Monday, June 14, 2004
Samantha had made it no farther than the first stoplight when her cell phone rang. She couldn't believe the nerve Jack had to call her and plead with her on the phone when he couldn't even give her one good reason to stay in person. She yelled with annoyance into the phone, "What?"
"Samantha?"
She heard Martin's voice on the other end of the line and immediately regretted the way she had answered. "Martin? I'm sorry, I, I thought it was someone else on the line."
"Well, I hope that I never get you angry enough with me to incur that sort of wrath from Samantha Spade." He laughed and hoped that he had broken the tension.
She smiled despite her mood. "Yeah, I hope that you never make me get this mad at you."
"So what's wrong?" Martin queried. "Why are you mad?"
Without thinking about it, Samantha jumped into her story, "It's Jack, he is such an ass. He doesn't think about anyone but himself most of the time."
"Calm down Samantha," Martin pleaded. "What has he done this time?"
But instead of calming down Samantha spoke louder into the phone, "He's making me testify for his divorce proceedings. And ... and he was too cowardly to tell me about it himself, he waited until I was served a subpoena."
Martin was blown away and didn't know how to respond, but he didn't have to. Samantha continued, "So this guy handed me the subpoena at work and I read it and I marched into Jack's office and let him have it." As she spoke her foot had depressed the gas peddle and she increased her speed with her intensity. "Unfortunately, I was none too discreet and if the office didn't know about my past affair with Jack they certainly know now. I ..." Her attention was drawn back to the road as she saw the red lights looming in front of her. She had merged into heavy traffic and hadn't noticed. She spun the wheel to the right while slamming on the brakes. She stopped just in time half on the road and half on the shoulder, and the car behind her had to swerve out of the lane to miss her. She rested her head on the back of the seat and tried to calm her breathing. She couldn't believe how close she had come to a pile-up. The light changed, the cars in front of her began moving, and she eased the car onto the road again.
During the commotion she had dropped the phone and just now realized that Martin was left hanging. She didn't have the time to find the phone so she called out to Martin, "Sorry, Martin, I dropped the phone. I'll call you back in a few." She drove to the nearest exit and pulled into the parking lot of a diner. She sat still until her breathing returned to normal and then began to rummage for the phone. She started to dial Martin's number, but realized that the phone still had a connection. She put it up to her ear and spoke tentatively, "Martin?"
"Sam? Is that you, are you hurt?" Martin's voice sounded frazzled.
"No, I'm fine, I narrowly avoided causing a huge car accident, but I'm fine." Samantha answered.
"Good, just a minute." She could hear him move the phone away from his ear and heard him speaking, "OK, I'm sorry, false alarm. No there was no accident, I just spoke to her, she's fine. Yes, I know, I'm sorry. Yes, I do realize that this number is for emergencies only. No, it will never happen again. Thank you."
Then he was speaking to her, "Sorry about that, had to get off the other line."
"The other line? And just who was on the other line?" Samantha inquired, puzzled.
"Umm, well, I called the cops." He answered sheepishly, but then defended himself, "You stopped mid-sentence and then I just heard expletives, and then I didn't hear anything. I was worried. I guess I overreacted."
"Yeah, I guess you did. It seems like you overreact around me a lot." Samantha knew that Martin was only worrying because he cared about her, but she wanted him to realize that she could take care of herself. "You know Martin, I survived for nearly thirty years without your help, I think I can drive home without you having to intervene."
Instinctively Martin pulled the phone back from his ear, surprised at the biting remarks. He was hurt, but he made himself shake it off and chalk it up to her bad mood. "So tell me, what is it you have to testify about for a divorce proceeding."
Samantha silently berated herself for being so hard on Martin, but she couldn't do anything about it now so she answered him. "Well, it turns out that Maria is filing for divorce based upon adultery and she called me as a witness to testify to Jack and my's relationship. I can't believe that we dodged the bullet two years ago and now our relationship is causing a problem." "What relationship?" she mused. She deliberated telling Martin about this past week with Jack, but decided that it would be tough on him to hear so she kept it to herself.
"Do you want me to come home? I could hop on a plane and be there, we could talk in person," Martin offered.
"No, I don't need you to come to my rescue," Samantha spat back at him.
"Samantha, when will you realize that it's not a matter of me rescuing you. I want to be there for you to confide in, to vent your frustrations to. I'm not claiming to be able to solve any of them, I just think that I can listen. I can call the airlines now if you want."
Samantha heard him mention airplanes again and, wanting to change the subject, finally asked, "Why didn't you drive to your mom's place? She lives just upstate."
Martin realized that he was operating under a ruse of leaving to help his sick mom and that she had caught him—after all, he thought, she does work for the FBI. "Um, look Samantha, I didn't go visit my sick mother, in fact my mother is fine. I just had to get away. I'm actually in Mexico right now."
"What! You're in Mexico? But, but why did you have to get away?" As Samantha spoke the words it dawned on her that he left the morning after she turned him down. She kicked herself for being blind to his pain and marveled at how he put that behind him and unselfishly listened to her problems. "Wait, don't answer that," she voiced. "Mexico, huh, how does it feel to get away?"
Martin was puzzled by the question and didn't know how to respond so he answered tentatively, "It has its ups and downs." Then an idea popped into his head, "Hey, you should come and join me. Your deposition can't be for at least a month, you'd still have plenty of time to prepare. Besides one of the downs of vacationing alone is that, well, you're alone."
Samantha heard the hopefulness in Martin's voice, but, considering the reason he was on vacation, she didn't think it would a great idea to join him. "Martin, I don't know." To herself she thought, "A vacation does sound appealing right now. Then I wouldn't have to face Jack tomorrow." She came to her senses and spoke out loud again, "They are not going to let both of us be on extended vacation at the same time, the team is practically decimated without you, but missing two of us?"
Martin's mind raced on overtime to come up with reasons that she would be granted leave, "I'm sure that Jack wouldn't turn down any of your requests right now."
He heard Samantha laugh and she added, "Yeah, and after today's display at the office they might make me take some time off. Okay, I'll take a vacation, but Martin I don't think it would be best to join you. Not now."
Martin's heart plummeted, he'd gotten more excited about Samantha meeting him than he'd realized and her statement was like her rejecting him again. He didn't intend to let her drop him like that again without a fight. "Samantha, let me tell you, vacationing alone is not very much fun. You do these exciting things, but there is no one to share it with. Plus, you'd be amazed at how many single women have hit on me, the other night, I had dinner with three women and all they did was paw at me all night. You don't want to go through that."
Samantha gave into Martin's pleas and decided to join him in Mexico. She smiled to herself and realized that this would be her first real vacation since joining the FBI.
In his office, Jack was reliving Samantha's outburst. He couldn't quite put his finger on why she was so upset. Yes, he understood that their past relationship would become public and that it would make it harder for them to pursue a relationship now, but her vehemence was much greater than could be conjured for his omission to tell her about the divorce proceedings. He thought back and went through the details again—she was at her desk and received a subpoena, she learned that she'd have to testify ... Finally, it dawned on Jack. He opened a drawer in the filing cabinet and pulled out a copy of Samantha's personnel file. After flipping through a few pages he stared at the old newspaper clipping. A young girl was shown in the picture sitting on the witness stand, despite the years that had passed, Jack still recognized the pensive look on Samantha's face that she carries with her today. The caption beneath the photo filled in the details that he had forgotten, which explained Samantha's blow up. Jack forced himself to sit down and re-read the details of the article and cursed himself for not remembering this part of Samantha's past.
The caption read, "Samantha Spade testifying at her father's trial."
TBC
