Molly Toombs
In a week a whole lot can change. In less time than that Molly had lost a friend, made some kind of verbal agreement that felt bonding but that was probably only because it was with vampires, and then discovered one brand new to the city, new to life as a vampire as well, that she now had entangled herself with as well.
More mundane events include: bringing home a kitten (the circumstances for which are so much less than mundane, though), and transitioning Florence from sleeping in a crate to sleeping in a dog bed.
Lucy had a larger monopoly over the bed, but that was the animals' dispute to work out, not Molly's.
She'd done well in not calling or texting Nate after that Friday morning when he dumped the cat and their friendship back into her arms and walked away from them both. He wouldn't answer anyways, she knew. She'd seen his face and eyes both when he was done with something. He wasn't just jerking her chain on this.
She'd seen his name in the Denver Post, so he was writing still. Covering the car bombing that happened later that night, by the looks of it. No one had come after him. But she had no way of knowing how well he was doing.
It took some time, but she'd reached out to Carole-- a phone call, out of the blue around 11:00am on a Thursday: "Are you up to getting a coffee or something?"
Whatever it was that Carole suggested instead (or if she agreed to coffee as it stood), Molly would probably be agreeable. And she'd be on time when they agreed to meet, too.
Carole Klein
Convincing a cop to meet up for coffee isn't a difficult task. Even one like Carole who doesn't have a palate for it appreciates a break from the routine. With her schedule as erratic as it is it takes a bit of back and forth to coordinate a time but the two women agree on a mid-afternoon rendezvous.
Carole is nearly ten minutes late when she strolls into the coffeehouse in her uniform but she seems in good spirits all the same. The barista comps her a hot chocolate in a paper cup and sends her on her way. When the young woman joins Molly it's with a hug.
"Hey girl," she says. Groans as she flops into a chair across from her. "How are you?"
Molly Toombs
Timeliness isn't much of an issue, really. What's ten minutes here or there? Molly had simply had enough time to get herself a drink and settle down in at a table inside, against the window so that she could still feel the safety and warmth of the sun on her skin. She was sipping out of a sixteen ounce paper coffee cup, some latte or another probably, and spacing out staring out the window when Carole had arrived.
Molly rose to her feet to greet the other woman and to return the hug. She'd smiled to see and greet Carole, and answered pleasantly enough as she eased back down into the chair that she'd been occupying already. "Oh, fine. Just the same old same old."
She's lying, of course, but Carole doesn't need to know that. There's nothing 'same old same old' about Molly's routine, especially not in the past week.
The nurse who had reached out to the cop was dressed plain but clean, in jeans and a black V-neck tee shirt with red hair (and the roots grew in to blend nicely, thank goodness-- Molly was pretty much done with hair dye for a while after ruining so many towels keeping her hair black for the last few years) back in a high ponytail, off her neck and out of her face. A face that was still round and healthy looking, still splashed with freckles as it always had been. She was no more pale or sallow looking, no dark circles under eyes evident, but those eyes did seem a bit more hooded, not quite so wide-eyed awake alert and open as they typically were. This was how Molly's recent lack of sleep was showing-- her eyes just wanted to be closer to closed anymore.
"Plenty of work, but isn't that always the case? Especially last Friday-- I'm pretty sure anyone in the emergency industry here was busy then, though."
The question is leading already, just a little. Cutting the path toward the topic that she really wanted to have this lunch date for.
Carole Klein
Carole is not the sharpest mind currently employed by the Denver Police Department. Truth be told she hovers about the middle of the intellectual pool with everybody else. She performs well enough when she tries but she like most normal people cannot sustain that level of effort for very long without growing winded. Average has always suited her well.
But what she lacks in intellect she makes up for in physical stamina and keen sight. Though one cannot tell from looking at her Carole was the top female candidate at the academy. She was in excellent physical shape and was a promising markswoman. Though she will never make it into the investigation unit if she keeps this up she will be the first woman on the Denver SWAT team.
She doesn't have a clue what could be making the nurse's eyes hood like that but her boyfriend always looks tired too. Maybe it's just that time of year. Daylight savings time and the weather being bipolar. Carole doesn't mention it yet.
Last Friday. Carole frowns as she tries to remember. Then it comes to her.
"Oh, Jesus," she says. Rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Yeah. What a nightmare. At least the FBI is taking over the manhunt."
She can't say too much out in public in her uniform like this. Badge and gun on. Anybody could be listening in on them.
"Was it nuts over at Presbyterian, too? I heard everybody from the bombing went over to General."
Molly Toombs
Several weeks ago, Molly may have sat almost coquettishly. She had a habit of holding herself in such a way. She may have sat with her legs crossed at the knee, leaned back with an arm over the back of her chair, or possibly even leaned in toward the table instead, toward the person she was speaking with. Today, though, this has changed. She didn't seem busy looking comfortable in her own skin, but instead she looked a bit more contained. Like someone on the run, she didn't seem to want to draw too much attention to herself. Wanted to be as easy to overlook as possible-- hence the simple T-shirt and jeans, hence the simple ponytail. She sat with her feet both on the floor, ankles and knees together, shoulders rolled forward and her face directed forward across the table as well.
Her left hand stayed on her coffee cup. The right was out of sight, set at her thigh with short fingernails plucking at the side seam of her pant leg of their own volition.
When asked about how Friday was at St. Lukes, Molly shook her head.
"No more than usual." A thought, and she lifted her cup as she added: "I went home about three hours into my shift, though. I wasn't feeling too hot to begin with and you know how it is when you run around at an E.R. speed when you're sick." She offered a smile, and though it was conversational and pleasant and polite it was still brief and not quite so engaging as smiles over their last lunch date had been. The quick fall of the smile was masked by her promptly taking a drink.
She did add, however: "I read that Nate's covering the story for Denver Post, it looks like. Could be good for his writing, right?" She grinned, chuckled almost apologetically, and asked further: "That's how that works, right? You cover an important story and then you get better assignments?"
Carole Klein
Carole is starting to think something's up.
It didn't strike her right away that Molly is acting different because she has no real basis for comparison. Other than seeing her in Nate's hospital room a time or two and meeting her for dinner and their paths crossing at karaoke night all she can say with any certainty is that Molly is normally confident. Pretty even. It seems like she takes pride in her work and herself even when she's wearing scrubs.
"I'm not sure how that goes," she says. "It sounds like this assignment fell in his lap and his editor's waiting for him to screw up. It's... I don't know. We don't really talk about work when we're not at work."
Now she considers the nurse. Takes a swallow of hot chocolate. If Molly wants control of the conversation she has about three seconds to take the wheel.
Molly Toombs
"Hmm."
It was a sound of complacent understanding. Molly set her cup back down on the table and held it with both hands now. Warming the palms on the bare paper sides, the cardboard sleeve abandoned when the drink had cooled past scalding. Her brow creased in the middle for a moment, thoughtful, aware of Carole's watchful consideration.
Her lips felt dry, so she licked them. It probably made the following question seem anxious:
"How is Nate doing, if I can ask?" She sounded like she already knew she was asking for a favor, possibly even for Carole to betray some wish or trust that Nate had placed upon her, an understanding in the bounds within a relationship. She already looked apologetic for having to ask, but she was quick to clarify.
"I don't mean anything detailed-- I just mean, ah... He's alright, right?"
Carole Klein
There it is.
Carole hadn't suspected Molly of having ulterior motives when she suggested they meet for coffee. It wasn't as if she herself had had ulterior motives when she asked the nurse if she wanted to have dinner with her the night they could do nothing else for Nate while he fevered in the hospital bed and fought off an infection that had tried to claim his eye weeks after a violent man did.
Now here's Molly looking like she's depressed or anxious or otherwise disturbed in a way that makes dressing like a creature in control of herself a hardship she doesn't wish to endure. Phrasing her question in a way that makes Carole frown. It's not suspicion yet but it does cast a different light over the conversation.
I don't mean anything detailed.
The young cop takes another swallow of her coffee. She wears a light brushing of mascara on her eyelashes and lip gloss that leaves a nude-pink ghost on the white lid. Hardly any makeup at all. A diamond in the rough. Nathan would be attracted to someone like her. She's average. Normal. Has the potential for strength in her but no desire to seek out the strange and unusual.
If Nathan has ever told her about the ghosts that talk to him Molly wouldn't know about that.
"What's going on?" Carole asks. Not in an accusatory fashion. Concern bubbles up now. She sets down the cup.
Molly Toombs
Molly's lips twisted and her nose twitched into an expression of contemplation that would be darling were it not for the subject matter and the more reluctant, cautious, weathered cast to her eyes. She was becoming incredibly protective of secrets and information. With the Hansel to her Gretel missing, all she had left was her bread crumbs. In a forest this dark, she would guard them with her life.
But Carole wasn't a part of the forest. She was normal, and the concern in her tone wasn't missed. Molly set her face to something more neutral, sipped her coffee again, then set her gaze evenly on the woman across the table from her.
Respectful enough to give it straight.
"Let me preface this whole thing with a disclaimer: Please do not go to him about this, okay? I mean, don't get on his case for what happened. I don't want you to try and, I don't know, fight my fight? I guess?" She cleared her throat and continued. "Sorry, here, listen:
"Something happened that pushed him over some edge, I guess. Nervous break? I don't know, it's not my business and if he doesn't want to tell me that's just fine. Anyway, he calls me on Friday and says he's staying with his dad, but his dad's allergic to cats. Asks me to meet him and pick up Lucy to watch her while he's away. When I get there he has all of Lucy's shit and hands it to me and then pretty much dumps me on the spot. Tells me not to call him, nothing. Walks away." The end.
The pause punctuates that where she stopped was the end of the encounter. She took another sip before continuing. "I haven't called. But I'm still worried. I don't know his family or really anyone else that I could ask, so I'm sorry to drag you to the middle of this but I just wanted to check in."
Carole Klein
Please do not go to him about this, okay?
This appears to be the opposite of what Carole was expecting when she accepted Molly's invitation to have coffee.
In Molly's defense: the two of them are not friends. They had a mutual acquaintance the evening they met. Molly cared for the man who was languishing in a hospital bed and Carole was there because she could tell the guy needed company and didn't have anywhere else to be. Because despite both of their damage and their social ineptitude they could sense a kindred spirit in the other. Because Carole needed someone gentle in her life and Nathan needed someone aggressive in his.
She liked Molly. She also suspects now that she had been dating Nathan on and off since his release from the hospital that Molly is an ex-girlfriend. Nathan is mum about much of his past but he was open enough about this: the cat wasn't his idea. A friend wanted it and then he got stuck with it. Wheels are starting to turn in her head as she listens to Molly speak.
For what it's worth she does not give any signs of acquiescing to Molly's request not to mention this to him. She's staring at Molly in delayed confusion. Especially when Molly refers to what happened as Nate dumping her on the spot.
"Was he fucking you, too?" she asks. She sets down her cup and before Molly can answer: "I don't mean to be... whatever. I didn't know you two were dating or... whatever you want to call it, or I wouldn't have gotten involved with him."
She's upset. Angry, mostly. The sort of angry that could cause tears if she weren't in uniform or as tough as she is. It could just be jealousy trying to find deeper roots but from where Carole's sitting it sounds like Nate was dating both of them and now Girlfriend A is asking Girlfriend B why Nate won't talk to her. Girlfriend B is standing up to leave.
"I don't know why he dumped you, but I think it's really shitty that you're..." She abandons that sentence. Her tone changes. It's a subtle shift. Friendliness shunted away like she'll hemorrhage it otherwise. "He was fine last night. I gotta go back to work."
Molly Toombs
Molly saw where the thought process was going. She saw the hurt and anger flicker-flash across the young policewoman's face, and without showing much of it on her own face Molly started kicking herself somewhere in the back of her own mind. A whole lot of mental cursing herself up and down, how could she not consider that this would be a possible reaction? It had been long enough since Molly was in any kind of declared relationship, tentatively dating or casual or exclusive or anything like that. She'd been wrapped up in the other world where lines were not only unclear but sometimes non-existent, occasionally running the wrong direction compared to what she was used to.
So, Carole thought that Molly was The Other Woman making very poor choices about how to check in on Their Man, and stood up to leave.
Molly didn't jump to stop her, but instead sighed and leaned forward. One elbow found the table so that she could rest her forehead in her hand.
"It's nothing like that, Carole, please." She sounds exhausted, tired, doubting the conversation entirely. Deciding that it was a bad choice to try and check in on a friend that she still considered to be a friend, or at least someone she cared about, even though he's made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with her any longer.
"There's m--...",
No that sentence wasn't going to work.
"It's not--,"
Nope, not that one either.
Her mouth set into a firm expression, lips pressed together like that's how she has to stop these stunted half-started sentences from continuing to fall out. She looked up to Carole again, and whatever firmness had been there in her mouth and nose and cheeks faded. Her eyes dimmed too. She looked like she was seeing the whites of defeat's eyes and accepting its proximity.
"Nevermind. Sorry to have bothered you. Glad to hear he was fine last night, though. Have a good day."
Carole Klein
Carole is not an unreasonable woman. Most women are not unreasonable. But she is young and she is inexperienced and she, like Molly, has not been in a committed steady relationship for a long time. Her closest friends all scattered after college and now here she is alone in Denver for the first time in her life.
They didn't give each other their life stories at dinner several months ago. They both come from towns called Florence and they both have had their basketball teams ripped on by Nathan Marszalek. They both work high-stress professions and they both prefer dogs to cats. But Molly has her secrets and Carole's secrets are boring by comparison. If she has ever met a vampire or encountered a ghost she didn't recognize it as such. The power of the human brain to write things off is extraordinary.
So when Molly tells her that the situation is nothing like that, Carole is willing to stop and hear her out. She doesn't want to walk away angry and hurt. She likes Molly. If she didn't like Molly she wouldn't be so angry and hurt. But Molly doesn't just leave that statement there and wait to see if Carole bites.
She starts two more sentences and kills both of them and finally dismisses the other woman.
Carole stands staring at her for a few seconds. Knowing that a tall woman in a dark blue police uniform is going to draw attention to herself and the person she's with. The coffeehouse continues to bustle around them. The espresso machine hisses and ceramic dishes clatter and other people's conversations form a buffer to keep their own in. But their own is dead.
Those few seconds pass and then Carole shakes her head and walks out of the coffeehouse.
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