Chapter 16
16
D etective Moreno escorted us out of the interrogation room and into the busy corridors of the police station. My dad excused himself to go to the restroom, but before that he gave me and David a stern look. Don’t you dare say anything you shouldn’t while I’m not here .
“In case you remember anything else,” said Detective Moreno, handing me and David cards, “both my office and cell phone numbers are there.”
I checked the card distractedly, learned that Detective Moreno’s first name was Laura, then put the card inside one of the pockets of my jeans, never to see or think about it again. My pockets could have that effect on things; they were like doors to a parallel universe inaccessible to this Elena variant.
“And congrats, by the way,” Detective Moreno added.
“I’m sorry, for what? The honor of being interrogated by the police for a third time in two days, or having finally figured out that we needed a lawyer when we talk to you folks?” I asked.
“I meant how unapologetic you are about this whole thing of yours. You used to date,” she said, gesturing to David and me. “You have a boyfriend,” she directed at me. “Yet you two seem to have such an interesting relationship.”
“I guess,” David said, being polite. I don’t think he was particularly fond of the singularities of our situation. And he’d always thought interesting was the biggest offender in the art of the empty word.
“The thing is, I’m notoriously bad when it comes to this stuff,” Detective Moreno continued, seemingly unaware of my and David’s lack of interest. Was she being so chatty and nice because she was genuinely like that? Was she working on her inner growth and doing a therapy session with us? Or was she trying to get our guards down so we’d confide in her? The daughter of a lawyer in me decided it had to be the third option: She wanted to pretend she was telling us something private so we’d tell her something we still hadn’t disclosed to the cops.
“What stuff?” I asked her tentatively. I’d let her talk all she wanted—or needed—but I would listen, not share my own stuff.
“Relationships,” Detective Moreno said in her dry, straightforward tone. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry if we came off as a bit judgmental or reproaching before. We were just doing our jobs.”
“Getting people to talk is not easy,” David said, and I could have stabbed him with my eyes. Did he really need to be so understanding and sympathetic with everyone ?
“I could never judge your arrangement when my love life is a complete mess.” I knew for a fact she was fishing for a candid reaction from us then.
“It’s not like our arrangement isn’t a bit messy,” David started saying, but I interrupted him.
“We didn’t feel judged,” I lied, and before David could add anything else or tried making friends with the officer currently investigating our possible involvement in a murder, I steered him away. We made a rushed exit toward the parking area. I was sure my dad would be able to find us there.
···
We said goodbye to my dad, who had to run home to get changed and then head back to his office. He was in the middle of some contentious negotiations as two of his musician clients were expecting new contracts—and the royalties resulting from that—once the TV sitcom they’d worked on in the nineties hit a streaming service.
David and I got inside my car and saw my dad’s SUV leaving the parking area, but I didn’t start driving. We needed to talk first.
I was trying to phrase an elusive thought that’d been plaguing my mind when my cell phone buzzed inside the rear pocket of my jeans. I grabbed the device out of habit and read the message distractedly.
Fred Appleton
Elena. I just wanted to let you know I’d be honored to work alongside you once again.
Well, I won’t be.
I put the phone back in my pocket. Where was I?
“That conversation with the police was...” David interrupted my thoughts about Fred Appleton and whatever I needed to tell him.
“Weird?” I ventured. We were both looking at the semi-empty parking structure in front of us.
“That doesn’t cover it.”
“Awkward,” I tried again.
“Closer, but still not precise.”
“Uncomfortable.”
“You’re getting warmer. Torturous, perhaps?” he asked.
I scoffed. “At this rate, not as torturous as this conversation!”
“Sorry. You know I like words,” he said, flashing his most irresistible puppy-dog stare.
“And you get especially obsessed with them when you’re nervous,” I told him. “Now that we’ve had to go over some of the specifics of our sex life in front of the police—and, let’s not forget, my father—can I tell you something?” I’d been holding on to this for way too many years. “I always hated Gloria Fucking Kingsley.”
David shifted to face me better. “What? What brought this on?”
“I guess the fact that she was supposed to be your former colleague and friend but decided to throw you under the bus the moment city hall called and spun a fabricated tale about you...” My gaze was still lost in the gray semi-empty space in front of me.
“She got a scoop,” David said.
“Are you serious right now?” I was too enraged to keep avoiding his gaze and turned to face him. “That wasn’t a scoop, that was a bunch of lies. And she had no issue writing them. Also, she said I’m unemployed three times in the article!”
“Well, you’re not actively working on any production right now,” David reasoned.
“I’m writing my spec script! I have an overall deal! I have plenty of employment. Perhaps nothing is being made at the moment, but that’s not the point!” I yelled. My frustration ran deep, and I realized I had been yearning to have that argument for a while. Fred Appleton barging in at the worst moment instead of waiting for my agent to give him an answer hadn’t exactly appeased my mood.
“You always get upset because I’m a stickler for precision when it gets to finding the right way of wording things. And then someone describes your situation inaccurately, and look what happens,” David said, and that was the last straw.
“That’s not what I’m saying!” I said, my voice rising in volume.
“Then tell me what it is!” he said, yelling too. We were both screaming at each other by then, having our first full-blown argument since we’d broken up. And we—I guess, technically me—had chosen the vicinity of a police station for it.
I finally let it out. “Were you having an affair with her?” If only I’d found the courage to do it two years before.
“What? With whom?” he asked, and for a moment there I thought he looked genuinely clueless. I didn’t reply though. I just stared at him pointedly. “With Gloria?” he finally said. “Of course not!”
They’d been working together at the Gazette when David and I were still a couple, and even though I pride myself on not being jealous, I was green with envy about her. She was witty and hot, she always knew what to say, what to read, and what new places to go. And, above all, she was so self-assured and confident in her own skin. I feared the day David realized she was perfect for him in a way I had never been.
“Are you sure?” I asked, but I was sounding a bit more deflated and insecure than when I’d first posed the question.
“I couldn’t be more certain,” he said. He wasn’t being theatrical about it, and his jawline looked his usual sexy, so I assumed he was telling the truth. “Why would I have an affair with her when I was with you ?” He managed to make the word you sound like the most special thing.
“I don’t know! You tell me!” Believe me, I know. Not my best line. “You could also have started seeing her after we broke up.” I was starting to sound deranged and foolish.
“Elena, why would I want to start seeing her? All I wanted to do when you broke up with me was find a way to be together again,” he said. “Also, for the sake of at least trying to appear feminist, what makes you think she’d want anything to do with me?”
“Oh please! Forget about your feminist argument.” We didn’t have time for that then, not when he’d said what he’d said. “You wanted to be together again?”
“Elena, isn’t it obvious?” He needed to stop using my first name in that melodious, tender way only he knew how to do. “We live in the same building!”
“They were having a sale!” I realized how ridiculous it sounded only after I’d said it out loud.
“You have keys to my apartment,” David continued, and the calmness in his tone agitated me even more.
“It’s just more convenient this way.” I was trying to justify the whole situation and hearing the absurdity in every one of my words.
“Whenever you’ve decided to surprise me with a visit in the middle of the night, have you ever caught me with anyone?”
I looked at him for a few seconds, not knowing what to say next. I was processing everything that had been said between the two of us, and not quite grasping the actual implications.
“What have we been doing all this time?” I asked him finally.
But there was no answer as a uniformed officer knocked on my window then and almost gave me a heart attack.
“Miss, are you here for police business?”
“Yes, we were just inside editing our statements or whatever you call it,” I told the officer as I rolled my window down.
“Editing your statements?”
“Adding some revisions, giving notes, punching up our statements?”
“We were amending our statements, officer,” David intervened.
“I see,” the officer finally understood, her gaze shrewd. “If you’re done, you should leave. We don’t like people lingering in this area. Someone else may need to park.”
I checked in front of me at the many parking spaces available. “We were having a conversation.”
“The parking area of the LAPD is no place for conversations. It’s the place to park if you need to conduct police business.”
“It was a possibly life-altering conversation.”
“The parking area of the LAPD is no place for life-altering conversations.”
I drove off then, because I had to admit that she had a point.