Outside the restaurant walking up West Broadway, Elliot turns to her. "What was that all about?"
Olivia shrugs. "She was having a tough time during Covid. Almost lost her restaurant to bankruptcy."
"And?"
"And, I happened to walk into the restaurant during a moment of crisis. She was about to be evicted and took out a gun and was ready to end it all. I talked her off the roof, so to speak."
He turns to her, his eyes boring into her. "You have a gift for that."
Olivia shrugs again. "Training kicked in, I guess." There's a trace of melancholy in her voice, and he wishes he knew why.
So much of her life he wishes he knew. Ten years, gone, because he didn't have the guts to pick up the phone.
You haven't asked a single question about what has happened to me.
Happened? Her words come back to him. From that day outside the courtroom last year, during the Wheatley trial, when she accused him of not caring. There were a dozen ways she could've phrased it, but she, the most empowered woman he knows, chose to use the passive. She's right. He did deflect. She gave him a clue – an obvious tell, coming from her – and he asked her to list her boyfriends. No wonder she's mad.
"You downplay," he tells her. "Why do you do that? Minimize your accomplishments?"
"Because she wasn't going to hurt anyone. She just needed someone to listen to her."
"And you did."
"And I did," she agrees.
"Not everyone would have," he points out.
She turns to him, stops in her tracks, eyes soulful. "You would have."
He thinks about it. "Maybe I would have. But that doesn't mean she would've listened to me." He pauses. "People listen to you, Liv."
"Tell that to my son."
He laughs. "You wanna compare whose son listens less?"
She waits a beat. "Touché."
They continue to walk.
Suddenly, as they approach Canal Street, Olivia's leg buckles as she steps onto an uneven patch of pavement. "Fuck!"
Elliot's arms dart out reflexively to steady her. "You all right?"
"Now he's protective," she mutters.
"What?" He heard her just fine.
"Nothing, I'm fine."
She doesn't shake him off, he notices. "Is it your ankle?"
"Yeah." Grimacing, she limps for several steps, recovers.
He winces in sympathy. "Do you want to sit down for a sec?" He gestures a few feet ahead, where there's a bus stop with a bench.
She puts up a hand. "No, no, I'm fine."
"Liv, you're in pain and I think – "
"This is nothing compared to – " she snaps, then composes herself. She closes her mouth, takes a breath. Her voice softens. "I'm sorry, El. I just … I'm fine, okay?"
"What did you mean – "
"Nothing," she says firmly. She takes a few more steps, reconsiders her response. "Just that, in this line of work, I've gotten a lot more banged up than a stupid ankle."
His radar is instantly up. You haven't asked what's happened to me. "Yeah …"
They walk a few more yards in silence, stopping at a red light.
After several seconds of waiting, she turns to him. "My doctor keeps warning me about putting too much weight on it, but seriously, who can actually go about their life not putting weight on one of their feet?"
Sensing the mood has again shifted, he chuckles. "I hear you. Getting old sucks."
She looks him up and down. "I'd hardly consider that an issue for you, Elliot."
"What's that mean?" he challenges.
"Jesus, it was a compliment! It means, you seem to be in as good shape as you've ever been." She pauses, gestures down at herself. "Me, on the other hand …"
"What're you talking about, Liv?"
She clucks her tongue with annoyance. She knows he thinks she's attractive, and she's confident that, yes, she's still "got it" when it comes to men, or at least men of a certain age, but she also knows she has aged in the decade they were apart, and she doesn't appreciate his disingenuousness. "Elliot, did you not just witness my little display two minutes ago?"
"You were in a car accident and broke your ankle. It's got nothing to do with age."
"Let's agree to disagree, shall we?"
He nods, walks a few steps, hesitates before speaking. "For the record, Captain, I do disagree."
He touches her back. He's never done that before – not on purpose, at least, and never more than a brief brush – but he keeps it there for several seconds. In spite of herself, a thrilling shiver rushes up her spine. She looks at him curiously. He smiles.
God, she's missed him. She's missed looking at him, admiring his body, imagining how that body might feel on top …
Okay. She needs to stop this. It's not healthy. If she misses sex – and she does; it's probably why she was so quick to jump into bed with Burton – she can have sex. Even in her mid-fifties, she's an attractive female in Manhattan; sex is pretty easy to find. But having sex with Elliot is not in the cards right now. For one thing, his drugged-out late-night confession notwithstanding, he's shown zero interest in her. For another, there's the matter of her scars …
But the blue eyes comment has struck her. Does she have a thing for blue eyes? Or were they all just surrogates for him?
In her head, she makes a list: Brian, David, Ed, Kurt, Burton.
Shit, she thinks.
Ah, but wait! Burton: He predated Elliot, by two decades. Proof that it is a type thing after all.
Except …
Her attraction to him when she was sixteen had nothing to do with his blue eyes, and everything to do with the fact that he was the first and only person to ever pay attention to her. And though she sees, now, how he manipulated her, she also recognizes that he gave her the gift of self-confidence.
They continue down the street. Still in obvious pain, he asks, "Don't you take anything for that?"
"I take Advil."
"I meant something … " He leans in, whispers, " … with kick."
"Can't take narcotics on the job, Elliot. You know that."
"Are you on the job right now?"
She sighs. "Elliot."
"Who would know?"
"I would." She turns to him. "Can you please let this go? I'm fine."
"I'm sorry." A silence passes. And then: "You know, you still haven't let me invite you and Noah over."
Olivia turns to him. "I've let you invite us. I just haven't accepted."
He's not sure whether to laugh or be annoyed. "Really?You're correcting my semantics?"
"It just … wasn't an accurate statement." Her voice is faint, like her mind's on something else.
"You're stalling."
Again, she comes to a halt on the sidewalk. "Look. It's not on purpose. Our schedules just haven't allowed for – "
"Lieutenant Benson?"
Startled, she looks up. The girl, who looks to be in her early twenties, is several inches shorter, has short cropped brown hair and a nose ring, and is sporting an oversized NYU Law sweatshirt with black leggings. She's definitely familiar-looking, but Olivia has to actively search her memory. The girl knows her as a lieutenant, so that would place their path-crossing in the last, what? Two to six years?
Finally, it hits her. "Tess? Tess Crivello?"
The girl smiles shyly. "Yeah."
Instantly, all the details are back. The elegant townhouse on West 77th. The father on the vestibule floor, beaten nearly to death. And upstairs, those wretched bunkbeds. The little boy with his noise-cancellation earphones, screaming his lungs out. And Olivia, perched on the bottom bunk seeing stars after being pistol-whipped for a second time. All of them sitting helplessly by while Joe raped Tess in the room next door.
Olivia still feels ashamed about that day. Not just for how easily she abandoned Tess afterwards; she managed a brief phone call to follow up on her recovery, but was too shaken up herself to truly engage (and thank God Joe died that day; she doesn't think she could've managed to see a trial through.) But also for her cowardice during. Hearing Tess's screams through the door and sitting there like a lump while it happened, her head throbbing and her hands numb from the restraints, so grateful she wasn't being made to watch. And instead of thinking about Noah, about how important it was that she make it out alive because her little boy needed her, she found her mind wandering. To Mrs. Mayer, to that look she'd given Olivia while she was being raped. That look of utter betrayal: he's doing this to me because of you. Because of YOU. She and Lindstrom had spent an entire session dissecting that look; Lindstrom had assured her Mrs. Mayer couldn't possibly blame her, and even if she did, objectively, she was wrong to. But sometimes at night when Noah's asleep and she's alone in the living room with an oversized glass of Merlot that she knows she shouldn't be drinking, and there's that random scent of rosemary chicken from next door that reminds her instantly of the Mayer home, she's taken right back to that day. Of being curled up inside the trunk in her soiled clothes, breathing in gasoline and carwash cleaner fumes, her wrists raw and bloody, her chest searing from the burns, the agony indescribable, the nausea swirling in her throat, her mind panicked at the thought of vomiting while gagged. Of arriving at the Mayer house, dehydrated and concussed and disoriented, and being strapped down again, another chair in another house. Of Lewis yanking down her blouse and her bra and playing with her breast and then burning her again just because, before turning his attention to the Mayers …
Two and a half years later when she found herself with hands bound behind her back in another house with another psychopath pointing another gun at her, when Tess was returned to where Roxy and the little brother Luka and she, Olivia, were sitting, all she could think was, thank God he didn't make me watch.
And, even more saliently, please, PLEASE, let me not be next.
"You look well," Olivia manages finally.
Tess gestures at her sweatshirt. "I just started law school."
"I can see," Olivia replies warmly. "I'm so happy for you." She pauses, remembering what kind of conversation this really is. "And your parents?"
"Mom's okay. Dad …" She hesitates. "He's got some hearing loss, but he's … alive."
She senses Elliot hovering next to her, annoyingly intrigued. She needs to end this walk down memory lane before he gets too curious. "Tess, it was good to – "
"I was sorry to – " Tess starts. "Oh, I'm sorry!"
"No no, it's okay. What were you going to say?"
Tess nods. "I, um, was sorry to hear about Lieutenant Tucker's passing."
Olivia freezes. "Thank you." Next to her, she can feel Elliot's surprise.
Relax, she thinks. Stop tensing up. He's got no reason to think that that's your Ed …
Unless Fin told him? Shit.
But so what if he knows you dated Ed? So what? Why do you care what he –
"Well, um, okay, I guess I should go." Tess interrupts her reverie. "I'm late for Contracts …" She gestures northward, where the school is.
Olivia nods, grateful. "It was so good to see you," she musters. "Please give my regards to your parents."
"I will," Tess acknowledges, smiling weakly as she hurries off. "Thank you."
"Who was that?" Elliot asks, when Tess is safely out of earshot.
Don't tell him, she thinks. Don't get into it.
"Her name is Tess." Fuck.
"And?"
"And … she's my Jenna."