Author's note: Thank you very much for all the reviews and messages (as well as the suggestions).
Chapter Eight
The intensity of the rain was such that Maura could barely see the other side of the road. The lull hadn't lasted very long; only a couple of hours. She had seen the sun pierce through the clouds but way too timidly to finally impose itself. Now they were back to a semi-darkness and a torrential rain.
Even the streets were empty. Not a single passer-by, not a single car. Newport looked like one of these ghost villages she had heard about but had never had the chance to visit.
"What a gloomy afternoon." Vera Watson – a coffee cup in her hand – smiled at Maura before sitting down at the small table of the cafeteria next to her. "Perfect for autopsies, it really fits."
Maura raised an eyebrow affirmatively. Vera was an excellent medical examiner. She paid a lot of attention to details and seemed to be driven by a rather impressive ambition. Her maternal smile - warm, terribly comforting - tended to counterbalance the coldness of forensics.
Maura assumed that she was very good at dealing with the victims' families when they came to her morgue in Nevada to identify the corpses.
"I had imagined Oregon to be different. I'm not disappointed but surprised. All this rain, all the time... What a singular atmosphere it brings to the city."
For the very first time since she had started her internship in Newport, Maura had decided to take a long afternoon break instead of a five-minute coffee one. It was a complicated day, emotionally difficult. Jane hadn't replied to her email. She hadn't tried to call her either. Nothing.
Instead, a deafening silence prevented Maura from breathing properly.
The situation was stressing.
What if she had ruined everything? For selfish purposes, besides. She had sent the email to Jane hoping that it would make her feel better but it hadn't worked out at all. As a matter of fact, the result was the exact opposite: a thick layer of guilt had wrapped up her frame and she now felt very stupid.
"Do you have any plan for the weekend? I think I'll rent a car and drive along the coast, either up North or down South. I don't know yet. I need some fresh air. Depoe Bay's way too small for my taste; way too quiet as well."
Very was right. They had three weeks left in Oregon and Maura already felt trapped in a life that she didn't assimilate as hers. Perhaps she should go away for a few hours. The only obstacle to this was that she lacked the energy to do so.
Even more now. All she wanted was to go back to bed or cuddle on the couch near the fireplace and watch the rain fall in silence.
"Have you suggested Jane to come over for a visit? Perhaps she'd like it here."
A semblance of a smile made Maura's lips curl up slightly. As much as Jane couldn't stand the Bostoninan heat, something told her that the cold temperatures of Oregon wouldn't make her dream either.
But the weather forecast was one a tiny detail compared to all the rest.
Maura couldn't invite Jane. As a matter of fact, she couldn't even find the courage to reach her one way or another. Jane probably needed some time right now. She was the one who had to make the next step.
Yet since Vera ignored the intricate nets of their current situation, Maura simply pouted and pretended to ponder the suggestion.
...
"Are you sure this is how it works?" Maura grabbed the lobster – set it down in a plate – then looked up at William. She wasn't convinced at all. "There has to be another way."
The night had fallen over Depoe Bay. Matthew had brought his computer to the living-room before selecting a playlist andjJazz was now filling the room, the saxophone notes melting into Emily and Emma's laugh.
Both women were conversing on the couch.
Maura had accepted to help William in the kitchen but the recipe he had in mind was completely foreign to her. As a matter of fact, even William was a novice. He had simply opened a recipe book he had found in the kitchen then had picked one up randomly.
"I don't know... Let's take another glass of white wine. I'm sure it'll help us figure it out."
The positive thing in this mess that was now Maura's life was that she didn't feel lonely. She was glad to be sharing a house with a few colleagues. The weight of her acts didn't haunt her the way they usually did because there was always someone around; someone who smiled, who laughed. For once it was extremely comforting to not live on her own.
"You're not calling her, tonight?"
Maura didn't need to ask William whom he was talking about. She had perfectly understood that he was alluding to Jane. Her heart began to beat faster. She swallowed hard yet remained quiet. The words wouldn't come up.
"Two days in a row... Is everything alright, Maura?" William held out a glass of Chardonnay to Maura then bit his lips as doubts seemed to pass underneath his skin. The gesture – as furtive as it turned out to be – resulted enough to let him show an unexpected uncertainty. "You can talk to any of us if you need to. You know that, right?"
"There's nothing to talk about. Besides, the connection is terrible. I've tried to send four text messages to my assistant. In vain. I don't understand why. The rain, perhaps..."
Even her emails wouldn't get sent. She had lost twenty minutes a bit earlier in the evening trying to send a couple of medical articles to Susie Chang.
Of course her brain hadn't needed more to start elaborating all kinds of scenarios, each one of them explaining why Jane remained silent. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to her anymore. Nope. It was just that she was physically unable to do so. Such fantasies tended to comfort Maura – if only for a while – and helped her feel light.
Then the guilt came back, strong as ever.
"Then let's get drunk before working on this freaking lobster. Damn you're from Massachusetts, you should know about this stuff. This little wine isn't bad, hmm?"
William's monologue made Maura smile. Obviously her colleague was already intoxicated but since they didn't have to go back outside, she didn't mind much. Nobody had a car anyway. Every day, a shuttle came to pick them up to drive them to the morgue of Newport. Once back to Depoe Bay, they were stuck in the small town until the next morning.
"You remind me of Veronica. You have the same class, the same sass..." William winked at Maura then went to refill Emily and Emma's glasses of wine. "A college friend... She was a goldstar though. Are you one too?"
Maura froze. William had literally yelled his remark, as well as the question that had come up next. Now Emily and Emma were looking at her with an obvious interest and a barely hidden delight.
If there was one thing that Maura had learned about sharing a house with other adults, it had to be the way the notion of privacy was extremely fragile; to not just say completely foreign. Especially if William happened to be around.
"No, I'm not. I'm..." Maura ran a hand through her hair. She took a long sip of her wine then shook her head at her audience. "And I'm not dating Jane. She's just a friend!"
One more time, nobody looked convinced. What was it that they couldn't accept the truth? Every day her roommates made a remark – a more or less innocent one – regarding the kind of relationship she and Jane happened to have.
And every day she had the feeling to make a fool of herself trying desperately to crush their little fantasies.
"I refuse to believe nothing happened, not after what we've seen... Or then you're really in denial, Maura. You and Jane, actually." Emma stood up then walked to the kitchen counter where Maura stood. She picked a cracker. "C'mon, spill the beans. It's okay to have a little something with a friend, we all went through this at some point. I used to sleep with my college roommate and yet we both kept on saying that we were just two girl friends. It was... A fling, you know."
"William, I think we need to take care of this lobster and now." Maura grabbed their dinner-to-come but she didn't fool anyone. What had happened to the woman she used to be? Talking about her romantic life had never been an issue until now. Yet the mere idea of pronouncing Jane's name was challenging. "We don't sleep together. She's... She's what I told you: she's just my friend. I swear she is."
William's cell phone rang. Saved by the bell. He went to take the call. Maura assumed that Michael - his husband - was on the other end of the line.
"You've never kissed?"
Emily's question resounded loudly in the living-room to the point that everyone forgot about the jazz playing in the background. Maura paused. She opened her mouth to reply but found herself unable to say the slightest thing. She couldn't lie, after all. And the truth was that she didn't want to. She considered all the people present in the room like good friends. She had to be honest with them.
Her silence spoke for her.
"Hold on, Mike. I guess something's happening here." His cell phone in hand, William walked towards Maura and waited for a reaction. In vain. "Have you?"
Maura's absence of reply resulted enough for William – Emily – and Emma to understand. The medical examiner from New York let a smile of victory play on her lips. Emma raised a hand in the air in a very I-told-you-so way while William simply planted a chaste kiss on Maura's cheek.
"I'm proud of you, little girl. But see? You can't hide anything from me."
Maura hadn't let go of the lobster. She was still holding it firmly in her right hand. Long seconds passed by before she found the courage to finally react and speak.
A bitter smile barely brushed her lips. She immediately shrugged it away then looked at her feet. Something hurt in her throat, probably the weight of her doubts; all this incomprehension she had kept for herself until now. Jane's silence as well. It was unbearable. Why couldn't she say something? Anything. A text message would be enough, even if it wasn't related to the email.
"Who cares if we did... Now she doesn't reply to me."
The music stopped rather suddenly as her whisper rose with an indescribable pain. It heavily floated above their heads, reducing to pieces the sweet innocence of their evening.