Chasing Charlie

CHAPTER NINE: PIZZA

  Vince and Angela’s corner table in a locally owned pizzeria was a quiet one. “Willing to share?” Vince asked. His voice was surprisingly loud; they were two of maybe six diners.

  “Definitely. How hungry are you?”

  “Not sharing anything smaller than a large.”

  “Make it an extra large, then. We haven’t eaten all day and we’ll probably be hungry again later.” It was still early. With their return flight not until the next day and every standby list overflowing because of bad weather and delays back in Minneapolis, they had no choice but to stay the night and wait for their scheduled departure. This would give them a chance to contact the warden again in the morning, just in case Whittaker changed her mind before they left.

  Vince eyed Angela over the top of his menu. She chewed on her bottom lip while she decided on toppings. Her carefree penchant for something greasy when the women around her insisted on half-sandwiches and salads was, he supposed, one of those things about her that grabbed his attention. Once they had a couple of beers in front of them and their order was placed, the pressure was on for a conversation. Vince could tell Angela had been itching for one ever since the end of the interview. “How have you been?” he asked with the utmost simplicity, trying not to give his question any sort of undertone, neither casual nor deep. He would let her lead the way.

  “With what?” She seemed unafraid to make eye contact with him, given how vulnerable she must have felt being put on the spot. On any other day, such a question held little meaning. Ever since yesterday, though, everything was potentially of so much importance that it hurt to think sometimes.

  “With…everything. Anything you want to talk about?”

  Angela shrugged and kept her shoulders up until she spoke. “I still don’t know if I’ve processed things, to be honest. And I don’t think I want to.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Vince immediately got to wondering whether there was something Angela wasn’t sharing, but he supposed it was none of his business to judge how his friends were coping, as long as they had the information they needed. He knew that was lazy of him, but he was running dangerously low on fuel, especially after a day like today.

  “What about you?” Angela asked. “Want to talk about today, maybe?”

  “About how the last significant task of my career was a failure?”

  By definition, their interview was indeed a failure. Angela wouldn’t bother telling him otherwise. “When we get back, we can catch up with the team, work the case,” was all she said. “Maybe we should just fly out to Boston tonight. Why didn’t we think of that?”

  That thought had crossed Vince’s mind, but he’d ignored it in favor of getting home to Charlie. Perhaps he had other motives, too, like more time alone with the person across the table. “I talked to Harry right before we left. He insisted he would let us know if we were needed. I got a pretty good feeling that I just wasn’t wanted.” Vince knew that, coming from Harry, the advice to stay behind in Minneapolis was meant to give him more time with Charlie, not to emasculate him. But when he could count on one hand the number of days before he left the job he cherished, every little move like that—even if he would have made the same decision on his own—produced a punch to the gut. “I’m sure they could use you, though.”

  Angela’s desire to stay by Vince’s side, her display of her undying loyalty, was transparent to him. It had been for a long time. It would have been even to the most naïve of spectators. “I’m sure they can make do without us there, like Fitz told you. Otherwise they would’ve found someone else to do the custodial.”

  So stubborn was Angela at times—and this moment was hinting to be one of them—that Vince didn’t bother putting up a fight. He’d already admitted to himself that having her around was always a plus.

  “Can I ask you something?” Angela asked after a long but not awkward silence.

  “Of course.” Vince clasped his hands in front of him attentively, effectually turning the pizzeria into his office—their table into his desk.

  “How did it go telling Charlie? I mean, how did you go about doing it? How’d he take it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I don’t mind.” But Vince took a deep breath before answering the question Angela had been hanging on to all day since it had been forgotten on the plane. “I tried to explain it in terms of Kate’s death, what little he knows about it. I kept it simple, answered his questions. Explained it wasn’t his fault and that his cough medicine couldn’t make me feel better,” he said with a sad grin, his eyes threatening to rain at the memory. Angela didn’t smile, as it wasn’t her memory to look back on.

  “How well do you think he understands it?”

  “It’s hard to tell. He cried, but I think it was more because he’s not used to seeing me a mess, which I was.”

  “Of course. What father wouldn’t be?”

  “He offered to have his Sunday school teacher pray for me and he, uh, gave me his stuffed dog that he’s had since he was born,” Vince said, not quite certain whether that was information he should be sharing. It sounded silly coming out of a middle-aged man.

  “He’s such a sweet kid, and so brave. I think he’ll probably help you through this more than any of us can, and without even trying.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Who’s going to take care of him? Jenna?”

  “Yeah. Aunt, godmother…what other qualifications would she need?” Vince said.

  “Who’s his godfather?”

  “An old college friend of mine. Haven’t talked to him since Charlie’s first birthday, probably. I take the blame for that one. I didn’t choose very responsibly.”

  “Well, at least he’ll have Jenna. You know…” Angela said, her tone promising something insightful, “I bet some of the others are wondering why you’re not just going to try and work around your treatment schedule, and around Charlie’s schedule, even, but I get why you’re leaving. Even if this is all incredibly sad and difficult, it’s a new chapter of your life. Just because the team was a big part of your identity for so many years doesn’t mean you have to carry it out until you can’t anymore.”

  Their server arrived, cutting Angela. “Thank you,” she said as the server put down a pizza on a stand in front of them, leaving hardly enough room on the table for them to eat. Vince dished up slices while Angela continued. “You know, you’ve been told you have x number of days left, and that would shake up anyone’s world. It’s obviously changed your thought priority.”

  “How so?” Vince inquired as he passed Angela a slice with everything on it.

  “Well, the whole legacy thing with Whittaker. What you’re going to leave behind seems to be on your mind.”

  “So you caught on to that?” Vince asked with surprising playfulness given the nature of the conversation.

  Angela offered up a smile to match. “What can I say, Vince? You’ve trained me well. So…have you decided what your legacy is going to be? Or what you want it to be?”

  “Well, I hope I’ll be leaving behind a son with a good head on his shoulders. Scratch that. I know he’ll grow up to be a great guy. Not that I’ve had much to do with that.”

  “I think boys probably pick up on their dad’s values pretty readily, even when they aren’t around as much as they’d like to be. I’m sure he’ll be just like you.”

  “A workaholic with screwed up priorities?”

  “No, he’ll be…a little grumpy in the morning and not always knowing when to loosen his tie a bit, but otherwise a really nice guy.”

  This seemed to be a good place to pause the conversation in favor of filling their hungry stomachs, as Vince wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “What else?” Angela asked once she stopped to slide a second slice onto her plate.

  “Hmm?”

  “What else do you hope you’ll leave behind?”

  Vince sucked some pizza sauce off his thumb while he thought. “A functi
oning team.”

  “Just functioning? Don’t sell yourself short, Vince. You’re a big part of how our team is able to do what it does. And I’m not brown-nosing you, you know it’s true.”

  “I recommended Harry as my replacement,” Vince stated when he found himself again unsure of how to reply to Angela. She sometimes did that to him—stumped him—and typically it annoyed him to no end.

  “Really? Why not Marshall? Want another slice?” Angela asked, eying Vince’s empty plate.

  He gave her a look as if to say her question was the dumbest he’d heard in a while, and held out his plate. “On top of Harry having more years behind him, even if they haven’t all been in the Bureau, he’s got a more…finely-tuned ability to separate his emotions from the job. Not to say I was ever perfect at doing that. I know I definitely had my moments. But this…my prognosis, my resignation, I’m afraid it’s too much for Marshall to disentangle. Victims, their families, the police, they all need the team to function as if I were never a member, as if there will be no one missing.”

  “And Marshall’s heart’s too big to go on like that,” Angela said.

  “Exactly. It’s not that I think he can’t handle this personally, but I think it would bleed into his decisions as a leader. At least at first. When Harry finally retires, I’m sure he’ll put Marshall back on, and I think he’ll be ready by then.”

  “How long do you think Fitz will stay?”

  “Not sure. Couple years, tops. How long do you think you’ll stay?”

  Angela furrowed her brow and stared at Vince over the horizon of pizza. “Stay with the team?” Vince nodded, his mouth full. “I don’t know, I’ve never thought of leaving. I love my job.”

  “Good. For what it’s worth, you’re excellent at what you do. If it weren’t for the guys having so much tenure on you, it would’ve been a much harder choice.” Vince’s heart skipped a beat as he said this. He didn’t normally dish up compliments out of nowhere. He used them as motivational tools and as praise. Angela begged for neither at the moment.

  “Oh. Thanks,” she said sheepishly.

  “I could eat the rest of this pizza without your help,” Vince pronounced after another few minutes of nothing but chewing.

  “You’re getting my help, trust me. We should save at least a slice each for later, though. Unless you want to go back out. When ten o’clock rolls around I can guarantee you I’ll be hungry again unless I’m sleeping.”

  —

  Vince wasn’t in his hotel room very long before he grew restless. It was, after all, still early. This explained why their restaurant had been so quiet, and why the other patrons all looked older than he. He had already spent some time on the phone with Charlie, until the boy had grown seemingly bored. Now Vince, still dressed, lay on top of his bed with his hands clasped behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles.

  He had found his dinner conversation with Angela to be calming, therapeutic, even. She hadn’t really come up with anything profound, anything he hadn’t already known—perhaps that was why she had such a soothing effect. She had simply reiterated things he already knew, or given names to things he’d already been aware of feeling. A couple of times she’d left him speechless, but not in an earth-shattering way. Talking to her was easy.

  He wasn’t sure whether he should seek out more of her company that evening, or lie around and daydream about what he knew he had to deny himself. No one started a relationship with a dying person. No one in his or her right mind, anyway. Certainly not Angela, then. She had decades on Charlie. She knew perfectly well what the future was to bring, even if her relative inexperience with losing loved ones meant that she probably didn’t have a clue how much it would hurt. But she at least understood the imminence and the permanence. Even if she were foolhardy enough to want to do anything as simple as fool around with him, he knew he couldn’t allow it. He needed to loosen his attachments as his existence came to an end, not form new ones. He needed to prepare hearts for loss, not for love.

  Just when he was contemplating getting out of bed to see if Angela was around, a knock sounded at his door. “It’s me,” she said.

  He grunted a little as he got up to let her in. She toted a plastic shopping bag and was also still in work attire. “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Just bored out of my skull. Why spend the evening alone doing nothing when I have a friend next door who’s probably bored, too? Sorry,” Angela said, stopping herself. “I guess I should ask first. Are you bored?”

  “Very.”

  “Good, then I don’t have to find a way to backpedal. I brought, uh, some junk food. I’ve seen you sneak about a thousand PayDay bars in our career together when you thought no one was looking,” she said, sounding proud of herself as she sat on the one bed of the two that didn’t look like it had been lain on. She handed him a king size version of his favorite candy bar.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry, I eat when I’m stressed, when I’m bored…I don’t have the authority to boss people around as a way out of those emotions,” she quipped.

  This got a light laugh out of Vince, who sat at the bottom edge of his bed, facing Angela, who still dug through her purchases. “Beef jerky, turkey jerky for me so I can at least pretend to justify everything else I eat…hmm, tortilla chips, salsa, cashews, and Oreos in case there’s too much salty going on here. Oh, and a six-pack, which is back in my room. I wanted that to be the grand finale of food and drink announcements but it wouldn’t fit in the bag.”

  “Beer sounds good,” Vince managed as he tried not to laugh at the spare bed that was now covered in snacks he never kept at home. All of it sounded delicious despite having stuffed himself not too long ago.

  “Some tasty-sounding microbrew winter lager, which I’m surprised they even make,” Angela said when Vince let her back in a minute later. “The grocery store behind our hotel isn’t too bad. I hope it’s screw-top, though. Oh, good, it is.” She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and ended her very one-sided conversation just as Vince sat back down. “Wow, I went a little overboard, didn’t I?”

  He laughed lightly. “Don’t forget about the leftover pizza.”

  “If we finish even half of this, we’ll be in no fit state to even wake up in the morning, let alone fly home.” She handed him a beer.

  “Thanks.”

  “You know, maybe this is a good thing,” Angela said as she swept some snacks aside to make room for a seat.

  “Eating three days’ worth of calories in one sitting? How so?”

  “Well,” Angela said after her first swallow of beer, “indulging a little. Don’t eat like this every day, obviously, but you know how the saying goes…if today was your last day, what would you do?”

  “You make a good point.”

  “Anything else you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t gotten around to? Although I’m sure you ate this junk on a daily basis in college. We all did.”

  “That’s not too far from the truth.”

  “What about more profound things? What else is on your bucket list?” Angela leaned against her headboard and turned her swivel wall lamp to the side so it didn’t block her view of her friend.

  “Nothing, really.” Vince hated to start a pattern of lying to Angela after such an genuine conversation, but she was better off remaining naïve, if he were lucky enough for her to be naïve in the first place. For all he knew, she could be sitting on the other bed mulling over the same things he did—wondering if this whole situation was supposed to spark romantic thoughts, or if the situation was blameless and she was really the one driving her own feelings.

  “Well, maybe you should spend some time thinking seriously about what you want to do, see, read…Any people you haven’t talked to in too long?”

  “My brother. I haven’t really talked to him much since he found out what happened in Chicago. We were supposed to…reconnect, but that never really happened.”

  “See, things like that. I don’t t
hink anyone would fault you for pretty much anything. What else? Anything you couldn’t do before because of work getting in the way?”

  Did she mean what Vince wished she meant? No, you don’t want that on her mind, he told himself. She probably meant in terms of time, not rules and boundaries. Stop making something out of nothing.

  “Still with me?” Angela asked, her head lolling over to glance at him briefly before she tore open the bag of turkey jerky.

  Vince tapped the bottom of his beer bottle. “Sorry, just thinking. I don’t know. As long as the last few days have felt, it’s still pretty fresh. I haven’t really allowed myself to sit down and think about that kind of thing too much.” He took a long drink of his beer and opened his candy bar.