It’s been a long time since he’s seen her.
A long time since he’s seen her eyes, her crisp, white buttoned tops, the pencil skirts she wears with pride, in browns and black and over netted tights... An old partner of sorts, abandoned so he could focus on different things, private things, like going undercover or catching those who already were.
He left her behind, assuming her docile nature would catch up to her and she’d settle down, probably with the boy from down the street, before she’d retire permanently and raise three, perfect apple-cheeked children in the suburbs.He likes to think he did her a favor, always thinking of her needs, chastising her for the softness she carried with her, if only to save her from the world, and dividing their labor by what she could do and what he could do better...
But that was before. Before he let her go, resignation letter in the form of a large check, at least enough to keep her out of his hair for a year, maybe two... and sent her off into the world to do different things, other things, better things... than drag his company down.
Yet, though he could never admit the correlation, not even to himself, she took his business with him, with her painted fingernails and gorgeous smile, and ran off to do his job for him, stealing clients and cases and criminals right from under his ink-stained fingers.
He feels cheated, ignored, helpless, swimming in a world of pure unfairness, as though she didn’t just offer to comeback, bleeding heart and everything.
“I don’t need your help,” he voices, anger evident in his tone as he moves to rest his elbows on the desk in front of him and his mouth in a palm.
What a shameful offer, he ponders, to think he’d want her help with such an improper work ethic, the one he found so shameful.
Donuts on Saturdays for the secretaries, out of her paycheck. Sympathy for those locked up on petty charges, as though it was anyone else’s fault but theirs. Even the look in her eyes at the sight of hungry teenagers on the street, as though he didn’t save her from that life.
Still, she had charm, the talent to catch a criminal red-handed, hence why he did, just assuming it was all wasted on the petty and untrue.
She nods, neither in agreement or denial, fingers moving to light the cigarette she just pulled from her ancient, brown pocketbook, the one he got for on New Year’s, five, ten years back. “Just thought I’d offer, boss.”
The way she says boss is punctuated, lilted with polite mocking, but she always was better than him at getting away with snark, her elegant doe eyes hiding the true nature behind her trained smile...
And he has to turn his cheek away from her to avoid the paused expression and raised eyebrows, as he knocks his hand on the wood of his desk, not hard, but not quietly, either, angry at her blatant offer to help, her pity, her kindness...As though he wasn’t the one who first gave her a job in the first place.
No one was supposed to know of the lack of work he was getting. Or of the spiderweb of a bank account he was currently hosting, the lack of crime he was currently navigating on the edge of embarrassing, and he wonders how she found out, despite the fact that it’s no secret, that without him, her career flourished, anything, gathering information or not, possible for a young private investigator like her.
But that’s not how it was supposed to go.
“You’ve always been soft,” he gasps, ignoring the truth about the unstained, perfect record she now holds, criminals, animals, practically nothing at her hand, “and now it’s too late for smiling.”
He loses himself in his anger, ignorant of the irony he spits, and she laughs, moving to tap her cigarette on the ashtray of his desk, blue ash falling like snow on the transparent crystal before offering the stick to him. “Who ever said that?”
Her voice is kind, as it always is, as it always has been... and he watches the fag burn, the yellow light and smoke slowly fading into the room above. Her pretty red lips curl into a smile that blesses her face, perfect, pin-curled hair falling over her shoulder as she leans forward with interest in wait of an answer that she knows won’t come.
Her eyes glint under the light of his office, drink long forgotten at her side, and when he snatches the cigarette from her fingers, she twists in her seat to pack up her things and leave.
This time, probably for good.
She closes the door behind her gently.
He’s right, in fact, of course he is, halfway pained by knowledge he just barely realizes. It is too late for smiling.
But not for her.
Excellent
Thoroughly enjoyed it, looking forward to more.