Too Close
Chapter 95
Ken rises for a standing ovation a beat ahead of the rest of the audience. The rest of the cast wasn't bad, but Martha was sublime in the revival of Gypsy. He's never been much of a fan of musicals, but he can understand ambition, manipulation, and dreams unfulfilled. Those scenarios cover the situation of most of the human population of the earth. But he can't see Martha as anything like Mama Rose. She doesn't need to live through Richard; she has a life of her own and attacks each moment with gusto.
He considers hanging around the stage door to wait for her but dismisses the idea. There's likely to be a horde of fans waving playbills to be signed, and the last thing Ken wants is attempting a conversation in a crowd. He noticed that the security at the theater could be handled better. When he's up and running with Allendale, he can bid for contracts on the White Way. With luck, he'll be in the right places at the right time. For now, he'll grab a drink or two before taking the subway up to the neighborhood in Washington Heights, where he has a small but functional apartment.
Wiggling her toes in the foamy wavelets kissing her feet, Kate stares wistfully at the sea. "I can't believe this is our last day here. I don't know how I'm going to function when you're not within arm's reach."
"I'm not going to be much further away from you in New York than I am now," Rick points out, "at least not much of the time. We'll just have far fewer opportunities to enjoy our proximity. It will make, however, what hours we have to ourselves that much sweeter. Anyway, you have things to do and asses to kick, if you're going to start your climb to the exalted position you desire in the N.Y.P.D."
"True enough," Kate acknowledges. "We should go pack. The boat will be here in a couple of hours. How do we check out of a place like this?"
"We send a text or just leave. The staff will take care of the rest. And I promised our host a copy of the official poster and a signed edition of the next Derrick Storm the day it's released. I already made the arrangements with Black Pawn. You know," Rick considers, "it won't take that long to get our things together. We have time for a last honeymoon celebration before we depart for the hustle and bustle of the city."
"It would be a crime to waste the chance, And," Kate adds, interlacing her fingers with his, "you know how I feel about crime."
Castle's eyebrows cavort merrily. "I do. I do, indeed."
Sighing, Alexis closes her laptop at the end of her environmental science seminar. The facts and figures are staggering. What's even more frightening is that unless many people see current effects on their lives, they don't seem to care. The massive die-offs of species throughout the world don't matter, and neither do the rising seas — unless their own homes are flooding.
Dad told her that, in part, he writes to try to understand the bewildering things that people do. In her case, she's bewildered by the things that people don't do. Shaking her head, she checks her phone for the time. She can spend an hour or two at Jim Beckett's office. He's working on a class action suit against a pesticide manufacturer whose product is contributing to the collapse of bee colonies, and he invited her to get involved.
During her time in Costa Rica, she became aware of just how severe the decline of the pollinating insect population is. She met a guy there who went by the name of Pi. His fuzzy hair and fruitarian diet seemed like a throwback to the hippies she's seen in some of Gram's old movies, but he had a serious job tracking bee populations. His enthusiasm sparked hers.
For a few days, she'd toyed with the idea of inviting him to New York, but she'd begun to get tired of the sickly-sweet scent of tropical fruit constantly surrounding him. She couldn't see spending any more time with him. And she'd had her father's upcoming wedding to worry about.
Now, Dad is married again. It shouldn't be hard to get her head around that. Kate's been a constant presence in their lives ever since she and Dad plunged into the Hudson river together. Still, a wife is different from a girlfriend or even a fiancée. She's family. Alexis isn't sure how that relationship will work. Dad and Kate will be home soon, and she'll get her chance to find out.
Kate's been back in New York long enough to feel out of touch without her phone, but the only electronics allowed in the exam room are simple calculators. The sergeant exam is multiple-choice, and she's always been good at tests like that. The passing grade is only seventy, but passing won't be enough to qualify for a promotion. She needs a high score. Fortunately, her awards will move her toward the top of the list, and she has enough of them to gain a considerable advantage.
The test is on a computer screen. She's not the world's fastest typist, but she's OK, and it doesn't take much to mark a choice, just to make the right one. So far, so good. Nothing about rules and regs or paperwork is challenging. The questions about implementing community programs are a bit outside her wheelhouse, but she does the best she can. She's not sure about monitoring subordinates, either. On more than one occasion, Castle has pointed out how good she is at bossing men around, but once she's issued instructions, she's had confidence they'd be carried out. She's never had to worry about whether Ryan or Esposito were doing their jobs properly. She's not entirely confident about her answers concerning judgment calls, either. Usually, she's fallen back on going by the book, but the questions on the exam aren't that cut and dried. They're the ones on which she'll spend the most time and still have her doubts.
Castle's waiting for her when she finishes, holding a strawberry milkshake and a bag of dark chocolate-dipped cookies. "So, did you put the other applicants to shame?"
Kate takes a long draw of her shake. "Honestly, I don't know. I have a lot more respect now for sergeants and the decisions they have to make. And I don't know how Montgomery did what he did or how Gates manages. There's a lot of gray in running things, and I've been clinging to the black and white. The times I've colored outside the lines, you were usually handing me the crayons."
"Then I'll just have to keep handing them to you," Rick declares. "I'll get you one of those big boxes of 64 with a built-in sharpener. I haven't bought one since Alexis was eight and moved onto markers, but I just saw one at the big box store."
Kate's fingers tighten around her cup. "I think it's going to take a lot more than crayons, Babe, but if I qualify for the promotion, I'm going to try my damnedest to make it work."
Rick's arms wrap around her. "And I'll be there every step of the way, cheering you on."