Smoking and talking
"A long weekend," all right; and if, at the end of it, Sabitha's maybe smoking too much, I know I'm talking too much. Telling her about my dark days in college? What was I reacting to in her to get to that?
Time for therapy, girl, or at least a good cry on an old friend's shoulder. I haven't seen Terry in a while, and Jaz owes me one, big-time, from back in the day. Not that I can tell them everything. There's the blue wall, and there's the mutant wall, let's say. The wall around me. The walls around the pieces of me, of my life. Too many walls. Not enough doors in them.
Well, I'll get over it, and over the walls (or through!) . . . and it had better not be tiddlywinks, dammit. Now I have to ask him.
But later. I didn't even see if he was home. Straight to a shower and bed for me. I slept well last night. Let's make it two in a row.
Call Alyssa in the morning. And see if she can get me Scott Summers's number. Enough of this shit.
8/8/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greenwich Apts #330 - Sabitha
The flat is large and unhindered by walls and doors. A raised area in the corner serves as Sabitha's bedroom, and it's sectioned off by tall wooden screens painted with elaborate oriental designs. A huge picture window is draped in sheer fabrics of cream and deep red, and a large, elegant rug is centered on the hardwood floors. The walls are bare, for now, and the furnishings - a simple couch and wingchair, a coffee table, an armour housing a television, a bookshelf overflowing with historical texts - are sparce. In one corner is a kitchen area, in the other a door leading to a bathroom, and others concealing closet space.
--
Since she's in the city, anyway, and it's been a while, and there's Chris Rossi and Vincent Lazzaro to ponder, and all the rest -- Leah fishes her cell phone out of a jeans pocket and hangs outside a coffeeshop in the Village to dial a number. She swings the shopping bag in her hand a little while she waits. Ring? Yes, ring!
Ring! Sabby's tapping away at email when her phone goes off, with music throbbing in the background. Thus, it takes her three before she has the phone in hand and the music cranked down and can answers, "Hello?" without time for a glance at the ID
"Yo, 'sme -- shit, dude, you wanna /watch/ where you walking, or are you auditioning for the sequel to Ray?" Leah snaps the unfortunate pedestrian out of her way and then swings back to the phone. "Hey. It's me, obviously. Sorry. I'm down on the street somewhere in the Village, and I thought, 'Gosh, wonder what's Sabby doing, so I can tell her the latest in the saga of Chris and Leah.'"
"Leah!" There's an edge of relieved delight in Sabby's voice as she identifies the caller and flops backward onto her couch. "I was just /thinking/ I should call you soon. You're in the neighborhood?" she questions. She gives her apartment a quick once-over, and then is on her feet again, moving quickly around to sweep up clutter. "You should stop by. I think I /still/ haven't heard the first part of that saga!"
Leah says cheerfully, "I can tell all if you're wanting to hear it. Just give me directions." She sets out in a likely direction on the sidewalk, just in case: never a good idea to stay standing still too long in Manhattan. "I could use a sit-down. Shopping makes me cranky, though I did meet a cute guy in the bookstore. Ha. I'm gonna have a harem, just watch me."
"I'm in Greenwich," Sabitha fills her in quickly. "Here.. wait. You taking a cab, or walking?" She paces into the bedroom to swipe dirty clothes up from the floor. "Hot damn, Leah Canto. Gonna give me some of that action?"
"Comes with age, my friend." Leah's tone saunters much as her walking does, sure and smug. "And it looks like I'm about six blocks away, if I remember the area right, so I'll be there in a jiff. Sure it's a good time?"
"I'm just wasting time online," Sabby assures her, and then rattles off a quick range of directions while she collects a few empty glasses, clattering against each other, and shoves them into her dishwasher.
Definitely smug: "Yup, I knew it. Nowhere in Greenwich is six blocks away from anywhere else. Be right there. Leah Canto, signing out." And she flips off the phone, shoves it back in her pocket, and strikes out.
Sabitha tosses her phone onto the couch and makes a beeline for the kitchen table, where papers are shuffled into a pile and a stray sock is plucked up and whipped toward the bedroom. Damn. Ok. Almost done? By the time Leah arrives, Sabby's managed to pull herself into the kitchen, looking for all the world as if she's just been preparing drinks. Right.
Leah will take it, the facade and the drinks both. Rat-tat-tat on the door, followed by, "Po-lice, Ms. Melcross! Open up!"
"Not /funny/, Canto!" Sabby shouts through the door, moving to key her security system and swing it open. "There've been way too many cops around lately." She greets her with a dry smile, and waves an arm inward. "Want a drink?"
Leah gripes, "What, now Rossi has you using my last name? Asshole." She slouches in, drops her shopping bag with muted thumps by the door, and puts hands on hips to study the younger woman. "You," she declares, "need a drink more than I do. I can tell. I have psychic powers. And I will join you because I got to flirt with a cute guy today -- /Russian,/ no less, and an /artist/ -- and I'm feeling good about the world and myself. So, bring on the booze."
"Between Chris and Vincent, it's a wonder I can even /remember/ first names anymore," Sabitha replies lightly, and then grins at Leah. "Well. /I'm/ not saying no to a beer. Or you want something stronger? I've got a veritable wet bar in the cupboard over the fridge," she offers. She secures the door and then wanders in that direction, with a glance over her shoulder. "/Russian/? Hell yes. That's nice. I knew a Russian guy, once. Most adoreable accent."
Leah prowls along after. "I don't mind, but it surprised me, let's say. It's so schoolyard of guys to do, using last names. Avoiding intimacy, if you ask me." She stops once she's in the kitchen and leans a hip into the nearest counter. "Beer's fine, whatever you have. I probably shouldn't be breathing fumes on the way home tonight. God knows what I'd pick up on the train, but it /wouldn't/ be a cute Russian artist."
"You think that's what it is?" Sabby questions with genuine curiousity. "I'd wondered. Vincent calls me both. Chris..." She has to pause, frowning, to consider this one. "Both too, I guess, but mostly Melcross." She ducks into the fridge, and then chucks a bottle at Leah. "Beer it is, then. I'm going through it like hell this weekend." A realization hits her, and she mutters, "Damn. Left a whole sixpack of it at Vincent's," before glancing at Leah again. "So. Fill me in?"
"Well, I'm not a shrink, but it's a good a theory as any, right?" Leah catches and uncaps the bottle. A swig eases her into a chuckle. "Don't tell me that you and Vincent . . . ? No, let's get me out of the way first, since I'm the guest. Me and Rossi. Where to begin?"
"/No/, not me and Vincent," Sabby's quick to counter before Leah's swift move into herself earns a grin. She jerks her head toward the living room, moves that way. "The beginning?" she suggests. And then elaborates, "I think I missed something that came /before/ that horrid dinner party."
Leah slouches into the nearest comfort of furniture and balances her beer on her belly and a sigh. "The beginning, yeah. Before the dinner party?" Her gaze glitters pallid irony, like sun-bleached brown leaves. "Well, the whole thing with his brother -- you heard enough about that to get the gist, right? When I broke up with him, I kinda lost track of the family, even Julia, his sister, who you absolutely have to meet, by the way. We're three peas in a pod, I think. She's the one I told, besides you, about sleeping with him. Told her everything. Minute details. And I guess she called him at work about it. So--" her eyebrows bob mock-regret "--I kinda got on his shitlist for that."
Sabitha chokes on a swallow of beer and has to cough a few times to get it all to shuffle into the proper pipes. "Hell, Leah. You called his /sister/ and gave her details on how he was in bed?" she questions. "Cold, man, cold. I bet his fragile little ego curled right up and retreated into hiding."
Leah frowns. "Hey, she's my friend. You tell your friends these things. I do, anyway. Don't you? --Not that I'm asking you right now," she grants kindly. "Because it's still All About Me Hour. So, yeah, we talked, but it had nothing to do with him. Just girl-talk. He did do the shrinkage thing, right about that. Poor guy. So hung up about sex. Gotta work that out of him somehow."
"I've noticed that," Sabitha affirms with an approving nod. "Claims to live the wildlife, can't move on from that one - it was just one, right? - night. He's brought it up to /me/ more than once, you know," she relates.
"/No./ Really?" Leah drags another swallow out of her beer, then ticks her front teeth a few times in thought. "Huh. You said he liked me, didn't you? And yeah, the one night, but I have a standing invitation. Told me so last night, when I was at his folks' place for dinner. How homey is that?"
"Uh huh," Sabby answers with a firm nod. "Out of nowhere, the other night, even." And /that/ revelation gets a swift flick of her brows, upward, a lean forward. "A standing invitation? /Really/? Hot damn, Leah. That's not bad at all. You gonna take him up on it?"
Leah looks and sounds modest, though her grin peeps out a bit. "Sure. He said he's not sleeping much anyway, in this heat, and neither am I, so I said he could come by if he wanted -- said he almost did the other night, at one-thirty in the morning -- and he reciprocated." She turns her beer on her stomach's slouched base. "I will /assume/ that he meant more than an invitation to tiddlywinks, but you never know. I'd better ask to be sure if I just got myself a fuck-buddy."
"/Really/?" Sabby echoes her earlier word with positive delight now. "You really could do worse. And you sounded /very/ pleased about him just after..." She trails off, shakes her head. And then backtracks sharply. "He's not sleeping because of the heat?"
Leah's mouth twitches. "None of us are, Sabby. I thought summer outside the city would be better, but no." Complexity trips through her tones, and there's another frown threatening her brow line. "It'll pass," she decides. "And I don't mind sleeping with the covers kicked onto the floor."
"You're living without airconditioning?" Sabby questions in a sort of 'are you /mad/?' voice. She kicks her feet up onto her coffee table, swirls her beer bottle up for a drink. "So you're going to take him up on that, then?"
Leah snorts. "Oh, Christ, no, we have AC, but still the heat gets us." For her part, she slumps further into comfort, braced by legs' untidy sprawl, and loops one arm behind her head. "Yeah. I will. He's a good lay, Sabby. I do highly recommend it . . . if you can tear yourself away from Detective Lazzaro." Arch teasing; better than what she might've supplied as the booty call there.
"I'm not fucking Vincent Lazzaro /or/ Christopher Rossi, and I don't have any plans to change either of those facts," Sabitha informs her dryly. Bluntly. And then, with a segue visible only to Sabby's mind, questions, "'ve you been watching the news?"
A dark chuckle. "All right, all right, and yeah, of course I have." Leah sighs. "Poor guys, with that damn Miller case. Helluva thing. Helluva thing. Is Lazzaro doing all right?"
Sabitha shifts uncomfortably, and shrugs. Her expression is uncertain. "I can't really tell, to be honest, Leah. Or Chris, for that matter." Her eyes sharpen on the other woman. "You know him better than I do. Is that... I mean, the whole tired thing, the way he's been. Is that normal?"
Leah's turn to shift. "Hell. I -- I kinda don't want to spill it, Sabby. I'm protective," she apologizes with teeth's primal baring and some more evolved rue in her gaze, the shrug of one slanted shoulder. "I had a hard time not tucking him into bed last night, and not in /that/ way. So, let's say that . . . yeah, he's off-kilter. But he's trying. And he's tough. He'll make it through." She snorts a deliberate laugh. "As long as he can get pissed at me, he's fine. And he was plenty pissed last night."
It says something of Sabby's distraction that she doesn't take offense at Chris being protected from her. She rubs a hand across her brow, and her fingers tighten round the neck of her beer bottle. "Damn," she mutters after a moment. Sweeps her eyes up to Leah. "I mean, good, that you're there. But damn. I don't know about Vincent. I don't /know/ cops." The last is a quiet plea for help, and she shakes her head. "This case isn't going to be easy for any of them." A pause, and she adds, "And... I heard there was something about his partner? Chris's."
"Not my business," is Leah's swift demur. "Blue wall, Sabby. Sorry."
Sabitha /does/ take offense to that, with a visible bristle that sends her hackles rising as she stares at Leah. Her silence stretches for a pair of breaths as she works out what to make of that, and she finally settles for a short "Right" and a long swallow of beer.
Unfazed, Leah has a swallow, too. "Nature of the job," she says after a minute. "I grew up blue. Half my family's blue. We protect our own. Rossi's partner's business isn't mine, and it isn't yours. I mean, I know what you're getting at, and I'm sure Chris would appreciate it, but--" She shakes her head. "Not like that. Some things, you just don't talk about with civilians. Even me."
Down comes the beer, and down come Sabby's lashes, eyes hooding in what looks for all the world like a sulk. Mostly because it is one, though she wouldn't admit it. Her brows knit, and she answers, still a bit short, "Of course." The silence draws out again before Sabitha pulls herself together and starts consciously searching for a safe switch in topic. Unfortunately, it's a search that's taking some time.
Compunction, thy name is /not/ Leah Canto: "So now you're pouting because I'm not spilling more. Sorry." She does sound it, but she's also not breaking the wall. "It's just the way it is, man. You have secrets in your work, right? I do in mine. They do in theirs. There's a place for sympathy, for pat-patting and trying to help, but talking about a guy's partner behind their backs? So very much /not/ done." Pause. "Well, unless trigger calluses are involved."
Sabitha's eyes snap to Leah's, bluntly annoyed now. "I'm not /pouting/, Leah. And I didn't fucking ask anything more, did I? I'm sorry that I'm not blue inside and out like some people, but I don't have a fucking /roadmap/ to dealing with this, ok?" She rises abruptly, and paces toward the kitchen. Pauses halfway there to remark, "Shit. Give me a minute. Just give me a minute." And then she swipes up a cigarette from a box on the counter and stalks toward the bathroom.
Leah waits, then, and drinks her beer, and rubs the back of her head with the hand of her lazily pillowing arm. Her eyes wander over the apartment before her. "--Like your place!" she calls over after a judiciously measured piece of time. "We really have to have the next dinner party here, not my place."
Sabitha feels much calmer (and happier) after the cigarette and some splashing of very cold water on her face. Possibly a brief lecture to her reflection in the mirror. When she returns, she's easily breezy. "Oh! That's what else I needed to call about. I want to have one this week sometime." She frowns briefly, thoughtful, and adds, "I was going to try to work Vincent and Chris's schedules out, but this weekend may've shot that all to hell."
"I'm game." Leah drains the beer, sits up, plunks the bottle on the coffee table. She stays sitting, twisting her hands loosely together between splayed knees. "We good, then?"
Sabitha exhales slowly and manages a weak smile. "Fine. Sorry. It's just been a hell of a weekend. No big deal. I get it, I really do. Just don't know where all the lines are yet." She glances toward the beer, then toward the kitchen. Not at Leah. "Want another one?"
Leah's keen eyes track the movements of her friend's: not a cop's acuity, but a reporter's. A friend's. "Bad weekend," she agrees, softer. "I wish I could help them. I wish I could help you. Please believe that. It'll pass. It /will./ And if you're having, I'm having, too. Thanks."
Sabitha swings by the kitchen to scoop up another pair of beers, and she tosses one over the back of the couch at Leah before reclaiming her chair. "Yeah. Hope so. I nearly took out some eyes today at work," she offers with a dry smile. "I think they're scared to so much as mention the case anywhere I can hear, now. I hope the publicity's the worst of it. A week or so will cure /that/."
"And the death threats -- shit. Sorry. Never mind." Leah lances over a bright, false-bright, mica-bright smile. "No need to think about /that,/ huh? How's work been, then?"
Oh /hell/ no, nevermind! "/Death/ threats" Sabitha's sputtering into outraged horror and anger and her posture goes stiff as a board. "They've been getting... /when/? Who the hell... what sort of person..." And then she's up and pacing for another cigarette.
Leah mutters, "Fuck," and then leaps nobly into the breach. "I don't /know/ that they've had any, but whenever /I've/ done something joyful along these lines in the media, I get plenty. There are too many cranks out there with a computer and no fucking life to speak of. Emails, phone calls, letters . . . look, it happens, and the police take care of the real crazies, and it stops. Lazzaro and Rossi are cops. They can deal, Sabby. They can totally deal."
Sabitha is silent for Leah's speech, primarily because she's fumbling for a cigarette, with her back to Leah. Mostly so she doesn't have to bother with a lighter before it flares to life. She drags in a lungful of smoke, and turns. "Of course they can," she answers after a moment, half-convinced. "Big boys, both of them. Sure." And maybe they should just shift this topic entirely. Who needs a segue? "Are you working on any stories right now?'"
"No. Nothing. Rolling Stone piece hits the newsstands in another week or so. The check's already floating me along for the next few months. I'll worry about more then." Leah's speech is light and frothy, indeed, like the beer she sucks down while studying Sabitha's back. "Or I'll get unemployment, or work a corner down in Alphabet City. You know, whatever."
With lungs that ache from the holding of nicotine-laced smoke, Sabby turns back to Leah and crosses toward the living room again. She exhales before she reaches her, politely turned to one side, and offers dryly, "Hope you don't mind the smoking." Because she's not going to stop. She drops back into her seat. "Hey. Sounds like a plan. Give up the wild reporter's life, move into something new and exciting..."
Leah's dry: "Like prostitution. Whee. Well, Rossi did promise me that he'd work my murder personally. Mine own avenging angel."
"Good to know he'd be right there on the case," Sabby answers in equal tones. "I'm sure you'd appreciate it then, too."
Leah agrees, "It's the least he can do." She rolls the beer in her hand a minute, blinking at the other woman. "The smoking's fine; I'm used to it. It helps?"
"Sweet, sweet nicotine," Sabby answers smoothly, with a hint of the self-deprecation addicts-who-know-it often aquire. "The act as much as the drugs though, I think. Y'know. Habit. Ritual. Soothes the soul." Her eyes sharpen on Leah. "Have you ever smoked?"
Leah shakes her head. "Tried it a couple times, but never got the hang of it." With a tight little smile, she hoists her bottle. "This is drug enough for me, and I could afford to cut back, believe you me." She lowers it again, rests her head back to long-lid her eyes in thought. "You're smoking a lot. I didn't know you did."
"Long weekend," Sabby answers again, dismissively. She's slowed down on this one, at least, and lets smoke spiral from the cigarette, between her fingers, as she regards it thoughtfully. "Probably ought to stop. Never care enough to try, though."
"Worse addictions," Leah says idly. "I got into heroin. In college."
Sabitha blinks her gaze over to Leah in blunt surprise. "Really? I never would've guessed /that/." She pauses and studies her curiously. "I've always heard that one's one of the worst to break. I was always too scared to try it."
Leah says, "Yeah, you'll want to be listening to those people on that one." Headshake. "Shit happens. I got over it. Got out. Not the worst thing I've ever done, but probably the stupidest." And a pause. "No, definitely the stupidest. Don't know why I thought about it, except . . . long weekend, like you said." She sighs, rests her eyes closed. "That it was. Being strung out's like that. Anyway. Sorry. It's not the All About Me Hour anymore. Is it your turn?"
Sabitha snorts softly, and jabs her cigarette toward Leah. "Don't start doing that. I'm not a traffic meter, Leah. You don't put coins in me to buy your time, and then hope not to get a ticket if you go over." A pause, and then she adds quietly, "Glad you got out, though."
A spasmodic smile's twitch back: some kind of apology, to go with, "Sorry. I suck at segues. And sharing. Rossi was twitting me about it last night, so I guess I'm trying it out on you. I'll warn you first, next time." Leah shrugs into the cushions. "I am, too," she returns as quietly. "It just happens to you. My dad had died on the job, there was this guy -- there's /always/ this guy; /fuck/ guys -- and so. Six months of hell, and you'd better believe my mother's never let me forget about it. Rides my ass /hard/ about my life, even if she has never once said the word 'heroin.' Or even 'drugs.' Ah, well. You get young, you get stupid, you get older, you get wiser. Such is life, my dear Sabitha. Such is fucking life."
Sabitha pulls in a breath, a slow draw on the cigarette. "I keep waiting for the wisdom to sink in," she remarks dryly.
Leah grins without much humor. "And you're how old, again? --Sorry, but . . . yeah. Don't worry. It'll getcha. Big ol' two-by-four to the back of the head."
"Twenty-three," Sabby offers with a hint of irony. "I know. Baby of the group. Shouldn't even let me hang out with you. Vincent keeps making cracks about my bedtime. Chris is nice enough to pretend I'm not an adolescent." She's teasing, here. Mostly.
Leah smiles. "And what does Sebastian Shaw say?"
Sabitha's gaze sharpens abruptly, and then eases off, spiraling into perfect relaxation, though her mind remains sharp below it. "Most nights, there's not a good deal of talking," she answers. Smugness spirals up with cigarette smoke, just as fleeting. "When there is, it's typically complimentary."
"Uh-huh." Leah cradles her bottle o' beer and a dropped, hard look. "Be careful around him. Please. Don't make me go investigative-reporter on your ass. /Or/ his."
Sabitha has reclaimed her beer at some point, and she sips at it. Slowly. Looks at the bottle instead of Leah. "I'm careful, Leah. Don't worry. I'm not going to get burned." Her voice flips upward, lightly.
"Bruised." That, curt and low. And Leah sighs. "Well, you're a big girl. And you know cops. I'll try to sleep easy, knowing that. Look at me, all protective and shit."
Sabitha bites her lowerlip, and steals a sideways glance at Leah. Considering. After a moment, she nods, firmly. "Bruised, either. I promise I'm careful, Leah. And I may not be wise, but I'm not stupid, either." That's the closest she's coming to sharing anything specific on the matter. She pulls in a breath, and then leans forward to stub out the remains of her cigarette. "Speaking of sleep. I've got work coming way too damn early in the morning."
"Yeah. And on that note," Leah arches whimsically high in her tired voice. "I'm sorry, Sabby. I'm having bad days, too, and I'm spilling them on everyone in reach. I'm a selfish bitch." She shrugs to standing, leaving the half-finished bottle behind on the coffee table. Forces a cheerful smile. "But hey, dinner party, right? Just give me a buzz. My schedule's entirely open."
Sabitha pulls herself up with tiredly unfolding limbs and shakes her head at Leah on a light laugh. "You're fine. They happen. I do it more than enough myself, y'know?" She wanders toward the door, leading the way, and adjusts a few keys on the security system before swinging it open. "Yeah, I'll give you a call. I'm thinking... Thursday, maybe, if the boys are free. Or Friday. No work the next day." A pause, and she adds, "Hey, thanks for stopping by. Calling. Whatever."
Leah's hand goes to her shoulder for a pat, a rub, and then a drop with her half-shrug. "Welcome. Same back to you. You're a great hostess." Her expression's calm again, unruffled and mild: if not serene, then at least experienced enough to put a lid on whatever's behind bright eyes. "End of the week sounds great, and we'll make sure we treat the boys good this time. 'Night."
Well, screw that. It's been a long weekend, and Sabitha steps in to wrap her arms around Leah, briefly squeezing in a hug. "I'm a crap hostess," she answers, stepping back. "But thanks for saying it. And yeah, we will. I'll talk to you later."
Leah just nods, and leaves behind the wistful half-hook of her smile. Oh, and: "I'll let you know if he /is/ just in it for the tiddlywinks!" /Then/ she can go, and does.
[Log ends.]
Time for therapy, girl, or at least a good cry on an old friend's shoulder. I haven't seen Terry in a while, and Jaz owes me one, big-time, from back in the day. Not that I can tell them everything. There's the blue wall, and there's the mutant wall, let's say. The wall around me. The walls around the pieces of me, of my life. Too many walls. Not enough doors in them.
Well, I'll get over it, and over the walls (or through!) . . . and it had better not be tiddlywinks, dammit. Now I have to ask him.
But later. I didn't even see if he was home. Straight to a shower and bed for me. I slept well last night. Let's make it two in a row.
Call Alyssa in the morning. And see if she can get me Scott Summers's number. Enough of this shit.
8/8/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greenwich Apts #330 - Sabitha
The flat is large and unhindered by walls and doors. A raised area in the corner serves as Sabitha's bedroom, and it's sectioned off by tall wooden screens painted with elaborate oriental designs. A huge picture window is draped in sheer fabrics of cream and deep red, and a large, elegant rug is centered on the hardwood floors. The walls are bare, for now, and the furnishings - a simple couch and wingchair, a coffee table, an armour housing a television, a bookshelf overflowing with historical texts - are sparce. In one corner is a kitchen area, in the other a door leading to a bathroom, and others concealing closet space.
--
Since she's in the city, anyway, and it's been a while, and there's Chris Rossi and Vincent Lazzaro to ponder, and all the rest -- Leah fishes her cell phone out of a jeans pocket and hangs outside a coffeeshop in the Village to dial a number. She swings the shopping bag in her hand a little while she waits. Ring? Yes, ring!
Ring! Sabby's tapping away at email when her phone goes off, with music throbbing in the background. Thus, it takes her three before she has the phone in hand and the music cranked down and can answers, "Hello?" without time for a glance at the ID
"Yo, 'sme -- shit, dude, you wanna /watch/ where you walking, or are you auditioning for the sequel to Ray?" Leah snaps the unfortunate pedestrian out of her way and then swings back to the phone. "Hey. It's me, obviously. Sorry. I'm down on the street somewhere in the Village, and I thought, 'Gosh, wonder what's Sabby doing, so I can tell her the latest in the saga of Chris and Leah.'"
"Leah!" There's an edge of relieved delight in Sabby's voice as she identifies the caller and flops backward onto her couch. "I was just /thinking/ I should call you soon. You're in the neighborhood?" she questions. She gives her apartment a quick once-over, and then is on her feet again, moving quickly around to sweep up clutter. "You should stop by. I think I /still/ haven't heard the first part of that saga!"
Leah says cheerfully, "I can tell all if you're wanting to hear it. Just give me directions." She sets out in a likely direction on the sidewalk, just in case: never a good idea to stay standing still too long in Manhattan. "I could use a sit-down. Shopping makes me cranky, though I did meet a cute guy in the bookstore. Ha. I'm gonna have a harem, just watch me."
"I'm in Greenwich," Sabitha fills her in quickly. "Here.. wait. You taking a cab, or walking?" She paces into the bedroom to swipe dirty clothes up from the floor. "Hot damn, Leah Canto. Gonna give me some of that action?"
"Comes with age, my friend." Leah's tone saunters much as her walking does, sure and smug. "And it looks like I'm about six blocks away, if I remember the area right, so I'll be there in a jiff. Sure it's a good time?"
"I'm just wasting time online," Sabby assures her, and then rattles off a quick range of directions while she collects a few empty glasses, clattering against each other, and shoves them into her dishwasher.
Definitely smug: "Yup, I knew it. Nowhere in Greenwich is six blocks away from anywhere else. Be right there. Leah Canto, signing out." And she flips off the phone, shoves it back in her pocket, and strikes out.
Sabitha tosses her phone onto the couch and makes a beeline for the kitchen table, where papers are shuffled into a pile and a stray sock is plucked up and whipped toward the bedroom. Damn. Ok. Almost done? By the time Leah arrives, Sabby's managed to pull herself into the kitchen, looking for all the world as if she's just been preparing drinks. Right.
Leah will take it, the facade and the drinks both. Rat-tat-tat on the door, followed by, "Po-lice, Ms. Melcross! Open up!"
"Not /funny/, Canto!" Sabby shouts through the door, moving to key her security system and swing it open. "There've been way too many cops around lately." She greets her with a dry smile, and waves an arm inward. "Want a drink?"
Leah gripes, "What, now Rossi has you using my last name? Asshole." She slouches in, drops her shopping bag with muted thumps by the door, and puts hands on hips to study the younger woman. "You," she declares, "need a drink more than I do. I can tell. I have psychic powers. And I will join you because I got to flirt with a cute guy today -- /Russian,/ no less, and an /artist/ -- and I'm feeling good about the world and myself. So, bring on the booze."
"Between Chris and Vincent, it's a wonder I can even /remember/ first names anymore," Sabitha replies lightly, and then grins at Leah. "Well. /I'm/ not saying no to a beer. Or you want something stronger? I've got a veritable wet bar in the cupboard over the fridge," she offers. She secures the door and then wanders in that direction, with a glance over her shoulder. "/Russian/? Hell yes. That's nice. I knew a Russian guy, once. Most adoreable accent."
Leah prowls along after. "I don't mind, but it surprised me, let's say. It's so schoolyard of guys to do, using last names. Avoiding intimacy, if you ask me." She stops once she's in the kitchen and leans a hip into the nearest counter. "Beer's fine, whatever you have. I probably shouldn't be breathing fumes on the way home tonight. God knows what I'd pick up on the train, but it /wouldn't/ be a cute Russian artist."
"You think that's what it is?" Sabby questions with genuine curiousity. "I'd wondered. Vincent calls me both. Chris..." She has to pause, frowning, to consider this one. "Both too, I guess, but mostly Melcross." She ducks into the fridge, and then chucks a bottle at Leah. "Beer it is, then. I'm going through it like hell this weekend." A realization hits her, and she mutters, "Damn. Left a whole sixpack of it at Vincent's," before glancing at Leah again. "So. Fill me in?"
"Well, I'm not a shrink, but it's a good a theory as any, right?" Leah catches and uncaps the bottle. A swig eases her into a chuckle. "Don't tell me that you and Vincent . . . ? No, let's get me out of the way first, since I'm the guest. Me and Rossi. Where to begin?"
"/No/, not me and Vincent," Sabby's quick to counter before Leah's swift move into herself earns a grin. She jerks her head toward the living room, moves that way. "The beginning?" she suggests. And then elaborates, "I think I missed something that came /before/ that horrid dinner party."
Leah slouches into the nearest comfort of furniture and balances her beer on her belly and a sigh. "The beginning, yeah. Before the dinner party?" Her gaze glitters pallid irony, like sun-bleached brown leaves. "Well, the whole thing with his brother -- you heard enough about that to get the gist, right? When I broke up with him, I kinda lost track of the family, even Julia, his sister, who you absolutely have to meet, by the way. We're three peas in a pod, I think. She's the one I told, besides you, about sleeping with him. Told her everything. Minute details. And I guess she called him at work about it. So--" her eyebrows bob mock-regret "--I kinda got on his shitlist for that."
Sabitha chokes on a swallow of beer and has to cough a few times to get it all to shuffle into the proper pipes. "Hell, Leah. You called his /sister/ and gave her details on how he was in bed?" she questions. "Cold, man, cold. I bet his fragile little ego curled right up and retreated into hiding."
Leah frowns. "Hey, she's my friend. You tell your friends these things. I do, anyway. Don't you? --Not that I'm asking you right now," she grants kindly. "Because it's still All About Me Hour. So, yeah, we talked, but it had nothing to do with him. Just girl-talk. He did do the shrinkage thing, right about that. Poor guy. So hung up about sex. Gotta work that out of him somehow."
"I've noticed that," Sabitha affirms with an approving nod. "Claims to live the wildlife, can't move on from that one - it was just one, right? - night. He's brought it up to /me/ more than once, you know," she relates.
"/No./ Really?" Leah drags another swallow out of her beer, then ticks her front teeth a few times in thought. "Huh. You said he liked me, didn't you? And yeah, the one night, but I have a standing invitation. Told me so last night, when I was at his folks' place for dinner. How homey is that?"
"Uh huh," Sabby answers with a firm nod. "Out of nowhere, the other night, even." And /that/ revelation gets a swift flick of her brows, upward, a lean forward. "A standing invitation? /Really/? Hot damn, Leah. That's not bad at all. You gonna take him up on it?"
Leah looks and sounds modest, though her grin peeps out a bit. "Sure. He said he's not sleeping much anyway, in this heat, and neither am I, so I said he could come by if he wanted -- said he almost did the other night, at one-thirty in the morning -- and he reciprocated." She turns her beer on her stomach's slouched base. "I will /assume/ that he meant more than an invitation to tiddlywinks, but you never know. I'd better ask to be sure if I just got myself a fuck-buddy."
"/Really/?" Sabby echoes her earlier word with positive delight now. "You really could do worse. And you sounded /very/ pleased about him just after..." She trails off, shakes her head. And then backtracks sharply. "He's not sleeping because of the heat?"
Leah's mouth twitches. "None of us are, Sabby. I thought summer outside the city would be better, but no." Complexity trips through her tones, and there's another frown threatening her brow line. "It'll pass," she decides. "And I don't mind sleeping with the covers kicked onto the floor."
"You're living without airconditioning?" Sabby questions in a sort of 'are you /mad/?' voice. She kicks her feet up onto her coffee table, swirls her beer bottle up for a drink. "So you're going to take him up on that, then?"
Leah snorts. "Oh, Christ, no, we have AC, but still the heat gets us." For her part, she slumps further into comfort, braced by legs' untidy sprawl, and loops one arm behind her head. "Yeah. I will. He's a good lay, Sabby. I do highly recommend it . . . if you can tear yourself away from Detective Lazzaro." Arch teasing; better than what she might've supplied as the booty call there.
"I'm not fucking Vincent Lazzaro /or/ Christopher Rossi, and I don't have any plans to change either of those facts," Sabitha informs her dryly. Bluntly. And then, with a segue visible only to Sabby's mind, questions, "'ve you been watching the news?"
A dark chuckle. "All right, all right, and yeah, of course I have." Leah sighs. "Poor guys, with that damn Miller case. Helluva thing. Helluva thing. Is Lazzaro doing all right?"
Sabitha shifts uncomfortably, and shrugs. Her expression is uncertain. "I can't really tell, to be honest, Leah. Or Chris, for that matter." Her eyes sharpen on the other woman. "You know him better than I do. Is that... I mean, the whole tired thing, the way he's been. Is that normal?"
Leah's turn to shift. "Hell. I -- I kinda don't want to spill it, Sabby. I'm protective," she apologizes with teeth's primal baring and some more evolved rue in her gaze, the shrug of one slanted shoulder. "I had a hard time not tucking him into bed last night, and not in /that/ way. So, let's say that . . . yeah, he's off-kilter. But he's trying. And he's tough. He'll make it through." She snorts a deliberate laugh. "As long as he can get pissed at me, he's fine. And he was plenty pissed last night."
It says something of Sabby's distraction that she doesn't take offense at Chris being protected from her. She rubs a hand across her brow, and her fingers tighten round the neck of her beer bottle. "Damn," she mutters after a moment. Sweeps her eyes up to Leah. "I mean, good, that you're there. But damn. I don't know about Vincent. I don't /know/ cops." The last is a quiet plea for help, and she shakes her head. "This case isn't going to be easy for any of them." A pause, and she adds, "And... I heard there was something about his partner? Chris's."
"Not my business," is Leah's swift demur. "Blue wall, Sabby. Sorry."
Sabitha /does/ take offense to that, with a visible bristle that sends her hackles rising as she stares at Leah. Her silence stretches for a pair of breaths as she works out what to make of that, and she finally settles for a short "Right" and a long swallow of beer.
Unfazed, Leah has a swallow, too. "Nature of the job," she says after a minute. "I grew up blue. Half my family's blue. We protect our own. Rossi's partner's business isn't mine, and it isn't yours. I mean, I know what you're getting at, and I'm sure Chris would appreciate it, but--" She shakes her head. "Not like that. Some things, you just don't talk about with civilians. Even me."
Down comes the beer, and down come Sabby's lashes, eyes hooding in what looks for all the world like a sulk. Mostly because it is one, though she wouldn't admit it. Her brows knit, and she answers, still a bit short, "Of course." The silence draws out again before Sabitha pulls herself together and starts consciously searching for a safe switch in topic. Unfortunately, it's a search that's taking some time.
Compunction, thy name is /not/ Leah Canto: "So now you're pouting because I'm not spilling more. Sorry." She does sound it, but she's also not breaking the wall. "It's just the way it is, man. You have secrets in your work, right? I do in mine. They do in theirs. There's a place for sympathy, for pat-patting and trying to help, but talking about a guy's partner behind their backs? So very much /not/ done." Pause. "Well, unless trigger calluses are involved."
Sabitha's eyes snap to Leah's, bluntly annoyed now. "I'm not /pouting/, Leah. And I didn't fucking ask anything more, did I? I'm sorry that I'm not blue inside and out like some people, but I don't have a fucking /roadmap/ to dealing with this, ok?" She rises abruptly, and paces toward the kitchen. Pauses halfway there to remark, "Shit. Give me a minute. Just give me a minute." And then she swipes up a cigarette from a box on the counter and stalks toward the bathroom.
Leah waits, then, and drinks her beer, and rubs the back of her head with the hand of her lazily pillowing arm. Her eyes wander over the apartment before her. "--Like your place!" she calls over after a judiciously measured piece of time. "We really have to have the next dinner party here, not my place."
Sabitha feels much calmer (and happier) after the cigarette and some splashing of very cold water on her face. Possibly a brief lecture to her reflection in the mirror. When she returns, she's easily breezy. "Oh! That's what else I needed to call about. I want to have one this week sometime." She frowns briefly, thoughtful, and adds, "I was going to try to work Vincent and Chris's schedules out, but this weekend may've shot that all to hell."
"I'm game." Leah drains the beer, sits up, plunks the bottle on the coffee table. She stays sitting, twisting her hands loosely together between splayed knees. "We good, then?"
Sabitha exhales slowly and manages a weak smile. "Fine. Sorry. It's just been a hell of a weekend. No big deal. I get it, I really do. Just don't know where all the lines are yet." She glances toward the beer, then toward the kitchen. Not at Leah. "Want another one?"
Leah's keen eyes track the movements of her friend's: not a cop's acuity, but a reporter's. A friend's. "Bad weekend," she agrees, softer. "I wish I could help them. I wish I could help you. Please believe that. It'll pass. It /will./ And if you're having, I'm having, too. Thanks."
Sabitha swings by the kitchen to scoop up another pair of beers, and she tosses one over the back of the couch at Leah before reclaiming her chair. "Yeah. Hope so. I nearly took out some eyes today at work," she offers with a dry smile. "I think they're scared to so much as mention the case anywhere I can hear, now. I hope the publicity's the worst of it. A week or so will cure /that/."
"And the death threats -- shit. Sorry. Never mind." Leah lances over a bright, false-bright, mica-bright smile. "No need to think about /that,/ huh? How's work been, then?"
Oh /hell/ no, nevermind! "/Death/ threats" Sabitha's sputtering into outraged horror and anger and her posture goes stiff as a board. "They've been getting... /when/? Who the hell... what sort of person..." And then she's up and pacing for another cigarette.
Leah mutters, "Fuck," and then leaps nobly into the breach. "I don't /know/ that they've had any, but whenever /I've/ done something joyful along these lines in the media, I get plenty. There are too many cranks out there with a computer and no fucking life to speak of. Emails, phone calls, letters . . . look, it happens, and the police take care of the real crazies, and it stops. Lazzaro and Rossi are cops. They can deal, Sabby. They can totally deal."
Sabitha is silent for Leah's speech, primarily because she's fumbling for a cigarette, with her back to Leah. Mostly so she doesn't have to bother with a lighter before it flares to life. She drags in a lungful of smoke, and turns. "Of course they can," she answers after a moment, half-convinced. "Big boys, both of them. Sure." And maybe they should just shift this topic entirely. Who needs a segue? "Are you working on any stories right now?'"
"No. Nothing. Rolling Stone piece hits the newsstands in another week or so. The check's already floating me along for the next few months. I'll worry about more then." Leah's speech is light and frothy, indeed, like the beer she sucks down while studying Sabitha's back. "Or I'll get unemployment, or work a corner down in Alphabet City. You know, whatever."
With lungs that ache from the holding of nicotine-laced smoke, Sabby turns back to Leah and crosses toward the living room again. She exhales before she reaches her, politely turned to one side, and offers dryly, "Hope you don't mind the smoking." Because she's not going to stop. She drops back into her seat. "Hey. Sounds like a plan. Give up the wild reporter's life, move into something new and exciting..."
Leah's dry: "Like prostitution. Whee. Well, Rossi did promise me that he'd work my murder personally. Mine own avenging angel."
"Good to know he'd be right there on the case," Sabby answers in equal tones. "I'm sure you'd appreciate it then, too."
Leah agrees, "It's the least he can do." She rolls the beer in her hand a minute, blinking at the other woman. "The smoking's fine; I'm used to it. It helps?"
"Sweet, sweet nicotine," Sabby answers smoothly, with a hint of the self-deprecation addicts-who-know-it often aquire. "The act as much as the drugs though, I think. Y'know. Habit. Ritual. Soothes the soul." Her eyes sharpen on Leah. "Have you ever smoked?"
Leah shakes her head. "Tried it a couple times, but never got the hang of it." With a tight little smile, she hoists her bottle. "This is drug enough for me, and I could afford to cut back, believe you me." She lowers it again, rests her head back to long-lid her eyes in thought. "You're smoking a lot. I didn't know you did."
"Long weekend," Sabby answers again, dismissively. She's slowed down on this one, at least, and lets smoke spiral from the cigarette, between her fingers, as she regards it thoughtfully. "Probably ought to stop. Never care enough to try, though."
"Worse addictions," Leah says idly. "I got into heroin. In college."
Sabitha blinks her gaze over to Leah in blunt surprise. "Really? I never would've guessed /that/." She pauses and studies her curiously. "I've always heard that one's one of the worst to break. I was always too scared to try it."
Leah says, "Yeah, you'll want to be listening to those people on that one." Headshake. "Shit happens. I got over it. Got out. Not the worst thing I've ever done, but probably the stupidest." And a pause. "No, definitely the stupidest. Don't know why I thought about it, except . . . long weekend, like you said." She sighs, rests her eyes closed. "That it was. Being strung out's like that. Anyway. Sorry. It's not the All About Me Hour anymore. Is it your turn?"
Sabitha snorts softly, and jabs her cigarette toward Leah. "Don't start doing that. I'm not a traffic meter, Leah. You don't put coins in me to buy your time, and then hope not to get a ticket if you go over." A pause, and then she adds quietly, "Glad you got out, though."
A spasmodic smile's twitch back: some kind of apology, to go with, "Sorry. I suck at segues. And sharing. Rossi was twitting me about it last night, so I guess I'm trying it out on you. I'll warn you first, next time." Leah shrugs into the cushions. "I am, too," she returns as quietly. "It just happens to you. My dad had died on the job, there was this guy -- there's /always/ this guy; /fuck/ guys -- and so. Six months of hell, and you'd better believe my mother's never let me forget about it. Rides my ass /hard/ about my life, even if she has never once said the word 'heroin.' Or even 'drugs.' Ah, well. You get young, you get stupid, you get older, you get wiser. Such is life, my dear Sabitha. Such is fucking life."
Sabitha pulls in a breath, a slow draw on the cigarette. "I keep waiting for the wisdom to sink in," she remarks dryly.
Leah grins without much humor. "And you're how old, again? --Sorry, but . . . yeah. Don't worry. It'll getcha. Big ol' two-by-four to the back of the head."
"Twenty-three," Sabby offers with a hint of irony. "I know. Baby of the group. Shouldn't even let me hang out with you. Vincent keeps making cracks about my bedtime. Chris is nice enough to pretend I'm not an adolescent." She's teasing, here. Mostly.
Leah smiles. "And what does Sebastian Shaw say?"
Sabitha's gaze sharpens abruptly, and then eases off, spiraling into perfect relaxation, though her mind remains sharp below it. "Most nights, there's not a good deal of talking," she answers. Smugness spirals up with cigarette smoke, just as fleeting. "When there is, it's typically complimentary."
"Uh-huh." Leah cradles her bottle o' beer and a dropped, hard look. "Be careful around him. Please. Don't make me go investigative-reporter on your ass. /Or/ his."
Sabitha has reclaimed her beer at some point, and she sips at it. Slowly. Looks at the bottle instead of Leah. "I'm careful, Leah. Don't worry. I'm not going to get burned." Her voice flips upward, lightly.
"Bruised." That, curt and low. And Leah sighs. "Well, you're a big girl. And you know cops. I'll try to sleep easy, knowing that. Look at me, all protective and shit."
Sabitha bites her lowerlip, and steals a sideways glance at Leah. Considering. After a moment, she nods, firmly. "Bruised, either. I promise I'm careful, Leah. And I may not be wise, but I'm not stupid, either." That's the closest she's coming to sharing anything specific on the matter. She pulls in a breath, and then leans forward to stub out the remains of her cigarette. "Speaking of sleep. I've got work coming way too damn early in the morning."
"Yeah. And on that note," Leah arches whimsically high in her tired voice. "I'm sorry, Sabby. I'm having bad days, too, and I'm spilling them on everyone in reach. I'm a selfish bitch." She shrugs to standing, leaving the half-finished bottle behind on the coffee table. Forces a cheerful smile. "But hey, dinner party, right? Just give me a buzz. My schedule's entirely open."
Sabitha pulls herself up with tiredly unfolding limbs and shakes her head at Leah on a light laugh. "You're fine. They happen. I do it more than enough myself, y'know?" She wanders toward the door, leading the way, and adjusts a few keys on the security system before swinging it open. "Yeah, I'll give you a call. I'm thinking... Thursday, maybe, if the boys are free. Or Friday. No work the next day." A pause, and she adds, "Hey, thanks for stopping by. Calling. Whatever."
Leah's hand goes to her shoulder for a pat, a rub, and then a drop with her half-shrug. "Welcome. Same back to you. You're a great hostess." Her expression's calm again, unruffled and mild: if not serene, then at least experienced enough to put a lid on whatever's behind bright eyes. "End of the week sounds great, and we'll make sure we treat the boys good this time. 'Night."
Well, screw that. It's been a long weekend, and Sabitha steps in to wrap her arms around Leah, briefly squeezing in a hug. "I'm a crap hostess," she answers, stepping back. "But thanks for saying it. And yeah, we will. I'll talk to you later."
Leah just nods, and leaves behind the wistful half-hook of her smile. Oh, and: "I'll let you know if he /is/ just in it for the tiddlywinks!" /Then/ she can go, and does.
[Log ends.]