Note: This is a work of fiction. The countries mentioned in this story, Luzsk and Baranova, are fictional and bear no intentional reference to a historical civilization or current country. Any resemblances to places, people, or incidents mentioned in this story are purely coincidental.
Can you hear me okay? Let me know if my sound goes in and out, because apparently the car wifi is supposed to be good, but I've had issues in the past with phone calls. Thanks.
Speaking of phone convos, I chatted with Nicole yesterday again. We only talked for a couple minutes, but it was a good conversation. She reminded me of that mud spa we were thinking of taking a vacation to, and I responded that I'd love to go, but I'm pretty cash-strapped at the moment. Then we reminisced about getting high at Wallace's housewarming and laughed about getting baby Noah addicted to weed. All the things that drew me to Nicole in the first place were on full display. She's so naturally cool and confident without being emotionally stunted like me. I can't even get out a half-sentence about Logan without either fully seizing up or exploding into fits of tears and mild hysteria. This would all be so much easier if Dad was around more, but he's always off on cases or hanging out with Beth. Who knew that all these years later I would still have the worst case of mommy issues?
But I don't want to get into that.
This week was not much better. Like I said last session, I'm going to get evicted. My landlord has not yet kept that promise, but I think that's more due to him feeling bad that Logan's on death's door. That sympathy is going to run thin, though. Right about now is when if Logan died from the Penn-bomb, people would start telling me to move on and get a life. But since Logan's basically the Schrödinger's Cat of people, it's impossible to move on. And it seems like there are more and more issues keeping him alive than ever. Insurance officially ran out two days ago and now I can't even pay rent? I would stay with Dad, but with Beth around makes the situation indescribably more uncomfortable.
I did visit Dick in his swanky apartment up in Bel-Air to see if he could do anything about medical bills, but he said that after his dad was killed, all the money went into paying off his debts, and left Dick with a measly four grand, which he blew in a weekend trip to Vegas. He described the trip as what sent him over the edge. After watching his dad's upper half and bottom half separate on the news, Dick couldn't remember what happened. All he knew was that two days later, he woke up in the VIP parking lot of Caesar's Palace with no shirt, no underwear, and a missing wallet. He was given a court order to went to attend AA meetings, which turned into a sobriety streak that as far as I know still lasts today. It was weird to talk to him, as if this whole time I'd been trying to communicate with Dick underwater and now I could hear him on the surface. He didn't cry or break down into my arms, but I could tell something had drastically changed. Even after his brother jumped from the Neptune Grand, Dick was always the same old cheery, devil-may-care caricature until his dad died, then he realized there was no one left to pretend with.
I told Dick about my insurance problems and the news didn't shock him. Almost as if he'd already come to terms with his best friend's eventual death. There truly was nothing Dick could do, and it was a waste to try otherwise.
In that moment, I envied his apathy so much, even though I knew its cost. I wanted nothing more than to forget about my life with Logan. Maybe in that world, I'd see that the son of famed actor/murderer Aaron Echolls' son was killed in a freak accident, and remember our ill-fated fling in junior year that fizzled out before Duncan Kane realized he wasn't my brother. But then I remembered that Logan would probably be close to dead some other way, either in a fight with the mob or after throwing himself off the Colorado Bridge. At least if he threw himself off a bridge, I wouldn't have to fear for my financial stability.
Anyway, the point is, I sat an hour and a half in traffic for Dick to tell me that he was just as broke as I was. So that was a bust.
But on my drive home, I stopped by a CVS in West Hollywood to pick up Tylenol for a hamstring I pulled running, and I saw Parker, who was Logan's old girlfriend and Mac's roommate at Hearst. She asked me how Logan was doing, which surprised me since I hadn't kept in touch with her since college. I came to understand that hours before we got married, Parker and Logan had a quick conversation in line to pick up our marriage license. Parker found out that we were getting married, and I felt that I should apologize for putting her through that rough love triangle she didn't even know existed. When I tried, Parker just gave me a one-armed hug and said that it was all water under the bridge. We chatted while waiting in line for a while, and I told her about Logan and the whole state of affairs with my insurance. She offered to pay for the next couple of months. I'm far beyond "too proud to accept help," but since getting divorced, Parker's husband took everything and she had to start selling her purses on Etsy, so I told her not to worry about it.
It's starting to drive me crazy. I mean, what's the point of having 09er friends if you can't lean on them for financial support?
After that, I asked her if she wanted to go get a coffee, but she said she was only in town to pick up her niece and fly back to Washington DC, where she lives, for spring break. Then she asked me if I was still in the PI business, and told me about a case with a huge reward, enough to pay for Logan's insurance for another three years. At the time, the only detail about the case was that it's in Langley, Virginia. Langley is my alternative universe where I took the CIA internship, so unsurprisingly, it's difficult to compartmentalize what could have been with what is. I told Parker I'd look into it, but it would probably fizzle out within a couple days. Then, we did what all friends do who haven't seen each other since that one year in college: we traded information, laughed politely at a few of each others' jokes, and promised to call when really we had no reason to ever see each other again. All that being said, if I hadn't run into Parker at the CVS in West Hollywood, I wouldn't be in the car talking to you now.
I took the gig, that's why! After we talked last week, I realized that it was impossible to stay at Logan's bedside forever, always waiting for him to wake up. There is someone out there willing to pay me a lot of money for my services, and I almost said no because I don't want to miss it if he wakes up. But I didn't, because Logan isn't waking up any time soon, and he wouldn't want me to put my life aside for so long. So I called Parker and said that I'd do it. It's the first spontaneous decision I've made in a year, and it felt fantastic and nerve-wracking.
But I knew I'd have to tell my Veronica-family. They deserved an explanation after so many months of trying to convince me to get out of the city and take a break. So I told them as soon as I decided, to avoid backing out of the Langley case. Dad was loving as always, if not somewhat distracted, and Matty accepted the news with overwhelming excitement.
Mac and Wallace didn't take it so well. Wallace was astonished that I wanted, let alone knew how to set foot outside the city limits after all the times he had begged me to leave. I was so pissed that he couldn't be happy for me, and we argued for hours. I won't get into the details, but I didn't leave on good terms with him.
On the other hand, Mac was uncertain I could even work the case without going into "Veronica-mania," which is basically where the more obsessed I get with solving a case, the more horrible consequences there are. See: Lilly's death, the bus crash, the Hearst rapes, Dean O'Dell's murder, and obviously the Spring Break bombings. So Mac offered, and by that I mean, demanded, to come with me to Langley. She's in the backseat of my Jeep right now, sleeping through this therapy sesh. Her official job is just to be my techie sidekick, but we both know that her main priority is going to be annoying me to death with questions asking how I'm doing and do I want to take a break?
At least she's speaking to me.
I'm almost at my destination and soon I'm going to hang up a little early.
Actually, can you keep a couple government secrets? Brush up on your therapist-doctor confidentiality agreement? Perfect.
So what I didn't tell you is that Parker is not just an ex-wife. She's also a CIA operative. Everything else about her is true: the husband divorcing, the handbag selling, the picking up of the niece. The only difference is that Parker Lee-Rodriguez has an ID badge for one of the most important, forget prestigious government agencies in the world.
It all began when I left Hearst in late 2007. After leaving her presumably humiliating relationship with Logan, she was sexually harassed again by Mercer's underclassman protégé. She didn't get raped, thank god, but escaped the incident with a steely resolve I didn't recognize from the petite, cheery blonde. It was a turning point for Parker. She bought a taser for protection from future potential rapists, then started going to Krav Maga classes and started applying for a gun license. By the end of the semester, Parker had switched her major to Criminal Justice and earned herself multiple scholarships to a program for a master's degree in criminology. One of her teachers at Johns Hopkins, where she ended up, was a reservist for the CIA and recommended her for an internship. Which could have been my internship, by the way, if I hadn't picked up and transferred to Stanford. After that, Parker's entire life became focused on working her way up to a meaningful position in the CIA, and she's a bigwig now. I'm not allowed to know what position exactly, but her affairs are mostly domestic.
That's neither here nor there; the point is, there's an internal investigation going on surrounding the death of Luszki ambassador Leon Minsky. I know! He could have ended this whole war between Luzsk and Baranova, but someone who was involved in his protection service killed him in the Safe House. Officially, the peace accords are just delayed between the warring countries, but it's because there's a mole in the Service. The CIA can't risk any bad press for this, since the war has been going on for years and there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel, so they turned to the private sector to get the job done.
You know what's the most ironic? Parker could have had her pick of the detectives, many of which are far more qualified than me, but she chose the woman who stole her ex-boyfriend. Life is weird like that, I guess.
But I'm not complaining. Maybe you're right, this could be good for me. Plus, if shit hits the fan, I've got my Veronica-family. Okay, I've gotta go now, things are going to get a bit more secretive from here on out.
