Chapter 3: The garden party.
October 3rd, 1949
Rita Castillo would still make any woman jealous of her beauty and poise on a bad day. Vonda Van Essen's memorial was not an exception to this rule, even after the events that occurred in Rita's household the previous night when the memorial became a tribute for her husband Carlo instead, who had taken a fall down the stairs and now was in the hospital with a stroke.
When Rita made her entrance to the garden gathering that afternoon, no one could tell that she was rather ecstatic and hopeful that this would be the final farewell of her billionaire husband. She was convincing that way when she pretended to be sad. Apparently, nobody could tell the difference between Rita's pretend tears and what she actually looked like when she was upset. No one except for a certain blonde looking at her from a distance. Emma knew what the brunette's pain looked like in real life, and carrying around a lace embroidered handkerchief to dry her fake tears was nothing of the sort.
When Emma Swan saw one of the party waiters approaching the brunette woman with a cup of tea, she grabbed it and told the guy she would deliver it to Mrs. Castillo. The guy looked nervous as he handed the cup to her, no wonder why, since the scent of wine hit the detective's nostrils quickly when she took the cup in her hands.
"It's wonderful what a good cup of tea can do for someone's nerves in trying times like this. Don't you think Mrs. Castillo?" Emma approached the brunette from her back before she twirled around to face the detective offering her the china teacup.
"Yes, that's why I take mine with a drop of wine," Rita replied, taking the cup in her hands, "thank you."
"If that's what you do with a drop, I can't wait to see what you can do with a bottle."
"Maybe someday I will show you, Miss Swan. I beg your pardon, but what are you doing here? Do you have news on our mutual 'young actor' business?"
"I'm afraid not. I'm here on other accounts," The blonde replied, losing hold of the brunette's gaze and looking around the yard for one of the other ladies of the gardening club. She quickly found the other blonde and waved at her from her position beside the brunette.
"Please do tell, whose accounts?" Rita asked hastily, unable to hold her tongue when she found the new object of the detective's attention.
"My own," the blonde answered, focusing her attention back on Rita.
"Oh?" The brunette was surprised by the unexpected answer.
"I want to join your gardening club, you see, and I heard it recently had an opening, so since I was invited here today by one of the gardening ladies, Grace, I decided to come. She is my neighbor from next door, and she loves what I've done with my garden in the last month, among other things I've done for her in the same amount of time, but that's for another tale."
Rita's eyebrows darted up. She was not oblivious to Grace's hidden tendencies, and by what she had already seen of the detective, she suspected they shared predilections. Usually, Rita wouldn't care about anyone's private life. She had even had some experiences with girls herself in her years in the brothel. Hence, she wasn't judgemental about that, but for some reason, hearing about whatever affairs the detective had with Grace Berk hit the brunette like a bucket of cold water. She was less than pleased when she saw the other woman waving back at the detective with a bright smile.
"If a recommendation is what you need, Grace Berk may not be your best option. Did anyone mention to you that I'm the Elysian garden club's president by any chance?"
"Oh, believe me, Mrs. Castillo, I know exactly who you really are," Emma laughed, wriggling her eyebrows while thinking of the implications of her own words on this particular subject.
"Excuse me, but I fail to see what is so funny," Rita let out, taking a sip of her cup of wine and looking sternly at the blonde.
"It's a private joke. You wouldn't understand," Emma replied, trying to downplay the matter.
"I'm sure I can keep up, Miss Swan," Rita rolled her eyes.
"You are a Queen, Mrs. Castillo," Emma started, scanning Rita's face for any reaction that was out of the ordinary. The brunette did not as much as flinch at the unusual accusation, "I wouldn't dare to ask for a recommendation to the rabble," she addressed with her head to the place where Grace found herself at the moment, "when I have a direct connection with her Majesty," Rita simply nodded her head in response to her words, but Emma could see a glimpse of a lopsided smile peeping out of the corner of her mouth.
"You better not," the brunette said after a second of scanning Grace Berk from a distance, "however, Miss Swan, I fail to see how this is an inside joke at all when you are just throwing out facts."
"I thought you could keep up, Mrs. Castillo."
"Do not be a smartass and explain. You will see that I make a good ally but a much more superlative enemy if needed."
"One day, you will understand the joke, and that day you'll probably still want me as an enemy. I am in no rush. Enjoy your party, your majesty."
...
Rita's party, as the blonde detective had so judgmentally called it, had finished for the brunette the moment her husband's doctor made the call to let her know Carlo would most likely survive for the next twenty years or so under her loving care. Now, the brunette sat in her bedroom with a bottle of bourbon stuck to her right hand and a full glass of amber beverage attached to the left one.
"Mrs. Castillo?" Someone called from outside her door. Rita was not drunk enough yet to be unable to recognize the detective's voice.
"Yes? Come in," Rita answered for some unknown reason. She was aware that she was not in the best condition to host guests in her bedroom right now, but telling the young woman to go away was something she didn't feel like doing at the moment.
"I came to tell you that the last of the people are leaving now, your friends and your maid saw the party to the end, and also I wanted to ask you if I can make a call from the living room telephone. I want to contact my son. He was tailing Scooter today since I was going to be here. Perhaps he has news for us regarding the case", The blonde spoke softly, surrounding the chair the brunette was sitting on until she was right in front of her. Rita looked at her, watching cautiously her expression and her bright smile that didn't falter when she saw the bottle or the glass in her hands, she was expecting to see pity or even judgment, but there was none.
"You have a son?" Rita didn't understand why the question came out so full of surprise when she knew the answer in advance. The moment Emma and her son first moved to the neighborhood, they were in everyone's mouth, including her own. After meeting the blonde in person, it was difficult for Rita to picture the detective as a mother.
"His name is Henry. He just turned twenty," Emma's smile grew at the mention of her son, "so, what about that call?"
"Yes, you can use that phone. I want to know everything your s—, Henry has to say about Scooter," Rita pointed at the phone on her bedside table.
"Very well," Emma said, approaching the bed and picking up the telephone receiver to place it against her ear. She then dialed the number to her house on the disk.
"And well?" Rita asked her when she hung up the telephone after the call because she could only pick up on so much from half a telephone conversation.
The brunette had left her place on her armchair and now stood beside her by the bed. The bottle of bourbon and her empty glass now lying somewhere over the carpeted floor.
"Mrs. Castillo, please have a seat," Emma tried to make the brunette sit on the bed, but she refused, crossing her arms over her chest and urging her to speak with her perfectly shaped and raised eyebrow.
"I like to say I'm a patient woman, but you should be aware I'm really not, Miss Swan."
"Henry was surveilling Scooter out of his apartment this afternoon." Emma started when the pressure imposed by Rita's dark eyes was too much for her to handle, "he got a visitor today, an old cleaning lady for the looks of it," she continued, examining Rita's face carefully.
"So what? He's a young man. You can't expect every young man to be able to keep up with household tasks all on their own. Can you?" Emma wasn't sure if the question posed by the brunette was directed to her, but she answered anyway.
"Yes, of course, that's what Henry thought at first, but then after a few hours, the woman left the building again, and he could take a good look at her and take some pictures," Emma trailed out slowly as if she would rather stay silent than break Rita's heart as she was about to do now.
"And? I swear to God, Miss Swan, I am this close to kicking you out of the case." She let out exasperated, showing Emma the almost inexistent space between her thumb and index finger and repeatedly tapping the floor with her foot, "tell me whatever you have to tell me right about now!"
"It was not an old cleaning lady. It was a young girl dressed like one," Emma let out, and for a moment, she could see how her words affected Rita, just a moment before her face turned completely blank.
"That explains why his place always looks filthy," she simply replied after a moment of silence.
"Mrs. Castillo—," Emma tried to gain Rita's attention back because her look had been lost for the last minute, and she was awfully silent. She wanted to say something, something that would comfort the brunette woman, but she did not know what, so she tried the first thing that came to mind, "I know it is not my place to tell you this, Rita," chocolate eyes fixed on her instantly at the mention of her first name, "but you are a gorgeous and amazing woman and anyone who fails to see this is just a fool. You deserve the world and someone that respects and loves you and only you because you are their everything," Emma did not notice the moment she started approaching the brunette, but her hand was now cupping Rita's cheek, caressing a single tear that escaped her eyes away with her thumb.
Only hours ago, Rita Castillo was being envied for her beauty and poise in trying times, and she was now frozen and had lost all of her poise whatsoever. The warm hand on her cheek burnt her skin like heated iron, making the rest of her body feel numb. Her first reaction was to remove the uncalled-for threat from her face, but her arms wouldn't respond to her brain. Her heart suddenly started fluttering at the rhythm of ten thousand butterflies swirling around in her ribcage, and now she could barely concentrate on keeping the oxygen constantly flowing into her lungs.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Castillo," Emma said after what felt like hours of not getting a single response out of the brunette to her touch. She removed her hand from the brunette's cheek as if she had only realized it was burning like wildfire, but what burnt the blonde was not the touch itself, but the realization that it was not meant to be, "it was not my place to say those things, I think I should go."
"Wait, Emma!" the worst part of this curse was having to hear Regina's voice calling her what she used to as if she remembered, and then having to see Rita's face completely oblivious to who she really was. The blonde turned around to look at the woman from her place halfway to the door. She tried to see Rita in those chocolate eyes, but Regina was all she could see there right at that moment. Melted chocolate infected her bloodstream with a disease called hope faster than a heartbeat.
"Yes, Mrs. Castillo?"
"Nothing, it's just that—, I think it is easy to state what a person deserves but much more challenging to ensure they find it, don't you think?" Rita cut the distance between them in a blink. Melted chocolate holding the detective's feet in her place like quicksand, impeding her from running away.
"Who knows? Maybe that person is staring at it right in the eyes without noticing, and they could have anything they want or deserve if only they were brave enough to grab it for themselves," the reason why these exact words flew out of her mouth uncontrollably was unknown to the detective but she said them anyway.
"Anything?"
"Anything," Emma's voice was silk against skin, slipping into Rita's ears like a soft melody that would stick in her mind all night long.
Emma almost missed the exact moment Rita cut the remaining distance separating them. It all happened so fast that it was difficult for her to keep up with the current situation. The current situation being Rita kissing her lips fervently, one hand clamping her throat softly and aggressively at the same time, and the other hand on her waist, pulling her closer.
The kiss felt like heaven, and she returned it unconsciously at first. She kissed Rita back because for a faint moment it was not just Rita kissing her, it was also Regina, and so she gave her all in that kiss, all the love she had repressed for so long, the pain of having her gone, and the regret of hurting her so badly that she had to run away and forget.
It was all perfect until Rita started pulling her all the way back to her bed. Emma could not do this. A kiss was one thing, but having sex felt awfully close to taking advantage of Regina, even if Rita was willing and rather asking for it. She simply could not do this to Regina.
"I'm sorry, Rita, I can't," her voice was shaking when she parted their lips and separated enough from the brunette to look at her in the eyes.
"Is it because of Grace Berk?"
"What? Of course not!"
"Then it is me," this was not a question, but Emma felt compelled to answer it either way.
It's most definitely because of you, Regina.
"It is not because of you, Rita. Believe me, I would die to do whatever you had planned for the evening with you. I just feel like I'm taking advantage of you. Right now, you are going through a lot in your life, and it is not fair that I just take advantage of that. I won't. You deserve better."
"Do not confuse things, Miss Swan. I'm not looking for a soulmate here. I just thought it was only fair to give Scooter back a taste of his own medicine," Rita pushed the blonde that was holding her shoulders since they parted their lips, "I'm flattered by your offer but uninterested. Get out!".
AN/: I know it took me forever to update this story, a lot has been going on in my life lately and I feel tired all the time when I try to write but I think ill be able to update more regularly now. Good things are coming in this story. I hope you are enjoying it so far.