Hmmm... well, I've never a story, or even much at all here -- mostly just lurk. This should probably start the delurkification process. Yep, I'm the same Kate from the DWG. Don't worry if the story doesn't make much sense to you now... actually, I'd be more worried if it does make sense. I admit, Maura's a lot like me. Perhaps most natably with her how to mess up professionally abilities. And a lot of what she and the other characters do has happened. So there you go; I plagerize reality. ~ Kate
Prologue
My friend Mitch Constantine once said, "You know, Maura, the problem with you is you're so damned erratic." I don't remember precisely with which ascerbic retort I met this criticism, but there was one, that I am sure. There is always one. Just like my alleged erraticness is not, of course, the only fault Mitch finds with me -- there is always one, maybe new, maybe the same one disseminated in some novel new way. But no doubt erratic is one he finds most unsettling.
Because Mitch is never erratic. Precise, steady, diplomatic, responsible, intellectual -- always. I am never always anything, much to his dismay. That I am moody and impractical would be more than enough.
Mitch... the Greek blue eyes and dark hair, tanned skin; tall, everything about him long and lean. It would tie me up in knots.... still can, but only when I am very lonely or very stupid. But attractive as he is, it was far more his brains that did it to me. The perfect Renaissance Man. Is there anything he doesn't know about? If there is, my search for it has been fruitless and frustrating.
Then, with ironic appreciation, I smiled to myself -- the first time in miles -- and I knew the look was one Mitch would classify under the category of "what the devil are you up to, Maura." Maybe there is nothing he doesn't know about -- but God help us all, there are things he doesn't understand.
My mirth faded. Not even Mitchell Constantine is infallibly consistent... if he were, I wouldn't be here, driving in the dark brushing angry tears from my eyes, impatiently pushing at the buttons on the radio, with the customary restlessness Mitch has always insisted is an integral part of me, trying to find a song that fits when nothing fits into place anymore. That 800 verbal SAT vocabulary couldn't find a word to fit what I felt, to describe Mitch's sudden reverse into a brick wall that had been erected when he was looking at something else. He had seen the signs of construction, I knew it, but he had done it anyway, sending me skidding out of control and Mabel... I didn't know just how May had been hit in the collision. Or could it be that she had stalled long before?
No, May was a part of this too. But what had happened?
Damn him. Resentment surged through me, but not because of his sudden stupidity. I was thinking of how he looked, how he could so easily command respect. No one ever misjudged Mitch from his appearance; no one was ever surprised, dismayed, even angry, because Mitch failed to fit into their precociously conceived characterization of him.
But I was not like Mitch. To those who didn't trouble to investigate further, Maura Lennox is a "sweet little girl" of the English rose variety: small, pale, and rosy cheeked; hair of no single describable color and those fluid chameleon hazel eyes. But as Mitch said, "What did you expect? Do you think they won't be startled by the dark jagged edges?" So that's how he thinks of me, dark jagged edges...
Something else Mitch said, when he was in one of his pithy moods: "You look delicate, Maura, fragile. All right, so you're more of a fighter than people expect, but you're even more fragile than they would think too. Touch you the wrong way and you'll shatter."
Then again, Mitch always thinks he knows about me.
What about May? I had never thought of it before, but surely she must feel the same way; no doubt she is perpetually trying to dodge the somber Asian math prodigy stereotype. The thought of May as anything remotely resembling somber was enough to make me smile again. Ah May, smartest ditz in the world. Even Mitch agreed to that.
When did this all start? Maybe it's college; the distance, the changed tenor of the relationships. Or maybe it started long before. Eighth grade, when Mitch moved to our town, sat behind me in homeroom, site of biweekly debates, I feisty, he imperturbable; he had more to talk about with me, but it was with May he cultivated a deeper friendship. Or ninth: high school, and I pitched head over heels, backwards and upside down for Mitch... and he did the same for May. Tenth grade, my temper cooled, but still confused, and that damned primary didn't help; John McCain, of all people, and a number of shared classes drew us closer. Or maybe it started the day the next summer I decided I was through entertaining any romantic notion regarding Mitch, and the ironic way everything turned around from that.
Maybe this disaster was determined the day Mitch first kissed me, and the ridiculous, depressing, anticlimactic way things happened after. Maybe Jamie was a catalyst; sweet, charming Jamie with his puckish grin, flirtatious brown eyes, and heart of gold. Thinking of him sent something like a cartwheel through my brain; what a strange, undefined, dizzy, flirty, confusing relationship we had. It was perfect for awhile... when I could ignore the stab of guilt I felt, and deserved to feel; when I could forget, for the moment, a pair of blue eyes -- not Mitch's -- which I studied intently, trying to read some sign in each look and flicker. If not for that, maybe I wouldn't have to wonder, and regret, what I might have forsaken have every time I look at Jamie.
Jamie had ruined it. It was my fault.
How much had Mitch known about us? Something, that was sure, but much could Mitch know about our relationship when Jamie and I were never quite sure where we stood? I wished I could talk to Jamie, cry on his shoulder, hear him say "who broke your heart, babe?" And tell him about more than Mitch. Can't do it to him though; Jamie's put up with far too much from me already, and with good grace.
Thinking about Jamie was starting to make me cry again. I wondered what Mitch was doing, if he had changed his mind about me like I told him he would. And suddenly I remembered something May had said years ago, that as soon as you turn around and walk away from a guy he wants you to come back. Some how it was always that way between me and Mitch.
I remembered that first time I had walked away from Mitch -- the first time I really said no, turned around, and gone in the other direction. Maybe that's when it started.
Then there were blue eyes with a look I had memorized, a low dry voice that was suddenly brusque, tense hands, and a question, and I was reeling.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and forced my mind away from what was less a memory than a delusion, unsettling because it was real and not an illusion. I tried to think of cars, traffic, and suddenly I wondered whether in a multi-car collision, the AAA man ever gets hurt.
Blue eyes again, and again, not Mitch's. Warmer, darker, more humorous than Mitch's, sometimes shaded with green. And they were giving me those looks... the ones I have memorized, the ones I have studied, the ones I still can't understand.
Maybe this started with something that happened nearly two years ago, something that didn't even involve Mitch, travesty though that is.
I think it started with lemonade.
*One, U2
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