“Why especially my mom?” she asked, her words suspicious and guarded.
“Because she got divorced and lost her friend, both publicly, and how Corey Szabo went, I can’t even imagine,” he explained.
“Mm,” she hummed.
There was more there.
He didn’t push that.
He said, “It gets to be a lot, being the only one looking after yourself.”
“Well, you see, the thing is, I did have someone looking out for me. I didn’t realize it until it was too late, but he did it my whole life. And then he blew his brains out in the Pacific Palisades.”
“Fuck,” he bit.
“So, you know, he promised,” she said. “He promised he’d look after me. And there are other things. Things he said to me. Things he taught me. Things that I found out with what he’d done, and things he’d done earlier, they were all great advice, but coming from him, they were a pack of lies.”
Judge lifted his hand her way, palm up and said, “Hey.”
She left him hanging for a couple of seconds before she slid her hand in his.
He gave it a squeeze then rested their hands on the console between them.
Only then did he say, “I’m here to listen, even if I’m up north and you have to call me. Okay?”
“I think we should probably get into this now, Judge,” she stated.
He didn’t understand why she’d want to do that, when they weren’t far away from the restaurant and this was a lot.
But if that was what she needed.
“Okay, then I’m here now, so let’s do it.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean you need to know there are some things you’re not going to know about me, my life, the people in it. Not at first, I mean. Not until we’ve established…something. It upsets some, and it’s caused issues in the past, but I hope you understand, unless I know I can trust you, there are parts of my life…my family’s life…”
He got it.
Christ, yeah.
He got it.
Because in some ways, though nowhere near what she had to deal with, he had that himself.
Unlike him, however, she had a decent size family.
Lots of love.
But this meant she was still isolated.
“I get it,” he told her.
“Does it upset you?” she asked.
He glanced at her to see she was looking at him.
His eyes were back on the road when he said, “I really do get it. I didn’t put it together, but Duncan asked me to sign an NDA before I went to Tom’s house. I just thought it was standard for people like Tom, your mom. That said, that doc was pretty thorough. I thought it was more about your mom. But I see now it’s all of you.”
“It’s all of us, it’s everything,” she replied. “Don’t believe a single thing you see out there, Judge. It’s all carefully curated for your consumption or stolen and then twisted so someone can make money off it.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
And yeah, he knew that part real well.
“But it comes down to the fact we are not normal people. I hear celebrities saying that and I think, ‘Where’s your mortgage? Do you struggle to pay for childcare so you can go to work? Do you hesitate to see a doctor because you can’t afford the co-pay on your insurance? Or you have no insurance at all?’ Of course, Mom and Dad eat and breathe and sleep, but their lives, and by extension our lives, are not normal.”
“Yeah,” he repeated, though that one short word came nowhere near to explaining how deep he felt it that she understood these things about herself, her family and the extent of their privilege in the world.
“And from the start, you have to get that.”
“I get it, and I promise you, it doesn’t scare me away.”
She fell silent.
When he glanced at her again, he saw she was looking out the side window.
“It doesn’t,” he asserted.
“We’ll see,” she whispered.
Yeah, they would.
But now he knew, she’d been burned before.
Maybe badly.
Something else for later.
Time to move on from that.
“Sorry you lost Szabo, honey,” he said softly.
“I’m not, he put my mother through hell.”
And you, Judge didn’t say.
He felt her shift and smoothly take her hand from his.
“Let’s stop talking about me,” she suggested. “We’ve been all about me all the time. Right now, go. The top five things I need to know about Judge Oakley.”
He laughed. “No pressure.”
“Do you not know yourself?” she challenged.
Right then.
“Got my dog while I was out running,” he began. “Was on a trail, early, no one around, except him. He followed me home. No collar. No tags. Think it’d been a while since he’d eaten. Probably a miracle he didn’t become the target of some coyotes. I put up signs, gave notice to the city and shelters. No one claimed him. But he claimed me. That’s number one.”
“Good number one,” she said softly.