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Lily...
So. That was an interesting night at the Pogue with Jordan, Max, and the rest of the gang. Can't wait until next year ~ wonder what case will get dug up then? Anyway...
Walking to the park with Garret to watch the sunrise was nice. I don't think that we'll ever get back to where we were last year, but maybe that's for the best. What was it Garret said that one time? Oh yeah ~ we don't even have the same cultural markers. But for once I think this could be a relationship that moves into a strong friendship rather than completely disintegrating. I know I was so worried about him when he was so sick during the blizzard. We all were ~ especially Jordan, even if she wouldn't take the time to let herself feel anything. And no, I don't think that there's anything other than a deep platonic love for each other and years of working together and leaning on each other for support there. And even if I did, what I saw when Max sent me to call everyone back to the table would have wiped any of those thoughts right out of my mind...
I walked through the door towards the jukebox since I knew Jordan had gone in there to put on some more music ~ or see if she could find something she likes among the songs Max had installed. What I saw momentarily took me breath away and I couldn't move or say anything. Woody had slipped, unnoticed, into the room and he was leaning on the side of the jukebox. Jordan was standing in front of it, slightly illuminated by the colored lights. I can only guess at what had been said only seconds before I entered the room. They were just looking at each other, their faces no more than six inches apart, and they had pretty much the same expression on their faces ~ completely involved and lost in the other, smiling. Five seconds later and they might have been kissing.
"Um, guys? Max wants us back at the table. He wants to open another case file."
"I thought we were only doing one murder tonight." Was it me, or did Woody sound a little annoyed?
All I could do was shrug. Jordan seemed a little confused as well, and she and her dad were the ones who started this whole thing, so I figured this wasn't the usual protocol for the night. So we went back and ended up figuring the whole thing out. Then we all gradually left ~ Bug and Nigel to go eat breakfast somewhere; Garret and I to watch the sun come up over the new snow. Max, Jordan and Woody were still there, and I don't know how that ended. I could guess, but that wouldn't be right ~or fair.
"Earth to Lily. You there?" Jordan waved her hands in front of my face as I came back to the break room in the morgue.
"Oh, hey Jordan. Yeah. I was just thinking."
"I see. Anything in particular?"
"No. Well, I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I was just thinking about the other night at your dad's bar. That was a lot of fun all of us hanging out like that."
"Yeah, it was. We'll be sure to invite you next year. That's what had you off in space? I know it's fun, but..."
"Ok, ok. You got me."
"So? Go ahead?"
"It's just that...well...when I came in to get you and Woody to open up the other file?"
"Yeah?"
"It just looked like I was interrupting something, and..."
"Hey, now we're even! Interrupting something with Woody, I mean."
"You mean from the night I was at his place? Jordan, I told you that was just two friends getting together for dinner. Nothing more. I promise. It was nothing more."
"Yeah. And that's what... Oh hell, Lily. I can't keep this facade up. I don't know what to do anymore, especially when it comes to Woody. I actually think that I might... I might..."
"Want to talk about it? I mean, I know I'm a little younger and all, and I did say some awful things about you when I thought you'd had me subpoenaed, but we're still friends, right? And I'm willing to listen if you want to talk."
"Yeah, Lily, we're still friends. Actually it might be good to talk with someone about it ~ him ~ and since Garret doesn't take too well to me discussing my personal life with him... Sure ~ could we go and grab lunch somewhere?"
"Yeah ~ let me grab my stuff."
We turned around and found ourselves face to face with Woody, who was obviously waiting to talk with Jordan, but didn't want to interrupt us. Jordan just looked at me, the unspoken question in her terror-filled eyes. How much had he heard?
"Hi ladies. Jordan, I was just..."
"Excuse me, I need to go and make sure I'm free for lunch." And Jordan bolted for the door as fast as she could, but not before I saw the flush creeping up her cheeks and the tears welling up in her eyes. She brushed past Woody on her way out the door, leaving him utterly confused and at a loss for words.
"Lily? Um... What's wrong with...?" Poor guy, he had it bad. And there was nothing I could do to alleviate the situation. First of all, I didn't know for sure what Jordan was going to say, and even if I did, I wouldn't break that confidence. No, Jordan was going to have to be the one to talk with him about whatever it was that she had to say.
"I think she's ok. She just...well, we're going to lunch just now."
"Oh. Ok. Girl talk or something?" What had I just walked in on? Obviously something Jordan didn't want me to hear.
"Yeah. Or something." Should I say anything else? Maybe if I found out exactly how long he'd been standing there I could calm her down. "Woody? Um, how long had you been standing there before we turned around?"
"Not long. And all I heard was 'could we go and grab lunch somewhere?' and then you turned around. And Jordan freaked out."
"Ok."
"Well, I was going to see if Jordan wanted to grab a bite, but since you're going to get something, I'll just leave and talk with her later."
"Ok. I'll call you later, Woody." Jordan had come up behind him in the door as he was talking. Her eyes were still a little shiny, but other than that, she showed none of the emotion she had displayed only minutes earlier. "You ready, Lily?"
"Yeah, I'll grab my stuff on the way out."
*****
So we ended up at this little cafe-type place ~ Jordan said she didn't want to go to her dad's place if we were going to be talking about what we were going to be talking about. Or something like that ~ I'm learning to translate from Jordan to English, but sometimes I just say "Uh huh," and go on with things. After we ordered and were sitting there with our drinks, Jordan let out a deep sigh, full of all kinds of emotions.
"Lily, I don't know what to do anymore."
"About what?" Ok, I knew the basic thing underlying all this was Woody, but I knew that she needed to talk this through at her own pace.
"About Woody. About life. About...about...about love."
"Ok." Big, deep topics all, especially for Jordan. "Anywhere in particular you want to start?"
"I don't know. I...I've never felt the way I do about Woody before any time in my life. I mean, yeah, I've been involved with people before ~ you met Tyler for example ~ but it's never been anything like this. And we're not even really involved. I don't guess we are now. But I don't know. I'm so confused."
"It's ok, Jordan. Why don't you start at the beginning?"
"The beginning, beginning?"
"Up to you."
"Well, it's no secret that I have 'intimacy issues.' Everyone knows that! And I think most of you know where those come from."
"Yeah. Losing your mother when you were ten."
"Ever since then, it's just been easier to keep people at arms' length. No chance of getting hurt there. It worked pretty well until Woody came along."
"Ok."
"Now, don't get me wrong. When I first met him, I didn't think he was for real. No one could be that happy and optimistic and perky. Plus, well, Tyler was here and he was..."
"Convenient?"
"Well, that, and with any luck flying back to L.A. soon. Then he decided to get a job in Boston. Then we had the dinner party and, well, you do remember that don't you?"
"Vaguely. We were all pretty trashed. But I remember you sort of challenged him with your whole 'let's live together' act. It was an act, wasn't it?"
"As far as Tyler was concerned it was. I don't know, I think maybe it tapped into something I'd been feeling deep down inside. But I really don't know. But it worked ~ he left. Then...well, then I went a little bit crazy."
"You mean over the summer?"
"No. Before that. My friend Kim said something to me about how I never took any risks with my heart."
"And...? Somehow I think there's more there than just that."
"Right. Like I said, I went a little crazy. There was this guy in Dad's bar who sort of got inside my head. And, um, we slept together. I didn't even know his name."
"Oh my God. I mean, I'm not judging you or anything. I just..."
"Didn't expect something quite that tawdry from me? Neither did I. Turns out he was a D.A. who rode roughshod over me in that trial I had to testify at. After that, I realized ~ well, before that, but I actually said it after that ~ that I don't want something nameless and faceless ~ something without feelings."
"I'm with you on that."
"And then there was the summer. Nothing romance-wise there. Just a lot of heartache from other things. Until the end. Right before I came back here."
"What happened?"
"You mean Nige didn't spread it all over the office who was in the car when I called?"
"No. He said you had called and were alive, but that was about it."
"Oh. Well, let's just say I got to compare the L.A. jail with the Boston one."
"Jordan!"
"Like I said, I was crazy. I followed this guy who I thought was Redding ~ the one I was after, the one who said he knew something about my mother's murder ~ and chased him into an alley where I pulled a gun on him, and, well, got to have a nice, long conversation with some cops there. Turns out the guy was only a two-bit document forger who was making a passport for Redding. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Until Woody showed up out of nowhere and bailed me out."
"I was wondering when we were going to get back around to Woody. Since he seems to be the cause of your current turmoil." Did I go to far with that one?
"Yeah. So he had a plane ticket and everything. Then I convinced him to go see the guy who was making the false documents for Redding. The guy ended up being dead, but we found an address and went there. While he was checking out one building and I was supposed to be staying put in the car and talking to Dad on the phone, Redding walked by, so I followed him. We ended up on the roofs of these buildings and he was about to throw me off the roof when Woody shot and killed him."
"Wow." I didn't have a clue what else to say.
"So we came back here and things got back to normal. Then there was the Montgomery case and I was really worried about him ~ what would have happened if I couldn't find anything to convince the Montgomery's, the police and the D.A.'s office that Woody was not responsible for Cynthia's death. I think that was the first time that I realized he really does mean a lot to me."
"So there really wasn't anything going on that night last year?"
"Sexually? No way. I just needed to talk with a friend, and he was the first person who popped into my head. Strange ~ for once it wasn't my Dad or Garret."
"So maybe these feelings started before you'd originally thought?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I know that I felt really, really weird when I saw you in his apartment."
"Jealousy, maybe? Not that there was any reason for you to be, but I can see how it could have looked from your point of view."
"I don't know. It seems a little strange to think of myself as being jealous when I hadn't let myself acknowledge any feelings I might have had. But I guess so."
"So when did you start acknowledging the way you felt?"
"I don-... Well, I think I first started really looking at what I was feeling when there was that whole thing with Lisa Fromer. NOT that I was mixed up about my sexuality as everyone seemed to believe, but that someone could know me that well and not hurt me. And she asked me a question that I couldn't answer. She asked me if I'd ever loved someone. Not like a parent or a dog, but ~ and I remember this word for word ~ 'someone you find out of dumb luck that makes your life everything you never thought it would be.' I really thought about it and realized that in so many ways, that's Woody for me."
"Really?"
"Yeah. And it scares the hell out of me to say that, but it's true. He has been there for me in so many ways so many times. And then I followed him out to California."
"Yeah. I remember the screaming match between you and Garret when you asked for time off."
"Yeah. He wasn't thrilled, but I managed to convince him that I was coming back ~ that I wasn't running away. Not like last time."
"Uh huh." This was not one of those times that I didn't understand Jordan. I understood her all too well right now. I just didn't know what else to say.
"So we ended up stranded in the desert and, well, I kissed him."
"You kissed him?"
"Yeah. I kissed him."
"And?"
"And he kissed back. I'm not sure how far things would have gone if this guy who believed we were aliens hadn't shown up. And then we went on with the case."
"Ok. And what happened?"
"I told him I thought we should put the wall back up before either of us got hurt. But I conceded to 'one for the road' to eliminate any curiosity ~ but I cuddled up to him. I don't think I really want the wall up anymore than he does. It just seemed the safe thing to do I guess. I just don't know anymore. Lily, these things never end up all pretty and tied with a bow for me. It's way too messy."
"We're human, Jordan. Life isn't always 'pretty and tied in a bow.' Life is supposed to be messy. That's what reminds us we're alive."
"What does?"
"The mess ~ the pain ~ the feelings. Without that we're just robots."
"You may be right..."
"Jordan, I'm not going to pretend that I know the pain you've been through in your life. But I know that you can't run from things forever. Sooner or later you have to stop running. And if you find someone to catch you when you fall, someone who cares about you and is willing to risk everything for you if necessary ~ well, that doesn't come along very often. You need to grab onto that person and hold on."
"For dear life."
"Sometimes, yeah."
"So you think I should go for it?"
"I think you should at least talk with Woody. Tell him what you've told me. Let him talk a little ~ and keep an open mind. Jordan, I haven't talked with him about how he feels, but I really don't have to. All anyone has to do is look at him when he's around you. He cares about you ~ so much he's willing to do whatever it takes to help you feel safe, to..." What is that look I'm getting? "And Jordan?"
"Yeah?"
"I can see it on your face too now ~ that you care about him, that he helps you feel safe, that..." As I said that, Jordan jumped up and threw her arms around me.
"Lily? Thanks for listening. And helping me see a few things."
"No problem. What are friends for?"
"Yeah. Now, mind if I make a phone call? There's someone I need to talk to..."
End.
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