Author's Note: The line pertaining to meat loaf uttered by Mrs. Ehrlich doesn't belong to me – I borrowed it from Jeff Foxworthy. Thanks, Jeff!
"You have got to be kidding me," Sydney muttered as she read the topic for her session on the board. She read it aloud, "Topic for the Day – Your Husband and Other Women – When Jealousy is Justified."
I wonder if I could still sneak out, she thought – just as a middle-aged woman came up behind her looking professional and brisk. Sydney's brain immediately countered her earlier thought. I guess not.
"I'm Mrs. Ehrlich," the woman introduced herself with a wide white smile and a blink of eyelashes too long and perfect to be real. "Welcome to our wives-only session. And you are…?"
"Elena Parker," Sydney told her blandly. The woman was married to Dr. Ehrlich – which explained a lot about her to Sydney right away. Her mannerisms were similar to his and Sydney had a sinking feeling that even without the good doctor overseeing this particular session she was in for another healthy dose of what she'd found in the morning exercise. Salvation would not occur anytime soon and it was probably in her best interests to smile and play along as she had earlier – only this time without Gage to at least keep things amusing.
"A pleasure to meet you, Elena," the woman said brightly. "How long have you and your husband been at Arroyo Grande?"
She was ushering Sydney into the room as she spoke, as though sensing the petite Ranger's eagerness to slip away unnoticed and Sydney gritted her teeth, knowing that she was in for two hours of what would undoubtedly amount to pure hell. She never really went in for anything that could count as female bonding – not since she was a little girl anyway. But female bonding that occurred in the time period between elementary school and high school consisted mostly of slumber party antics and gossiping about cute boys, things that were acceptable for that particular age group and that could be treated like the frivolities that they were. Since then, however, Sydney had discovered that the gossiping didn't change while in the meantime she had. Such things lacked importance to her now, though she couldn't exactly pinpoint why. She'd simply changed, she supposed. It made things easy, then, that most of her coworkers were men. She actually found it refreshing to deal with them on a regular basis if only because they tended to be easier to read than women and the gossip factor was much less. Men were less calculating, she'd discovered and certainly more likely to settle any difficulties they had with their fists, the predictability of which aided Sydney's role in the justice process because she never had to waste time guessing what her coworkers would do in any given situation.
It wasn't as though Sydney lacked women friends, though – she certainly spent enough time with Walker's wife Alex and Jimmy's fiancée Erika, much of it spent doing what could certainly be considered gossiping (talk which usually about the men in their lives) and talking about the kind of things that only women could talk about together. Still, though she always felt at ease with Alex and Erika, Sydney preferred the company of men, the reason for which she concluded was simply because they required less of her. Men never pushed her to expand and verbalize at length about the things that she felt; they simply took in what she said, absorbed and filed it, and accepted it. Women, on the other hand, expected more. In fact, the only exception to the men versus women rule that she'd found so far was Gage. Unlike any of her other coworkers and most other men that she knew, he pushed her to the limits of expression. In fact, he seemed to gain pleasure from putting her on the spot and forcing her to think at length about things she preferred to push to the outer recesses of her mind – usually things that had to do with exactly how she felt about her partner.
She snapped her mind back to the question she'd just been asked and managed to respond pleasantly: "This is our first full day."
"Ah, I thought you were a new face to our little group," Mrs. Ehrlich beamed and pointed to a chair near the front of the room, which Sydney reluctantly took. "We're glad to have you with us."
"Good afternoon, ladies," Mrs. Ehrlich clapped her hands to gain the attention of the sixteen women in the room and Sydney winced inwardly, instantly reminded of Dr. Ehrlich in the morning session. Yes, Mrs. Ehrlich was certainly like her husband all right.
"I'm sure you've all read today's topic on the board," Ehrlich continued, "and I'm also sure that everyone has something to say about it. We all have husbands and we all are very aware that they tend to have roving eyes whenever they see an attractive woman, whether she's on television, in a restaurant, or just walking by on the street. I know for myself personally, whenever Dr. Ehrlich makes a comment about another woman, I tend to feel a twinge of that green-eyed monster. For instance, just last week we had just returned from the movies and I was serving him my famous meatloaf when he said, 'My, but isn't that Sigourney Weaver a beautiful woman.' Now, I know full well that he and I have been married for twenty-seven years and he's not going anywhere, but it didn't change the feeling I got right at that moment. When he said that, I honestly had to fight a distinct urge to say, 'Well why don't you have Sigourney Weaver make you a meatloaf then!' Where do these impulses come from, ladies?"
No one spoke, but Sydney noticed that several of the women nodded in agreement with her words. She thought about her own experiences with Gage – an automatic response considering not only was he pretending to be her husband for the sake of their assignment, but he was the man she ended up spending the most time with both on and off duty. And in that moment of reflection, she could recall several instances when she'd wanted not only to say something similar to what Mrs. Ehrlich had wanted to but, had it been her in the situation, Gage would have been wearing the meatloaf. What was more, she probably would have tracked down the woman Gage had mentioned and made her wear the meatloaf too. Yet though she agreed with the idea of having twinges of what she had to admit – even to herself - were jealousy, she had no idea why she felt that way in the first place. For all the time they spent together, it wasn't as though they were a romantic couple – a couple, certainly, as they seemed to do a lot of things together, but there was no romance whatsoever. In fact, under normal circumstances when people asked them if they were married, the question was usually met with choking sounds from both Sydney and Gage and a reply question spoken in unison: "To each other?"
Sydney waited with what amounted to trepidation to see what Mrs. Ehrlich would say next. After all, she and Gage weren't married so whatever advice was about to be rendered would undoubtedly be of no use to her whatsoever.
From near the window, Mrs. Tyler's hand went up and Sydney fought the urge to say the word "Figures" aloud. The woman had an expression of pure triumph on her face and Sydney felt her trepidation instantly disappear – only to be replaced by dread.
"What do you think, Mrs. Tyler?" Mrs. Ehrlich asked.
"Well," Mrs. Tyler straightened primly. "I think that because we, as women, tend to be nesters, we tend to be very protective of our hearth and home. Our husbands are a part of that and therefore we view anything taking their attention away from us as a threat to our carefully-constructed nests."
"Excellent analysis!" Mrs. Ehrlich beamed. She turned back to the group. "She is absolutely right, ladies."
Sydney felt a pained expression begin to creep across her face and she quickly stifled it in favor of a neutral, listening face. Nesters? There were a lot of things she thought of herself as and a nester was certainly not one of them.
Mrs. Ehrlich was pressing on, excited. "Let's push this idea a bit more though – shall we? Why do we feel that our nests are threatened? Why aren't we secure enough in them to believe that our unions are impenetrable to such threats?"
Again no one spoke – and again Mrs. Tyler's hand flashed in the air.
"Mrs. Tyler," Mrs. Ehrlich acknowledged her.
"I think," Mrs. Tyler began, "that the media is to blame. We are constantly bombarded with images of perfect women and none of us feel that we can measure up to such standards. We have compulsions to compare ourselves to these women – and any women we come into contact with, really. So when our husbands look at other women, it causes these insecurities to become full-blown."
"Another wonderful analysis!" Mrs. Ehrlich seemed nearly unable to contain herself as she congratulated Mrs. Tyler. She stepped closer to the group of women and spoke rapidly. "She has just hit the nail on the head, ladies. Society holds us to tremendous standards and the only thing stricter is those standards to which we hold ourselves. Our jealousy in situations like the one I mentioned and like the ones I'm sure you all thought of after I told you that story is a knee-jerk reaction to where we see ourselves fitting in with those standards."
She clasped her hands together as she prepared to conclude. "The answer to the question posed by today's topic of conversation then, is 'anytime.' Jealousy shows that you still care about your husband enough to want to fight for him and though it is a feeling bred out of insecurity, it isn't anything we can't begin to fix right now, here, today. Are you with me?"
Sydney saw eager nods all around her and swallowed nervously. Mrs. Ehrlich hurried over to a corner of the room and picked up a cardboard box, which she carried back over to the group and placed before them on a small table. From within, she lifted a pile of small hand mirrors and then several stacks of fashion magazines and placed them on the table, stowing the box underneath. Sydney instantly didn't like where this was going.
Mrs. Ehrlich's mouth opened – she was going to say it. Sydney knew it – she was going to say the words that she dreaded…
"In order to begin the process of taking down our insecurities," Mrs. Ehrlich began, "we're each going to take a magazine or two and a hand mirror. Then I want each one of you to find five pictures of actresses or models and compare yourselves to them. The catch is this: I want each of you to find three things that you like more about yourselves than them. Try to stick with the physical for the moment – maybe you like your nose better than Faith Hill's or you like that you're taller than Michelle Pfeiffer is. Tear those pictures out of the magazines and keep them – we'll reveal our conclusions to each other at the end of the session."
As Sydney sat down with her mirror and magazines, the single thought in her head was that she hoped Gage was having a worse time than she was.
*
Gage was in a halfway cheery mood when he met her outside of the room, which only did more to darken Sydney's. Having to stand up in front of fifteen other women and tell them that she liked herself better than Gwyneth Paltrow because Gwyneth didn't have enough curves had been quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of her adult life. She'd reached a conclusion as she'd sat down that the sooner she and Gage wrapped things up and got out of there, the better – if only in the interest of saving the last few shreds of Sydney's sanity. And if the Ehrlichs happened to be the guilty parties responsible for the black market organ ring, Sydney had decided that she would probably enjoy the process of arresting them, if only in revenge for the torture they'd inflicted on her in the last twenty-four hours.
"So how was your session?" Gage asked conversationally.
"I really don't want to talk about it," she told him with a shake of her head.
"Come on," he probed, "it couldn't have been as bad as mine."
"Oh yeah?" she countered with a smirk, then decided to up the ante and spill the whole story. It was Gage, after all – he'd probably get the truth out of her sooner or later anyway and competing with him usually made her feel better. At this point she was willing to try just about anything.
She asked him dryly, "Did Dr. Ehrlich make you hold mirrors up to your faces while deciding which of your physical characteristics you like better than famous actors? And did you then have to present your conclusions to everyone else in your session?"
"Um, no," Gage's expression bordered on horrified and yet at the same time he was trying to hide a smile.
"I didn't think so," Sydney told him, then waited for his response – which would undoubtedly come in the form of a challenge.
He opened his mouth as though to do just that, then paused. When he finally spoke, he said, "I guess we'd better work on getting to the bottom of this case so we can get out of here then."
"You can say that again," Sydney agreed, startled to her core that he hadn't accepted her challenge. It wasn't like Gage at all – what had they gone over in his session to make him act this way? Had the title of Dr. Ehrlich's talk been "Confrontation 101 – Avoid it at All Costs?"
"Come on," Gage told her. "Let's sneak into the file room and retrieve the data from the cameras. Then we can head back to the cabin and start piecing that together with our files before dinner."
"Okay," she nodded, still confused by his behavior.
Getting back into the file room was easy enough. The office help was preoccupied with answering the phone and talking with couples who had just emerged from their sessions and had questions and had no time to notice the pair as they slipped stealthily through the door marked "Employees Only." Once inside, it took but a few minutes to retrieve their equipment and stow it inside the large three-ring binders that each spouse had to carry to their sessions. Getting out of the room, however, proved to be significantly more challenging.
Sydney swore the coast was clear when she poked her head out the door – and it was, but only temporarily. From the front lobby, she heard Dr. Ehrlich's voice as he told one of the receptionists, "I think that information is in the file room. Let me go check."
Sydney blanched. His footsteps were approaching rapidly and she knew there was no way she and Gage could get out of the room before he got there and began to question them. Ways to get out of the situation flashed through her head, none of them incredibly good and in the moment of decision, she winced inwardly and went with the lesser of the evils she'd thought up.
"Gage," she whirled and turned to face her partner, whose boyish face was a study in confusion as he watched her pull her head in the door and close it softly behind her.
"Wha-?" he managed to get out before Sydney took a deep breath and launched herself at him, locking her lips onto his own and pulling him into a close embrace. She pulled him towards her, then felt herself bump up against a short file cabinet behind her. Inwardly, she shrugged and figured that she was already in pretty deep, she might as well keep going. Her acrobatic abilities came into play then, as she jumped backwards with enough momentum to seat herself on top of the cabinet while not breaking her kiss with Gage. To his credit, he seemed to understand the situation quite well (or at least she hoped he did) and was playing along in great form – almost too great, she decided, as he stepped closer to her and their kiss deepened. Were it anyone but Gage, Sydney might have thought that this embrace could lead to something. Good thing it was him – there would be no strings attached afterward.
The things we do for our work, Sydney thought with a hint of irony as she heard Dr. Ehrlich's hand come to rest on the doorknob. Slowly it turned and she heard him step into the room.
"What the…?" he demanded, his voice high and startled.
Sydney seized the opportunity to break the kiss and stared at the doctor with what she hoped was complete surprise and embarrassment. Well, at least the embarrassment part would be easy.
"Dr. Ehrlich!" she stammered.
"Sir, we uh…didn't…" Gage played along.
"What are you doing in here?" the doctor wanted to know.
Gage's face broke into a grin at the question and he began, "Well, sir, we were…"
"Never mind," Ehrlich cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I know what you were doing but why are you in here of all places?"
Sydney stepped in to cover that one. "To be honest, doctor, our cabin was too far away. We've been apart since lunch and we couldn't wait that long."
"Couldn't wait that long…" Disbelief washed over the doctor's face and he was having trouble constructing complete thoughts, Sydney could tell. He stood rooted in place, his hand still resting on the doorknob.
"We're sorry for any inconvenience," Gage grabbed Sydney's hand and scooped up their notebooks, ushering her to the door and past the stunned doctor.
"We won't let it happen again," Sydney threw the words over her shoulder as they hurried out.
As they rushed down the hall, Sydney could hear Ehrlich repeating himself in the now empty room: "Couldn't wait that long…"
*
"That was close!" Sydney collapsed dramatically onto the couch while Gage bolted the door of their cabin behind them.
"Yeah," he breathed, leaning against the door with relief. Then he turned to her quizzically, "So where did your little moment of inspiration come from?"
"Huh?" she asked.
"That thing back there in the room," he told her. "Whatever possessed you?"
"Gage, we're at a resort for married people," she told him in a logical tone of voice. "Do you have a better explanation for why we might be in the file room that doesn't involve explaining our surveillance equipment?"
"No," he shrugged, then moved to take one of the chairs. "But…"
"But what?" she wanted to know.
"Syd, you have to admit that was pretty intense," he finally managed to say.
"This coming from the man who only this morning told me that we 'move well together,'" Sydney laughed at him. "Come on, Gage – don't tell me you're all talk."
He chuckled then too. "Did I seem like I was all talk back there?"
Sydney felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Not exactly." She felt a tension creep over their silence and instantly seized the opportunity to change the subject.
"Don't you think we should find out what's on our tapes?" she asked her partner.
Gage nodded and seemed glad for the shift in topic himself. "Probably."
Sydney stood and began hooking up the necessary equipment to view the surveillance tapes on the laptop they'd brought. She was nearly finished when Gage asked her another question.
"Um, Syd?" he ventured.
"Hmm?" she responded, preoccupied with the equipment.
"You don't think there's anything on these tapes that resembles our little act in the file room, do you?" he asked tentatively, the tops of his ears turning pink.
"Gage!" she rebuked him. "Of course not!"
"I hope you're right about that," he said, not fully convinced. He pulled the other chair over for her to sit on so both could see the screen.
Me too, Sydney agreed silently, her finger only hesitating a moment before she pushed "play."