by Kate Gable
"How are you? Just wanted to see what's new with your sister."
"Nothing. Violet is still missing and now this acquaintance of hers is also, so I guess they're going to give the case a little bit more priority, which I hope is good, but otherwise no news.”
I've been keeping her abreast as to what's going on and she's been demanding text updates at least once every few hours. It's a little bit annoying, but it's nice to know that there's someone there actually giving a damn about me.
I start to pack my things. I grab the suitcase that I had before, and I throw in an extra pair of jeans and some warm sweaters. It's going to be cold up there in Big Bear Lake. Another blizzard is coming.
"Do you want me to come up with you? Maybe there's something I can do," she says. "I have a few days saved up."
"No, that's okay.” I hesitate.
"Come on, let me help," she insists, and I don't want to say no again.
"When are you leaving?"
"As soon as I can," I say, grabbing my toiletries kit, the one that I hadn't even unpacked since I got back.
"Okay, half an hour. Is that good enough?"
"Yeah, that'd be great," I say, and she hangs up.
3
After I pack my things, I walk around my apartment trying to kill some time, trying to ease my mind, but nothing seems to work. I decide to put on my sneakers and go for a run. I've never been much of a gym kind of girl or even yoga. I've always found it a little bit too boring.
I like the way that exercise makes me feel, after the fact, but who doesn't, right? To actually get yourself out there and get that initial momentum going is pretty difficult though.
I put on some yoga pants, tie up my shoelaces, and change into a sports bra. I zip up my hoodie and grab my phone along with a pair of AirPods that I tend to wear whenever I'm alone. Am I the only one who does this? I like listening to podcasts, audiobooks, anything.
Sometimes I do need to let my mind just wander, but most of the time, it's nice to occupy my thoughts with something other than death, destruction, and sadness. I run down the stairs, around and out of the parking lot turning left on my street and gunning it all the way down to the next block. I get a stitch in my side by the time I get to the block after that and I slow down to a near jog.
"Great," I say to myself. I check my watch and it hasn't even been half a mile. “Okay, just keep going. You can do this.”
I force myself to trot.
“Just lift up your feet one foot at a time. Keep going.”
I wouldn't say that I am particularly out of shape, but I could stand to lose twenty pounds. Somehow over the years, my hips have become a little rounder and all of that snacking in the car has caught up with me. There was a time in my life back in college when I would go on a quick fast for two, three days and lose whatever excess fat managed to pile on over the summers. With age comes consequences, hormones, and things like that become difficult to deal with.
I'm not that old. I know that. So, I can't really use that as an excuse. I guess I'm just set in my ways. Whenever I'm a little bit stressed or go to do an interview, interrogation, or have an unpleasant interaction, I immediately grab something sweet to snack on to put me at ease.
I know I'm not the only one. Otherwise, obesity wouldn't be the epidemic that it is all around the world. About a mile into my run, I come to a complete stop and turn around to catch my breath.
I know that people say that you need time for yourself and use the time to meditate and take care of who you are in order to be healthier and happier. I never really understood that until just recently. Ever since I graduated from the University of Southern California, I've just been going in the same go, go, go mode. No breaks, no pauses, and no time for reflection, but that has to change.
I feel myself getting burnt out. Other people hit the wall much earlier and have given up the force altogether or switch to easier departments. I wanted to make detective. I wanted to grow. I wanted to devote my whole life to this. I have and I have succeeded.
So far, I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished, but there's another part of me that thinks about some of the other things that I could have had, maybe should have had.
One thing is that I've always wanted to get a graduate degree. I've enjoyed learning my whole life and I know that there's so much more that I want to know. I'm not entirely certain of the field, but I'm interested in forensic psychology, criminology, or something along the lines that are related to my work. Of course, in order to fit that in, I have to actually make more time in my schedule.
What are the other things that I'm interested in? Settling down. I hate the cliché, of course, but I've spent so much of my life trying to run away from being that typical girl. I don't like to show my feelings. I have embedded myself in a field where toxic masculinity rules and tends to dominate everything we do, the good and the bad. I know that I have something to offer. Not just as a detective, but also as a woman and yeah, I guess it would be nice to have a partner.
I've dated a lot, had a few men break my heart, and there were a few of them that I thought that I could have a future with, but things never worked out.
What was the problem? Work. I have to work around their schedules, but when it came to my career and my obligations, they didn't seem to want to work around mine at all.
My thoughts go back to Luke.
I met him while working on my last case and he was a rebound guy for me after what happened with my ex. I wasn't looking to date anyone, and I definitely wasn't looking to get involved with anyone romantically. Then things progressed.
I like him a lot. He works for the FBI and though I swore that I wasn't going to date any more men in law enforcement, I couldn't stop myself.
Well, hell, I'm getting ahead of myself. Date is not exactly the right word.
We saw each other a few times. Spend the night and had amazing sexual chemistry. Then he had to go up to Northern California for work. He has texted a few times, but we haven't spoken on the phone and he hasn't asked me about my sister much.
I get the feeling that he's ghosting me and well, that's just how modern relationships unfold, right? Why tell someone that you're actually not interested in them when you can just text a little bit, a few words here and there, promise to call, and then never do?
Is that such a modern thing after all though? Isn't that something that people who have avoided personal conflict have always done? We just finally have a word for it.
"Hey. Kaitlyn? Is that you? Kaitlyn Carr?"
I stop mid-jog and I feel my body recoil against nothing in particular.
"Hi,” I say, feeling my cheeks with the back of my hands. They're on fire. I gasp for some air and try to desperately get a good amount in without much luck.
"I can't believe it's you," he says, opening the top button of his expensive suit to drape his arm around my shoulder.
I bend myself in half to try to get some more air and partly to try to die a little from the embarrassment.
Is this really him? No, no, no, it can't be him. Go away. This isn't happening. Why the heck did I ever go on this run?
I stand up straight, exhaling slowly and then quickly suck in some more air.
"Hi." I plaster a fake smile on my face.
"Hi," he says, tilting his head.
His hair has a perfect fade on the side and it's long out in the front with a strand falling into his eyes. There's a light right above us illuminating his strong jawline and his strands of sand. I watch him lick his lips, luscious and thick, just the way I remember them. I slowly let my eyes meet his piercing green eyes, the color of spring grass.
"I can't believe it's you," he says, taking a step away from me.
I lift up my arm and wipe the sweat off my brow. I couldn't look less attractive if I tried. I glance down at my shirt and see big dark pit stains. My hair is stringy and oily, pulled up into a haphazard bird's nest on top of my head. I don't remember if I'm wearing any makeup, but it’s the end o
f the day and if I were wearing some, it's probably all gone by now.
"Mark?”
“You recognize me, right?"
"Yeah, of course," I say a little bit too quickly. “Mark Benioff. So, what are you doing here?”
"Oh, I have a client," he says, "just right over there. We're meeting up at Fig & Olive to sign a deal."
"Huh," I say, trying to hide my surprise, but finding that an impossibility.
Fig & Olive is one of the fanciest restaurants in West Hollywood and it’s the type of place where presidents go to raise money for their new foundations and where senators go to raise money for their reelection campaigns. I've never been there. The entrees go for almost seventy dollars a plate, if not more.
"Are you okay?" Mark asks, reaching over and touching my hand again.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. How are you? What's going on? I didn't even know that you were in LA."
"No, I'm not very active on social media," he says with a shrug. The confidence is just oozing out of his pores and I feel whatever confidence I had in me suddenly decrease by a metric ton.
"Yeah, okay. I get that," I say.
"Actually, I saw on Facebook that you're now a detective.” I don't know if he meant to bring up my own social media presence, or not to throw it in my face, but I let it slide.
"Yeah, I am," I say. "LAPD."
"Wow. Congratulations."
"I've been doing it for a few years now. How about you?"
"Defense attorney."
"Oh, really?" I ask, surprised. "I didn't even know that you went to law school."
"Well, you and I haven't really talked since."
Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it, I say silently to myself and he doesn't.
"Where did you go to law school?"
"San Diego," he says. "I just needed to get out of town."
"Yeah, I get it. How long have you been doing that?"
"Oh, I lived there for many years and then decided to move up. I have a place in Santa Monica now."
I try to calculate in my head how long it has been since I've seen Mark. Twelve years I guess and the last time I talked to him was probably eight years ago.
I don't know what else to say. I keep looking at him and how pretty he is. Suddenly, I'm thrown back to junior year and that trip to Hawaii that started it all.
"Hey, would you like to go and get something to eat sometime?"
"Yeah, I guess. Sure," I say with a nod. The words just come out of my mouth as if on their own without my consent and I regret that immediately, but I can't very well take them back.
"Well, listen, I have to go. My client is waiting. I'd love to grab a drink, catch up. Whatever."
I nod. "Okay. You look great by the way."
"Thanks. You do, too."
I watch him walk away. The suit is loose-fitting, but his ass is still as fit and round as it was back then. Maybe even better. I growl to myself and spin around on my heels.
4
"Hey, I've been waiting for you forever," Sydney says, getting up from the stoop. She has her small suitcase with her. The screen of her phone is turned on and she gestures with it to draw her point home.
“Sorry, I thought that I had time to go on a short run before you got here.”
"Wow, look at you," Sydney says, tossing her hair from one side to the other. "I guess you're really sticking to this exercise thing, huh?"
"I don't know." I walk past her and up the stairs and still try to process seeing Mark.
"Wait, what's going on? What happened? Something wrong with Violet?"
"No, no. No news about Violet," I say and suddenly feel a pang of guilt over the fact that I haven't thought about my missing sister in half an hour.
I open the door, welcome her inside, and head straight to the shower.
"I'll be just a few minutes," I say, dropping my clothes on the floor behind the closed door.
I run the water, get in, and as soon as I close the door to the shower, Sydney opens the one to the bathroom.
"Okay, what's going on? Something is off," she announces and looks at herself in the mirror. It's hard to believe that this woman has a master's degree from UCLA and works as a homicide detective yet still has the ability to morph into a ditzy thirty-year-old girl with an Instagram personality when she pretends to be on social media.
Of course, there's no mention of her life as a detective on there, just pictures of her posing in front of different walls and ice cream shops, as well as the obligatory close-ups of Starbucks coffee cups.
"Your extensions look nice," I say, washing my hair knowing full well that I probably won't get the chance to do this again for at least a day or two.
"Yeah, I just got them today. What do you think?"
"I told you that I like them."
"Yeah, I'm not so sure. They're quite heavy. Have you ever had extensions?"
"No. They seem like too much work."
"Well, who am I talking to? You don't even fucking... You don't even color your hair at a salon. What are you doing? Still doing it on your own?"
I shake my head and respond, "Okay, listen, I told you that when I was drunk and we were sharing. I don't want you to throw it in my face every time. You want to make me feel bad about something."
"Oh, honey. No, not at all," she says, popping her collar and applying a fresh coat of lipstick to her thick, luscious lips.
After a few minutes, I stop the water and get out.
"How are you done already?" Sydney asks. “The mirror isn’t even fogged up.”
"Well, that's not really a requirement," I joke and wrap a towel around myself.
"So, what happened? What's wrong?"
I use another towel to dry off and wrap it around my hair.
"I ran into Mark."
"What?" Her mouth makes a big O sound and she enunciates with her next word, “Seriously?”
"Yeah, seriously."
"Oh my god. Tell me everything."
I go over every single detail that I remember no matter how embarrassing. She listens with her mouth slightly ajar hanging on every word.
"He wants you back," she announces.
"No, I just feel like such an idiot. I can't believe that after all this time, I see him and I'm not dressed up to the nines looking amazing, but instead I’m looking like this. It's so embarrassing and he looked so handsome.”
I hate admitting that, but with Sydney, I can't lie about something like that.
“His hair was in a fade. It was all perfect. A little bit of gel, but not too much. I don't know, he looked like, he looks like a movie star. It's ridiculous.”
"Okay, don't feel bad. If he was acting the way that you said that he was acting, then he's clearly so into you."
"I don't want him to be into me. I just want him to, I don't know."
"What? What do you want?"
I walk past her and into my bedroom. I put on a pair of loose-fitting jeans that will work for a three-hour car ride up the mountain as well as a long sleeve shirt and the most comfortable bra that I own.
"I don't know. I don't know what I want," I say, taking my hair down and brushing it out.
"You really shouldn't brush your hair wet," she says. "It causes breakage."
"Okay, but then it dries in all these different directions and I can't have that."
"Oh, you just let it air dry?"
"Yes. I don't like hair dryers."
"Oh my God. How does your hair even look so nice?" she asks, crossing her hands and sitting down on the edge of the couch. "I had no idea you did this. So, what is it that you do exactly?"
I glare at her and question, "Are you seriously asking me about my hair when I just told you that I ran into my ex-boyfriend, the one that I was engaged to and the one that you now say may or may not want me back?"
"Yes. Have you seen your hair? It looks amazing. I thought you blow dried every morning."
"No, maybe it looks amazing because I don't. I wash it at night whenever I can as s
oon as I get off my shift. It usually dries by the time I go to bed. Whichever crinkly part appears, I straighten that out with the straightener in the morning."
"Oh my God." Her mouth drops open, shocked, maybe appalled.
"Okay, can we focus? This is devolving into some other conversation that I really don't want to have right now."
"Okay, okay. I'm focused," she says, blinking her eyes. "Mark, Mark Benioff. I remember him."
"You never even met him."
"I remember you telling me about him, and I remember the way that you talked about him. It kind of made it seem like you weren't really over him."
"Over him? It's been twelve years. Of course, I'm over him."
"Do you ever think about him?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Then you're not over him."
"That's a really low standard. Of course, most people think about their ex-girlfriends at some point in their lives or ex-boyfriends, right? You see their picture on social media, you reminisce a little bit. There's nothing wrong with that.”
"Show me his picture."
"Well, that's the thing. I don't have any. I have the ones from back then, but he says that he's not on social media anymore or hasn't been. Whatever. I don't know. He made it seem like it was something vain and then, of course, he also mentioned that he had looked me up and I just feel like such an idiot.”
"Okay, don't," she says, putting her finger in my face. "Please don't. You're not an idiot. You're just feeling insecure. It happens. We all feel like that. You didn't see him looking your best and whatever. Besides, you don't want to see him again, right?"
"Well, that's the thing," I say, shifting my weight from one foot to another, putting on a thick pair of boots. "I kind of promised. He asked me if I wanted to go do something and I said I did."
"What, dinner?"
"Well, first he mentioned dinner, but then he brought up drinks, so I'm not exactly sure."
I tell her about how we should bring our suitcases or small overnight bags to my car and I let her park in my spot.
"How long is this trip for anyway?" she asks. "I have to be at work on Thursday morning. Should I take my own car?"
