Brenda and Sharon do dinner, not a date Part 1
Brenda's viewpoint
Well, here I was, sitting at a table in a lovely French restaurant, looking good and nervous as anything, waiting for my dinner date to arrive. Except it wasn't really a date, it was just dinner, with Sharon.
Mind you, after the last week I didn't think there was such a thing as 'just' with Sharon anymore. The pool party last weekend and Monday night's coffee had made it clear how much everything had changed. Tonight was a chance to put some things on the table and maybe see where we stood.
I looked down to where my hands were rubbing on my slacks, it had to be a nervous habit as they weren't sweaty, or at least not yet. How nervous I was tonight was showing in how I was dressed. I'd gone shopping for something different as my first choice, a little black dress, hadn't really seemed appropriate.
The second, the red dress I've mentally tagged as my 'interview dress' after wearing it to that interview with the Mayor for the Chief's job, was probably not appropriate either. I know Sharon had been impressed when she had seen it on me, but I thought that I needed something with a little less history between us.
Over Friday lunch with Maura at that macrobiotic place I'd let her know I was having dinner with Sharon and why, before I knew it she and Natalie had arranged to pick me up this morning and we'd whisked ourselves off to a bunch of high end boutiques on Rodeo Drive, looking at clothes.
Next I knew it I was staring at myself in a black Armani trouser suit which made my figure look better than it was, plus as Natalie put it, gave me endless legs to die for. Maura had insisted on a pair of Laboutine patent leather black spiked heels that added at least four inches to my height, but even I had to admit that I looked really good in them.
I'd never spent that much on a pair of heels, let alone a suit, but as they both explained, the heels were timeless and I could wear the suit to work, so the money was well spent. I ended up with a crisp white tailored blouse under it, teamed with a gold chain around my neck and some simple gold studs that had been a gift from Fritz years ago.
I fidgeted a bit as I realised I looked a lot more like Sharon that I normally ever did, all power pants suit and high heels. I'd even straightened my hair to change my look to go with the new clothes. Sharon was a few minutes late, which was quite unlike her, but she may have been caught in traffic, leaving me time to think.
I'd asked her to come to dinner with me yesterday morning, it'd been a hectic week and I'd not had a chance to catch up with her since Monday evening. The Thursday senior officers meeting had flown and I'd been too wrapped up in my thoughts to pay much attention, although I know Sharon must have sensed something was up.
I'd caught up with her at her office down in FID late on Friday morning and asked her to meet me for Saturday dinner as I had a few things I needed to talk to her about. When she had asked why, I'd been evasive, but finally relented enough to tell her it was about us.
The tone of her voice had changed dramatically and she'd looked nervously at the floor, obviously she had understood I was aware of what she'd done, but was confused about why we were having dinner, rather than me ripping strips off her.
The worry and sadness in her eyes and realisation I had done this to the proud woman in front of me had been too much and I'd tried to make light of it, telling her that we needed a break after a heavy week, so she should dress up nice for dinner and a few drinks. It wasn't anything we hadn't done before, but it was obvious to us both that this time was different.
Her eyes had opened at the news we were going to Melisse, out at Santa Monica, it was a highly rated restaurant, not our usual fare at all, so immediately it put her off balance. The food here was supposed to be really good, so if nothing else I should get a good meal out of this, even if the prices were a little extreme. Fortunately, a Chief's salary was reasonably good and I'd not really had much to spend it on up till now, even if I did wince a little at the prices on the menu.
I only hoped that I got to enjoy the food; god I hoped things went well tonight.
I almost wished I was heading out with the girls; they were apparently planning a very big night, as they had all taken themselves off the call out roster for the weekend. Talking to Maura and Natalie this morning while shopping, it seemed that Jane and Ana were in for a very, very wild night. I'd made them promise to take some photos; I wanted to see what they looked like as the descriptions sounded incredible and I couldn't wait to hear how it all went.
I found it funny, here I was wondering how a night with two lesbian couples hitting a ladies-only nightclub was going to work out. My, how my life had changed in only a few weeks, well a week really.
Looking around, I saw the place was quite busy, I'd only got a reservation after Maura had rung on my behalf to book and charmed the Maître D with her French. I owed her big time for this; I owed all of them really, for all their kindness to me. I wasn't used to having people willing to go out of their way to help me, the only people I'd been able to rely on were the guys in the squad, now it seemed I had some real friends who wanted me to be happy.
I thought about that for a few moments, before looking around at the other tables. The people around me were all wrapped up in their meals. It wasn't really a business crowd; older people celebrating an anniversary, younger couples cementing their relationships with an expensive meal, a pair of probably gay men laughing together over dessert while a family was obviously taking their matriarch out for a major birthday at a large table by the corner. I wondered how many had looked at me and wondered what I was doing here.
I caught a flash of movement from the door to see a waiter leading Sharon to the table; looking lovely and very feminine in a deep green dress and matching heels, setting off her hair which seemed to shine with even more red highlights under the lights here. She'd styled it with waves and it looked very soft and rich.
Standing as she approached, I saw her eyes widen as she took in what I was wearing, for a moment it struck me that our normal roles were reversed, she the feminine one and I wearing the power pants suit.
"Brenda that looks lovely on you" I smiled as we exchanged kisses on our cheeks.
"Thank you Sharon, you look lovely as well, I like the softer look on you" She blushed slightly as we sat and made ourselves comfortable, ordering white wine and being offered the menu.
"Thank you for inviting me Brenda, this restaurant has quite a reputation. I let my mouth quirk a bit.
"It'd better, given what they charge. Seriously though, I'd heard good things about it and I wanted to eat here for a while, I just needed an excuse"
"Do you like French food?"
"I gained an appreciation for it on a trip to Paris years ago. I was a… guest of the French Government and the person looking after me made sure I got to appreciate the best of Paris while I was there" Sharon nodded slowly.
"Was that when you were with the agency?" I lifted an eyebrow; I'd never really mentioned that part of my life to her. No time like the present I supposed.
"Yes, I was there for almost two weeks, helping in the interrogation of a Russian defector. It was quite surreal, matching wits with him during the day, trying to work out if he was genuine or a plant; and enjoying the wonderful Paris nightlife at night" Her voice was both soft and full of curiosity.
"How did it work out?" I looked down at the cutlery for a moment, wondering what to say. The truth won out.
"He was a plant, we tripped him up and his story started to unravel. It was stupid. Less than three months later the Berlin Wall fell and it all meant nothing. Instead of faking his defection he could have travelled by car to almost anywhere he wanted, no hiding and no deception. Instead he was thrown in jail, to await a prisoner swap with the Russians, one that never came"
"So what happened?
"Last I heard the French got tired of feeding him, put him on a plane and sent him home to Russia, there was nothing else to do with him really. The cold war was over and we won. He lost five years of his life for nothing"
"What did the war ending mean for you?" I paused as the waiter arrived with our drinks and left us in peace to peruse the menus.
"I hung on for a few more years, did some things I wasn't proud of before leaving the agency, then ended up joining the District of Columbia Metro PD, spent four years there as a lieutenant, before moving to Atlanta for almost four years as a captain. I moved here back in 05 and the rest is history" Sharon nodded pensively at me, obviously taking it in, I'd never really spoken much about what had happened before I got to LA and never about the work at the agency.
"I've been here for almost 15 years after transferring to LA from Philadelphia where I was a beat cop, then detective. I started out as a detective for almost four years, before taking a lieutenant's slot in FID, though it wasn't called that back then. Two years in the captain quit and I went for the job, though there wasn't much competition for it, I got it and the promotion to captain and, well here we are" I smiled.
"It's funny the paths we take"
"It can be, FID isn't where I thought I would end up when I started out as a cop" I nodded.
"It's a job that has to be done and you do it well" "She smiled and sipped her wine, a satisfied look appearing on her face.
"Oh, that is nice" I thought for a moment, might as well, seeing as we were talking…
"What made you come to LA?" She looked pensive for a moment.
"I was fleeing a bad marriage" I nodded, I could understand that completely. I tilted my head to one side, inviting her to continue.
"He was a lawyer, corporate law; I was a very young rookie. We met at a party and hit it off. It was a wild ride, through two kids, his rise as a partner in a major law firm, my promotion to detective and an eventual realisation that it wasn't going to work out long term" She sighed.
"He wasn't happy when his law firm was on the wrong side of a court case from me. Apparently it made his position 'uncomfortable' at work. After the second or third time he started pushing me to quit the force. In the end we separated; irreconcilable differences was the reason the court accepted"
"I'm sorry Sharon" She smiled at me.
"It's ok Brenda, ancient history now. I raised our kids, Grant, my ex, supported them financially. Our oldest, Lucas studied medicine at Harvard and is doing his surgical residency at a hospital in Cleveland, Heather studied law at Cambridge, and is now an ADA in Miami, she wants to put bad people in jail" She flashed me a quick smile. "As you can imagine she's a grave disappointment to Grant, he wanted her to go into commercial law and join a big law firm"
"They're both very lucky Sharon, to have that opportunity and to have you as their mother"
"I've tried to do the right thing, although I sometimes wish I'd spent less time at work when they were younger" I leaned forward, placing my hand on hers, noticing her jump a fraction as I did. Ah ha, she was as nervous as I was.
"Every working mother wishes the same thing Sharon, mine did, but I can't fault her for how she raised me. I'm sure your kids don't either" Sharon looked down, before raising the menu in an obvious attempt to change the subject
"We need to choose something; I think their waiting for us"
We spent a minute discussing whether we wanted entrees, before deciding we'd rather have desert. For the first course Sharon chose the lobster while I chose calamari and we both settled on the wild salmon for the second. With the waiters gone, we both pulled our glasses off and tossed them on the table, both smiling at the unconscious synchronisation.
Sharon looked at me for a moment, toying with her wine glass, her emerald eyes bright in the light reflecting from the immaculate white linen and gleaming cutlery as she considered me.
"What?"
"Well Brenda, seeing as we're talking about our pasts what about your marriage, the first one?" I hadn't expected that question; still, it was all safely in the past, mostly.
"His name was Dave and he was an ass, although I didn't see it at first. We seemed to be fine, but in the end he couldn't handle the fact that I was married to the job as well as him. It ate away at him till the point that he eventually made a false allegation that I was having an affair with a younger officer. I couldn't prove that he made the complaint, but it was pretty likely that it was him. He was trying to get me fired so that he'd have me all to himself" I shrugged, the time and distance meant it shouldn't hurt so much now, but it still did.
"The ethics inquiry exonerated me, so in celebration I filed for divorce" I shrugged again. "It cost me a promotion I was due though, to major; they thought it wouldn't look good to promote someone who'd had an ethics complaint so soon, so I was told I'd have to wait a couple of years" I reached out and picked up my glass, sniffing the bouquet, before looking over the rim at Sharon.
"I knew it would hang over me so when Pope invited me to apply to head Major Crimes I took it" I savoured the wine, it really was superb.
"You know about Pope and Fritz, so not much more to tell" She frowned at me.
"What's a major equivalent to in the LAPD?"
"Commander" Sharon's jaw fell open, before she composed herself.
"What! Why didn't you tell me" I frowned.
"Whatever for Sharon, it didn't matter"
"But, I… I didn't know. It's only one step from commander to deputy chief"
"I don't see what the problem is Sharon. I didn't get it so I looked elsewhere"
"But I insinuated that you'd got your job here because you'd slept your way into it, when it was only a one step promotion" I suddenly thought I understood what she meant.
"It's ok Sharon, it might have looked that way but I was selected by a competitive selection process" She looked terrible. "Sharon, what's up?"
"What division were you in at Atlanta?"
"I was running the Homicide unit, which was a part of the Major Crimes section of Criminal Investigations" Sharon looked positively stricken, unable to speak. I started to get out of the chair and move to her when she finally looked at me and whispered softly.
"Oh Brenda, I was such a bitch, I'm so sorry" Suddenly realising what was affecting her I slowly settled back in my chair.
"Sharon, it's water under the bridge, we're both different people than we were then"
"Sharon looked down at the tablecloth for almost a minute, composing herself, before she looked up at me again.
"Still, I behaved abominably to you then and I really need to tell you that I'm very, very sorry" I smiled gently.
"Sharon, I was a bitch to you as well, so we're probably even, so no apologies necessary. We don't have to dwell on the past" I lifted my glass and held it out. "To new beginnings" Sharon smiled a little uncertainly and we clinked our glasses together.
"To new beginnings"
I sat back and looked at Sharon, she was a little less nervous but the evening hadn't quite gone as I imagined, and definitely not as she might have thought.
"You look lovely in that suit Brenda, the look really suits you, especially with straight hair" I smiled.
"You can thank Maura and Natalie, they're responsible. They convinced me that I could wear the suit at work, although I'm not so sure about the heels" Sharon leaned slightly to one side to look at them as I lifted a leg to show them off.
"Lovely Brenda, although I have to agree, they're not the best for traipsing around crime scenes, although the red on the soles wouldn't show any blood…" I wrinkled my nose at the thought.
"Gross Sharon; how Maura does it I have no idea" She chuckled.
"I swear that woman must have stiletto runners, she's one of the few people I've ever met who can look comfortable in heels all the time"
"You don't do too bad Sharon, you're always in heels; some of them pretty nice ones too"
"Well, I'm always kinda glad to get them off when I get home" We sat back, smiling at one another. This was the Sharon I remember, the friend I liked spending time with.
Mind you, that wasn't the Sharon she was now, she was a different person now. I was wondering how to broach that particular subject when our first course arrived. The waiters fussed around us for a moment, getting napkins laid across our laps, plates settled and offering us more wine.
We were quiet for a couple of minutes, enjoying the food. This place might be expensive, but the food was so worth it. Sharon obviously thought so as well.
"Oh, this is superb, thanks for inviting me here"
"It was my pleasure sweetie" I saw her start slightly at the term of endearment, definitely not what she was expecting, before a tiny smile graced the corner of her mouth. If I hadn't been looking for it I would have missed it, while her shoulders relaxed just a fraction as well. I smiled a tight secret smile to myself at her reaction.
We ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes as we finished the first course, the waiters whisking the remains away and offering us a top up before the second course.
"So Sharon, what comes next?" She looked at me curiously as I noticed a slight tremble running through her.
"What do you mean?"
"For you, your life outside FID. What exactly is it that you want?" She looked down at her setting for a while, obviously thinking hard about what she wanted to say. "Honestly Sharon, I want to know"
Deep down I wondered what I wanted her to say. Did I want to hear her say she wanted me?
Sharon wouldn't, she couldn't be that crass; that wasn't her style. I sat quietly looking at her as the waiters appeared with our salmon, the plate appearing in front of her jolting her out of her reverie, causing her to look up at me. The look of sadness on her face hit me so hard it hurt.
I went to speak when she stopped me, holding up a hand. I nodded and waited for her to speak.
"I've had a full life in some respects Brenda; in others it's been pretty empty. I've raised children, proudly watched them grow into wonderful people. Now I'm here, with a job that consumes me and an empty house. I'm no longer young, but I don't think I'm too old to be wanted, to be loved" Her voice cracked a little at the last words and she looked down, not seeing the plate in front of her.
I looked at Sharon, so hurting, feeling my need to reach out to her take over. I slowly moved forward and laid my hand over hers, letting her know she wasn't alone. She started as I touched her, looking up at me, eyes glistening with the hint of unshed tears.
"I need to be wanted for who I am, someone who understand what it is I do, what doing my job means to me, how important it is to me" I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The look on her face was sad and tired and lonely all wrapped up in one, her voice was low and soft and trembled slightly.
"God help me, I need to do my job, I love my job, even if it gets me nothing but fear and loathing and hatred. In a way I'm the conscience of the LAPD, but not in a good way" She laughed bitterly, the sound startling me, completely without humour.
"I'm the evil fairy tale cops tell one another. Stay on the straight and narrow or FIDs evil bitch will get you. I'm the monster that'll destroy their lives, ruin them, get them fired at best, throw them in jail if I can" She shook her head, before looking at me again.
"What do I want?" She tried to smile but it was a wan, poor excuse for a smile.
"I want someone who understands where I am in my life, who understands that I want to love and be loved. I want to have someone there to care for and who will care for me. That will accept that I'm a police officer and that my job is full of stress and long hours and pain and anger but who doesn't hate me for doing what I do, because I have to do it"
I nodded slowly at her words. I was seeing Sharon in a way I'd never had before, vulnerable and open, she'd always hidden this part of her from me, now she was hiding it no more.
"I want to have someone to hold, someone to hold me and tell me that everything will be ok, even when it's not. Someone who understands that when I come home and be a complete bitch because I've just had to send a fellow officer to jail for breaking the rules, that it's what I have to do" She sighed softly as she looked down again.
"Someone able to bring me back to the real world, not the one I live in that's filled with rules and regulations and red tape that ties me into a box I can't get out of, but the one where I'm just Sharon and I hate my job and I hate the LAPD and I hate the whole fucking world and I need someone to hold me and lie to me and tell me it'll all be ok"
"Sometimes I need to be a little girl and just be held, sometimes I need to be a sulky bitch and then get a kick in the ass and told to snap out of it and sometimes, well sometimes I need a shoulder to cry on when the whole world gets too much" Sharon looked up at me.
"I want someone to be there for me to love and hold and cherish, someone to share my life, without trying to make me something I'm not, or refusing to understand that as much as I hate my job at times, I have to do it, it's too important not to. Most of all I want someone who'll be there for the long haul and willing to take me as I am, because god knows I'm hard work for damned little return"
She smiled at me again, a small sad thing really.
"Crap job really, being with me. Know anyone stupid enough to want it?"
I went to speak again, when she looked down at the plate in front of her, obviously only really noticing it for the first time.
"Our dinner's getting cold Brenda, we'd better eat up. It'd be a crime to let food this good go to waste" I nodded and we ate quietly in silence, as I took in what she'd told me.
I'd never really truly understood the toll her job must take on her. To be scorned and loathed by her colleagues for doing her job. To come home to an empty house and have to deal with it all alone. I was awed by her strength, her ability to keep at it, rather than break under the strain.
I remembered when she told me that she had a job offer outside the LAPD, back when we were trying to beat Goldman. I'd been shocked and angry at the thought she was leaving, I realised then she meant a lot more to me as a friend, that I'd miss her, that I needed her there to help me get through it.
It turned out to be a ruse she used to try and get Goldman to admit who the leak was. It hadn't worked but it had given me an insight into how much she had grown to be a part of my life. The thought of her being gone had left me feeling empty.
I also wondered if Sharon had wished it was true, an escape from the emotional trauma of her job and the LAPD, no more being feared, no more being hated, away from all the pain and suffering her job brought her.
I spent the time as we ate in silence, examining what she'd said, how I felt about it, what I was going to tell her. The thought scared me a bit, could I be as honest as she had? I didn't know.
Finishing the salmon, which was excellent, I leaned back and watched as Sharon finished her meal. Dabbing at her lips with the napkin, she sat back, picking up her glass and sipping at her wine as she looked back at me.
We looked at each other as the waiters cleaned up our meals and replaced them with the dessert menu. I smiled as Sharon pulled a bit of a face, before picking up her glasses and perusing the dessert list.
I did the same and we killed a quiet few minutes discussing the desert options before ordering, then settling back in our chairs.
Sharon looked at me for a moment, before smiling quietly at me.
"You don't get out of it that easily Brenda. It's your turn" I looked down at the table feeling my body tighten. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
"What do you want Brenda Leigh?"