TM 228: 3 AM

[onetime_actor]

Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and I'll meet you tonight in Atlantic City. . . - Bruce Springsteen

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[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

She's wearing a white dress with gold highlights. Sleeveless. White Italian leather shoes. He wonders if Bruce Wayne brought them for her.

"You might be a little overdressed for this place," Henry says apologetically. She might be a lot overdressed for a town where people gamble in sweat pants and Bass Masters' Sport Fishing Tour T-shirts, where Henry thinks even his sportcoat and loafers might be pushing it.

"You look lovely," he adds, quickly, because it's true.

Shoving the bottle in his pocket, he takes both of her hands and leans forward to kiss her cheek. "Hello, I'm Henry. You've met me at a party that I personally don't remember, and I wish this were the first time I'd ever had to introduce myself that way."

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

It's kind of an absurd question, in this situation, especially because Henry's not sure he has an answer.

He's flown across the country, and she's driven down from New York in the middle of the night, to meet in a city neither one of them has any affection for, and they don't know why.

"That depends," Henry says. He leans in and kisses her on the mouth. Very gently and chastely. He pulled back before she can respond, and asks, "Do you gamble?"

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

Henry looked one way toward the unlighted Ferris wheel and the water, the other toward the gaudy lights of the Taj Mahal and the stupid Iron Man billboard.

"You're cold," he told Lorna. "You must be. Here." He took off his sportcoat, whiskey bottle and all, and draped it over her shoulders. "Hold onto this." He offered her an arm. "It's not a big thing. There are free drinks in the casinos, did you know that?" He started to lead her toward the entrance.

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

"As you wish." He nods to Lorna, and lets her lead him now. It isn't much of a beach -- it's dismal, and polluted -- but it's dark and she's never been here before, so if she squints it might seem like something nice.

"Miss D- Lorna," he says, as they walk onto the sand. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but I have to ask. Why are you here?"

Henry has problems of his own, but he's not too dim to realize that an intelligent, capable woman -- or a stupid one, for that matter -- wouldn't put on a nice dress and drive through New Jersey in the middle of the night to meet a near stranger, unless something was not-exactly-right in her life.

And that was the thing about other people's problems. Henry was good at them, or at least he used to be. It would be nice to be good at soemthing right now.

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

Henry looks down at her movement, touching his fingers to her wrist. "You have nice hands," he says. "Nimble. I can tell."

He presses his palm against hers and slips the hand down to his side. "There's a girl in L.A. A woman, Kate. She has these -- nimble little hands. She's always fidgeting with them, always flipping her damn pen around, and sometimes if she sees you're looking, she tries to stop. She hands you the pen, right? But then you can see her -- you can sometimes hear her -- grinding her teeth. Because she's got so much energy, her brain is working so hard she's got to keep moving, and before long you feel like a jerk and you give it back to her and there's this smile --"

Henry isn't sure about Lorna walking in her bare feet on this beach. He bends his knees, crosses his legs, and takes a seat in the sand. "Come on --" He tugs a little at her hand. "You can sit on my coat, if you want. We'll send Tony the cleaning bill."

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

"It's different from anywhere," he said, fervently, and put a hand to the side of her head, as she leaned against him. "I moved to L.A. when I graduated high school. Because I loved the theater. Which shows you how much I knew."

He ran his hand lightly over her hair. "I met a lot of people when I was young and stupid, though. Including Kate. I was tending bar in Van Nuys and I was growing a beard -- because I'd had to throw out my razors, actually, but that's a whole other story. Her firm was running that stunting casting search for the Iron Man show, and she was reduced to scoping out bartenders, personally, because she figured anybody pouring drinks in the city of Los Angeles had a 90 percent chance of having some kind of acting background." He looked down at Lorna. "Do you understand why I'm telling you this?"

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

The kiss surprises him a little, though there's no reason it should.

He runs his fingers over the soft skin on the underside of her wrist.

"I was counting," he said. "On the flight out here, and I thought of the top ten very worst nights of my life, I'd say eight -- oh, eight and a half of them -- ended up with me staggering through Kate's door. Crashing on her couch -- literally that one time. Letting her hang up my coat and take off my shoes and make tea, and not ask for anything and then -- by the time I woke up, she was on the phone and she was fixing everything. That's what she does. Kate Kildare, public relations genius." His voice trailed off as he looked out past the pier and the brilliant red and gold billboard.

"I'm not here because I need a friend, Lorna. I left L.A. to get away from my friends. So when I act out, just this once, they don't have to take the brunt of it. I'm here because I need a stranger." He swallowed and looked tentatively at her. "Maybe that's just me."

But he didn't think so.

[erikscordelia]

[onetime_actor]

Henry's first impulse is to tell Lorna that she's not being fair to herself. There's absolutely no reason, he wants to tell her, that his problems are more important than hers and, in fact, just the fact that she was willing to come here tonight for someone she hardly knows shows that she's more worthy than he is. . .

But this is getting silly. They're like two people standing in front of a door, neither of them willing to go through it before the other, and consequently never getting anywhere.

So he sits perfectly still while she touches his hair, then turns his head a little and says, "I killed a girl. With my hands. I killed a girl I was responsbile for. And Stark recommended me for a commendation. Tell me how that makes any sense."