It was soon obvious that Lieutenant Harris wasn't driving back towards his house; he was headed downtown instead. I stayed silent in the passenger seat, my hands in my lap, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. Eventually he came to an alley and put on his turn signal as I made a face of confusion. He said nothing as he turned down the narrow puddle-covered street, pulling his car into a tight spot between two tall brick buildings. We were all alone now to talk about whatever it was I was here for now.
"So, uh, mind explaining why you decided to follow me?" he asked, shutting off the ignition. "You see, I'm confused because it seemed real clear to me on Saturday that you and I were through."
"Just because I wasn't ready to say yes to your out-of-the-blue proposal?" I countered. I crossed my arms, making a face. "Really though, I wished you'd never asked at all. We'd still be together."
"Huh?" he said, finally seeming to come back to life, no longer the quiet, dejected man from earlier. He blinked multiple times in confusion. "What are you sayin'? I don't understand."
"I'm saying just because I'm not ready to commit to a marriage right now doesn't mean I want to end it with you."
"Well, why didn't you try to get ahold of me? Why'd you insist on going back to the academy?"
"I needed time to think. And it's not like I can just drive over to your house. I don't have a car, remember? I'm done being a Corsica-stealing punk."
"You coulda called."
"From what, a pay phone on campus? Yeah, that's a great place for a private conversation."
"Right, so, uh, what are you doing here?"
"Telling you that."
The permanent scowl that had seemed destined to remain on Harris's face for the foreseeable future softened into a slack-jawed half-smile.
"Does this have something to do with what I just did back there, making that statement?"
"That definitely didn't hurt, admitting you were wrong," I said, ending my sentence with a little smile. "Did you really mean it?"
"What, you think I get off on humiliating myself in front of my peers and the news media?" he replied with a scoff. "Damn, Carnegie; I thought you knew me better than that."
Zed was nowhere in sight as Harris and I finished together in a haze of sweat and window fog, the Crown Victoria far more comfortable than the Corvette for such purposes. This was the kind of thing he was the right guy for, that being car sex, clandestine meetups, and weekend sleepovers, not white dresses, organ music, big promises, and hors d'oeuvres. Maybe Thaddeus thought that he owed me some higher level of commitment for what I'd done for him on Saturday. Hopefully he could see that there were far more benefits to keeping it simple.
I pulled my shirt back over my head and climbed over the center console to take my seat on the passenger side. Thaddeus had left his shirt on, but it was drenched with sweat and smelled quite ripe now. He pulled his pants back up and stepped out of the car to take his seat back on the driver's side.
Now that we were seated, we both looked at each other and smiled.
"So can you cancel your two-week notice? How does that work?"
"Wouldn't look real sincere if I immediately rescinded that, now would it?" he countered, as we drove back towards campus. "I'm gonna work on community outreach in the meantime. Lassard had formed a pretty good C.O.P. program that I hadn't appreciated at the time. Maybe I'll work on something like that."
"I'll miss seeing you at the academy," I muttered sadly. "That's going to be so weird, you not being there."
"It's week seven of fourteen now, so exactly halfway through," he replied. "I can always pick you up on the weekend, but not in this car. I'll have to return the Crown Vic—police property," he said, patting the steering wheel. "It got to have quite the send-off, eh?"
"So I can see you on the weekends, you're saying?"
"Well, this coming weekend I'll be busy, though, so you might want to do something else."
"Busy doing what?"
"I'm gonna be at the homeless shelter all weekend."
"Doing what? You're not losing your house, are you?!" I gasped.
"Feeding the poor. I'm sure I told you about this before."
My jaw dropped. He had mentioned this before on our diner date, but it had been hard to believe that he actually would spend a whole weekend doing it.
"All weekend?"
"Yep. Seven to six on Saturday, same on Sunday."
"Wow, those are long days."
"Yeah, well, like I said, I made a promise, and now I got even more reason to try to pull myself out of the hole I dug for myself."
The remainder of the week at the academy was strangely quiet and subdued. Captain Callahan was far less energetic than usual and in fact, kept her sunglasses off for most of the outdoor activities in spite of it being sunny enough to wear them. She said amazingly little, even when given the opportunity to hate on Harris.
"You know," Fenster said to her as he panted like a dog during drills, "my mom believes what Lieutenant Harris said, about the police conspiracy. She says it makes sense. What should I tell her?"
"I don't know; she's your mother," was the curt reply. "You'll never finish in time if you keep yapping."
Even the cafeteria was quieter. It was as if Lieutenant Harris's presence had brought a certain kind of energy to the campus. Without him here, the instructors had no one to laugh at, the students had nothing to gossip about, and I had no one to obsess over.
Being as the student body still believed Harris and I to still be broken up from before, no one questioned me as to the whereabouts of Lieutenant Harris or what his future plans were. It was as if he'd never existed, and it was strange. The Metropolitan Police Academy had forgotten him, had left him behind.
Captain Tackleberry was not yet back on campus. Apparently the investigation was going to be a while. In the meantime, Captain Callahan had a large squadron she had to take care of all by herself. I couldn't help but scowl at her every time she turned her back.
Mullers dropped me off at my apartment on Friday night, asking for the third time if I was planning to go to the campus party on Saturday night.
"Eh," I muttered, "Like I said, I have lots of shit to catch up on. It's been a weird week. I need to look for a car, because making everyone drive me around isn't fair."
"It's no problem, bringing you home. Don't get a car on account of me—I don't mind. I will agree that it's been a weird-ass week. The academy's instructors are dropping like flies. Who's next—Hightower? Or maybe Callahan next?"
"I guess we'll find out. Seems to be a pattern. Anyway, thanks for the offer. Have fun at the party."
"No problem. See you Monday, April."
I drove off of the used car lot in my brown and cream 1982 Ford Bronco, somehow surprisingly affordable but a bit rustier and higher mileage than I would have preferred. It was a beast of an SUV, nothing anyone would have expected someone like me to drive around in. However, the cargo area was huge and the rear windows were tinted—a great place to go on a covert 'date.' I giggled to myself as I fueled up the beast, on my way to the homeless shelter.
As soon as I entered the building, I was met with a large windowless open room, a room cluttered with homeless people standing in line or sitting at one of many round tables scattered around the large room. I followed the line of homeless to the front of the room where the buffet line was located. There was Thaddeus standing behind a large folding table, a white apron on and with his salt-and-pepper hair in a hairnet, looking surprisingly at ease in this place. In his hand he held a big spoon, glopping various foods onto the trays of each of the people in line. He didn't look tired or irritated—just intensely focused.
I strode across the open spaces between tables on my way towards the buffet, realizing instantly that Harris hadn't expected me to come by. I hadn't told him I would, and he hadn't asked me to. Before I was in his field of vision, I made a quick turn, heading behind the table with him.
"Hey, you can't come ba—Carnegie?!" he started, abruptly shutting up as he saw it was me. Instantly a look of utter confusion was on his face.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to help," I quickly replied. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stick around until 7 in the evening, but surely helping out the homeless was not the worst way to spend a Saturday.
"You oughta get a hair net. Wear an apron too—the sauce on the rigatoni will stain that shirt to hell."
"Where do I—?"
"In the kitchen, behind me. If they ask, tell 'em I invited you."
An hour went by in surprisingly fast fashion as Harris and I spooned out food to the city's homeless population. When kids came up to get seconds and thirds, it was almost enough to make me cry. This was totally heartbreaking, seeing this level of destitution, the dirt under their fingernails and the thinness of their arms. And here I was, in my apartment, thinking I was destitute when I was technically a black sheep heiress, blocked from a ridiculous amount of money by my own bad decisions alone. Today was quite the sobering day for me. I wondered what effect, if any, it had on Thaddeus, to interact with the homeless.
At the end of the lunch period, the trays sat in a teetering pile in the corner, apparently waiting to be washed. Harris said nothing, walking out from behind the serving table and scooping up a bunch of them in his arms as he carried them to the kitchen.
I'd hoped we'd had some downtime after lunch, but it seemed like it would be a full day of busy work.
I followed suit, grabbing another stack of trays and bringing them to the kitchen as well. I watched Harris dump the trays into a large white scrub sink and then turn on the taps, pulling a hose-like extension over to the trays as he applied a heavy amount of dish liquid to the stack of trays.
"Wow—that's a lot to wash," I muttered, noticing that he hadn't even bothered to pull on the rubber gloves nearby. "Your hands will be like prunes by the end of this."
"Yeah, but it makes 'em amazingly soft. You just wait."
We stood side by side, Harris washing the trays as I dried them and stacked them neatly on the counter nearby.
"How did you get here?" he finally asked, after several minutes of intensive cleaning. "You take the bus?"
"I bought a car."
"What kind?"
"82 Bronco."
"Is it white like O.J.'s?"
"Ha," I began with a laugh, "no; it's brown and cream."
"Why such a big car? You got a bunch of ankle-biters you haven't told me about?"
"Ha, no. The price was right and it has a hell of a cargo area. Tinted windows back there, too."
"Huh. You some, uh, secret cargo you need to lug around?"
"Yeah, two people," I quickly replied. "Though, the Bronco would be parked the whole time they're back there. Nice and private." At that, I grinned devilishly at him.
He turned his head to look at me, his hands still buried in the sudsy sink, his default look of suspicion turning first to a dropped jaw and then a smile of disbelief.
"You know, after we finish these trays up, we get thirty minutes for lunch," he murmured barely above a whisper. "Sounds to me like we should inspect that cargo area further, eh?"
I'd no idea how I made until seven pm, but I had. I was exhausted from being on my feet all day and yet Thaddeus seemed totally unaffected. In fact, I'd call him chipper.
"Man, aren't you tired?" I muttered, as we lie together that night in his bed, my feet still throbbing.
"Nah," he replied quickly. "I've had all week to rest up for this."
"So you're still not going to come back to work? Don't you technically have two more weeks?"
"I do, but what is there to say? 'A' Squad hates me for running my mouth about Tackleberry—can't say I blame 'em. Callahan has lost all respect for me and it pisses me off. I don't belong there."
"But what about the promotion? Lassard and even Mahoney said that—"
"Talk is cheap," he cut in. "If they want me, they know where to find me."
