The Science of Growing Apart

8- Coffee

"There's a court hearing in an hour on the Danvers trial," Kim informed me with no greeting or context as she approached my desk. "Is that enough time for you to research the case?"

I finished taking the drink of my water I was in the middle of sipping and then wiped some embarrassing dribble from my bottom lip. "I don't need to research it, I already know the case. The girl who murdered her homophobic mother, and her girlfriend helped hide the body. I thought Boris was reporting on the hearing?"

"He's too busy with the Potomac case," she explained with a slight roll of her eyes. I wondered if she was annoyed at him for taking so long and almost wanted to interject that the only reason he was making any progress was because I was helping him out. But I didn't want to come off as braggy, and he was already putting my name in the credits, so I let it go. "Go home and get dressed."

I looked down at my outfit- leggings and a long tunic with a floral pattern- and a pair of flats. Although I knew the outfit wasn't appropriate for court, her words still felt like an insult.

"I have an outfit in my car," I said quickly.

Her beautifully penciled in eyebrows raised into her forehead in a judgmental glance as she said, "You have a court outfit in your car?"

"I have outfits for all occasions in my car," I admitted to her with a small shrug. "You never know when you'll need a wardrobe change, and I like to be prepared."

Kim didn't seem amused. "I'm going to have Boris send you over the details for the hearing. Thank you for doing this so last minute."

As she walked away from me, I felt validated and shocked that she'd thank me. I couldn't remember ever being thanked by her for doing anything, and it felt really good. Maybe she was finally starting to see that I was a knowledgeable and hard worker, while Boris just skated by on mediocre work and used coworkers as crutches.

Despite having an hour to get ready to go to the courthouse that wasn't very far away, my excitement made me useless at work. So once I got the details from Boris- that he was very glum to give to me, and I could barely stop myself from gloating- I headed off toward the hearing.

I knew the case fairly well because it was an interesting one and I read the original piece that Boris wrote about it when it happened. I read articles from our journal, from other journals, police reports, news reports. I liked to stay informed on any crime that goes on in the city. It's quite literally my job to be nosy about these things, and I was good at it. Even if I wasn't directly reporting on the case, it obviously was beneficial to stay educated on all major crimes.

As I was wiggling my way into the business dress I kept in my trunk using the tiny bathroom in the lobby of our building, my phone began ringing in my purse. The dress was only halfway on my body, my arms stuck in the air and the zipper pinching the soft skin of my back, but I still hurried to grab my phone. Hoping that it was my dad or Natalie, so that I could tell them that I got to report on the hearing today. A daughter killing her own mother wasn't something that happened every day, so it was a popular case to know about.

"Hello?" I exhaled into the phone, wedging it between my shoulder and ear to continue my wrestling match with the dress that had a choke hold on my torso.

"Hi," Casey's voice on the other line made my wriggling body go still. "Is this a bad time?"

"No," I said out of instinct, despite the fact that this was, indeed, a very bad time. "Uh, what's up?"

"I was wondering if you were busy for lunch today?" he explained as I finally defeated the beast and was able to tug the hem of the dress down to my pale, knobby knees. While continuously bumping my shoulders and elbows into every wall of the small bathroom, I even managed to zip it all the way up.