Who: Clem and Graham What: Pancakes and reminiscing Where: A diner When: Recent, but before the Murphy antics Warnings/Rating: None
Graham liked diners. He liked small, hole-in-the wall places, he liked cheap prices, and he liked people who didn’t pry. He liked simple foods, burgers and sandwiches, and he liked those crappy cups of coffee, black with no cream or sugar. Flashy casinos and fancy restaurants, those weren’t for him. Shane handled the actual exchanging of goods for cash when it came to the business unless it was an important deal, or one with significant risk, and he liked it that way. He was good at organization, and making sure the money matched the product and nobody tried fucking them over gave him a certain sense of satisfaction. It was a small operation but a good one, and he was no Constantos but he didn’t want to be so that was just fine with him. Life was okay these days, even with the Greek bastard’s daughter hell-bent on revenge and living in the same city. She didn’t scare him; few things did.
This place, where he was meeting Clem, was nothing special. Not as run-down and gritty as his usual hangouts but she didn’t need to be in places like that. Sure, she was all grown up now, but he still thought of her as Lorelei’s kid sister. His sister-in-law, even if only by half. She’d been good to his son and Lorelei was (had been) close to her, which was why he didn’t mind seeing her again. He had things to hide and she might try to pry but he could handle that. It didn’t really concern him all that much.
He got there early, hung around outside for a cigarette since there were non-smoking stickers on the windows. Lorelei hated it, said he’d never used to smoke but then again he’d never used to do a lot of things before. Before she died, but he always ended his thoughts there, at before; he was a little self-aware, but mostly in denial. Admitting his delusions were just that, delusions, not real, would make them go away, and he didn’t want that. He blew smoke into the air and ground it out under the heel of his boot once he was done, and he headed inside to grab a booth. Graham ordered coffee and pancakes; they served breakfast all day and he liked the pancakes, even though they weren’t half as good as Lorelei’s. He’d have ordered for Clem but he didn’t know what she liked, so he just told the waitress he was waiting for someone and they’d order once they got there.
Clem was contradictions. She worked in blues and blood, and she wasn't the least bit scared of the flames that licked out of windows and burned skin right off. At work, she was one of the guys, pale blonde hair pulled back and not a hint of makeup on her face. Working in a house, that had taught her a thing or two about being around men for twenty hours at a time. She liked it. It suited her, and there was always ringing alarms and adrenaline rushing. She'd considered working rescue at the beginning, running and dragging people from beneath wood and cinders. But there was something about juggling life in a more personal way, and she loved how that made her heart stick in her throat. It was feeling, and she could do with a bit of that. She was never bored, and that was something too.
But when she was off the clock, there was more Savannah than boy's gal in the girl from Georgia. She'd grown up pretty, because her daddy liked it that way, and because her momma was always a romantic. She liked things rich, because she'd never wanted for a penny in her whole damn life. She didn't own one thing that was blue, not for after hours. Now, the diner her brother-in-law had picked for their meeting wasn't anything special, but she was willing to go easy on him. After all, Lorelei had always been real accomodating where he was concerned, and Clem's suspicions still warred with memories of being knee high and chasing after the two of them like hellhounds were nipping at her ankles. And she'd always loved her sister like she hadn't loved anything else in this big old world. Once, when she'd been real small, someone had told her that Lorelei wasn't really her sister, on account of them having different daddies. She'd cried all the way home, and her momma had told her that daddies didn't matter worth a lick. She and Lorelei had come from the same place, and that made them as blood as blood could be. Clem had never forgotten that, not for a second.
And so she was willing to give Graham the benefit of the doubt, though she wasn't real sure he deserved it. She hadn't seen him any of the times he'd checked in on her nephew, though she knew he had once or twice. She'd been ten when Lorelei took off for the desert, and she'd been seventeen when the call came about Lorelei being dead. She was thirty now, and she didn't chase after anyone's heels anymore. She stepped inside, a plunging neckline in shimmery pink and a thin slip of a designer skirt. She was sure this diner had never seen a pair of Louboutins before, and she told the waitress she was meeting someone. She clapped her eyes on Graham a second later, and she whistled as she walked toward the booth and slid on in. "You look like hell."
It was the dead woman at his side who alerted him to Clem’s arrival, though sane folk would have chalked it up to attentiveness bordering on paranoia, the result of working for a psychopath as long as he had. Graham knew he wasn’t the world’s greatest father and he never once took it for granted that his boy didn’t hate him, despite all the reasons why he should. He’d considered, a little, that Lorelei’s sister might blame him for her death, but he’d decided that if she did it was nothing he didn’t deserve and if not, well, it’d just be another stroke of luck that came his way without rhyme or reason. Funny thing was that he’d still been picturing her as a little girl, and the woman who walked into the diner and drew stares and raised eyebrows was the furthest thing from little he’d ever seen.
She looked like she was dressed for somewhere a lot fancier, and he wondered why. Years older, and there was still familiarity, even with all the changes time had brought. The waitress shook her head as Clem strolled over and Graham smiled, laughed, when she told him he looked like hell. He knew he looked his age, and there was a couple days worth of dark stubble along his jaw. Jeans and a dark plaid shirt, and he looked like he belonged in a place like this. “You don’t,” he remarked, a hint of Southern drawl still sticking around despite having been in Vegas since he was his son’s age. “Looks like you grew up just fine.” She was family, a kid sister by marriage, and at his side Lorelei remarked on what a pretty thing she was, but he knew better than to respond, to smile at somebody who wasn’t there.
"Course I don't," Clem said of looking like hell, confidence that would have sounded vain if it wasn't for the south-sweet smile on her lips. "I grew up," she conceded, "though the good Lord above wasn't real generous when it came to the whole growing out bit," she said, sounding like she didn't mind even a little. Like her sister, she was willow-waif and angles, elbows and knees and collarbones that didn't bother hiding themselves. She looked at Graham like she was a curious bird, fearless and lazy all wrapped up. "Still look like hell," she said a second later, after the fresh, close-up perusal, and she grabbed herself one of the sticky, plastic-covered menus and looked it over. This place wasn't anything like what she was used to these days, but she'd grown up nowhere, and all the those trips to the English countryside couldn't take the south out of the girl. Diners reminded her of home, of quieter times and sillier ways. "How're the flapjacks?" she asked, looking up at him with blue eyes and wondering about why he ate his meals here, and how often he did.
She set the menu aside, ordered herself a coffee, and she folded her hands on the table and regarded him. She had no idea he was seeing her dead sister at his side, and she wouldn't have known what to do with that information. She was a paramedic, which meant she saw plenty of crazy people during working hours, but that was something removed, something that wasn't personal in any way. "You like it out here?" she asked, molasses drawl and something like apathy in her gaze. Truth was, she didn't care much about anything. She had when she was little, when she hid up in tree branches and watched him and Lorelei kissing. But these days, these days her caring was all surface deep, and it showed some, the difference. "What're you doing for work these days?" That question was deliberate, though it came off casual as could be, chased down by some coffee that tasted like it'd been brewed in the firehouse.
Graham still remembered how to laugh, and he laughed then. She was like her sister, he could see that, even though he didn’t look at her like men looked at women. But he didn’t look at anybody like that. Hell, he still wore his wedding band. “They say He works in mysterious ways,” he remarked, but he wasn’t the type of person to go offering reassurance and building up self-esteem. Not that he believed she needed either; nobody wore an outfit like hers unless they had confidence. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug when she remarked that he still looked like hell, not all that concerned with his own appearance. “Guess so.” Shane often told him the same thing but that was different, they insulted each other nearly half the time like other people had nicknames for each other. He was calm as he watched her, calm as the waitress delivered his order and took Clem’s with another arched brow at her outfit before heading off. “Good. Not as good as your sister’s were,” he added, remembering to say were instead of are, which elicited a playful shove he shouldn’t have been able to feel but did from the revenant at his side.
How he felt about the desert was lukewarm, despite having been out here for years. “I like it well enough,” he said, carefully pouring syrup over his pancakes. He wished he could go home. He wished he’d never left, and maybe he and Lorelei and Jake could’ve been a real family, but wishing got him nowhere and not even he could conjure up a delusion that strong. “Do you?” He didn’t bat an eye when she asked what he was doing for work; he’d been expecting that question. “Shipping,” he said, without hesitation. “Bores me to tears sometimes but the pay is good.”
Strange enough, she wasn't expecting laughter. Her sister had been dead thirteen years, and she'd spent a whole lot of those years imagining Graham out here, crying into a pillowcase that hadn't been washed in months. She'd thought about it less over the years, on account of time dulling things, but the visual had never changed. Laughing wasn't in any of those imaginings, and she looked at him with surprise on her features. Now, she didn't surprise easy, and she eventually grinned, something more of the twirling girl in crinoline than the grown-up woman that was actually sitting there. "I'm always complaining about His mysterious ways." She'd grown up right smack in the middle of Bible country, and the wages of sin was death, and Jesus sat at the dinner table every Sunday for dinner. But she didn't believe in anything much. Believing was for people who gave a damn, and she wasn't real good at giving a damn.
He agreed that he looked like hell, and she nursed her coffee when it came. Manicured fingernails on the dull stoneware cup, and she chuckled. "You're supposed to at least get indignant. Maybe go on and run out of here and get yourself a shave and a haircut soon as we're done here. Heck, I can still wield a pair of scissors." It was pure South, haircuts in the kitchen with a towel draped over. She'd moved out to the desert for the fast living, but sometimes she missed the strange slow quirks of home. She was quiet come a second later. "I don't remember Lorelei's flapjacks," she said, though her sister had always loved cooking. But she didn't remember how anything tasted. Memories were hard to hold onto, especially when a person was trying to forget. "I remember thinking all that time in the kitchen was a real big waste," she said, another chuckle and a sip of her coffee.
But the flapjacks looked good, and she ordered herself a short stack as he syrup'ed his. "I came out here to have fun. So far, this city's got just about everything a girl could want for trouble. They got meetups for every dirty desire beneath the desert sun," she told him. She gave a disbelieving look when he told her he worked in shipping, but she didn't speak contradicting words. She knew where he was now; it'd be easy enough to find out if her suspicions were right. He would just take some watching. "I work for the fire department. It's never a dull moment." She grinned. "Well, excepting for nineteen hours out of a twenty hour shift."
Her surprise didn’t faze him, and he waited patiently for her to lash out, to hiss something about grieving and mourning even after all this time; the funny thing was that Graham had been the token unsmiling widow for a while after Lorelei’s death. It was like everything light had been sucked out of him, down into that grave six feet under, leaving only dark and stone behind. But things were different now. Seeing his dead wife near everywhere he went and really believing she was there had definitely had an impact. Seconds ticked by and then she was grinning at him, and he figured no angry chewing-out would be coming his way. Not yet, at least. “They don’t seem to be very popular,” he remarked of God’s mysterious ways, and he’d lost a lot of the faith he’d had a long, long time ago. Mysterious ways were too damn mysterious when people as good and as pure as his wife ended up dead, though Constantos had gotten his in the end. That kept a small flame of faith alive, rather than extinguishing it entirely.
He shook his head good-naturedly when she told him he should be indignant, when the truth was her comments didn’t bother him even a little bit. “I’ve looked like hell for too long to mind. Maybe one day.” It was true that a cut and a shave would do him a world of good, but he wasn’t too fond of change. The thought of her wielding scissors made his eyebrows go up; he still remembered her as a kid and he could only imagine the damage she could do with free reign and something sharp. Graham chewed another mouthful of pancakes as the topic shifted, however briefly, to Lorelei, and his expression turned the kind of faraway fond it always did when his wife was on his mind. He thought it was sort of sad that Clem didn’t remember her sister’s cooking, but he didn’t come out and say it. He knew tact, a lot better than Shane did. “She loved being in the kitchen,” he smiled. “Created masterpieces, she did. And she knew I’d eat anything she put in front of me.” That was true, and he’d tell her everything was wonderful even if it wasn’t, with a smile and no hint of a white lie to be found.
Trouble often found him, though he didn’t go looking for it and the trouble she meant probably wasn’t what he found himself occasionally mixed up in. “Trouble is fun?” It wasn’t doubtful or disbelieving; he was just confirming her definition. As for his job in shipping, he could tell she hadn’t quite accepted that but he’d just have to be careful, that was all, and make sure Shane knew to do the same. “The fire department, huh? So you’re some kind of hero,” he teased, but there was something like pride beneath. Back home women stayed at home and raised families, mostly, but he’d seen women who could do all kinds of things; hell, he knew a woman who’d taken over a criminal empire after her father’s death, and admittedly she hadn’t done half bad so far.
She didn't lash. Clem, she wasn't real big on lashing. It wasn't even that lashing took a whole lot of effort, though it did. No, it was that it never did a lick of good. She watched her British siblings doing a whole lot of teeth gnashing, a whole lot of moaning, and she didn't think that kind of thing got anyone anywhere. She thought Graham was responsible for Lorelei's death, that went without saying, but screaming at the man wasn't going to bring her sister back from whatever blackness happened after dying. No point in rushing there, not when nothing would change upon arriving. Lorelei would still be dead, come what may. And she'd always liked Graham. Back when she was still a little thing that thought the world could smile pretty on folks, she'd thought he Graham was sweet as candy to her sister. She still remembered that now. And the man did look like hell warmed over. It was real plain that he hadn't been out here living the high life and courting women. That helped, selfish as it was. No one would mourn her that way if she died, but then she'd never been sweet as Lorelei; it was all that Murphy blood in her veins.
"You're getting real close to a senior citizen discount," she teased, taking a bite of the pancake that was set in front of her. "You're just worried about me wielding something pointy," she said knowingly, not the slightest bit chagrined. "You weren't around for me being a teenager. I would have scared you near to death." She'd called Lorelei daily back then, the year before her sister had died. Crushes has come near as often as the milkman then, and Clem had always been real dramatic. When he got that far-off look, she played with her food, and she knew he was going to say something like remembering before he even opened his mouth. "Lorelei was always happy doing quiet things," she said, trying to keep her voice from going sad and not managing it. She didn't think of her sister much; that was intentional.
"The right kind of trouble's fun," she said, glad to change the subject to something flippant. Flippant was where she lived these days, and she liked it real fine there. All this family showing up, she swore up and down that wasn't going to change a thing where she was concerned. "The wrong kind of trouble's a pain in the ass. Course, anything that requires me caring is a pain in the ass." Because reminders were good, and saying things aloud made them real as rain on a cloudy afternoon. She laughed when he said she was some kind of hero. "I like the rush," she admitted, not willing to wear a saint's robe, even to steal a compliment that wasn't hers. "It isn't because I want to save kittens in trees. My British people are here too, and they live to machinate some. They'll be ruining someone's life, and I'll be right in the thick of it. It'll make up for any kittens I do come across." She put her fork down, and she sipped at her coffee. She didn't have much of a conscience anymore; it had died thirteen years prior.
Getting old didn’t bother him any more than looking like hell did, and he shoved at his pancakes with his fork, a little distracted, with that same sort of calm. “Close, but not there yet,” he countered. Most days he didn’t even feel his age; what made him feel old was his son, since he was already a man and he swore he could still remember him being a little thing in diapers. “I worry about most people wielding pointy things, not just you.” Deadpan. “I’ll bet you were a little hellion.” No, he hadn’t seen her teenage years. He’d taken Lorelei to the desert thinking it would be a better life, and he’d been so damn stupid. Wishes were useless, but he got wistful and sometimes he still wished he’d stayed, become a cop like his daddy, and his life would have been very, very different now. But he hadn’t, and that was his burden to bear. Like the dead wife who followed him everywhere, who he pretended was real but was more likely a manifestation of his guilt and his inability to cope with the loss. He heard the sadness in Clem’s voice because he knew sadness real well, and it was almost enough to make him want to comfort her in some way. Almost, but not quite, and he just looked down at his pancakes. Dead wasn’t living, and pretending only went so far. “She was,” he agreed, quiet. “And her happy was like heaven on earth.” And now, now it had just been pervasive hell.
Graham could agree that the wrong kind of trouble was a pain in the ass. Lawyers, cops, double-crossers and the like; they were all trouble and not the kind he liked. Addicts who’d pay top dollar for their fix, now that kind of trouble was fine. As for not caring, well, he was on the fence when it came to that. Shane cared a little less than he did. They only sold to addicts who were already hooked, never anyone clean and fresh and just starting off. And sometimes he felt bad, sometimes he looked at the men and women, boys and girls, and wondered how they’d ended up drowning in needles and powder. But he was in deep, and he wasn’t getting out. He was no saint. “Not big on caring?” The mention of British people made his brow furrow, and he tried to remember what he knew, what Lorelei had told him. “Your daddy’s kids? They like to ruin lives?” There was only one life he sought to ruin, but there was time. That he had a lot of.
She knew he wasn't old as that, but ribbing folks was something you got used to if you worked in a firehouse. It was a male dominated world, and she'd done some changing to fit in like she did. As for folks wielding pointy things, that hadn't ever been her kind of scene. Same as she hadn't ever been inclined to drugging and drinking hard. "I was about the most immoral girl in Savannah," she admitted, plenty proud of it. She'd went and claimed her sexuality soon as she'd known it was there, and she'd never apologized to anyone since. "Wives and husband didn't like me so well," she admitted, blue eyes bright, even as she deadpanned the words. "You know momma. She loves living through folks' stories, and I gave her plenty. I'd call Lorelei and talk to her, and she'd just sigh at me some and give me the best advice ever, but I never did take it. Once she was gone, no one bothered trying." She shrugged her shoulders, and she took another sip of the coffee that had gone lukewarm. "Living's short. Might as well get some fun out of it. Not all of us were made for folks thinking us happy has anything to do with heaven on earth." She didn't add what she was thinking, that all that heaven had left him looking like a man with nothing left to live for. She didn't see the point in caring enough to hurt over things.
"I bet you haven't had a lick of fun in years," she mused, a kick to his knee under the table and watching him as his brow furrowed. She didn't answer his question about caring, because she figured that was real plain now, even if it likely wasn't what he remembered about the girl who'd loved wearing party dresses on Sunday. "My daddy's kids live to ruin everything. You ever known folks that just sat around acting like they lived in some kind of soap opera? That's them. Chloe's man done run off, and now everyone's got to make sure he pays real hard for every misdeed." She shook her head, and she laughed a little. "It's all talk and posturing. I never seen them hurt anyone, not in any lasting way. And it's fun, all that plotting." She considered, draining her cup. "Jude's gotten cruel, though. Momma never did want me around him much, and I always wanted to trail behind Alex instead. Alex, he's got that goth morose thing going on. When I was little, I used to wonder if he wrote himself a whole lot of sad poetry in a leather journal." She grinned then, nothing serious in all that talking. "Lorelei always said they were bad news, the lot, but I thought they were funny."
Graham could remember those phone calls, vaguely, and he’d always listen and nod if he was around as Lorelei chattered on about her sister. Sometimes he didn’t hear the words, sometimes it was just her voice and the way she talked less than what she said, but he could remember a little of the content, and he’d always thought she was just being a worrisome older sister. He felt a little guilty, now and then, since his job had been the reason no one could visit and there was always some reason to not go home. “Lorelei was good at advice,” he agreed, remembering to use was instead of is. “She just wanted the best for you, like family does.” He’d always kept his own opinions quiet. Long as Clem didn’t get hurt, she could do what she liked. Of course, he didn’t think she actually hurt anybody else, not beyond messing up a couple of marriages; but it took two to cheat, in his mind. As for fun, his life had lost all semblance of that after he and Lorelei had moved to Las Vegas. There was no time for fun then, and he had no interest in it now. He had little, meaningless things he enjoyed, but that was about it. “You have your fun,” he said, with a faint sort of smile. He wouldn’t begrudge her that; fun just wasn’t for people like him.
The answer he’d started to give was cut short when she kicked his knee, and his fork froze halfway to his mouth as he gave her a look, eyebrows raised, before taking another bite of pancakes. “I’m too old for fun,” he remarked, a little bit of humor shining through. As for these British kids, he listened as she described them. He knew what it was like to want revenge, but his was warranted. Constantos had murdered his wife just for the hell of it, no rhyme or reason, and his daughter made it clear she wanted them dead. But some rich girl scorned by a man, that was just silly. Rich folk like that didn’t know a damn thing about real loss but Graham kept his mouth shut; he was good at that. “They all bark and no bite?” Sounded right. Most people weren’t so willing to get their hands dirty when push came to shove. “Cruel how?” Oh, he knew cruel, too. He himself didn’t think he was. Sure, sometimes he got angry and things went blurry, sometimes fools tried to cross him and Shane and had to pay, but he didn’t like hurting people, didn’t get pleasure out of it. As for the ‘goth morose thing’ he just shook his head, bemused, though he had to fight to keep from frowning when she mentioned that Lorelei had said they were bad news. Beside him, his dead wife voiced her agreement, and he trusted her judgment. If Lorelei said they were trouble, then they were. “You just be careful,” he said, using the same tone he used with his son when he thought he needed a little guidance.
"She was real good at being even," Clem said, acknowledging that she wasn't real good at that herself. "Momma treated everything like a movie, and Lorelei made things real." It was the best way to explain where Lorelei fit in the diamond studded childhood she'd clung to like it was never leaving. Still, to this day, she turned to her daddy for everything, and that man had a way of making everything seem like a big old fairytale, where nothing bad ever did stick. Except for Lorelei dying. That had stuck like nothing else, and Clem shook off the reality and went back to her coffee and her pancakes and the man with the day-old scruff sitting across from her. She laughed when he went and told her to have her fun. "You giving me permission? Last I checked, you weren't my daddy. Or you adding yourself to my list of brothers, seeing as I'm in town now?" She finished off the coffee, grin and leaning forward on the sticky tabletop. "You're a whole lot nicer than my real brothers, case you wondered." And even if he had been responsible for Lorelei dying, it wasn't because he'd intended it. That was for damn sure.
"You're never too old for fun. We'll need to work on that some." Lorelei would want it. She wouldn't want him to waste his life away, languishing out here looking ages older than he really was. As for the Murphys, she shrugged. "They never did bite before. Sounds like this girl's been assaulting my sister real bad though. I wasn't here for any of it, but I don't think they're lying about none of it. She won't even come out of her room most days, my sister. Someone assaulted her. It's been ugly." She laughed a little when he asked about cruelty. "Honey, don't worry yourself over their cruelty. Murphys are born cruel, but it's more noise than anything else. Mean things, papers sent to the wrong folks, things in the news. Nothing real bad." She believed it, sitting there, even with all the plotting going on. "I'm always careful, Graham. I'm too lazy for getting my hands dirty. There's no fun in that."
A second later, the beeper that only hooked back to the firehouse beeped, and she rifled it out of her purse. "I got to run. Duty calls. I'm taking us somewhere louder next time," she said, as if it was a given, seeing each other again. She slid out of the booth, pink and shiny and that dancing would have to wait some. She stood there, looking down at him, that face from the past that brung back so many things she'd gone and buried years ago. She squeezed his shoulder once, gave him a smile that had always been plenty coquettish, and then she left the diner in a rush.