"Why are you fixing our house for Mr. Monk?" he asks, carefully dragging a paintbrush down the wall.
"It's not for Mr. Monk," she replies, annoyed, "It's just in case it bugs Mr. Monk. I don't want to have an episode, you know?"
Benjy snickers.
She knows why he's asking these questions lately -- because of the stupid notebook and his weird little ideas about what's going on when he's not around. Her son seems to be under the impression that she and her boss throw parties when he's not around. Parties where lots of unmentionable things happen, which isn't even probable since he's afraid of everything. He doesn't even drink. The most they could do at a party that only involved the two of them is stare at each other, fight a bit, and play an uncomfortable round of Truth or Dare.
And he would know when she was lying.
It's quiet for a while before Benjy asks if he can bring out the CD player, and then they're listening to the sounds of The Clash. Drums, guitar, brushstrokes.
"Mom," he says after a while, "Where did you find this paint?"
"Irving's Paint Depot. Why?"
"Well..." he sounds uncertain for a moment and lowers his brush, staring at a part of the wall that's already dry. "I was just looking at that close-up of you, Aunt Gail, Grandma and me, and this paint is the same color as your eyes,"
The paintbrush falls from her hands to the garbage bags they've spread around on the floor, and she can't help but struggle to breathe a little.
"...What?" She turns around, walks over to where her son is standing and picks up the family portrait they had done two years ago, holding it inches away from the wall. It probably isn't, she tells herself. It's probably just the lighting that's making him think --
It's a perfect match.
"Pretty weird, huh?" he grins at her look of concern.
"Um," she says. "Hey, Benj, how about we take a little break? You go make yourself a sandwich and call your friends, and I'll be right back, okay? I just remembered something that I forgot..."
"Okay," he replies. "Can I call Jared Stottlemeyer?"
"Yeah, sure,"
She changes quickly, grabs her keys and her shoes and heads out to the car, wondering what on earth he was doing. What he was thinking. Why he didn't tell her -- of course, she might have been disturbed, but more flattered than anything. Now she's flattered, disturbed and confused, and she wishes he would just tell her what's going through his head sometimes.
She pulls out of the driveway and, inside, Benjy dials the Stottlemeyer's number with a smile on his face.
"Hello?" the Captain says.
"Hey, Captain S. It's Benjy," he replies. "You'll never guess what's going on..."
She gets out of the station wagon and just stares at his house for a minute or two, trying to figure things out. He picked her eye-color for her living room? How long was this planned -- since she asked his opinion about blue? It's the only option, really, because Adrian Monk doesn't make spontaneous decisions... But, why her eyes? And what about him deducing the exact amount of each paint that would make that color?
Will he even answer her questions?
Inside the house, he sits on the sofa and stares at the floor as he thinks about his situation. Why is he doing this to himself? Is he trying to figure something out? That would... would make sense, since there's so much that needs to be understood. Trudy and Sharona... they contradict each other. They're opposites in every imaginable way, he knows that, but for some reason this is important. His mind, his instinct, is telling him so.
"But... why?" he asks himself, frowning.
There's a knock on the door, and he gets up without wondering who it could be. It's usually Sharona -- Sharona, Sharona, Sharona. She's his best friend, although she probably doesn't know it, and he answers the door with a small smile on his face.
But then he sees the look on hers and his subtle cheer falters.
Disapproving. That's it, disapproving with her eyebrows lowered and her lips kind of pursed and her eyes looking gloomy. He wonders what he did this time and she pushes past him, into the house. He shuts the door and turns around.
"Hi... Hi, Sharona," he says nervously. "...What's wrong?"
"That's what I'd like to know." she says, folding her arms. "Adrian, why am I painting my living room the same color as my eyes?"
Oh.
"Oh," he says, and returns to his seat on the sofa with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wonders how she found out -- what she's thinking. Her first reaction is anger but her first thought is usually softer, kinder.
" 'Oh?' " she says, raising her eyebrows. "What does that mean? And for heaven's sake, why? Why that color?"
"I..." He takes a deep breath, "I... I like your eyes -- they're nice."
"Well, then you must really like my eyes if you know how to mix them in paint!"
"Yeah, I guess so," he says, and only catches himself after the words have escaped his mouth.
That doesn't sound too great. Well, it does, but not coming from him when he loves Trudy and shouldn't be staring at his assistant's eyes all the time and God, she looks really surprised.
"I... Well, I..." she paces for a moment and then falls down next to him on the sofa, anger temporarily exchanged for shock.
He watches her carefully, her mind whirring behind those eyes and trying to figure out where her world went wrong. He should apologize. She probably doesn't want to think that he... that he's... He doesn't know. But she probably doesn't want to think it.
"I... I'm sorry," he says, turning a little bit so that he can see her better. "I'm sorry, Sharona."
She just stares at him, crosses and uncrosses her legs, taps her feet with no particular rhythm and he winces every time her foot hits the ground.
"Why are you sorry?" she asks, not looking sarcastic but kind of... kind of curious.
Why is he sorry?
"...What?"
"You can't control whether or not you like something," she says, sounding as though she's discovering something for herself. "You can't control that at all..."
"No..." He takes a deep breath and she takes his hand.
"No matter how hard you try, it just keeps coming back," she sighs.
"Yeah..." He looks at her from the corner of his eyes, wondering why she suddenly seems so far off and... and so troubled. He knows the feeling, though. He's feeling it right now because she's next to him and he's happy, but he doesn't think he's supposed to be.
It doesn't seem right.
And... at the same time, he loves this. He loves sitting with Sharona, not saying anything -- he even loves it when she forces him to hold her hand, although it always undergoes a thorough sterilization afterward. He just loves... her.
"Oh, my God."