Participants:
| Scene Title | Whistling in the Dark |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | What else can you do when you're terrified and exhausted? Hold it at bay. |
| Date | July 19, 2021 |
She promised the younger officer a drink, and the month has been nothing short of insane. So even though she's not feeling like drinking, Elisabeth is a woman of her word. And with so much weighing in the back of her mind she too can use the distraction.
Cat's Cradle
10:05 pm
"… and so after I talked to Harding and his wife, I met back up with Donovan to do the stupid schmoozing for a bit longer before I could politely leave and he had this shit-eating grin. I was ready to smack that man," Liz snickers at Erin. "I've known him a long time now, and I should have known he was setting me up. Elizabeth Harding is practically a fangirl, and I was so uncomfortable when she was complimenting the interview with Russo." Shaking her head slightly, she has a faint blush as she adds, "That interview was, like, the most desperate thing I could come up with. I had no idea that it aired or that it was such an impact until I got back here in 2019. I'm kind of mortified about the whole thing in some ways."
The blonde pauses, lifting her glass in the direction of the bartender to ask for a refill, and adds, "To be fair, I didn't know Liberty put out some of the covers of songs I'd done for a friend until then either. Seems like I made myself an accidental celebrity." A glance toward her bodyguard, a mountain of a man called Mike who sits down the bar comfortably studying the room at large, and Elisabeth confides in Erin wryly, "Not what I was going for."
Erin pauses with her drink halfway to her mouth. Scotch, neat. Treat yourself. And it’s her third, so she’s starting to feel it. She puts it back down - on the black cocktail napkin coaster, not the bartop itself like an animal - and counts on her fingers. “Harding, Harrison…you know, you could have just pretended to be the same person. Called it a bureaucratic accident. I’d have believed it. I still can’t believe you…” She gulps another mouthful down. “You know, I’m sorry, I’ve lost track. There are so many names. What exactly was the benefit of this interview again? I feel like you generally try to fly a little low, radar-wise.”
Laughing quietly as Sassy, the bartender, refills her club soda, Elisabeth shakes her head. "Flying under the radar… that was always our MO," she agrees. "The interview was the very definition of a Hail Mary." She sips from her glass. "You know that for a time in the months before the Cambridge massacre, I was considered a traitor, right?" She assumes pretty much everyone knows that. "I hoped that by taking all of the intel that Richard and I and a whole host of others had gathered and going public, it would blow all those fuckers at the top of the government who were Humanis First out of the water. I was on the run, hiding down in Midtown because I took some information and leaked it to the Ferry – blew up not only my own life and career but Richard's too. Destroyed the first iteration of Redbird Security by doing it. All for nothing because it was bad intel. But we still had a ton of good intel. I managed to get hold of Brad Russo and hoped he'd use his show The Advocate to help us expose them." She shrugs just a little. "I think I talked to him in the spring sometime, like March or April maybe. He aired the whole interview he did with me sometime after November 8th."
Elisabeth just shakes her head and takes another swallow of her club soda. "I'm told that it was the shot heard 'round world, essentially." As she understands it, that interview helped kick off the Second American Civil War. She seems ill at ease about that. "People come up to me now and tell me how amazing it was, how brave. How heroic." She grimaces a little. "I never know how to manage that level of celebrity. Especially because I have a hard time seeing it the way they do." She tips her chin toward her bodyguard. "There are reasons besides just my husband's money that I have a perpetual shadow." Mike spends a lot of time at the precinct, but he talks to no one when he's there.
Erin side-eyes the man, who is so entirely too good at being invisible that she half suspects he has an evolved ability in that realm, and then takes another hearty glug of the drink. It burns, and she swishes the glass clockwise, thinking it all over. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met the man. Er, your husband, I mean. Definitely not the President. Or, not in a real way. I think he was there when my class of SCOUTies were being sworn in. Anyway.”
She takes another mouthful, holds it for a moment, and swallows. “It sometimes strikes me - well, I think you’ve said before that it’s sort of strange how objectively close in age we are? Maybe I imagined it, or thought it myself. But when you were doing this stuff, I was a rookie on the beat. Just..a regular cop. And then the war came, and I tried to be on the right side of history, but I got so beaten up about being a cop and feeling like I was hurting everyone and helping no one that I just ran away, tried to do other things and never found the bottom of the bottle. It’s interesting. I think we’re six years apart, and that matters less now as we’ve aged, but when you’re in your early twenties it’s an unfathomable gulf.”
Glancing at the other woman, Elisabeth grins. "Richard did attend the graduation of the SCOUT team – Kaylee is his sister, he had to see her get her badge. But normally he doesn't attend those kinds of events unless I ask him. He has a lot going on running RayTech, so I only ask him to go to the functions I want him to take the time for." She shrugs just a little bit. "We get enough of formal functions, honestly. Neither of us enjoys them much. Though it's kind of nice to get out there and get him dressed up." She doesn't flaunt or brag about the fact that her husband is one of the biggest names in business in the Zone, but there are many reasons she's got bodyguards.
She puts both arms on the bar and considers. "I have ten years on you, but although that plays a part, I don't think it's the age gap so much as it was that we were in different orbits at the time," Elisabeth finally opines. "In 2006, I quit the force; I was a music teacher at Washington Irving." That high school that some remember as one of the first public attacks of the Vanguard – blamed on Phoenix in some quarters initially. "I was afraid to Register. But after the attack on the school in 2008, I had to come back. To get justice for my kids. The ones I couldn't save that day. And then I was SCOUT only for about a year before I was Frontline. And you were in the ranks still. Just… different spots in our careers. And the truth is?"
Elisabeth hesitates and then says softly, "It was hard to know the things I knew. I don't really wish that on anyone. There was a period in the civil war years where I was nothing more than a singer and a waitress, a nobody. Sometimes I really miss those days." She toys with her glass, a resigned half-smile quirks her lips. "But the job's not done. We'll rest when we're through."
Erin swirls the Scotch again before downing it and sliding the glass away, motioning for another with a pretty please of the eyes to the bartender, who rolls his eyes and bustles to get the Lagavulin back down. “I don’t know. I don’t mean to sound mopey. I was sort of a quasi social worker in the between years – I guess more of a peer advocate, since I didn’t have the degree or anything – and that was important work, but at the same time, I wasn’t doing anything. I wrecked a marriage, you know. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that.”
(Or did I? Thoughts keep appearing in my head, and I’m not sure if they’re mine or fabrications of the subconscious. You know, like shower thoughts, percolating in the hot water…)
She shakes her head again. “I have to say though, I really can’t imagine you being a nobody. You just radiate…somebodiness. The aura of being a Somebody drips off of– wait, singer?”
Elisabeth slants Erin a look. "You? Wreck a marriage? That doesn't exactly sound like you." That seems to go against what she's observed is Erin's usual grain. Then again, cops are bad bets for marriage, everyone knows that, and who knows what goes on behind closed doors.
Sipping from her lime-garnished glass, the older woman shrugs just a bit and her grin is a little bit abashed. She doesn't really think of herself as a Somebody in the way Erin means, generally. "Uhm, yeah. Mostly clubs, smaller venues. I, uhm…" She's careful here; that career was in a very different place. "Where I was, it didn't have nearly the damage that here has. Like KC, it was out of the way and still had something of normality to it. So I did some singing to make extra money for me and Aura." She'd actually been making a halfway decent living doing that.
There's a wistfulness to the tone. Richard encouraged her to work on music here, from the time she'd come home… but home is not where she was a singer. Home is where she was the cop who once arrested him. The woman who invited him into the revolution. She'd needed to be the woman he knew. She'd needed him to see her that way… because… that's the woman he tore open space and time to find and bring home. That's the woman he fell in love with. And if she walked away from that identity… who was she, really?
Talk about calling yourself out on your own insecurities. That epiphany has been circling her mind for a while now, ever since a conversation with Jac after Detroit. Clearing her throat, Elisabeth finishes, "It was really freeing to not be in the middle of all of the usual bullshit. I miss the simplicity." She forces a small grin. "I don't miss the waitressing part so much."
Erin lifts an eyebrow, deflecting the prior half - after all, Liz is happy in her own marriage - and zoning in on the latter, which sounds much more interesting. “You keep saying waitressing and sure we’ve all done the service industry but you’ve absolutely deflected the part about making a living doing a singing…thing.” The bartender returns with her Lagavulin and an expression to match her own, this one directed at the quantity of Scotch she’s consumed and not the memory that Liz has exhumed, and Erin sticks out her tongue at him before continuing on. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you let loose at karaoke nights. Or even sing at all. Me? I’ll warble off-key to ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ any day because it’s a terrible song and it’s also very apt right now, but you? I don’t think I’ve heard so much as a peep about turning back time or not stopping believing.”
She traces a finger along the side of the short glass, erasing the trails of condensation dripping down the side with a much larger and broader sweep of the index. “If it helps, the marriage was whatever. Lesbians love to U-Haul. It isn’t rocket science. I have a friend who literally got her wife’s heartbeat tattooed under where the wedding ring would go and then they divorced a year later.”
Elisabeth quirks a brow at the last bit and clears her throat. "That sounds awkward as hell… the only specifically person-related ink I have doesn't have a name or anything." Not that any of her ink is visible in work clothes anyway.
Clearing her throat, though, there's a faint flush of color along her cheekbones. "If you wanted to hear me sing, all you have to do is pull up the Liberty album from just before the war, really. The only thing I've ever done that wasn't a cover was never released." Not here, anyway.
"Not released," Sassy smirks. "But girrrrl, she's come in here and played before," he tells Erin with a cheeky grin. "Put some pressure on her. She's got some pipes."
Elisabeth offers Sassy a half-hearted glare. "Hey! Middle of the night composing is private, you brat!" There's a moment where her gaze flickers thoughtfully between Sassy and Erin and she subtly makes a motion to the bartender to cut off her companion. She's not one to tell others what to do, But Erin's going at it hard.
He backs off laughing, both hands in the air. "You came in and sang other things," he points out, making Liz roll her eyes. The acknowledgement of the wave-off is a nearly imperceptible nod. No more pours for that one.
"True," Elisabeth concedes. She takes a swallow of her drink and sighs. "Okay… one song," she acquiesces, swinging her barstool around to drop her feet to the floor. Slanting a look at her co-worker, she asks, "You got a request or can I just cut loose?"
“Oh, fuck yeah!” Erin exclaims, throwing her arms wide and spilling a small amount of imbibement onto the sleeve of her shirt. Noticing this, she licks a bit of it off of her thumb and tones it down a bit. “I…hm. What embarrassing thing can I make my boss sing? That song about The Real Slim Shady? How about ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’? Or, oh, yeah, that ‘Get Low’ song about the sweat dripping down your balls, skeet skeet skeet–”
She hops off of her own barstool and does, in fact, get low.
Elisabeth points at Erin sternly. "No. Just no." She does grin, though. "Forget it – you have horrible taste in music. You're cut off, partner. Clearly alcohol affects your ears."
There's a lightness to the lieutenant that isn't often in evidence as she makes her way to the music machine. Of course, Erin's not usually around when Liz is socializing. It's obvious from the ripple of anticipation out of Sassy, behind the bar, that he thinks this will be good. A few of the regulars pull upright, as well – there might be a reason Elisabeth chose here.
The sounds of distinctive synthesizer riffs come from the speakers, and Sassy sucks in a breath and starts to whistle. Elisabeth winks at the bartender, because the choice of song is for him more than anyone.
So long ago
Certain place, Certain time
You touched my hand
On the way… on the way down to Emmeline
Erin sits and stares, rapt, not even offended at the insults about her tastes in music or liquor.
"Oh my God," gushes the bartender, "Eve adored when she does this. Anything Stevie Nicks!" The chorus is simple and people's heads are bobbing along to the beat while Elisabeth puts a little heart into singing about seeing the seven wonders.
Mike, the massive bodyguard, leans back in his seat a bit and there's a hint of a smile playing about his lips as his primary lets her voice soar. And he actually chuckles when she tosses some sultry hands in too, giving the room her all.
So it's hard to find
Someone with that kind of intensity
You touched my hand, I played it cool
And you reached out your hand to me
But if our paths never cross
Well, no, I'm not sorry, but
The chorus and the rest of the song is little more than a vehicle for the lieutenant to give Erin exactly what she asked for – a performance. The likes of which Elisabeth hasn't offered in public in more than four years and certainly has never offered in this world. When she comes back to the bar to drop onto her seat again, Sassy is offering her a full, fresh glass of sparkling water and he is giggling madly into his hands in glee. "There she is. That's the girl Eve talked about. Hooooooo!"
Erin cheers and vibes along with the rest of the patrons, giving Sassy a friendly clap on the back as she does so. Asks him for a seltzer of her own and turns to Elisabeth as she returns, grinning.
“My guy, what – what was that? I kind of don’t blame you for missing it. You should quit the force and sing. What made you stop? Why hide it? And did you steve singie - sing Stevie - just because of what I said about the marriage? Because if you really want to get a brokenhearted lesbian to open up, you sing ‘Landslide’!”
She sits with her back to the bar, looking out at the other patrons, who have begun turning back to their own drinks and their own conversations and forgetting, in the haze of alcohol, the show that they have just beheld. It’s so easy to forget amazing things if you aren’t fully present for them to begin with. Writers have written volumes on the transience of moments, but gosh if it doesn’t hit you that every one is gone before you even have the chance to notice it.
“Did…did you stop because of Richard? Or being a traitor? Or wanting to be more anonymous for work? Because that…that was not anonymous. You say it was simple, but a talent like that is anything but.”
Sipping from her glass, Elisabeth shrugs just a little with a pleased little smile. "Uhm… well. The short answer is that… music was always just fun. Something I did for myself and for the people I loved. Until I had to go very deep underground after November 2011." She rolls her shoulders. "In the years I was away, though… I needed to be able to eat. And it was hard. I couldn't be a cop. Didn't even want to be. So… I turned to my music to make ends meet. It worked out." It's a very short version of those years, but she doesn't think Erin will notice.
"And no, I chose an upbeat Stevie song because Stevie Nicks was the favorite singer of the lady who owned this place. She was a good friend. 'Landslide' is one I only sing in certain moods. 'Dreams' and 'Seven Wonders' are more go-to for me." Elisabeth tips her head. "If anything… Richard encouraged me to not come back to the force and to do music. He would never ask me to quit music."
“Good,” Erin says, turning and grabbing a lemon wedge wholesale from the bartender’s garnish tray. “I figured not, but you know, sometimes you’ve gotta ask. Sometimes the straights are not okay. And also, gotta keep an eye on your friends. So I won’t apologize.” She taps the side of her nose as though Elisabeth should get the point. It seems a good idea, anyway. “I didn’t realize you knew the owner here. You…you know everyone, don’t you?”
Laughing quietly, Elisabeth ponders the inebriated comment about watching the straights. Would Felix agree with that thought? Heh.
"Not hardly," is the easy reply to the observation that she knows everyone. "But … I know a lot of people because a great many of the people who returned to this area and are running things in the Safe Zone are people I fought alongside for a long time or otherwise met in my previous line of work." She shrugs a little. "The Ferrymen, SCOUT, FRONTLINE, the Lighthouse Kids – Joe and Hailey and their siblings, who were raised in the Ferry, and well…. my husband is apparently rich." She smirks at Erin and winks, clearly being facetious though she tells the truth. "Don't tell anyone cuz he used to be a thief. A really good one."
“You,” Erin says, flabbergasted, half reaching for her handcuffs in a show of pretending to arrest…someone? Richard, the not-even-present? “You truly have your fingers in every pie! Which is a gross phrase, by the way, who wants finger pies. Actually,” she pauses, “don’t answer that, that’s a weird double entendre. Also, you’d have, like, coconut on one finger and then cherry jam on another and then pumpkin on another and then–” She is truly ticking off her fingers and naming pies, here, “—key lime on another and I think I’m drunk.”
"Yup," Elisabeth says wryly. "Pretty sure you are. And I'm pretty sure it's time we take your butt home." She flags Sassy over to pay the tab before swinging her barstool back around to make it easier to climb down. "C'mon, trouble. I think all this partying is definitely going to your head." Not that Erin doesn't deserve it – it's been a shit few months. And honestly, it's going to go downhill.
Sliding an arm around the younger cop's waist, Liz jerks her chin slightly to Mike to let him know they're leaving. Perks of being a rich man's wife – there's a car waiting outside before they even get to the door. As they take Erin home, she wonders if the younger woman will even remember this tomorrow.
“But moooooom–” Erin wails, trying to turn around to finish her drunk in a rather cartoonish fashion, flailing her arms despite the strong arm keeping her firmly away from the bar. A pout. “It was only seltzer anyway. But fine. You’re right. You don’t let the fame go to your head!”
She gets close and whispers, conspiratorially, sotto voce, in Elisabeth’s ear, “I won’t tell anyone but that was a truly phenomenal performance. You’re very good. You’re a very, very good.”
Back in her original tone, now: “Our chariot awaits!”