Eleanor stood up decisively – another thing Spence instantly liked about her, once she made a decision she didn’t hesitate to put it into action – and he followed suit a beat later, smiling warmly. “Well, when you do think of something,” he said, beginning to make his way around his desk and nodding at the folder in her hands, “you know where to find me.”
He was ready to say their goodbyes, maybe take a moment to himself to think about what he was really getting himself into before facing Victoria’s practically omniscient looks, when she surprised him and asked the one thing he wasn’t expecting. Pausing at the corner of his desk, he looked over his shoulder at the poster she was pointing to. He knew what it was, obviously, but seeing it now was almost like seeing it with new eyes. His posters had been hanging on the walls of his office for so long that his gaze rarely fell on them anymore – and was this the first time a client had ever actually asked about them?
Spence considered the question. Had to be. Even at their most uncomfortable, clients rarely turned the conversation around on him. He spent more time in this office than he did anywhere else, and a lot more of his personal taste was on display here than in his tiny, neglected apartment. Posters on the walls, a small collection of neatly organized and specially curated novelty mugs atop one of the filing cabinets, a pine-scented candle he tended to light on cold winter nights when he was working late, pictures of his family wherever there was free space – the list went on and on. Spence hardly made himself anonymous, but when someone stepped into Blue Rose Investigations, they tended to only see the job, not the person doing the job. That worked out pretty well for him, for the most part. Kept the lines clearly drawn in the sand.
But what a strange and not entirely unpleasant feeling it was, to have a little bit of himself noticed for once.
“Oh, Laura?” Spence crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the desk. “One of the best film noirs ever made. My favorite, for sure. Great cast – Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb... Vincent Price!” He added the last name with an excited gesture, then crossed his arms again, looking up fondly at the poster. “It’s really something. Classic. A girl is murdered, the detective falls in love with her portrait, there’s a fantastic twist halfway through – that movie’s got everything you could ever want from a tight ninety-minute mystery.”
And then there was the other thing. Spence glanced at Eleanor, said a silent the hell with it, and continued, his tone a little less enthusiastic and a little more candid. “The posters, they’re also kind of a reminder for me and Coop. A couple of characters in Twin Peaks got their names from Sunset and Laura.” He gave a small shrug. “I could have Laura Palmer’s homecoming photo up there, but this seemed like the less creepy alternative.”