1Chapter 3 In Which Sara is Fine
Sara sauntered into the break room, thrilled with having won a serious battle of wills with Catherine. Nick looked up from the journal he was browsing through, looked back down and promptly did a double take. "Hey, Sarah, you uh, that's a great shirt" he fumbled. Sarah looked at him amusedly before remembering her cleavage. "Oh shit," she said quickly pulling the v of her shirt up from a serious plunge to a more modest dip, and pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "Eyes back on the page Nicky"she told her transfixed friend before filling up her coffee. "Can I talk to you Sarah?" came Catherine's voice from behind her. Sarah scrunched up her face, knowing she had been overly optimistic to think that she and Catherine had resolved everything. "Sure"she said, "let me just get my coffee and I'll be right there". "Fine" came the somewhat chilled reply. Nick watched the interraction between the two women with little interest; it was, after all pretty typical of the way they spoke to one another. He wondered whether Sarah had made peace after the very public disagreement they'd had. Nick didn't even really know what it had been about. As he speculated, his eyes had glazed over and happened to be directed towards Catherine's frame standing in the doorway. "What, Nick? take a fucking picture it'll last longer, you know, I'm tired of all you men"she pronounced the word with more than a bit of venom "oggling me", "Hey! Cath!", wounded, Nick holding his hands up in front of him began, "I wasn't, I mean I just kind of dazed and...", Catherine didn't wait around for an explanation. She turned on her heel with a disgusted half-laugh and moved towards her office. "It's okay Nick," Sarah offered "this isn't about you. Its, well, I kind of, look, I'll tell you later okay, it's a long story". "Sure, and Sarah, sorry about before, you know with your shirt, it's just that you never dress like that and," "Don't mention it Nick", Sarah smiled good naturedly at him, managing to limit her blush to a mild glow.
"Catherine, should I be apologizing again?", Sarah asked walking into her office for the third time that day. "No", came the reply, heavily sighed from across the desk. "Sarah," Catherine began sadly, "I feel like I need to justify myself to you, as though you have some kind of moral standard that I'm always being measured against and coming up hopelessly short. There's so much you don't know about me and my life, and frankly I've had enough of feeling like I have to check myself around you, to censor myself and I'm not going to do it anymore, that's it, Sarah you'll just have to deal with my brashness, my 'overt displays of sexuality' as you put it. Here's what you misunderstand, I'm not 'putting it on' like you just did, I'm not acting, it's just who I am, if you can't deal with that then I don't know what to tell you, but I'm not going to continue to modify myself for your comfort."
"Fine", came Sara's response, accompanied by a nonplused shrug of her shoulders.
"That's it, fine? What does that even mean Sarah, 'fine' you'll chill out, 'fine' you'll quit judging me, 'fine' you couldn't give a shit about what I just said? What? Sarah, you'll have to do better. I mean maybe this isn't the time or the place for this converstation".
"No, probably not" Sarah agreed. It was a start. A point of commonality. This dialogue was not over, nor should it be continued at the lab. Sarah had the feeling that if they were going to be able to get to the bottom of Sarah's scorn for Catherine and Catherine's impatience for Sarah, it would involve a level of intimacy that the lab didn't lend itself to. A not uncomfortable silence washed over the two women. Neither one knew how to suggest the next step towards resolution. It was so easy to keep arguing, to refuse concession, but now at this point of reconcile both were vulnerable.
Catherine finally suggested that they speak after shift, "have something to eat, or something" were the casual words she used.
"Fine", at that response, Catherine looked exasperated at Sarah, "I mean, sure. Sorry Cath. I, uh, well, we'll talk later".