S1:E3 “Moonlight”

I see now that it was a mistake. I saw it the moment she stepped through, that I was somehow both over and underprepared, and badly. Tala’s off duty look was unchanged from her service call uniform. Jeans, boots, vest, a blue and grey checked flannel, hair a dark halo around her shoulders. I chose a maroon skort for the occasion, thinking it would be ironic, but as she stood in the doorway, the corduroy chafed at my thighs. When I moved to take her vest, she shrugged it off and hung it on the coat rack herself.

Tala was the kind of girl I used to follow around at school, silently willing her to let me carry anything, literally anything, like a backup stick of gum – the girl who gave a half smile like she knew I was there but didn’t actually mind, nor would she strike up a conversation.

“Hey,” she said. She put her hands in her pockets, and grinned, and I saw that I had been staring.

“Please,” I mumbled, and gestured behind me. “Sit anywhere.”

She paused long enough for me to see what she saw, that the coffee table was a tiny island of sanity in this house, and the fact that I hadn’t been able to see that clearly for myself was only the beginning of what I missed. The books stacked high along the edges of the living room wall, the unopened mail, the layer of dust – these were all things that might have passed as eccentric, and that was fine, but the wine and candles seemed ridiculous, no, presumptuous, which was just –

“How’s the piano?” She stood at the piano, one hand on the lid, peering up at the gash in the ceiling. “Seems like you dodged a bullet.”

I flinched. “It’s fine.” Crossed my arms, fixed my eyes on the wall.