Part 3
Sun. The sun was way too bright – she needed to go back to sleep or she'd be exhausted by the time work started. With a grunt, Sara jerked the covers back over her head and rolled over. She was so comfortable; she'd had no idea that the thin sheets on the bed she'd bought in Vegas could feel so luxurious.
She was just beginning to drift off again when a cheery voice shouted, "Up and at 'em!" She shot up in bed – who had broken into her apartment? It took her a few seconds to assimilate what she was seeing: Jeff, in a business suit, stood in her doorway holding an apple in one hand and a small carton of orange juice in the other. She wasn't in Kansas anymore; this was New Jersey, not Las Vegas.
"Come on Sara, get up. It's morning, and while you're with me you're going to have to wake up for the day and sleep at night, otherwise I can't help you get around or anything." He paused for a second, giving her a wily look, then chucked the apple at her without warning.
"Ow!" Sara exclaimed as the fruit smacked into her palm. "Not so hard, play nice."
"You caught it, didn't you? You and your freaky reflexes. Eat, Sara – and here's some juice." He refrained from throwing the juice, choosing instead to place it on her night table.
Sara took a bite of the apple, then spoke through it. "You are the world's most sadistic man. Getting me up at the crack of dawn, when I should rightfully just be going to sleep after getting home from work. Why do I need to be up this early?"
"Because, my dear, you're coming to the City with me – unless you want to figure out how to navigate New Jersey Transit alone – and I'm leaving in an hour. So get up and get dressed, or I'm leaving you home."
"Ok, ok. I'm up." She shoved aside the covers and stood up, shivering in her thin pajamas. "God, why do you have to live somewhere so cold?"
Jeff laughed. "It's 72 degrees, sis. If you think this is cold, you should have been here last winter when it didn't get above thirty for something like three weeks." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Besides, you need to get yourself some more body fat to keep you warmer."
"I live in Las Vegas! I sincerely doubt that I need to be kept warmer there."
"Mmmhmmm," he said with a smug nod. "I thought so. This is totally not the permanent situation you're making it sound like. Did you have a fight with your boyfriend or something?"
Sara's jaw dropped. "I don't have a boyfriend, asshole! And I am here permanently, unless I decide not to be. Now get out, I need to get dressed."
"Sure, sure. But you know I'm right. You're going to tell me about this on the ride in or I'll push you onto the tracks or something."
"Fuck off, Jeff." This was said without any real heat, though; she'd expected him to force it out of her eventually. She watched as he left the room. When did her brother get to be an adult who wore suits to work, anyway? It freaked her out.
She stepped back into her bedroom fifteen minutes later in a robe with a towel around her head, and settled down in front of her computer to check her e-mail while her hair dried. Spam ("Increase your manhood in 30 days!" – laughed at and deleted), junk mail from a listserv she was too lazy to unsubscribe from (A newbie posting "Me too!" – groaned at and deleted), more spam ("International drivers license lets you drive anywhere!" – cursed at and deleted) . . . a note from a friend in San Francisco ("Hey, how's it going?" – read and replied to) . . . and an e-mail from "Gil Grissom." Her heart started pounding.
She was almost afraid to open the e-mail. She knew what it would be – first, him expressing surprise that she was unhappy with Las Vegas (he always pretended to be the last to know these things), then a lecture about how the lab needed her good work (did she LOOK like she gave a damn what the lab needed?), and finally some small expression of his displeasure with her thoughts of leaving (maybe a comment about how he knew of another young woman who was a wonderful CSI . . .).
She opened it anyway, of course, and sat stiffly while she read it.
Sara,
Well first off, I'll thank you for writing me. I appreciate your keeping me in the loop, so to speak. I'm also glad to hear that you've made it there safely, and that you've got plenty of room in your brother's house- is he married, or does he live there alone? I must say that I'm jealous of such a large house. You know how mine is; they took a closet with five sections and labeled it "town house."
[No, she thought, I don't know how yours is. I've only seen it once, and that for an hour at most.]
Too bad about your flight over there; I can just imagine how annoying it must be to have men hitting on you. [Was that SARCASM, Gris? Nahhh!] You ought to tell them you have a boyfriend or something. I have no solution to offer for the seat-in-your-lap problem, sorry. Congratulations, though, on holding in your temper and not actually dumping your lunch over the woman's head. I wouldn't like to get a phone call from you saying you'd just arrived in New Jersey, and could I please bail you out of jail!
[Like I'd call you, Grissom. You'd be the absolute LAST person I'd call in such a situation. I can just imagine the lecture I'd get. But gee, thanks for the "congratulations" on my having self-control.]
So you escaped the arms of the Mafia, huh? Good for you! New Jersey isn't really the pits of hell, you know. The area you're in (you said your brother lives in Montclair, right?) is actually a rather wealthy area; a lot of old mansions and multi-story houses with servants' quarters still built in. I've driven through it on trips to New York. You said on the phone that you'll "be in New York," so I assume that you'll be spending time in the City, but I hope you'll spend some time around your brother's house too. There's a college just down the road you might like to check out; they supposedly have very modern scientific facilities.
Well . . . having said all that, I guess it's time for me to address the meat of your e-mail – I sincerely wish I didn't have to, but it would be rude and unfair of me to ignore it.
[I'll just bet you do wish that. God forbid you have (gasp!) emotions, and be willing to (double gasp!) express them!]
I'm very surprised to hear about your lack of content here in Las Vegas. I wish you had told me before; I'm sure we could have - and still could - work something out so that you feel more comfortable here. It would be a true tragedy for the lab to lose you for so simple a reason.
[Simple? Excuse me??? Who said it was simple? God, this is exactly the reply I expected from him. Well, add it to the list of reasons why I shouldn't go back.]
I hope you don't think I'm going to "freak out" on you just for expressing your opinion to me. That doesn't reflect well on our working relationship, and I'd like to think I'm more sensitive to my team's needs than you make it sound.
[BullSHIT, Grissom! If you believe that, then you're even blinder than you look, and I didn't think that was possible.]
Is there anything I can do or say to make you reconsider? I know that you have a strong will, Sara, but honestly, I had no idea you were so unhappy. It pains me to think about it, and it pains me even more to think that I may have had something to do with making you that uncomfortable. I guess an offering of pizza just doesn't cut it, huh?
Please write back to me and keep this dialogue open. Anything I can do for you to make you want to come back, I will do.
Yours,
Gil
Sara sighed heavily. She'd had a tiny hope that this note would be different than she'd expected, but it had been dumb of her to hold on to that. He'd said exactly what she'd thought he would. "I didn't know you were unhappy"; "The lab needs you." Well, except the last part of the e-mail. That had seemed like maybe he actually had something of substance to say. No such luck, though; he'd cut off before he could incriminate himself. As she was about to close out her e-mail reader, though, she noticed that the scroll bar indicated that there was more to his letter. She drew it down another inch until more text appeared.
P.S. Ok, well, what you just read was what I came up with on the first try. Now I'll say what I think I left out. Please don't leave Las Vegas permanently, Sara. Everyone here cares very much for you, and they'd be devastated to know that you're not happy with them. I think that I speak for the entire team when I say that.
Having assured you of, I need to ask: did I influence your decision in any way with the way I acted a few nights ago? I didn't mean to make you uneasy, Sara – I really just wanted to make sure you were ok. I thought that you'd been acting somewhat odd for a while (odder than usual, that is, haha! j/k), and I guess the reason was that you were considering really leaving . . . but I didn't know that then. I was hoping that you'd be willing to talk to me about whatever was bothering you, but I realize now that I was expecting too much.
We've known each other for so long, you know, that sometimes I do feel that I have a bit more insight into you than anyone else around us. What worries me is that now that insight is telling me that you're not just searching for attention (not that that's your style to begin with), or threatening so I'll give you a raise, or even trying to "pay me back" for anything I've done. What I read between the lines of your e-mail is true resolve. You really are doing a lot of heavy thinking about this, and I respect that.
That said, I'll repeat the point I truly want to get across to you with this note:
If there's anything – ANYTHING – I can do to help you understand this, or to convince you that you can be happy in Vegas, please tell me and I'll do whatever's in my power to do for you. Just don't shut yourself off, as I know you're tempted to do.
How do I know you're tempted? Because if I were in your position, I would already have cut myself off. Don't be like me on this, Sara.
She was startled out of her reading just as she reached Grissom's last sentence by a bang on the door of her room and the boom of her brother's voice. "Yo! Kid! Get your butt out here, you're gonna make me late for work!"
"Yeah, one sec!" Quickly, she tossed on some clothes and knotted her hair back, reflecting all the while on what Grissom had written. The P.S. had really knocked her for a loop; Grissom had actually expressed emotion, and that worried her. Why was he being so nice all of a sudden, when he'd been so cold for years? It wasn't like him, and she sensed that he had an ulterior motive that he was concealing.
Maybe he was right about the whole "insight" thing, but it worked both ways. She knew him as well as he knew her, and she could tell that Grissom wanted something from her; she just didn't yet know what it was.