When Grissom Met Sara

When Grissom entered the conference room, he spoke briefly with a conference organizer who had greeted him. As he then proceeded farther into the room, he saw several other conference organizers and volunteers, as well as a woman sitting near the front of the room, looking at some papers. He stopped walking when he got near the woman, who, he could see once he got closer, was very young. "I hope you're not here so early because you're that keen for the lecture. I'm afraid it may disappoint," he said to her.

Sara was used to giving the cold shoulder to pesky men, but this one had a rather nice, gentle voice she liked, so she didn't try to scare him away but also didn't stop reviewing her papers. Not knowing any better, she also failed to recognize his attempt at self-deprecation and simply thought him another attendee without a high opinion of the upcoming speaker. "No, I had to come straight from work, so I'm just looking through the conference materials. I got called in, so I didn't get the chance last night," she explained.

He was still trying to figure out her age. She barely looked old enough to be there. So he followed up, "Oh, where do you work?"

"Crime lab," she told him, then realized that was a pretty generic statement at a forensic academy conference. "This crime lab, I mean. The San Francisco crime lab."

"You're a…"

"CSI Level 2," she told him.

"Nice. I'm as CSI as well. Level 3. How long have you been doing it?"

So she told him.

"What were you doing before that?" he asked to get more background from her.

At that, she explained a little bit about Harvard and Berkeley, in a very matter of fact manner, as someone who still thought herself only to be operating at par. She gave him answers that were, in fact, more honest than they might have been if she were devoting her full attention to the conversation.

He had sat down a few seats over from her by this point, and he continued asking her questions about her job and what she liked about it. She didn't really look up from her papers much but also didn't stop responding or make him feel like he was bothering her. For his part, he was becoming very impressed by the woman, who turned out to be still young compared to him but not quite as young as he had first imagined. She was quite witty, and he was starting to get the impression that she was probably quite brilliant; she seemed quite brilliant. The young woman laughed several times, and Grissom really liked her laugh. He really liked her voice, too; he thought it almost hypnotic. In return, the young woman vaguely thought Grissom seemed very nice, and she found his voice comforting, although she was still devoting half her attention to her papers, so she was giving less thought to him than he to her.

Grissom could see the young woman was being very methodical in reviewing the papers in front of her. He got the impression that she was someone who liked order; Grissom, too, liked order. He also sensed something underlying the order, something he couldn't pinpoint at the time. He might later, once he knew the young woman much, much better, describe it as a repressed (and sometimes not repressed) chaos. At the time, though, he simply felt (rather than, for once, thought about) the young woman's energy and brilliance drawing him in.

At his next question, Sara (though he did not yet know her name) even quoted a line from one of his papers. What kind of memory did this young woman have? He thought of the movie When Harry Met Sally: "No one has ever quoted me back to me before." He thought about quoting the line from the movie to her. He was afraid he'd embarrass her. He didn't say it.

So they continued amicably in this half-conversation for some time, but eventually the room began to fill up a little more, and Grissom thought perhaps he should head to the front to prepare for his lecture. Before he got up, though, he turned fully to her, told her it was nice (almost) meeting her, and asked her name.

"Oh, Sara Sidle," she said and turned toward him, with a friendly but not yet full smile and an outstretched hand.

"Gil Grissom," he said and smiled at her, right as she looked at him and shook his hand.

No planets or satellites shifted their orbits at that time—the earth continued in the same manner around the sun, and the moon around the earth—but Sara and Grissom would many years later claim that a little spark passed between them in that moment, and who are we to doubt them. The meeting may not have changed the world, but it certainly changed their two lives, though of course they were not to know it at the time.

At that moment, Sara, for her part, was shocked that she had been talking to the speaker for the upcoming lecture all this time. Was she even more shocked that, rather than being grandfatherly, he looked only 10-15 years older than she; that he was fit; that he had dark brown hair with only the barest hint of grey at the temples; that he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen; that he was perhaps the handsomest man she'd ever met?1 Let's not split hairs; she was shocked on all counts.

Grissom, meanwhile, had been taken in by the megawatt smile that had broken onto her face when he said his name, as well as the tiny gap between her two front teeth, which he thought the kind of small imperfection that often saved something from being too perfect, thus in its own way making it somehow even more perfect. Sara Sidle was pretty perfect.

Sara was first to say something, though it wasn't her strongest opening. "Oh!"

Grissom was amused.

"Oh, Dr. Grissom. Sorry!" She shook her head and added, "Yes, I really am looking forward to your lecture, but, uh, that's not why I was here early."

"Yes, so you've said. Don't worry about it, Ms. Sidle. It was very nice sort of speaking with you."

Sara was kicking herself, so she did what she did best when nervous, and she started overtalking. She couldn't believe she'd wasted her opportunity. And who would have thought he'd be so handsome? She felt a little like a schoolgirl. She looked a little like a schoolgirl. Internally she groaned.

Now that he had her full attention, and her full smile, Grissom really couldn't bring himself to end the conversation just yet. So he kept talking to her—or, mostly, she kept talking to him now, as he was a little dazed by her smile. Eventually people started trying to fill the seats around them in the fourth row, and Grissom had to go to the front to speak with the conference staff and to get out his notes for the lecture.

Grissom started his lecture with a little introductory spiel. He told the audience, "We're the victim's last voice." Sara had already read this several times in his papers, but she always liked it, so she wrote it down at the top of her notes and underlined it several times. He then turned to his main topic, which he was illustrating through a discussion of a double murder in a garage. Sara didn't know what her colleague had been talking about when he called Grissom dull, because Grissom was passionate about his topic, and she was entranced.

Sara Sidle couldn't keep her eyes off Gil Grissom, but Gil Grissom, as he spoke, was trying very hard to keep his eyes off Sara Sidle. She was altogether too distracting; he almost couldn't think straight. Her gaze had an energy and an attentiveness he found captivating, and no one else in the large, quite full conference room could match it; he felt a little as though he was speaking just for her. She was like a magnet, to him if to no one else; no one in attendance at his lecture seemed to notice anything all that exceptional about the ponytailed young woman in the fourth row, the one with the big brown eyes and the somewhat informal attire. But somewhere within him, some hidden place of feelings not words, someplace Grissom wasn't accustomed to accessing, Grissom knew that, even if he hadn't already spent quite some time speaking with her, something about Sara would have drawn him to her. Of course, he would never have been able to explain this to himself—not all those years ago, when he'd only just met her.

As Grissom's lecture progressed, he started asking questions of those in attendance. At his third question, none of the attendees seemed able to come up with a good answer. As he scanned around the room, his eyes again landed on the luscious Sara. Wait a minute—what was he doing in the middle of a lecture thinking of this young woman as luscious? He was pretty sure he'd never called a woman luscious before, even in his head. He considered whether he might be having a midlife crisis, right there in the middle of his lecture at the 50th annual AAFS conference. Although the actuarial tables would probably confirm he was likely in the middle of his life, he still thought 41 a bit too young for such a thing. He needed to get it together. Only a second or two had passed, but he was still looking at Sara, who tentatively raised her hand. He called on her, and of course she gave a brilliant answer. What else would he have expected?

Grissom continued with his lecture, and he continued posing questions of the audience. Every time the audience seemed stumped, Grissom would call on Sara, and she would give the perfect answer. He would smile at her, she would beam back her megawatt smile, and his heart would skip a beat. Grissom concluded Sara must be the kind of woman who had always, always had the right answer but growing up had learned to hold back so as not to seem a know-it-all. He kind of hated that she'd had to do that.

After the lecture, Sara stuck around. She had some more questions for him, and Grissom was only too pleased to answer. They stepped into the hallway, to leave space for the next session in the conference room. Eventually Sara's questions turned from the subject of his lecture to anthropology more generally, and Grissom kept answering them, to the best of his abilities. At some point Grissom saw the time and asked her whether there might not be any other events she was planning to attend at the conference.

Sara was embarrassed, very embarrassed, so embarrassed that she almost didn't ask her next question—but she did. "Yes, of course, I should let you go, but… what were you planning for dinner tonight? I could take you somewhere if you like—uh, being local and all. If you were just planning on eating in the hotel, that is."

"Well, I'm supposed to go to a dinner with some of the other speakers," he told her.

"Oh, of course, no, right, I should have thought…. Don't worry about it…." Sara was even more embarrassed now and turned to walk away, regretting she had given their interaction such an awkward ending.

"I really don't want to go to that dinner, though," he told her before she could leave, "and if I go to dinner with you, at least I can tell my boss I was liaising with the local crime lab, right?"

"Right!" Sara said and beamed at him.

"7:00 p.m.?" he asked.

"Perfect!" she said. "I'll take us somewhere good."

"I'm sure you will, Sara. I'll see you in the lobby at 7:00 p.m."

"Perfect!" she said again, smiling, then quickly turned on her heel and walked away before he could change his mind.


Both parties arrived promptly in the hotel lobby at 7:00 p.m. (Well, Sara arrived at 6:45 p.m., but Grissom didn't need to know that.) Grissom was relieved to see she was no longer wearing red sneakers and the t-shirt with what he thought might be a biblical reference (that had confused him) and a list of cities and dates. He had no problem with either article per se, but in her new clothes she looked not quite so very young. He no longer felt their age difference so conspicuous.

Sara had decided on a Mexican restaurant a few blocks off Union Square, so they could walk. They spoke amiably on the way over. Sara had already told Grissom that morning to please call her Sara, but she kept calling him Dr. Grissom.

"Sara," he said to her, "if you keep calling me Dr. Grissom all night, it's not going to be a very relaxing evening for me."

She looked at him and smiled. "Yes, of course," she said, "sorry." She kept walking for a few more steps. Then she looked at him again. "Wait, so what should I call you?"

Aside from his mother, most of the people he knew called him Grissom. Most of his colleagues called him Grissom. Catherine Willows or Jim Brass or Al Robbins might call him Gil. Usually he told people at conferences to call him Grissom. He should tell her to call him Grissom. He didn't know why he was giving this so much thought. "Gil works." He smiled at her. They kept walking.

Once at the restaurant, they ordered margaritas and tacos, and Sara asked so many questions that Grissom didn't have the chance to feel awkward; whereas someone else might have been put off by Sara's never-ending questions, they put Grissom at ease. She was the first woman he'd ever encountered who was more than happy (much more than happy—she'd raised the topic) to discuss severed heads over complimentary chips and salsa.

Sara and Grissom didn't discuss their families or their childhoods, which neither ever did. They didn't discuss their hobbies, because neither really had much in the way of hobbies. (Grissom admittedly liked baseball, crossword puzzles, roach racing, and riding roller coasters, but he didn't expect any of those would pique the interest of the lovely Sara.) They didn't discuss their travels, because neither of them did much of any traveling, except perhaps when Grissom traveled for work. They discussed work, so some might have said it was not a very personal conversation, but work was all they did, and they both took it very personally.

Sara confirmed for herself that Grissom was just as interesting as she'd always thought him from his papers and book chapters, and she laughed without irony at all the puns he threw at her. Grissom confirmed that Sara was, from what he could tell, kind and compassionate, and just as brilliant as she'd seemed when he had spoken to her earlier at the conference.

They were both so engaged by their discussion that they failed to notice the passing hours and the fact that the restaurant staff members were shooting them dirty looks as they tried to close the restaurant down for the night. Eventually Sara and Grissom realized they were the last patrons at the restaurant. Sara observed Grissom rather intently while, at his insistence, he took care of the dinner bill. As she watched him, UB40's cover of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" came over the restaurant's speakers, and Sara couldn't help blushing; she was glad the eminent entomologist was too distracted to notice the extra flush in her cheeks and was unable to read her thoughts at that moment.

Sara was very apologetic to the waitstaff and, since Grissom had insisted on paying for dinner, left rather a large tip. After Sara and Grissom left the restaurant, they both laughed somewhat sheepishly at how they'd let the night slip away. Truth be told, neither could remember the last time they'd spent so much time talking to one person at once, but neither was prepared to confess that to the other.

Sara walked Grissom back to his hotel and assured him she would be able to navigate home in her own city just fine. He knew the things that could go wrong at night, so he asked her to call when she got home just the same. He was presenting a breakfast seminar the next morning, which she of course had planned to attend, so they knew they would see each other, and they both felt confident that night would not be the end of their conversation.

When Sara returned to her apartment, she called Grissom and confirmed she had arrived safely. Despite being someone who usually slept little, Sara fell asleep promptly, given that she had not slept the previous night. She may very well have dreamt of a blue-eyed entomologist. Grissom, however, did not drift off to sleep so easily.

Gil Grissom had met many women in Las Vegas who would be considered pleasing to the eye, but that kind of skin-deep prettiness was not enough on its own to appeal to him. He'd known Sara Sidle less than a day, but he could already tell she was so much more than that. Sara Sidle, he decided, was beautiful, through and through. As he pondered Sara's beauty, Grissom realized he wasn't sure he'd ever thought that about a woman before. Yet here he was, lying in his bed at the Hilton San Francisco and Towers Hotel (the one on O'Farrell, between Mason and Taylor, just a couple blocks off Union Square…)—here he was, lying in the bed, thinking about how the young Sara Sidle, whom he'd just met that day, was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he'd ever met.


UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: FEBRUARY 10, 1998. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.


SOUNDTRACK LISTING

UB40. "Can't Help Falling in Love."