Days Like These, pt 7
"I met Jack in the spring of my junior year of college..."
It only felt slightly like relenting, telling him the story.
"Hm – so it was nineteen seventy...eight, I think? Seventy-nine?" A soft chuckle bubbled up in Sharon's throat, "Oh my God now, that sounds like it might have been the Middle Ages. A little, doesn't it?" She let out another amused huff. "Although at the time, we all felt very modern, of course. Jimmy Carter was still president..." (She did not appreciate Rusty's blank expression; what on Earth did they teach him at that school, exactly?) "Women, for example, had just become allowed to join the regular Army that year, I believe – a very progressive change if you consider its time period. California was in the middle of some big public debate about cutting property taxes, if I recall, which was another surprise..."
Rusty was starting to fidget in his seat. When his previously excited expression began to take on a tortured note, Sharon lifted an eyebrow.
"Uh, not that that's not... like, interes... uhm – informative," the boy grimaced (Sharon suppressed an eye-roll), "but what does any of that have to do with you and Jack?" A pause, then the boy frowned. "Wait, you weren't thinking of like, joining the Army or something, were you?"
"No." No, that had been a couple of years before. When she'd started her senior year of high school, and her older brother was just finishing the Air Force academy and bringing home stories that had given Sharon all sorts of ideas much to the horror of her parents...her mother in particular...
– and you will stop it with this childish nonsense at once, sweet Lord, what respectable young lady belongs in the military?!
I don't understand what you're thinking all of a sudden!
– embarrassing your father and I...
Sharon, so help me God –
A small smile fluttered across Sharon's lips.
There had been a lot of drama and tears, that senior fall. But she wasn't sorry that she'd gone to college instead, either. Even though at the time, she'd felt decidedly oppressed by parents and society alike.
She'd almost forgotten all about that.
"No," she repeated, "that wasn't part of my plans. As a matter of fact," she gave Rusty another amused smile, "I can't say that I'd formulated any specific plans. Believe it or not, I didn't have my life all figured out yet at that point..."
"– don't see why you want to blow off the house dinner, we only get the roast duck once a month...! And you know tonight's disco night right after, and I was hoping we'd get to see George again, you know he always comes to our First Fridays..."
"We'll be back before that starts, the session shouldn't take longer than an hour or so..."
"It better not! I'd like to know what chump decided to have 'professional planning' sessions at six on Fridays, God, don't these people have lives? Sharon slow down."
"If I slow down we'll be late!"
"I can't run in this skirt!"
"Pat..."
Her friend rolled her eyes at the exasperated tone. "Don't you start on the pants thing again – and you won't catch me dead in one of those jumpsuits. And–" she trailed off to tug at the hem of her mini, then grumbled, "I don't see why you keep wanting to go to these career things anyway. Christ, it's the fifth one already... and all we do is sit there and get bored after ten minutes – slow down! – and we don't even need to decide about jobs or anything until at least next year..."
Rusty snorted. "You didn't know what you wanted to do?"
It had been a while since she'd seen that light, joking expression in his face. So much of the tension that she'd gotten used to seeing in his body language lately was absent, now, and that alone made it worth indulging the conversation a little longer. How many chances did he get, these days, to disconnect even for a little while?
Sharon hummed, "Oh, I had a great many things that I wanted to do. The problem," she clarified, "was deciding which ones I wanted the most, and which ones were actually feasible, and... well, if you only wait a few years," she arched her eyebrows at him, "I'm sure you'll understand all of this perfectly when you're facing similar college dilemmas of your own."
She'd meant the remark to be humorous, but Rusty's expression closed up unexpectedly, and it wasn't difficult to see where her mistake had been.
Discussing his future wasn't a cheerful past-time for the boy right now. Not with the Stroh trial looming at some undefined distance, not with the letters threatening that very future, not with constant security at home and school the only things he thought he had to look forward to. It made Sharon unspeakably sad to see that thinking about it made Rusty so anxious.
She was trying. Oh, she was trying so hard to make that future better and safer for him. But it was basically November, and things weren't looking any better, or moving any faster...
With a sigh, she watched him fiddle with his dessert spoon and tried to decide whether it would be more productive to resume the conversation, or drop it entirely and go home where they could both get some rest. It had been a long week.
"So...?" Rusty pushed away the spoon without eating more of his tiramisu, but at least he looked up to meet her eyes again. "Are you like, gonna finish your story, or...?"
Alright, then.
The question had come across as a little grumpier than she'd usually have let him get away with, but this time Sharon let it slide. She dipped her head quietly, picking her next words.
"Just the previous year, the university had established a new, pre-law track," she resumed in a neutral tone, "and among all those things that I was considering, that was the one that held my interest the most. So around early May..."
"Hang on – you wanted to be a lawyer?" His sulkiness had dissipated, replaced almost entirely by surprise. Though there was a vague note of disapproval underneath, too – lawyers weren't Rusty's favorite people at the moment. "You," he repeated incredulously, "wanted to be a lawyer."
Okay, so maybe lately she hadn't been particularly pleasant toward the defense lawyers they got in the murder room. She should check herself a little more.
"At the time, yes. I did. It was a very prestigious occupation," she offered, "and there weren't a lot of women in law back then, so it felt both like a challenge and an opportunity."
"So you'd be like, defending people like Philip Stroh now?"
Sharon's lips pressed into a thin line.
So much for using this conversation as a way to decompress. Rusty was showing the beginnings of a grumpy scowl again, and his shoulders had hunched a bit.
"Not everyone who goes to law school necessarily becomes a lawyer," she replied calmly, "much less for criminal cases. There are several other kinds of law that you can practice...litigation, civil rights, corporate, intellectual property... and, in addition to that, you can work for the government as a prosecutor, a judge – or you can even skip the courtroom entirely, and work as a consultant or policy-maker, for instance."
Some of Rusty's disapproval had given way to confusion after her discourse. He frowned a little, "So... which one did you want to be?"
"Oh, I hadn't made up my mind that far." But she certainly hoped that she wouldn't have ended up defending people like Stroh. Her head tilted a fraction as she smiled at the boy, "I liked the idea of the open court, and working through the complexities of the justice system to get to the truth of things. Beyond that, I hadn't really thought much about my future career yet."
The boy's slight frown was still in place, but he nodded and his hand reached for the dessert spoon again, so Sharon took that as a good sign.
"So I guess Jack was also doing the pre-law thing...?"
She returned a lopsided nod. "In a manner of speaking."
"That's what you said before," Rusty informed her wryly. Was she actually gonna tell him the story? Because it had been like, a year since he'd asked, and all he'd gotten so far had been a history lesson and a list of things he could do after law school... like he'd ever actually need that information. He wanted to be a lawyer almost as much as he wanted to be a witness.
He couldn't believe that Sharon had wanted to be a lawyer.
Well – okay, that thing about the justice system and getting to the truth sounded like her. But still... a lawyer?
He was glad that she'd changed her mind. Although yeah, Sharon probably would've never defended Stroh, anyway. More likely she'd have prosecuted him... but then she'd have been like Emma, and that was no better, and seriously, why had she ever wanted to do any of that?
"So how come you changed your mind?" he found himself asking, suddenly curious. "From law school?"
Sharon hummed again, "That," she said with a small smile, "wasn't until much later. Much, much later. Years after I met Jack – which I believe was what you wanted to know about."
"Well, yeah," he put both elbows on the table and gave her a pointed look, "but like, are you actually gonna tell me? 'cause...we could also just keep talking about Jimmy Carter and like, awful career options..."
Sharon narrowed her eyes at him, but since she also waved her dessert spoon in his direction as she replied, "You should be more appreciative of how concerned I am about your education, young man," he figured that she wasn't actually mad or annoyed or anything.
"I'm totally appreciative," he informed her, smirking back. Sharon rolled her eyes. "Okay so, 'in a manner of speaking', Jack was also doing the pre-law thing...?" (Jack, on the other hand, was someone totally fit for being a lawyer, in Rusty's opinion.)
Sharon nodded, swallowing the small bite of tiramisu before she replied, "That's right. I met Jack at an information session regarding the university's pre-law program options."
"Oh." Wow – wait, that was it? Rusty returned a slow nod of his own, as he realized that now that Sharon had actually answered his question, he wasn't sure what to do with it. "Okay, uh – so I guess he was also interested in preparing for law school...?"
"Excuse me," Sharon countered with false indignation, then chuckled quietly and clarified: "Jack had already graduated the previous spring, and been admitted to UCLA Law. He'd deferred admission for a year so he could work and save up some money – I'm afraid law school wasn't much more affordable back then, either," she joked. "Jack was working as an intern at a good law firm in the city. He helped organize these law-school workshops at local colleges as a way to make some extra income on the side."
"Oh." That was... new information. Rusty didn't know if he was more surprised to hear that Jack had at one point worked two jobs, or – "Wait, so he was like, your teacher...?"
Sharon pursed her lips again.
There was a reason that she didn't talk to Rusty too much about her past or personal life. Okay – there were a lot of reasons – but one of them was that she'd learned really early on that he had a decidedly incisive approach to new information, and that approach didn't work so well with her preferred deliberate way of sharing information.
Inwardly, she rolled her eyes.
"No." She paused. "Well... I suppose in a—"
"—manner of speaking," Rusty finished with her, then he arched his eyebrows with a slight smirk. "Right."
"In a very general sense of the word," Sharon rephrased dryly, "I suppose that he was, yes, for a brief period of time. More of a teaching aide, really. After that first info session," she added, "I decided to sign up for a longer law-school preparation seminar in the summer, and Jack was the assistant instructor for that. That was how we got to know each other better..."
"We're sorry for being late."
The older man at the front of the room scowled at her and her friend, but –
"No, no, you can come right in. We're just about to start, you're not late – and hey, it's Friday evening, right?" The young man who waved them in stood a little to the side, holding a thick folder in his hands. "I'll bet you the farm that everyone here could be doing something else right now, am I right?" He winked – then, among the approving chuckles, he amended, "Although if you're planning on law school, you might as well get used to spending Friday nights in a classroom, I'm sorry to say... but hold on, don't you all go running back out that door now...!"
More laughter from around the room.
Sharon took another sip of her water and added, "It was much more of a peer relationship than a teaching one, however. The actual instructor was a university career counselor, and Jack was only ahead of the rest of us by a couple of years. His role was mostly to share his experiences from having already applied and prepared for law school, and answer our questions about the details of the process... remember," she smirked back at him, "we couldn't exactly go and search the internet, at the time. We had to get our information a different way."
"Scary," the boy deadpanned, eliciting a small laugh from her.
"It's certainly easier these days, yes. Although there is something to be said about hearing other people's personal experiences..."
"That's what online forums are for, Sharon," Rusty informed her with an eye roll. He should know – living with increasingly awful security restrictions for nearly three months, he'd discovered more about the world of online message boards and forums than he'd ever wanted to know.
Although people on those message boards didn't have a lot of useful personal experiences to share on the topic of psycho stalkers.
He'd checked.
"Well...interpersonal interaction still has its advantages," said Sharon, and Rusty rolled his eyes again, because he was pretty sure that she hadn't meant to rub it in his face that he couldn't go anywhere, but it had ended up feeling that way anyway. He couldn't help an annoyed grimace in her direction.
"Yeah. Tell me about it."
He could tell when she got his meaning by the way her brow furrowed in that understanding look of hers, and she sighed.
Okay – he wasn't trying to make her feel bad, either. Sharon had kind of cut him a lot of slack, lately. And he was trying to be good, he really was, because obviously this letters thing wasn't exactly a walk in the park for her, either, and it wasn't like he wanted her to be unhappy with him, and...
...okay, really, he didn't want to sour the mood. Tonight was the first time in like, ages, that they'd gone somewhere that wasn't home or the murder room. Even if he knew that the security detail would be waiting by the time they got home (or maybe they were posted outside the restaurant or something, who knew), it was nice to not have them looming for a little while. And to be like, in an actual public place. With actual people. He'd never thought that he'd miss people.
And – Sharon's story, he liked that. Even if it came with a history lesson and a lot of annoying reminders about a bunch of things in his life that were going totally sideways, he still liked hearing it, because – well because... well, he didn't really know why, okay, but he was glad that she was telling him about this stuff anyway.
So he managed a sort-of smile in her direction, and took another spoonful of cake, even though at this point he was pretty sure that he'd finished his half and was well into Sharon's half, too. She'd only had like, three bites and yet most of the thing was, mysteriously, gone. Although that was pretty much the usual split whenever they shared dessert, come to think of it. Or pizza.
"Okay, so like... you took this summer law school thing and decided to marry the guy teaching it," he concluded.
Sharon chuckled again, and she smiled back just as he knew she would. He thought that she also knew that he was trying, too.
"Not exactly. And I told you, Jack was only the instructor's assistant."
"So when did you decide to marry him?"
"Oh not for a long time," she replied, still smiling. "Well – I suppose that's not entirely true. Privately, I might have decided relatively soon that I was going to marry Jack... but he was not informed of this fact until much later."
Rusty smirked around another bite of tiramisu. Sharon was...funny, sometimes, he had to admit it. And sometimes he forgot about it, but she really was. She could say things in a funny way that made him smile, even when there wasn't really a whole lot else to be amused about.
"I'm guessing he figured it out eventually, right," he commented, earning a quiet laugh from Sharon.
"I think so, yes."
Her phone rang again before she could say anything else; they could hear its muffled sound from her purse on the back of the chair.
Sharon shifted a little in her seat, to glance ambivalently at the purse, as the phone continued to ring.
"Maybe it's like, something important?" offered Rusty. This was, what, the second or third time it had gone off? "Or ... uh, do you still think it's Jack...?"
She hummed quietly, then reached over for the purse. "I suppose there's really only one way to find out for certain..." She still looked amused as she took out the phone. "Jack was always very persistent..."
The last few minutes had left her in a strange mood, somewhere between pensive and lighthearted. Not quite the former, though thinking back on those early days of her relationship with Jack did carry a certain hollowness with it in light of what had come later. But it was a subtle thing, and for the most part she didn't find it aversive at all to answer those few questions for Rusty. It had made her think back on her college days, on those largely good times that had passed and turned into fond memories. Memories of dinners with her housemates and trying to rally everyone for spring cleaning, and sitting on picnic blankets on the green ignoring the books they were supposed to be reading.
When Jack had come into her life, in those days... honestly, it had only grown better. For a while. But it had been a long while – at least by her standards back then – and maybe she'd be better served to keep those times in mind, too, when she dealt with him now. Because there were good times.
Maybe Jack hadn't been wrong to try to bring that up again recently, because maybe after all this time, the good times were what they should focus on. The common ground. Maybe they'd grown enough to put aside the rest, to move on with fondness rather than resentment...
She was still smiling faintly at Rusty when she slid her finger across the screen to take the call.
She'd really thought, for those few seconds, that maybe it was possible to turn over a new page.
For the sake of the good things.
She'd thought...
She should've followed her first instinct.
There was even an amicable lightness to her tone, when she answered, "Hello...?"
– and Jack's voice exploded from the phone, the contrast to her momentary expectation jarring enough to almost make her flinch –
"Sharon!"
– and immediately the remnants of her smile faded, her lips pursing imperceptibly instead.
She should've followed her first instinct.
He sounded irritated. Indignant. "Sharon, what do you think you're playing at?!"
Her eyes narrowed.
Talking to Rusty, thinking about those times so far back in the past, had momentarily lulled her down a misleading path. A hint of nostalgia, the rose-colored glasses of revisiting old memories, and she must have allowed some odd sort of optimism to color her judgment.
The effect vanished in a sobering instant, leaving nothing behind but a wry sort of humor at how rapidly she'd readjusted her expectations, and how easy it had felt. She wasn't even angry about it.
Falling back into tried-and-true ways to deal with Jack came naturally. She let a second of silence pass after his indignant outburst, then hummed her calm greeting, "Hello, Jack."
"I can't believe you, Sharon – I mean even for you, this – this is – it's a farce, is what it is...! What's come over you all of a sudden?! What on Earth are you thinking?"
Her eyebrows arched, though of course he couldn't see her.
"At the moment, nothing you'd like to hear, I don't imagine."
The reply gave him momentary pause – what he could possibly have been expecting, an apology?
"What –"
"Jack," Sharon interrupted, because there was only so much scandal she was willing to put up with from him that evening, and his effusions thus far had used it up, "I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time right now. Was there something you wanted to talk about...?"
The wave of sadness crashed over her without warning as she waited for his reply.
It had been a long time since she'd felt anything but wryly cautious in her dealings with Jack. It came out in the way she talked to him. In the way she handled their occasional brief interludes. There was always a sense of irony behind it, a prickly sort of cynicism to everything she did in relation to him, and it was something she not only didn't try to shake, but that she very deliberately wrapped around herself whenever he was around.
But it hadn't always been like that.
The irony had once been humor, genuine and light and entertaining.
The cynicism hadn't been there at all between them.
" – okay, okay you win – but what were you really thinking?" The silly guessing game had helped pass the time on the slow drive from her campus to the beach.
"I'm sure you'd like to know," smirked Sharon.
Jack looked away from the road long enough to smile at her. "Always."
But that was all a long time ago. Sharon glanced briefly at Rusty, who had been watching her with a sort of cautious uncertainty, and focused back on her attempt to end the conversation with Jack as quickly as possible. Nowadays, that was the best outcome to hope for, really.
"...afraid I don't have a lot of time right now. Was there something you wanted to talk about...?"
"Was– " Again Jack sounded flummoxed at the response, but only for a moment, before he recovered and retorted irritatedly – "Yes there's something I want to talk about, Sharon, and you know perfectly well what, so wh–"
"Do I?"
"Look, I'm not interested in playing more of your games, right now. Alright?" He still sounded offended. "I can't believe you sicced Baker on me! What on Earth could've possessed you to do that?!"
Despite her best efforts, Sharon could feel her temper rising. Partly she was mad at herself – she should've known better than to pick up.
"Ah."
"That's all you have to say? 'Ah'? Sharon...!"
"At the moment. Yes," she confirmed calmly. "Alright, Jack. If you're interested in discussing the divorce proceedings, I suggest Monday afternoon. I'll meet you at my office."
"You really want this to wait until Monday? I'm coming over right now – I'm near the condo anyway, and– "
"No." God – he really would, too. Suddenly Sharon was ten times as glad that she'd decided to eat out with Rusty. "No, Jack," she repeated, because he didn't always get 'no' on the first shot. "If you want to meet, Monday around four, my office. Otherwise – Gavin knows all the details, and you can talk things over with him at any time you wish."
Gavin would certainly know better than to take the call at eight p.m..
"Fine," shot Jack after an unhappy pause. "Fine, Sharon, if that's what you want, I suppose that's what we'll do. I'll come over at four on Monday."
"I can hardy wait," she deadpanned. Keeping a lid on her irritation was growing difficult. "Goodnight Jack."
She did manage to contain an eye-roll after hanging up, and the endless sigh that wanted to make its way up from her chest. Instead she turned around briefly, under the guise of dropping the phone back into her purse, and closed her eyes for a second, willing the negative emotions to dissipate.
Unfortunately, ending this phone call would be a brief reprieve at best. Jack was sure to bring some more of the same to their meeting two days from now – if he even showed up, of course – and though she had wanted, and continued to want to discuss the divorce with him, she had a feeling that the calm, adult discussion she hoped for was unlikely to happen. These days, the most she and Jack could manage was somewhat-masked impatience and superficial humor; at their worst, they'd have biting sarcasm on her end and barbed recriminations on his. Hardly the makings of a productive conversation.
But it hadn't always been like that...
"– and if you do decide to apply, you're gonna have to take all the practice tests you can. There aren't a lot out there, but Dr. Saltzmann has a few old LSATs in his office... they look like this one right here." The career instructor's aide – Jack, Sharon amended, he'd introduced himself about five times as late-comers had trickled in – opened the folder he'd been holding, and pulled out a thick bunch of worn papers, stapled together. "This is one of the ones I practiced on, so you'll get an idea of the kinds of questions you'll see. Pass it around...?" He handed it to the person sitting closest to him. "Let's all ignore the coffee- and tear-stains please..."
Several students chuckled again. He was certainly building a good rapport with everyone.
When the papers passed to Sharon, she and Pat leaned closer to glance over the faded text. A few seconds in, her friend shot her a dry look.
"I'm missing pineapple roast duck for this?" she whispered.
Sharon didn't reply. Flipping through the pages, she'd spotted some notes on the margin of a lengthy problem involving a lot of people running footraces; there were several lines of minuscule font actually working out the question, but toward the end the calculations trailed off. Underneath was a drawing of stick-figure runners being chased by a bear.
"Might've lost my patience a little with that one."
Jack's voice made her jump slightly; she hadn't realized he'd walked over. Sharon bit her lips hard to keep from smirking, but another look at the poorly proportioned bear with fangs the size of its head and she lost the battle. She ducked her head instead, she didn't want to risk offending him.
"Guess it's a good thing art isn't one of the sections on the LSAT, you know," said Jack thoughtfully, and Sharon, lips still pressed together to mostly keep a serious face, nodded and passed the test back to the guy in the next seat.
Mild irritation twisted Sharon's lips into a grimace, and she might've sounded a little harsher than intended when she asked the waiter for the check. She told Rusty that he could finish what was left of their dessert if he wanted, and reached for her water glass.
She wasn't looking forward to Monday – and she hoped that Rusty wouldn't ask any more questions, because frankly she wasn't looking forward to any more strolling down memory lane that night, either.
So much for not making this angsty. I tried! ...I failed.
Any historical inaccuracies you might notice between the years and events that Sharon talks about, they're (probably) intentional. She's telling Rusty things to the best of her recollection, but unlike me, she doesn't have access to Wikipedia as she tells the story ;) so she might get events off by a year or two sometimes. (I know I can barely remember the exact years when I started school and so on, let alone what was in the news in which year! So while it's useful to have historical context, I figured Sharon also wouldn't have an entirely accurate memory of what happened when, decades ago...)
Next up, more of present-day Jack being his delightful self as he meets with Sharon to discuss why she's making the completely irrational unexpected and unwarranted decision to divorce him. Spoiler: she'll be having the best time during that talk. We might also get a little more backstory (I promise longer-sized flashbacks WILL happen once I get around Sharon's inability to communicate!) from their 'good days'.
As always, thank you all for reading :)