to get to work."
"Oh." I nodded. "Well, okay." I shook the jacket once again as a hint, encouraging him to walk over and collect the jacket.
He stood up from his seat, downing the last bit of his coffee and placing the mug down on the desk. Hesitantly, he walked over to me and eased his way into the jacket, shrugging his shoulders to bring it up over his body.
"There we go," I said contently, stepping in front of him and straightening the shoulders of the jacket down. "Back in it's rightful place. And it covers the stain." I smiled faintly, pulling down on the collar slightly so that the beige-tainted stain on his shirt was fully concealed from view.
As I looked up from straightening the jacket; a gesture that was a combination of hospitality and something else I couldn't quite put my finger on, my gaze switched to look at him. His eyes seemed to be searching for mine and when they finally met, they locked. We were fixed on each other then; and suddenly, everything else in the room seemed like a blur. The tension in the room grew, and the moment become another one of those that we could so easily get caught up in. We could've so easily ended up giving in to whatever it was that was going on in our heads.
Though, naturally, it also happened to become another one of those moments where we resisted it all. Just another moment of denial.
In a nervous reflex I quickly shifted my gaze down and tapped on his shoulders lightly, thinking of what to say to move on the situation. "Uhm..."
"Work...?" He trailed off, nodding towards the door.
"Yes!" I exclaimed loudly-too loudly probably, a nervous thing. "Yeah, work." I stepped back, leaving his path clear to leave the office. "Better go..." I smiled nervously, waving my arms over towards the door.
"Yeah...uh, thanks for the coffee. My own, and the extra..." He said sarcastically as he gestured towards the covered stain on his chest, letting out a rare chuckle.
The door opened then, and although I was aware someone had walked in, I wasn't focused enough on the rest of my surroundings to be fazed by the entrance of this mystery person.
"Ah, mhm, you're welcome."
"Bye, Norma."
"Bye." I smiled, following his path towards the door and simultaneously seeing Natalie standing at the door. "Oh!" My smile brightened, if anything out of nerves over the fact that she'd walked in on the tension. "Good morning!"
She leaned against the door frame, folding her arms and smugly looking between the two of us. "Moooorning. Fun night?" Her eyes followed Alex as he began walking out, the look on her face serving to pressure to elaborate or show any hints as to what went on. Of course, he didn't. He simply kept his facial expression neutral-as per usual-and flatly mumbled a half hearted "Morning." to her.
As Alex walked out Nat looked back at me with her jaw dropped wide open, as if she was waiting for me to mirror her horror over how he'd not answered her question. Due to the fact that the situation wasn't how she clearly perceived it, she didn't receive the reaction she wanted. If anything, my reaction was near enough the same as Alex's. I shrugged, simply stepping through into the back room once again and glancing back at her. "What?"
"What was that?"
"What was what?"
"That!" She exclaimed; pointing her thumb behind her back as if to gesture back to Alex, then gesturing back to me again. "What I just walked in on!"
"You mean...me saying goodbye to your brother before he goes off to work?" I questioned innocently, raising an eyebrow at her assumption that something had happened.
"No, I mean you and my brother in the awkward-post-sexual-tension atmosphere. Did you guys..." She trailed off, her facial expression-surprisingly-appearing more curious than disgusted.
"No!" If anything, my reaction displayed more disgust than hers had. "No, my god no."
"So nothing happened last night?"
"Well," I raised my eyebrows. "About that. It was nothing like that, so you can get that out of your head. Uh, we got taken to the police station? Just your usual night, you know."
"Wait, what?!" She quickly joined me into the back room, full of intrigue and curiosity. "Both of you did? Why?"
"Bob." I paused, pulling a face of disgust which was straight away mirrored on her face. "I know. They've been questioning anyone who might have a reason to uh-"
She struck her finger across her neck, making a clicking noise with her mouth; a gesture signifying death.
"Yeah," I nodded, amused at her response.
"Well shit," She scoffed, raising an eyebrow. "That's gonna be a hell of a long investigation, isn't it?"
"Right?" I nodded, and the both of us laughed - grateful in this moment for our mutual dislike for the man. We were hardly being disrespectful, he wasn't exactly someone that deserved to be pitied.
Surprisingly, I hadn't heard much about Natalie's past experiences with Bob Paris yet. It was one of the only stories of her past that I hadn't heard in depth yet. Listening to her talk through past was, at times, like listening to one of your grandparents talk about their experiences in the war. She'd been through so much, been to so many different places, that she had a whole lot to tell. She was only a few years older than me; acted much younger, yet at the same time seemed a lot older too. More experienced. For years i'd been confined just to one household; trapped by a controlling and demanding asshole of a husband. While I cleaned and cooked and scurried back and forth delivering endless cans of beer between ridiculously short distances; the likes of Natalie probably would have been off on some tropical island, feet up, drinking cocktails. There were a lot of things in my life that i'd been held back from. Things on my mental bucket list that'd been so harshly crossed out that they were no longer visible; completely out reach. Natalie was the kind of person that you just knew people would look down on for being immature and too carefree at her age. Society would say she should be married and settled by now; with kids and a husband, confined in a perfect house by a white picket fence. I knew she had no intention or desire of fitting any part of that image, and in all honesty I didn't blame her one bit. If anything, I envied her.
"So you both got questioned?" She eventually asked, breaking the silence that briefly filled the room as our laughs faded.
"Yeah, different rooms obviously. There was a serious miscommunication, I mean...we didn't really have time to talk about it before we went in. They kinda just showed up and asked us to come to the station-"
"Oh god," She groaned in amused horror, sitting down at the desk-in my usual seat, actually-but I decided i'd let her off. "Which one of you fucked up?" She questioned, dragging the coffee pot over to her side of the desk; pouring herself a mug like as if she was preparing to hear my story.
"Me." I grimaced in guilt, then self defensively lifted up a finger. "But! In my defence, Alex made it worse. I told the woman questioning me that Alex was with me the night that Bob went missing, even though we both know he obviously wasn't. Then when he found out that I told them that, he just took the lie even further. Now, long story short, Alex's colleagues all now think that we're together."
"Shit," she laughed. "Well, have fun with that one."
"Right? God, I got him out of shit and he just lands us right back in it. Typical."
"Sorry but that's cute."
"What?" I retorted in confusion.
"That you lied for him, I just think it's sweet."
"Oh I didn't do it for him!"
She tilted her head and quirked an eyebrow slightly, her facial expression completely blank in disbelief. In that moment, the similarities between her and Alex were crystal clear. While I assumed the majority of Natalie's appearance must come from her mother, she did share a lot of the same features and facial expressions as Alex. Things the both of them inherited from their father, obviously. The most obvious difference between the two of them was that Natalie was just far more expressive than he was; she actually smiled for one, and on a much less rare occasion too.
"I'm serious! I mean, am I glad that it gave him an alibi? Sure. But honestly? I only did it because I actually wanted to lie."
"To the cops? What, you just casually felt like lying when you didn't even need to? No offence Norma, but are you actually insane?"
"You too with the calling me crazy? Jeez, you and Alex are two peas in a freakin' pod." I rolled my eyes. "Come on, I think it's perfectly human to get so irritated by someone that you want to piss them off! Don't you?"
"Okay, when you put it that way I guess i've done that more times than I can count on both hands. But come on, the cops? I mean it's not like you were even lying for your own benefit...or for anyone else's...apparently-" She peeked up at me in judgement. "-so you must have really hated this woman. Who was it? I might know her?"
"Someone Lin? I don't even know, I think I heard Alex call her-"
"Patty?" She laughed, shaking her head in amusement. "My god Norma she's harmless. The hell did she do to piss you off so much?"
"Oh I don't even know," I waved my hand in front of my face dismissively, shrugging. "She just annoyed me and that's all there is to it."
"Ah, yeah. Good excuse." She said in a playfully sarcastic tone, taking a sip of her coffee once again and provoking laughter from me.
"Sorry, I didn't even ask for this, did I?" she held up her mug, tutting quietly.
"Oh, please, you don't need to! You're a guest, remember."
"Yeah, yeah I know. I just felt like I was being rude or something. Did you want some?" She lifted up the coffee pot questioningly.
"Oh, hah..." I shook my head, lifting up my hand. "No, I think i'll pass."
She narrowed her eyes in confusion, placing the coffee pot down. "...Okay?"
Quietly snorting at her confusion, I sat down opposite her at the desk. "I've already had my fair share of coffee today, and let's just say it didn't exactly last long." I confessed, pointing out the small drops of coffee on the desk.
"You spilt it on him, didn't you?"
"Yup."
"Ooooh...been there, done that. Was he pissed at you?" She looked at me in intrigue, sipping her coffee. "Is that why he was such a grump just then?"
"No, not really. Well," I paused, laughing quietly. "You know, not any more than usual."
"Seriously?" She sat forward in her seat in surprise, then slumped back again. "Ugh, come on. The guy gives me the damn silent treatment for hours on end if I even accidentally stand on his foot!" She screeched, blatantly feeling offended. "Frickin' favouritism." She tutted, shaking her head.
"It's hardly favouritism, Natalie-"
"Oh it is, Norma. I swear you could slap him across the face or call him an asshole or something and he literally wouldn't blink an eye at it."
My face scrunched up into a guilty expression; giving her the hint that yes, those things had actually happened. There wasn't much reaction on his end, either.
"See!" She gestured her hand out towards me. "My point exactly. He worships you! Can you please, for the love of god, just put him out of his misery and do something about it? You know you might not make it obvious, but I do think you have feelings for him. And Alex, well, there's no question about it with him. I cannot deal with watching him pine over you much longer. It's actually nauseating." She shut her eyes, rubbing her forehead intensely as if the situation truly did cause her stress.
"How in the hell does he pine?"
"Oh he pines. He so does. You just can't see it. I can, because I've never seen him like this before. He's been in relationships, or, you know-at least...had...acquaintances." Her face screwed up slightly at the euphemism, waving her hand around slightly. "But he hasn't ever been the way he is with you with anyone else, or at least not from what i've seen."
"From what you've seen. Exactly. You haven't been in contact him for over a year. For all you know, he might even be in a relationship right now."
"You're gonna start pulling that card too? Oh come on, I get enough of that crap from Alex." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I mean, the guy knows I don't stick around in one place for long. I've been gone longer than this before now, so I don't know why he's being a big drama queen about it-" When she realised she was ranting, she shook her head and interrupted herself to get back to her original point. "Anyway. My lack of contact with Alex doesn't give me any less knowledge of his love life, trust me. I know him. He wouldn't be lingering 'round this place all the time if he was in a relationship."
"So maybe he's not." I shrugged. "That doesn't mean he 'pines' over me. We just happen to be in a situation together right now-"
"True." She shrugged, pausing briefly before she leaned forward and looked right at me. "But, tell me," she began, the tone of her voice a lot more serious and pressurising; making feel like I was back in the hot seat being questioned all over again. "Does that situation really require the two of you looking at each other like the way you just did...when there's nobody around to see it?"
My mouth opened to say something, then closed seconds later. I didn't have a comeback or an excuse this time. I couldn't argue, because she was right. The tension between the two of us earlier in the morning wasn't forced; it wasn't an act. It was very real, in fact, and very overwhelming.
"Hm. That's what I thought." A sly smile tugged at her lips; blatantly satisfied by my speechlessness. She sat back in her seat and sipped on her coffee, glancing at me in amusement over the top of the mug.
"Anyway," she stood up, throwing back the rest of her coffee and placing the mug down on the desk. "I'm going shopping. If i'm gonna get there anytime today, I need to get my lanky legs moving. Thanks for the coffee, Norma."
"No problem." I smiled, standing up and following her through to the front of the office as she got ready to leave.
"Oh and before I go," she began, turning around at the door and looking over towards me. "Alex makes a stop at Feast West diner every day at 11:30. Just so you know. They do really good coffee." She hinted with another of her sly smiles, blatantly suggesting that I should stop in to pay Alex back for spilling coffee all over him.
While I simply shook my head and scoffed at her childish attempt at playing cupid, in my mind I did think the idea through. Having a nice breakfast made for me instead of by me did sound pretty good right about now.
"You know what, come on. You can hitch a ride into town." I said defeatedly.
"Oh thank god, I thought you'd never ask." She said in relief, like she'd been waiting for me to offer to give her a ride this whole time.
Her forwardness didn't serve to faze me, as it wasn't an act of rudeness but more humour. In the small amount of time i'd had to get to know her, I was already familiar with the kind of person Natalie was and the way she went about things. She was witty and sarcastic and confident, sure, but never rude or arrogant. My change in opinion of her from our first meeting to now made me think about how wrong I probably was about a lot of the things i'd originally assumed about the kind of guy Alex was, too. Over the years Alex and I had not really got to know each other. To me, he was just the stoic sheriff, and to him I was probably just the crazy woman with a dysfunctional family that got him into a lot of shit. There was still a lot of getting to know each other to do if we wanted our relationship to progress, and maybe the situation we were in at the moment would bring about that. Deep down, behind the denial and dismissal of the possibility of me and Alex becoming something more than mere acquaintances, I did want to get to know him a lot better. He intrigued me from the moment we met, and over the years that only grew.
I picked up my car keys and my jacket and followed Natalie out of the door, locking up the office and switching the sign from open to closed. It wasn't like my break would be of inconvenience to anyone, considering the fact that my only guest was right by my side.
I do hope you enjoyed this chapter, this is the first chapter i've written since my big break with this story since the last chapter I published on here had already been written before I stopped writing. That being said, it's possible I might be a little rusty - but hopefully not too much. I know there wasn't very much Normero interaction in this chapter, but there will be all in good time I promise. Hopefully you don't mind slow burn, haha! (i'll try not to make it TOO slow, though)
If there's anything you'd like to see in this story, however little a detail - whether it's something that you wanted to see with Normero in the show but never happened, or even something that did happen in the show but you'd like it to still be included in this story despite the slightly different direction i'm going in, please let me know in a review or a PM! I'm always up for suggestions, after all they do help me as well as satisfy you guys.
