Chapter XV
Twenty-Two Years in the Making
The apartment complex was nothing to sneeze at. It was middle class, and completely forgettable. Laura sneered, her nose up, at it anyway. Sara thought she was so much better then her mother. Well, it was time to remind Sara of her roots.
Technology was a wonderful thing. All she'd had to do was hit a few keys and click a mouse a few times, and she'd had her daughter's address. Computer lessons had been all a part of her "rehabilitation"
Sara was on the fourth floor. Laura took the elevator, and sneered at its very presence. When she finally found Apartment 4-B, she started looking for the spare key. Under the mat, around the doorframe, there wasn't one. She cursed under her breath. Then she heard someone, "Hey Sara!" She looked up and the shouter did a double take. "Whoa, you're not Sara." She put on her best smile. "No, I'm Laura, Sara's mother. She told me she'd put a spare key out, but I can't find it." The man grinned, "Ah well, she probably got called in on some big case, she's always working. It's okay, though, I've got her spare. She gave it to me a while back so I could put her UPS in her apartment when she's not here to sign for it." She smiled at the young man, he was in his twenties and bleached blonde. She vaguely wondered if her daughter was sleeping with him. She knew that she would have been, if given the chance. He let her into Sara's apartment and then smiled, "Well, I gotta go, Ms. Sidle, or my pit boss will use my balls at the roulette wheel. Say hi to Sara for me."
He left and Laura was in Sara's empty apartment. It was clean, neat and done in passionate colors and chrome. The computer sitting off in some sort of makeshift office had a swirling screensaver on it. There was a stereo with plenty of CDs in the tower beside it, and books were everywhere. Sara was still a good-for-nothing hoity-toity know-it-all.
Laura wandered into the kitchen and looked inside the fridge. There were a few cartons of what were probably Chinese food and a covered bowel of salad. Soymilk, fancy coffee but no beer, and not even the makings for a ham sandwich. Laura scoffed and slammed the pristine white door hard enough to make magnets and whatever they'd been holding to fall off. She bent down and picked up a picture. Sara and a bunch of her cop friends, she guessed. She let it flutter back down to the floor and turned to the cabinets.
There was no stash of pot or coke or anything. She pushed around plates and boxes of crappy health food until her fingers brushed up against the smooth glass of a bottle. A wicked smile formed and she brought it out. Ah, it was a little dusty, almost forgotten. Sara's little sin, alcohol. So, she had a taste for it too, Laura had always known that there was something of her in her daughter. It was Tequila and it was mostly full. She twisted the cap off and took a sip; it burned all the way down like it should.
Laura smiled and took the bottle with her as she explored the rest of the apartment. The bathroom was small, but the tub was full of exotic smelling shampoos and shit, unlit candles lining the walls. Sara had a nice bathroom; she had never had to worry about a bull-dyke shiving her when she was washing her hair. Laura left the bathroom, alcohol dribbled out of the bottle, splashing down on the white floor as she went. The bedroom was Spartan: a bed, a chest of drawers, an alarm clock and some kind of police radio. The bed was a Queen, but from the looks of it, Sara had been the only one occupying it for quite some time. That was a shame.
She obviously hadn't taught the girl anything. She had her pick of the men at that lab and probably a hundred other cops she could screw, yet she wasn't…or maybe she just took it to their places. She let the tequila splash onto her bed, covering the deep purple comforter with strong smelling alcohol. Laura opened the closet and wrinkled her nose. Almost everything was black…and so bland. More alcohol coated the clothes. She made her way back to the front, draining the bottle onto the hallway carpet as she went. The couch in the living room got a good soaking and she threw the bottle down in the middle of the floor.
She stood at the door again and looked over Sara's perfect little apartment. She curled her lip and reached into her pocket for a cigarette. She lit it with her cheap Bic lighter and inhaled the smoke. It was good, even though they were cheap; the little thrill of nicotine went through her. Laura Sidle blew the smoke out and flicked the cigarette back into the apartment, it landed on the couch. The hot cherry of the smoldering cigarette landed on the black leather and an instant later, fire met the alcohol. The sudden whoosh of flame was almost musical, in its own way.
The world could keep its Blues, Jazz and Rock and Roll; Laura Sidle had always marched to the violent beat of her own drummer. From the doorway, she watched as yellow, orange and red began to eat away at Sara's perfect apartment. It turned pristine white to black as it moved from the couch, across the carpeted floor and to the walls. Books began to turn to ash and the computer screen cracked in the glorious heat of the fire. Laura smiled as she closed the door. Sara owed her and this little slice of revenge had been twenty-two years in the making.
Author's Note: Yeah, my life is still crazy right now. Updates are spotty and I hate that. My muses are out of whack and everything I try to write turns very angsty and sad. Grief (a bunch of drabbles I strung together into a sort-of-story-ish) started out as a fluff. Yeah, like I said, I'm a bit out of sorts at the moment.