Chapter 10: Days Like This
Disclaimer: The characters of Castle belong to Mr. Marlowe and ABC Studios. I'm merely borrowing them.
Days like this reaffirmed the impetuous decision he'd made to purchase the loft. It had been leagues out of his price range, but coming off the tail end of a hugely successful, disgustingly lucrative book tour, he'd rationalized the alarming number of integers and blithely signed on the dotted line to his realtor's ecstasy and his accountant's abject horror. It had been the windows, really. Choice views and soaring ceilings were his real estate kryptonite. And the agent, like some goddamn bloodhound, had sniffed it out. She'd nonchalantly, strategically directed his attention to the industrial feel of the paned windows, the generous span and reach of them, how their height pleasantly dwarfed him, the exquisite view of the city, the yellow splashes of sun that spread across the burnished hardwood floors. Autumn's vibrant edges had barely surfaced when they walked the loft—a crisp October day, the sky a brittle, glaring blue; garnet and pumpkin and fulvous treetops swayed, crashed in the distance. And standing in a warming patch of light, eyes tracing a jagged row of buildings awash in the afternoon sun, the savvy realtor's glowing endorsements reverberating in his ears, he envisioned a nearly tangible future—Alexis decorating a Douglas fir positioned before the window, snow lazily drifting to the street below, strands of colored lights and the pale moon their only illumination; lazy springtime naps sprawled on the couch, buttery sunlight washing cozily over them; dusting off their Celestron and stargazing on sweltering summer nights, opting for the comfort of air conditioning, velvety milkshakes, and remote views of the Northern Cross and Cygnus. And so he'd shelled out a sickening down payment, and following that one nauseating moment, never experienced a moment's doubt. This was his place. It was where he belonged. Where Alexis belonged. Where they would carve out a future, foster memories as bright, as golden as the sunlight that soaked through the dense weave of his flannel. And that sense of profound rightness was nestled anew—though to a milder degree—in his chest this morning as he labored over his newest acquisition, cursing and fumbling with knobs, squinting against the reflection of bright sunlight on chrome.
He shouldn't have purchased this either—because it was outrageously costly, of course—but looking at the thing, he found himself incapable of summoning up an ounce of remorse. So yeah, he shouldn't have made the purchase because it was idiotically extravagant. That was a given. But also because he'd written a check for Alexis' tuition the day before, and the thought of all those trailing zeros still knotted his mouth in a grimace of semi-pain. He placed the blame on not only the salesgirl—calm, hyper-logical, warm, and readily producing a litany of rationales for why this purchase was a necessity, not a luxury—but his own weakness for scalding cortados and shiny objects. Maybe his threshold for moderation and restraint was low, or his need for caffeine intake was simply unusually high, but something was unequivocally wrong with him because he hadn't even blinked when he'd pulled out his American Express black card. Swipe, smile, sign, so long—no second thoughts or hesitations. Now he was the proud owner of a La Marzocco Linea Group 2 semi-automatic espresso machine, guided only by his alarming lack of proficiency and a manual written mostly in Italian, and he was in a shitty mood because he'd delayed his first cup of coffee in deference to the frothy latte this heap of crap portended. Well, he groused, regarded the machine with animosity, that ship had sailed. Despite his best efforts, not even a trace of steam issued from the frother. And he had the faintest suspicion that they'd modeled the portafilter after those Chinese puzzle boxes, because for all his exertions, he had yet to correctly fit it to the group head. Head pulsing from the caffeine deficit, Rick shoved back from the countertop, pocketed his wallet, shrugged into an ancient NYU sweatshirt, the thought of a bone dry cappuccino from Fiat luring him outside.
Roughly, he jerked the door open, irritation thinning his mouth to a tight line, narrowing his eyes, but it all shifted in the space of a taut little moment—frustration giving way to dread-induced cold sweats, to a shock of dismay, to suffocating claustrophobia as he was enveloped in a proprietary embrace, half-smothered in a cloud of strawberry hair and Cle de Peau Beaute.
"Surprise, kitten," a warm mouth moved against his ear, kindling a deep, familiar irritation. She was like one of those undetectable, phantom itches, slowly driving him to the brink of insanity in his ineffectual attempts to rid himself of her presence. Yet here she was.
Extricating himself from her grasp, pressing her away, he struggled to scrape together a sentence. She looked so goddamn pleased, blithely imposing herself on him, on Alexis, indifferent to the potential inconvenience of it all—but then, she'd always been impulsive. Not that he considered himself any expert on the virtues of self-control or delayed gratification—his gaze bounced to the La Marzocco ruefully—but she took impulsivity to an entirely different plane. Dimension, maybe. Always had, the thought settled bitterly in his mind and he curbed a sharp wince as old memories superimposed themselves, blotting out reality for a technicolor beat—Meredith a few years younger but her hair the same flawless metallic cascade, a red curtain between his dumbstruck gaze and the muscle-bound body pumping against his wife. Which was all he could do. Watch. Try to remember how to breathe. To think past the scarlet haze of fury and the choking pulse in his throat. To not drive his fist into the other man's face, ruin the lines of his aquiline nose, bloody the mouth laving at her neck. Because what did you do—waltzing in on a stranger fucking your wife? There wasn't a rulebook, wasn't a gold standard for that.
"Meredith," he greeted, his voice a flat, cool thing. A wall. "What are you doing here?'
"Ever the consummate host," she rejoined airily, pushed past him, skimmed manicured fingers down his arm as she went, and he fought the urge to bat them away. "Why? Don't tell me you're not happy to see me."
"You know you're always welcome here. You're Alexis' mother," more like a distant aunt, his mind supplied bitterly, "and you should be in her life as often as possible. I want you in her life, I just—a little advance notice would've been nice."
"This wasn't exactly planned," she shot back with a too-bright smile, tone dismissive, but her eyes defensive, skirting his gaze. That was the crux of the problem, though, the foundation of his rancor—there was never any plan, and Alexis paid the price. Every goddamn time.
"So I'd gathered," he muttered acerbically, shoved the door closed with the heel of his hand, the wood meeting the jamb harder than he'd anticipated. His cappuccino was a fast receding thought, and the caffeine deficit amplified his irritation, the anxious tangle in his gut stratified with the ghost of a stress headache. The twinging promise of one. Wincing anticipatorily, he pressed a damp palm to the base of his skull. "Alexis isn't even here. She's actually at a friend's, at the tail end of a birthday party—a sleepover. Macy's mom will drop her off, but I'm not sure when exactly."
The reference to Macy was an innocuous dig, an emotional elbow to the side—Meredith didn't know Macy existed, much less that she and Alexis were in dance together, that they spent an afternoon each week working their way through cavernous bowls of strawberry ice cream, constructing card houses and crafting beaded bracelets. And he wanted her to know just how much she didn't know, the sweeping scope of what she'd relinquished. It helped somehow—inflicting a little pain—loosened, unspooled the knot, enabled him to breathe a shade deeper. But the resentment still simmered beneath his deliberately courteous veneer, kept company with the pulsing ache in his head, ratcheted up his tension.
Meredith shifted her weight restlessly from one spindly leg to the other, the reticulated lines of her trachea emerged on a tight swallow, and she smoothed down nonexistent flyaways—she was nervous, he realized, blinked at the knowledge. That was...unexpected.
"Well, when will she be back?"
"Soon," he said without elaboration, hating that she looked so alluring. Hating himself for noticing.
The silence went stagnant then, hanging heavy, punctuated by their discomfited shifting and the muffled din of traffic below, and after a beat Meredith hesitatingly alighted on his sofa. "Alright," she sighed, toying with a fob on her extortionate handbag and staring pointedly away from him. "I'll just…well, I'll wait here, if—if that's okay with you, I mean."
Of course it wasn't okay, he wanted her gone. Her presence rankled, and the words he wanted to liberate lay on his tongue, a bitter taste. But he shelved his personal irritation, resolved to lick his reopened wounds at a later moment, and stalked back to the espresso machine, the harsh glint of light on chrome triggering a stinging fuzz of tears. "Sure. How long're you planning to be in town?" He tossed over his shoulder, blinking fiercely, his wet lashes brushing against the apples of his cheeks.
"I'll fly back out in a week or so," she draped one flawless porcelain leg over the other, sinking deeper into the plush cushions. "And before I do I want to spend plenty of time with my sweet girl."
She was shooting for warm, for attentive, if the tilt of her head and the width of her smile were anything to go by, but it came off saccharine and false and two dimensional—as though she could finesse and playact her way through this exchange the same as she did in those idiotic Mexican soaps she loved so much. As though her overblown performance wasn't heartbreakingly transparent.
"So, 'plenty of time'—what does that mean?" He was jamming the portafilter into the grooves of the grouphead, his motions rough, the only available release for his rising pique.
"What do you mean 'what does that mean'?"
"I mean," he clipped out, a little rush of satisfaction, of relief coursing through him as the basket finally, finally notched into place, as the fraying threads of his self-restraint gave way one by one, word by word, "you buying her a new toy and a fucking cone of ice cream doesn't cut it. You can't fix what you did, you know. You left."
"You told me to leave, you asshole," her voice was sharp, acidic behind him, full of misplaced vindication, and it whetted his temper. Justified the steady flame of anger that was making his head pound, his hands waver. "So I left."
"Me," he barked a laugh, this humorless, vicious rasp that tightened his throat, and he stared sightlessly out the windows, past the line of buildings, past the thin veil of cirrus clouds. "You were supposed to leave me. Leave our marriage. Leave the loft. But not Alexis. I mean, what kind of person leaves their own kid? Doesn't worry, doesn't call, doesn't give a goddamn what's happening with them?"
He wheeled on her, some raw, base part of him deeply gratified by the shock etched on her face, the hurt. It aged her, he acknowledged spitefully, the expression of stupefaction pulled at her lips, accentuating the lines that bracketed her mouth, that fanned from the corners of her eyes.
"You don't even know her," he continued, words tumbling free before he'd fully formed a thought, emotion spewing from him unchecked. "You don't know that she just finished Peter Pan and is consistently reading at a collegiate level, that she's brilliant and intuitive and outstripping her peers in all of her placement tests. You don't know that she hates zucchini but loves green beans, that she cried when she learned about the Midwest tornadoes this May and sent all of the money she had saved to FEMA. That she still needs Munky Bunky to get to sleep but denies it because she thinks she's too old to need a stuffed animal to feel safe. That she learned how to braid her own hair this year because she doesn't have a mother to do it and she told me it was time for her to grow up. That she knew I was busy and she could do it herself.
"You don't know that she wants to be a doctor, that her favorite movie right now is Finding Nemo and that, to date, we've seen it four times. You don't know that every time she gets a cold she gets an ear infection, too, and that the only remedy is these awful, pungent garlic ear drops I get from this new-age homeopathic shop in the upper east side. You don't know because you decided that your own career outstripped your own daughter in importance—you treat her like an elective. Like a distraction. If it's convenient then you're a mother. If she somehow interferes with your plans, or god forbid with your fucking career, then you make your excuses and leave her wondering what the hell is wrong with her."
For the space of a few elastic moments, she was quiet, the crackling silence charged and tenuous. "Are you telling me I can't see my daughter, Rick," she finally demanded, voice quavery but harsh, pointed, her shock giving way to indignation, her features crumpled in distress. And just like that his fury abated, left him brittle and a little shuddery.
"I'm asking you to treat her like your daughter," he managed tightly, "and not an amusement. Not an option. You're hurting her, Mer." She flinched at that, gripping the patent leather of her bag until it crepitated, her knuckles blanching white. Good.
"I—I'm sorry," she stammered, and she sounded genuine, looked utterly penitent. But she'd been sorry before and he knew her—she'd be sorry the next time, and the next, and the consequent dozen times she inevitably couldn't make it or something unexpected cropped up or there was a career altering role she simply couldn't decline. It was who she was—flighty and self-centered, but for all that, she wasn't bad. Which somehow made it infinitely more tragic, her neglect. But instead of giving voice to his thoughts, he buried them somewhere deep and aching, studied the cornflower blue of her eyes, the way they turned down at the edges in sadness, the thick rim of her immaculate mascara. And he sighed soft and slow.
"I know."
Macy's mother had commendable timing, he mused, relief filtering through him at the tap-tap-tap that issued from the front door. He reached it in a few swift steps, swinging it open to reveal Alexis' rueful face, little body stooped beneath the weight of her overnight bag, still clad in her pajama bottoms and a nearly-too-small t-shirt grown paper thin from wear. "I forgot my key again," she admitted, voice raspy, and flashed him a smile by way of apology.
Holding the door wider, he stepped back, let her duck under the arm he had braced against the lintel, and turned to face Meredith, worked to rearrange his features into something kinder. This battle, it concerned him and the winsome creature perched expectantly on his sofa. Anything he could spare Alexis, he would—refraining from badmouthing her mother, shielding her from their altercations, cushioning Meredith's recurring absences with trumped up pretenses. She saw, inferred, felt too much as it was—too perceptive, too sensitive for her own good—internalizing everything. It hitched something tighter in him, stomach twisting painfully at the knowledge that she'd been forced to grow up prematurely.
"Mommy," she said, voice tipping up in disbelief, slippered feet stuttering to a stop. Quick, uneasily, she darted her eyes at him—a little wary, a little jaded—and he stretched his mouth in a sorry semblance of encouragement, smile not traveling beyond his lips. "What are you doing here?" She inquired hesitantly.
Meredith huffed a little laugh, reproval in her tone. "What a question, sweetheart! I missed you! It's been too long since we've had some quality girl time, don't you think?"
"Um, yeah, I guess so," Alexis shifted, skepticism still wreathing her words, swimming in her tired eyes.
"Well, then that settles it!" Meredith beamed, bringing her spindly hands together to punctuate the declaration. "And you're going to be so excited about the plans that I made for us—a spa day at Shizuka, reservations at this darling little French restaurant for dinner, and of course Barney's for a shopping spree and whatever else strikes your fancy!"
Yes, because all little girls lived for seaweed wraps and Langue de Bouef, he thought acerbically and, with greater forbearance and composure than he felt, gently pressed the door to.
And now—now they were gone for the day, Alexis' parting expression a plaintive contrast of elation and dubiety—I love you, but you hurt me, mom—Meredith a maelstrom of boisterous words and effusive gestures and affable impatience, and suddenly he was alone with a defective espresso machine and his seething thoughts, turning her words, his words about in his mind, trying to harness his brooding sentiments into something manageable. Something bearable. Unsuccessfully, he groused, tunneling clumsy fingers through his hair, relishing the distracting twinges as the strands caught, snagged, pulled. For the space of a moment he considered calling his mother up, unleashing a scathing diatribe, allowing her sing-song placations, her tender endearments to soothe his jagged irritation. But he didn't want her calm logic, her motherly perspective. Didn't want to be mollified. He wanted…Kate.
Throat working on a swallow, he collected his phone from the countertop and fell into step, pacing a measured tempo that distracted him from the telling hammer of his pulse. Yeah, he was inordinately invested, he knew, cared too much for a disembodied voice, an illusion, a woman he'd never met. And he only gripped the phone tighter.
A snick sounded on the other line, fumbling ensued, a gasping breath that ratcheted his own respiration. "Beckett," she panted airily, that terse professionalism he so admired noticeably absent, succeeded by something more human but just as alluring. She sounded winded, hoarse and breathless, for reasons—exertions—he wasn't entirely certain he'd be comfortable knowing.
"Hey, it's me," he greeted warmly if not apprehensively, familiar in his genericity, and was pleased, overly gratified when she breathed out an elated "hey" in response. "I hope I'm not interrupting you or taking you away from anything or—or if this is a bad time, I can always, you know—" he was equivocating, bumbling through his words, and he kind of hated himself for it.
"No, not at all," she assuaged, "I was just wrapping up at the gym."
Thank every god and demi-god I know, he thought with feeling, relief unspooling the tension is his shoulders, his jaw, and he raised a celebratory fist, tried to keep the cheek-splitting grin from bleeding into his response, "Well, then I'm glad I caught you. I just—I haven't heard anything from you in a while and I was wondering how things were going, how you've been, if you've gotten anywhere with the case."
"Huh, I'm not—I'm not used to that," her voice sounded puzzled, a little faltering.
"Used to what?"
"Well, re—reporting, I guess. Checking in."
He halted his pace, fear that he'd overstepped his bounds, had warded her away with his prying immobilizing him. "Yeah? Should I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be nosy—"
"Don't be. I didn't say it was bad, just that it's—it's not familiar. That's all. But to answer your question, I'm doing okay."
"Why does that sound like a rote response?"
"Likely because we're communicating via phone and you can't see my brilliantly reassuring smile." Thrust meet parry. He thrilled to the repartee, the flirtatious banter that characterized their exchanges, bit back another grin.
"Don't side-step me, detective. How are you really?"
"Please," she purred, "dispense with the amateur interrogation, will you? You don't have a clue as to what you're doing."
"And you do?" He shot back, pivoting on his heel, striding through the squares of slanted sunlight cast through the mullioned windowpanes.
"I don't wanna brag, but yeah, I know my way around the box," her voice was self-assured, smug, downright arrogant. He loved it.
"The box, huh? Police parlance. That's hot." You are hot, he amended internally.
"You use that descriptor pretty frequently; I hope you realize."
"Well, it's a fitting adjective. In regards to—yourself."
It was a gamble, but a well-placed one if her low roll of laughter was anything to go by. "That's a bold assumption seeing as you've never laid eyes on me."
"But you didn't correct me," he reasoned, coming to a shuffling halt, bracing his elbows on the chilled marble of the island. "I'm right, aren't I? I have a sense about these things."
"No comment. Pleading the fifth."
"Like I said. Hot. But really—how are you? And fine is a non-answer, fine is a meaningless, four-letter word. Tell me something real." His words were more forceful than he'd intended, and he flinched, mind rushing to craft an apology, tell her to disregard the request, but she surprised him. She always did.
"Well, if I'm not sugarcoating things, I'm…" a sibilant rush of air roared through the earpiece—a weighty, weary sigh, he realized, and the impulse to reach out and soothe her curled his fingers, carved furrows between his eyes. "I'm tired. So, so tired."
"Your dad, again?" He prompted warily.
"No, it's not him. It's this—this case that I'm working," her voice was suddenly drained, flat, and he could almost hear it, could mentally trace the stoop of her shoulders, the purpled crescent moons beneath her eyes, the unwashed hair in a sloppy bun and the wilting drape of stale clothing. It was all painfully, utterly palpable, concern gripping his chest in a clammy fist. Too goddamn invested, Rick.
"This case is just…it's sucking the life right outta me, I swear. There aren't any leads. I mean, I can usually find something, something seemingly meaningless—a thread—and follow it, pull and tug until something unravels, but there's nothing here. No loose ends, just the same—the same excruciating photos and the same nauseating coroners' reports, and I've been over everything so many times that it's all but burned into my brain. I can't unsee it, can't—even my dreams won't let me forget, it's all played back to me in brilliant, technicolor details. All—all the suffering." She finished calmly, softly.
"For someone as competent at you, that's gotta be pure hell," he ventured after the silence had settled, wishing they weren't so remote, that his comfort wasn't quite so paltry.
"I've had better weeks," she conceded, still subdued, removed.
Shoving away from the countertop, padding across the room to stand in a golden rhombus of light, he peered out the windowpane and scrutinized the street below, the taxis crawling along like glossy yellow beetles, the surface of the sidewalk teeming with bodies—all of them headed from somewhere to someone or something, all discrete, untapped stories. He hummed, let the tone melt into a quiet laugh. "You and me both."
"Well, fill me in, Renoir," she bid, her voice warmer now, seeping through his veins, more tangible than the sunlight through his cotton tee. "Don't let me suffer alone."
Never. Never that, Kate.
"Don't get your hopes up," he warned, a genuine laugh spilling from him now. "It's not comparable to your week by anyone's standards, it was just—it was just today, really. A fantastically shitty morning. And it's colored my perception of the surrounding days, I think. My…well, my ex showed up before my first cup of coffee, no advance notice, no apologies. Just asked me where my daughter was, which inevitably led to a heated disagreement, which was followed by her awkwardly, silently perching on my couch for the better part of an hour. Like a bird. Watching me with her beady eyes while I shuffled around uneasily in my kitchen. And now my kid is spending her day experiencing all of my ex's favorite activities—what eight-year-old wants French food, really?—and hanging out in swanky department stores, and I'd lay steep bets that she doesn't stay in the city more than a few days.
"She does this, over and over—sweeps in, all glamorous and captivating and fun, and she reawakens this…this longing in my kid. For a mom. Not the cool aunt who jets in on the weekends. She breezes into her life and breezes back out with all of the finesse of a category five hurricane, and I'm trying not to—" he trailed off, realizing with a little start that he'd grown impassioned, his words harsh, cutting things.
"Not to…" Kate prompted, curiosity present in her voice, but no censure. No judgment.
"Not to hate her for it." The words were too easy to say—cruel, bitter words—but the guilt didn't come, didn't issue from that overcritical internal voice or from the faceless woman on the other end of the line.
For just a beat, it was still—a quiet moment to recollect thoughts, marshal his calm. "She's hurting your kid," she murmured finally, "and you're a good dad. It would be surprising if you didn't hate her a little."
"Are you absolving me?" He asked bemusedly, shifting his weight to the other leg, sweat collecting in the dip between his clavicles.
"I don't think you need to be absolved. You're—well, you're doing your job—you're supposed to be there to protect her." She'd gone wistful, the subject of fathers disinterring some of that carefully tamped down grief, he surmised.
"Fat lot of good it's doing," he scoffed, bringing the heel of his free hand up to his forehead, pressed hard against the unyielding bone. "She's gonna come home with a new dress from Barney's, a doggie bag full of escargot, and fledgling hope that's destined to be crushed."
"And you'll be there to pick up the pieces. She'll heal, she'll learn, and—and having you will make it...bearable." The way she delivered those words—steady, assuredly, plainly—struck him dumb, elicited a series of rapid blinks, lodged a burl in his throat.
"I—ah, thank you," he countered simply, speaking around the thickness. And he tacitly earmarked the discussion, the subject matter too weighty for their tenuous relationship, steering the conversation into safer territory. "So, I—I know that you're limited as to what you can divulge about your work—I won't scrape for details, swear—but tell me about the other parts of your life. Kate in the real world, and not the kick-ass hyper-professional detective—much as I appreciate that vastly intriguing side of you."
Oh, there was that throaty laugh, the one that curled through him, suffused him with warmth. "Much as I'd like to awe you, my 'real world' self as you so eloquently put it is pretty tame in comparison."
"Now why don't I believe that?"
"Because you're a sensationalist man-child, I assume," she quipped, deadpan, and he huffed in amusement.
"I won't even attempt to deny it, but really, Kate. Just…something. About you. Anything," he coaxed, endeavoring to keep the edge of curiosity from coloring his tone.
A beleaguered sigh, rustling on the other line. "Fine. Although to be fair, you already know more—you know quite a bit."
"Humor me." He wasn't begging, but it was perilously close. Be cool, Rick. But he'd never been cool.
"Eager, aren't you?" She teased, but there was no bite to it, no teeth, and he relaxed into a sheepish smile. "Well, let's see. I love Russian literature—Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol—"
"Russian? Gogol? C'mon, detective. Discriminating scholars agree he should be classified as a Ukranian author."
"Don't even, Alex. I aced my Slavic Languages and Literature course—Gogol is Russian. And frankly, I find his work a bit too saccharine, so let's move along. Russian literature—" she stressed, and he swore he could hear the quelling look she would've thrown him, "—and running. I like to run. It clears my head, leaves me with rubbery limbs and my lungs on fire—drains me in the best way, you know? I have four routes that I take, each one to suit a different mood, and I just…lose myself in the rhythm, the smack of my sneakers. And…um, let's see. Other things that I love. The color purple—the actual color, mind you, not the novel, though I do love Alice Walker. Also, Thai food, the way hot pavement smells after it rains, a pair of great heels, Wheezer, and anything cherry scented. And—and that's all you're prying out of me today."
You're perfect, meet me for coffee, talk to me for hours, he thought, mouth dry, aching for something indeterminate, wanting more. "I'm willing to wait for it," he said instead, belying his impatience.
She gave a mellow hum in reply. "Mm, well, much as I appreciate that, I'm not. Quid pro quo, Alex. Spill it."
"Well. Frankly, I'm impressed, detective. Those renowned interrogative skills? Really living up to the hype."
"Sure, mock me, but you wouldn't last the hour. Civilian." She was all false warmth and affability and he perversely liked her this way—feathers ruffled, goaded, subliminally combative. Liked that they were at a place relationally where barbed witticisms were allowable—expected, even—and wordplay was interlaced throughout their conversations.
"Fine," he breathed, all mock indignation, "but I feel like you already know the sordid stuff."
"Somehow I doubt that," she intoned darkly, disbelief and the slimmest edge of amusement coloring her words.
"Okay, okay. I—I like bourbon. From the outrageously expensive stuff to absolute bottom shelf. It's warm and…inviting, maybe. Meant to be cradled in a broad palm and nursed throughout meaningful conversation before a crackling fire, you know? I've done a lot of traveling—a lot of traveling—but New York has this magnetic draw. I—I can't imagine myself anywhere but here. I'm not as discriminating in my literary tastes as you, with your Karenina and Karamazov, but I…like books with sad endings. It makes them more real somehow. Because life is a little like that, I think. I love the way my daughter's hair smells straight out of her bubble bath, curled on my lap, wrapping us in a cloud of strawberries. The way the sunlight slants through my windows in the autumn, fresh stacks of pancakes, and people watching at corner cafes. Oh, and coffee in all its forms," he added parenthetically, and Kate hummed, her smooth contralto washing over him.
"I second that."
"Oh, we have another addict on our hands!"
"And happy to remain so," her voice lifted, buoyant with a smile.
"No judgment from this quarter," Rick returned, his own mouth spreading, stretching to form a grin. Again. It was constant with her—this effervescent happiness that sort of welled up and spilled out at his seams.
"All of that information and I still don't know your name," she murmured pensively, and he started, his heart knocking in his chest, his breath snaring in his throat.
"Is that—are you asking?"
Suddenly, he wasn't prepared. Wasn't ready to disclose his identity, wasn't ready for their budding relationship to shift, wasn't ready for this to end. Because after she knew who he was and comprehended the lie he'd perpetrated, he questioned whether she'd ever willingly read a word of his novels again, much less accept his calls, field his letters. He was too much a fatalist—despite his high-flown ideas of romance and idealism—to believe she could overlook it. If he was honest with himself, didn't dilute the fear, didn't gloss over the possible outcomes.
It was a long pause, the silence a dull sizzle in the earpiece, and he was mustering up words and courage when she finally spoke. "Not yet," she decided, and he blinked once, slowly, the relief a sweet taste in his mouth.
"You're—uh, you're sure?"
"When I want to know I'll ask. Eventually," Kate reassured him, and he studiously ignored the dread that pooled in his stomach, heavy and viscous at the thought of eventually.
"Eventually, then," he managed, voice lighter than he felt, and let the pitching treetops pull his gaze through the windows and skyward.
Midnight had long since arrived and departed, his eyelids felt sticky, his tear ducts gritty, and still his fingers tapped out a fierce, staccato tempo—it was all so vital tonight, Derek forcing his way through the keys and onto the page, inspiration fueled by anger and fatigue and the bitter edge of helplessness. Abruptly, he paused mid-sentence, wrapped a hand around his sweating tumbler, let the amber Hibiki burn a path of clarity to his gut, grimaced in pleasure, and then resumed his pace. Because if he focused on Derek, reality was a smudged side thought, which rendered Meredith nonexistent, which kept him sane.
After talking to Kate, he'd redoubled his efforts in deciphering the Hammurabi's Code of espresso machines, and several expletive wreathed hours later, he was cradling an arid demitasse of steaming cappuccino, sprawled on the couch languorously, contentedly, sparingly drawing on the hard-won beverage. It hadn't yet gone lukewarm when Meredith waltzed back in, a befuddled Alexis and cluster of glossy shopping bags trailing behind her, chattering on mindlessly about her agent and a seemingly once in a lifetime opportunity and the sheer serendipity of being in New York for this weekend precisely. With every animated syllable and every despondent glance Alexis directed toward the floor, his anger cured, hardened, solidified until he was seething with brutal, paternalistic outrage. And despite his pointed glower, the white hot fury coming off of him in near tangible waves, she continued to prattle on as though they hadn't already fucking discussed the implications of her negligence, of her inability to abide by her promises. And before he could form a coherent sentence, before he had the chance to really gather his thoughts, Meredith did what Meredith did best—beamed beautifully, collected her handbag, and left. A taciturn daughter in her wake.
Rick had approached her slowly, knelt down, rested broad, calloused hands on shoulders slim and fragile as fish bones, peered into the pinched little face. "Hey, you okay, pumpkin?"
When she swallowed, he could see the delicate ridges of her trachea, the pulse at her temple, the wetness collecting in the corners of her eyes. "Mm-hm," she bobbed her head in dubious affirmation, rubbing her palms against the fabric of her jean shorts, looking lost, bruised. Suddenly, he realized her eyelids were blue, shimmering with Chanel or Lancôme or Guerlain—blush on the apples of her cheeks, lacquer on her lips. Too goddamn young to be wearing makeup—the living doll bit an artless bid to please Meredith, he knew—too young to shoulder this recurrent disappointment, to have a mother who simply wasn't. Who wasn't there, wasn't cut out to parent, who was always, always leaving.
And he bit back the platitudes and hollow words of comfort and instead elected to simply hold her to him as she stoically, adamantly didn't cry, as she panted shuddery breaths against his shoulder, as his cappuccino congealed half-finished still clutched in his white-knuckled fingers. He bandaged her wounds that night with banana pancakes, with aerosolizing whipped cream directly into her mouth, with swaddling her in layers upon layers of blankets worn satiny soft by repeated washings. With reading in companionate silence until her aquamarine eyelids lowered, mascaraed lashes coming to rest on the crests of her freckled cheeks. With carrying her to bed gently, carefully. With doing all that he could to blot out the sense of abandonment that had leeched the color from her face and sapped the light from her eyes.
And still, it wasn't enough. So he wrote. Channeled the spillage of emotion into raw and searing words—the bright blue of molten steel, heat and warning and fire. Derek laying into his captain, blistering phrases and crimson obscenities littering the page, destined for redaction. But it was out there—the fury, the spite—cathartically spent on words, purged via jagged, jolting sentences. Which helped, albeit minimally. The anesthetizing effects of the bourbon had blunted the spinier edges of his anger, too, corroding it into something far more tolerable, and he traced that reorientation, that thread of release, mentally following it to more equable ground.
A sigh rasped through him as he shelved a recurrent thought—Alexis' face, her feeble stab at indifference, the way she'd stifled her hurt, refused to meet his line of sight—and instead of thinking, polished off the remnants of his drink. Pushed back in his chair, fingers coming up to press down hard against the bridge of his nose. What do you do now, Rick? Where do you go from here? Broken kid, batty ex, chaotic life, and he'd never really had a clue to begin with. He'd always just felt his way, and on the odd occasion when the chips were down, he fell back on his charm primarily; Alexis' resilience and disquieting maturity, peripheral to that. The ambient glow of his screen dimmed, then went black from inactivity, and he sat immobile for a beat, stared morosely out the window until the glitter of signage and street lamps blurred to multicolor astral smears. And then, compelled by habit or need or some subconscious prompting, one hand reached out, closing around a marble ballpoint pen, the other palmed a page of satiny four-ply stationery, drawing it toward him across the burled surface of the desk. It felt natural, it always had—akin to breathing or loving Alexis—that first touch of pen to paper, the first sloping curl of a word. The initial thought made tangible.
Kate,
Writing a letter mere hours after a lengthy phone conversation seems rather tautological—it's a distinctly bookish term, I admit, but as you're a fellow bibliophile, I'm predicting you'll know its definition if not its origin, Little Miss Gogol—but following our discussion, the afternoon swiftly derailed. Compliments of my daughter's flighty, egocentric mother. Yet again. I'm talking Quintinshill, here—messy, fast, brutal. Immediately following our talk, too. Where I upbraided her, told her she was damaging our kid. My kid. Told her to grow up, to be all in or all out. And she looked right at me, wide-eyed, seemingly repentant, and apologized. Which I—in all my idealistic naïveté—took to mean she comprehended on some minimal level the nature of her actions, that we were finally on the same goddamn chapter if not the same page. Really, though, it's not her fault. I know my ex, know her character. Her flaws and failings. And if I'm being honest, I should have seen it coming—that she would disappoint my daughter yet again. That there would be unshed tears and broken trust and a bruised heart and a protracted mending process. So yes, I blame her for the way this shitty afternoon turned out, but ultimately? Ultimately, I hold myself responsible.
Three sharp blows issued from the front door, pulling him from his absorption with all the potency of a cold bucket of water. He'd winced at the intrusive noise, smudged the last 'e', he thought with a scowl, and wrenched himself from the insular refuge of his desk chair. The day had been a disaster, and he had a sinking suspicion that his night was about to take a steep nosedive as well.
Pausing at the threshold, rallying his patience, his calm, he swung the door open, face arranged in smooth lines, unflappably enigmatic, to encounter—for the third time in 24 hours—Meredith. Who peered up at him blearily, swaying like a ship in a storm, the scent of gin rolling off of her in pungent waves.
"Lemme in," she demanded, hand flapping at his chest feebly, and he dazedly complied.
She staggered through the doorway, feet performing a comical rendition of a grapevine, purse slipping off her shoulder, slithering down her arm to combust on the floor—spitting out lipstick, wallet, hairbrush, coins, receipts. Cosmetic shrapnel. This felt like a battle, after all. It always did with her.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, the door meeting the frame thunderously, earning the censure of the elitist Martins in the unit opposite, he was certain. "You have some nerve, coming here fucking plastered. After walking out on Alexis."
"'m not drunk," she pivoted sloppily to face him, face incredulous, "jus' a li'l tipsy."
"You blew past 'tipsy' hours ago, Mer. 'Tipsy' is a distant memory. Along with my tolerance." How odd, he reflected, that he sounded so composed, so placid, when his skin felt taut, strained, barely capable of containing the pulse of anger that coursed through him. "I'm calling the town car for you. What hotel are you at?"
"No," she was all recalcitrance, legs quivering with the strain of staying upright, lower lip jutting forward, and he heaved a weary sigh.
"I don't have time for this. What's the name of your hotel?"
"Wanna stay here."
"You're not spending the night here," he said abruptly, his words clipped, nettled, his grip on the phone tight enough to trigger an ache in his joints, "primarily because Alexis waking up to find you here, barely sober, after throwing her over for a goddamn dinner-date-turned-rave would only be adding salt to the wound. But secondarily, I just don't want you here. I can't—can barely stand to speak civilly to you at the moment. So, you've gotta go."
"Rick," she slurred, tilted her head and lowered her lashes in what he assumed was an attempt to persuade him. "Lemme—lemme jus' stay. Jus' for the night."
"Where are you staying, Meredith?" He demanded, brows drawing down, jaw tightening.
Her only response was a watery, doleful stare, chin tucked down obstinately while she swayed unsteadily. This was useless—reasoning, logic, mature discussion.
Swearing, he dropped to a crouch, rifling through the scattered viscera of her handbag for a receipt, a scribbled address, a monogrammed napkin, anything to clue him in as to her accommodations. "Rick," she prompted, voice garbled, as though she still had a mouthful of pinot, and he rose to his feet, faced her warily.
"Miss you, y'know," Meredith said finally, the ridges of her cheekbones, the crest of her ears crimson from the sulfites filtering through her or the exertion of speaking through the haze of intoxication. Or, desire, he registered with a pulse of awareness, stepping back reflexively. "Really, really miss you, 'specially here. 'N the city. Seein' all the—all the places we used t' go 'n eat 'n be together. 'Member how—how good it felt?"
"You left," he reminded her acidly, falling back another step as she advanced, somehow predatory for all her fawn-like bodily control. "After I found you in our bed. Fucking another man. And you just…keep on leaving. So, no. 'How good it felt' is somehow lost amidst those other tender memories."
"Could make you feel good, Rick," his name rolled off her tongue clumsily, and he retreated another step, his bare heels kissing the icy metal of the door. Trapped, his mind supplied, and he glowered at Meredith as she drew close, close, closer until her breasts brushed against the bottom of his ribcage, her breath striking his chin in moist, alcoholic puffs, her hands coming up to rest against the expanse of his chest. "Lemme make you feel good," she whispered, and then drew his head down, lips meeting his in a messy kiss—spanning the junction of his mouth and cheek—and he stilled in shock for just a moment before banding his hands around her upper arms, pressing her stiffly away.
Something like nausea pooled in his stomach, keeping company with the anger knotting itself in his gut. "Mer, stop," he ordered, eyes trained out the window over her shoulder, too rankled to meet her unfocused gaze. Because honest to god, this night had turned into a classic clusterfuck. One for the ages.
"C'mon, Rick," her palms stroked a path to the jut of his hipbones and he caught her wrists to stop her roving. "Lemme stay 'n we'll have a lot of fun, you 'n me and 'member that thing I do with my mouth—"
"Meredith," he halted her brusquely, raising her captive hands, trapping them between their chests, another barrier. "Where are you staying?" He punctuated each word with a halfhearted shake, the motion jostling her teetering frame, ruffling her hair.
For a protracted beat, she regarded him indignantly, chest heaving, nostrils flaring, and then—pansy blue eyes rounding, jerking her wrists free, staggering back—she braced her hands on her knees and unleashed a torrent of vomit. All over his entryway. All over his unshod feet. All over his favorite grey sweatpants.
And as she unceremoniously slumped to the floor, confused, moaning, sticky with the contents of her own stomach, he let his head drop back against the crimson powder-coated steel of his front door—the weariness reaching marrow-deep, the feeling that this cycle, this goddamn pattern would never end, leaving him drained, resigned—before he shoved away from his prop, and wetly padded toward the kitchen sink.
It had been four days since he'd shuffled a minimally sobered Meredith into a town car, and even 48 hours and a cumulative nine vigorous soapings later, he still grimaced at the thought of that night, failed to feel precisely clean. The whole experience just…lingered with him. Things had gone to shit the morning she arrived, or so he thought, but even he—knowing Meredith and all of the chaos she trailed in her wake—had been surprised at how rapidly and comprehensively the day had continued to unravel. And even more stunned that it ended with him covered in the martini-dominant contents of his ex's stomach. Somehow, though—despite the clamor of cleaning downstairs, said ex's continued retching, and the din of their argument preceding Meredith's literal upheaval—Alexis had slept on none the wiser, and he'd managed to fitfully catch a few scant hours of his own before she bounded down the stairs in search of breakfast. One very large Americano and four Poptarts later, both of them groggily nestled on the couch, he'd warily asked her how she was, warmth radiating in his chest as he drank her in—fine cinnamon hair fuzzed and glowing in the morning light, pastry crumbs and bits of icing haloing her mouth, eyes somber as she considered his words.
"I'm still—I'm sad," she'd admitted quietly, gaze flickering from his face to the indiscriminate program on the screen. "But I guess I wasn't really…" she trailed off, picking at the edge of her strawberry Poptart.
"Wasn't what?" He prompted softly.
"Surprised," she continued on an exhalation, "I wasn't surprised. Because she does this a lot. Says she's gonna do one thing and then just—just doesn't."
"You know that doesn't mean she doesn't love you, right? She just...doesn't do a very good job showing it."
"Yeah, I just wish…she showed me she loved me the way that you do," she looked at him then, really looked at him, raising a diminutive hand to brush a swath of hair from her face, blue eyes made singularly vibrant from the film of moisture that had collected in the corners, along her lower lash line.
He'd reached out and pulled her against his side, chest constricting as she curved against him, intertwined their fingers, lapsed into silence punctuated by muted sniffs. And he tried to find the words to soften the blow, but came up empty. Because what did he possibly say to that?
After that, they'd tacitly agreed to avoid anything related to Meredith, letting the subject lie for the time being, and the woman in question had flown back to the west coast the very next day without a word—no goodbyes, no apologies, no acknowledgement that she'd royally screwed their daughter over and ruined his favorite sweats in the space of a single day. She was nothing if not thorough.
And now, four days later—days filled with heartening activities, creatively sumptuous grilled cheeses, and a daughter brightening by slow degrees—he was shrugging into a sports jacket behind a privacy screen, critically scrutinizing a life sized cardboard cutout that depicted him smirking, perfectly coiffed, a shade too smug for his liking. Gina had been all enthusiasm, calling a scanty two days prior to remind him of their impending gala date and to inform him that she'd poached a book reading and signing scrapped by Lehane in favor of an awards ceremony—"5th ave Barnes & Noble, Rick!"—which he'd be attending, no demurs, no cavils, no exceptions. Not that he minded per se. These events never failed to galvanize him, leave him bemused and mildly nonplussed at his own popularity, remind him why he tolerated long nights bowed over his keyboard and days spent fielding Paula's ridiculous inquiries and Gina's nagging requests. It was for this—the curving line of fans craning to catch a glimpse of the Master of the Macabre—for the substantial distance between the solitary boy he'd been and the lauded man he'd become, which he knew said something significant about his psychological limitations. But there it was—he craved the affirmation, wanted to be wanted. Freud would have a field day with him. Whatever.
Gina ducked her buttery head around the screen, eyes sweeping over him evaluatively. "That'll do, I suppose."
He huffed, tugged at the lapels of his blazer. "Jesus, Gina. This is Burberry."
"I was referring to the circles under your eyes," a manicured finger twitched upward proceeded by the arch of one thin eyebrow, "but it actually gives you a rakish aura, come to think of it."
"Kind of you," he groused, running a hand through his hair—it was too long, growing unmanageable—and then held both hands out, palms facing the speckled drop ceiling. "Now, we good to go?"
"Yeah," she nodded, a brief smile—the genuine one that softened him—crossing her face, "table's ready, a line out the door, and your favorite Levenger's been refilled, so it should last for the entirety of the signing."
"Okay, good. Let's—let's head out there, then," he announced inanely and, with a disappointing lack of pageantry, emerged from behind the partition. The room was already charged, people greeting him with enthusiastic cheers and animated waves, which he returned modestly—a staggering number of busty women, he reflected, the preamble of Gina's introductory spiel filtering dimly through his preoccupation— "Ladies, I'm so pleased to see you all here today." Books clutched to their ample chests, makeup immaculately applied, hair flawlessly colored and coiffed—positively Stepford.
And then, eyes skimming the undulating line of humanity, he saw her—an Eberhart in a sea of Van Sant's.
The waterproof surface of her trench glittered with beaded raindrops, her utilitarian topknot fuzzed to curls from the moisture, the pallor of her skin giving off its own milky light—god, she was the tangible equivalent of an elusive word. Tip of the tongue phenomenon made manifest. Familiar, but from where? He willed her wandering eye line to his, but her gaze drifted from the grey panorama beyond the rain-streaked window to the book she cradled, her fingers idly tracing the cover. The title remained inscrutable at this distance, but it stood to reason it was one of his—arrogant prick, aren't you?—and a hot rush of impatience surged through him as he surveyed the three, seven, thirteen, twenty-two people that blockaded him from the soggy girl with the too-bleak eyes.
Goddamnit, he should know her. Remember where he'd seen her if not a name. You didn't forget a girl like that—vital and broken all at once. He wanted to speak to her, ask her to coffee, watch a smile he elicited unbend her stiff mouth, draw her story from her lips via hard-won conversations and painstakingly obtained trust. Even at this distance, he could see the rise and fall of her throat as she swallowed, the way she clutched the book fiercely, too tightly, as though it was something she stood and couldn't bear to lose. He saw it all and it was beautiful. She was beautiful. Mysterious and elusive, the elegant lines of her face dynamic, belying pain and survival and a story he instinctively knew would be as goddamn extraordinary as she was.
Gina was wrapping up her intro, flourishing her hand, now turning to flash a conspiratorial grin at him, and he reluctantly tore his gaze from the waterlogged ingenue. And finally, finally, the line surged forward. Each signature and perfunctory exchange amplifying his anticipation, drawing him another step closer to an introduction, to a name. And who was she? He'd seen her somewhere; he'd stake the earnings of his newest novel on it. Different context, though—that had to be it. Situational displacement culpable for his faulty memory. Because she was unforgettable—another flourishing scrawl, a disingenuous grin, gushing sentiment from the Aniston wannabe with Double-D's—and the line lurched forward.
Oh, now Eberhart was fumbling one-handedly in the yawning pocket of her trench, brow furrowed—in irritation? In concentration?—and inelegantly extricated a cell phone, adeptly flipping it open, bringing it to her ear.
Damn, the woman in front of him had paused expectantly, head tilted for what response he didn't know. "I—you're gonna have to forgive me," he beamed stiffly, peering up at her with an expression he hoped didn't come across as disinterested as he felt, "late nights writing equal long days spent walking about in a stupor. Mind repeating that?"
"Not at all, Mr. Castle," the blonde was all breathy admiration, leaning toward him, obscuring his view of Eberhart as she simpered, coyly instructed him to "make it out to Kelli with an i".
The blonde skittered away tittering, the line advanced, and there was Eberhart again—looking pissed, features harsh and glacial as she snapped something into the mouthpiece before closing the phone. She went still then, head bowed, gaze trained on the floor. And then suddenly, it wasn't—it was tangling with his own, melting to something softer and inviting and a little stunned, and oh, god, he wasn't breathing. Deliberately, dazedly, he pulled in a shuddery breath, muscles bunching beneath the suddenly stifling summer wool suit as his body coiled to move, to propel him toward her—fortifying himself, trying to stifle the irrational stuttering of his pulse. But just as he found his voice, his footing, his nerve, she blinked once, eyes narrowing in something like regret, and spun delicately on her heel, weaving smoothly between the crush of bodies. Gone—a strangled noise issued from his throat, an unformed verbal attempt to stop her—gone, gone, gone.
With a start, he noted Gina, spindly arms perched akimbo on her narrow hips, pinning him with a bewildered glare—what the hell, Rick? Shit. Yeah, this was mortifying—here he was, frozen in place, staring vacantly into the crowd, spilling unintelligible syllables. Flashing her a weak, placating smile—they'd discuss this later, he sensed it—he sank gingerly into his chair, and then, marshaling his patience, shelving thoughts of Eberhart for later, he flipped the switch—charm smile tipping his lips, warmly greeting the next fan, pulling their battered copy of Hell Hath no Fury toward him, inscribing what he hoped was a passably meaningful excerpt on the half title page, before grunting, startling—Levenger clattering to the floor, mouth slackening in shock—because he did know Eberhart. He knew her. Knew he loathed himself in this moment. And knew he'd fucked up a second chance, a serendipitous moment, another opportunity to rewrite fate.
Because Eberhart—though she'd been soggier, sadder, and far less vibrant—was the glorious woman in red.
A/N:
So...I'm sorry. Again. This whole endeavor in adulting is really draining me dry. Mostly artistically, but also financially, which is one of the factors that's kept me from writing and updating the way I'd like—in the words of Rihanna "work, work, work, work, work". However, I'm back. Ish. And I've missed this story and all of you! This installment has been a long time coming, and I hope it meets with any and all expectations tied to this little reimagining.
I hope you guys know that every review and word of encouragement made a difference to me, and that you're the reason this little narrative still has a pulse. Thank you more than I can say, and I swear I'll do what I can to ensure the next installment isn't a culmination of three spotty months worth of effort. As per usual, I'm not entirely satisfied, but I wasn't going to put off the update any longer than I already had. I'd love to hear your thoughts, thanks for sticking it out this far, and I truly hope you elect to follow this to the end—I want you all by my side!
-Feministly