Who's The Rookie Now? (Mary-Lou)

[Mary-Lou White]

"I don’t know,” Mary-Lou grinned, snuggling up on the couch with her drink and pinching one of the s’mores. “Possibly the fact that the guys in the pen talk about it all the time when you’re not around. They say that ever since you dumped him, he’s lost his nerve. Which i really don’t think is fair,” she added, nibbling her cracker. “Because it’s not Charlie’s fault that crazy woman tried to kill him.” With a nod that seemed to indicate that as far as she was concerned that was the end of the matter, Mary-Lou munched on her almost-dessert. Half-way through her mouthful, though, she seemed to remember something else.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face taking on that wide-eyed excited look she got when she had good gossip or there was a half-off sale at Barney’s. Rushing to quickly finish her mouthful, se then spent a couple seconds fanning her tongue from the punishment afforded by scorching hot melted marshmallow. Finally, willing and able to talk, she grinned at her cousin and leaned in. “About a week ago I saw him in the elevator when he came in to speak to the Captain about coming back to work. And!” she added triumphantly. “He asked me how you were and what you were up to!” With a knowing look, Mary-Lou nodded at Susie. When no response was forthcoming, she blinked.

“Guys don’t ask how a girl is going if they’re not interested,” she pointed out. "So I guess it's Charlie who's nuts,' she added gleefully. "About you!"

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie blinked in disbelief as she munched her s'more. Was it possible the guys at the precinct actually opened up more to Mary-Lou than to her? She supposed there was something to that doe-eyed pretty girl look, after all. She was a little taken aback by the knowledge that her little cousin might be more in the loop than she was, but she tried not to let it affect her. Instead she decided to look at it from another angle. Mary-Lou could be like her own little personal spy in bubble-gum colored high heels. She liked the plan, and listened with rapt attention to the kind of stuff that was said by her fellow cops when the threat of being beaten within an inch of their lives was removed.

At the end of the spheal though Susie took a moment to consider it, giving off a thoughtful, "Hmmm," as she picked a piece of melted marshmallow off and bit it off her finger. "Charlie dumped me," she corrected. She didn't remember it actually happening that way, or feeling like being dumped at the time, but she definitely remembered walking into the precinct the next day with Charlie's tale of the encounter already circulating, and being irate about it all. According to him he had been the one to cut things off, because she was 'clingy.' Even now, she rolled her eyes at the very idea. She was the very last woman in the world to be clingy - in full truth, she erred at the other end of the spectrum, often being aloof and leaving boyfriends feeling unengaged - but it was the one thing he could say to his coworkers that would most jeopardize Susie's sense of feminist pride and, therefore, the one thing he could say to hurt her most.

"I had some of the best sex of my life with Charlie Holden," she mused suddenly as she looked at her s'more. Remembering the end of the relationship made her think back on the entirety of it, thanks largely to not being able to actually identify where they went wrong. "Don't get me wrong, we fought like cats and dogs. But then, after the fighting came angry sex. And then after the angry sex we felt a little more kindly towards each other so we'd have make up sex. And then after we'd made up we had celebratory sex. When work was tough we had distraction sex and when we solved a case we had victory sex, and that's not even mentioning the actual work sex." She glanced at her cousin, figuring that last bit was probably too much information for someone who might frequent the same spots on a daily basis that she and Charlie... ahem, frequented. "Sorry," she apologized succinctly.

Continuing her walk down memory lane, Susie explained, "I'm not even sure we really broke up so much as we just..." She shook her head and shrugged. "Stopped having make up sex." She pursed her lips and pulled off another piece of marshmallow. "I think one day one of us got frustrated and said, 'Look why don't we just put an end to this?' It must have been him, but it doesn't really matter who said it because we're both too damn stubborn to say anything other than, 'fine, you asshole.'." She lifted her eyebrows. "So that was it." She took a real bite of her s'more and watched as Norman perved on Marion at the Bates Hotel. "He probably just misses the sex," she surmised around the mouthful. She didn't know if that was true, but it certainly made the whole thing easier to downplay so she clung to the idea.

[Mary-Lou White]

Mary-Lou was not equipped to deal with that much sex-talk. What very little she knew of the subject was skewed at best; depicted through the flowery language and idealistic preconceptions that peppered the many romance novels she had devoured since she turned 15. The blonde had only shared a handful of kisses with boys in her time, and most of them had been ruined when said boy/s had turned out to be decidedly less romantic than the heroes splashed over the covers of the paperback daydreams. Susie's account, whilst semi-educational, was really more than the innocent young Miss White was prepared to handle. Not to mention that it conjured up some distinctly inappropriate (but horrifyingly interesting) images of Charlie's physique that she felt were far too confronting for her tastes.

“Well, then!” Mary-Lou commented, her cheeks a little pinker and her morals a little more scandalised. She didn't doubt in the least that Susie had great sex with Charlie or that he missed said sex; but they had really devoted more time to this line of conversation than she was entirely comfortable with. “I can't wait for you to meet Edward,” she added, almost as if talking about a relationship that had come abruptly to an end prompted a chat about one that had surprisingly started. “He's just so...different, Susie. I mean,” she picked at her own s'more, her smile warm and her heart happy.

“He's really cute. And intelligent. Like, super intelligent. I really hope that he likes me. I mean, I know he likes me, or he wouldn't have agreed to go out with me on Tuesday night. But,” she said, pausing in the midst of her word-vomit. “What if he doesn't like like me? And what should I do if he does or doesn't?” Mary-Lou sighed, the action marred somewhat by the positively goofy grin resting on her pretty face that could only have been placed there by the thrill of romance.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie was pretty surprised by Mary-Lou's scandalized reaction. Followed up by her ridiculously naive discussion about whether or not Edward might like like her (she was pretty sure she actually leaked brain cells when her cousin said that), it convinced the redhead in record time that the blonde, who heretofore she had thought of as an adult, was actually arrested in development somewhere around the age of twelve. It was pretty profoundly disappointing to go from thinking that she had a peer and a confidante she could talk to when needed, to thinking that she had better be careful what she said in front of The Child in the Room. She was at once annoyed and alarmed for her cousin, worried, perhaps, that any woman as blinkered as that was bound to be taken advantage of.

Maybe she should pay Charlie to show her fair cousin what she was missing, and eliminate two birds with one stone. It worked in the Taming of the Shrew.

"Mary-Lou," she started out, sounding chiding and feeling pretty bad for the blow she was about to deal to her cousin's fantasy world. "Please don't ever say you like like someone ever again." She sat up a little to instruct her cousin, almost feeling obligated to keep her from repeating that shit to anyone else. Like, ever. "Grown men don't go on dates with women they aren't interested in," she explained, point blank. "Once a guy has expressed interest in you, the only thing you really have to think about is whether he's interested in being your boyfriend or your bedmate." Looking at her cousin seriously, she explained. "There's really no such thing as just friends, unless they're married or gay. Once you hit about fifteen, all your male 'friends' quote-unquote just secretly want to get in your pants, or they think you want to get in theirs and like the ego boost." She shrugged.

"So," she continued, intent on helping her cousin while she could. "Did he ask you out for drinks, or for dinner?"

[Mary-Lou White]

Instead of taking offence to Susie's advice, Mary-Lou was grateful. She didn't want to continue in the same way she always had, really, and she really admired the worldly and mature way her cousin directed herself. She nodded as she explained about the reason men went on dates with women and the particulars of such, fighting back a blush of 'getting into someone's pants' as she put it. When her cousin asked the question of whether she'd been asked to drinks or dinner, she suddenly felt panicked. He hadn't asked her anything! She'd been the one to first ask him to coffee and then ask him to dinner. Almost fearful as to what Susie would say, she pressed her lips together for a moment before shooting an apologetic look at the woman sharing the couch.

“Well, neither,” Mary-Lou began. “I sort've asked him. To dinner. Is that wrong?” She really hoped that Susie's advice wouldn't be to call off the date. She'd already been looking forward to the occasion so much, and she definitely didn't want to come across as a tease of any kind. “It's only Italian, you know that little place on Fourth? Something really low key. Should I have asked him to drinks instead? Or left it up to him to ask me?”

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie was actually kind of impressed by her cousin. "That's so progressive of you," she complimented her. If she had to guess, she would have said that the young woman probably stuck to really old traditions and waited for the guy to do it all. It was the safe way, Susie supposed, having given it ample consideration herself. Unfortunately, it was pretty lazy, and didn't mush with her feminist ideas at all. She liked Mary-Lou's way much better, and easily brushed aside her worries.

"If he wanted something less formal than dinner, he'd have just suggested drinks instead," she reassured the younger woman. "Dinner dates mean he at least thinks enough of you to spend an hour or two in your company. Drinks isn't bad but, well, you can get in and out of a drink date in fifteen minutes, so it's a good one to use if you don't really know if you will hit it off. Or, you know... if you just want to sleep with the person. Obviously, that's not the case here." She pursed her lips to keep from giggling or saying something unkind, and then continued positively, "Dinner is a good sign."

"I like your choice," she added, "but next time I'd be careful about taking a first date to some place you really like. If it goes sour, you don't want to always be running into him with your next date, or just on your own. Trust me, it's not good when you rock up to your favorite bar after a rough day and find some jerk that stood you up sliding onto the stool next to you." She shook her head sagely, some past memory playing in her head. Seriously, men were obnoxious.

[Mary-Lou White]

Genuinely delighted that she had managed to do something Susie approved of, Mary-Lou squirmed around on the couch to better face her cousin. Her legs were curled up underneath her, her s’more in one hand and her drink in the other as she listened to Susie in wrapt attention, nodding at regular intervals to show she was keeping up with the pace. She hadn’t thought about what wouldhappen if things went wrong and she happened to bump into Edward continuously at one of her favourite places because... well. She hadn’t really thought about what their relationship would be after their first date. To the blonde it was jumping the gun a bit. While there was no doubt in Mary-Lou’s mind that she was a good person, she knew she wasn’t the smartest book on the shelf. She wondered, deep in a small but nevertheless insecure part of herself, if she would be able to hold the interest of a guy like Edward for more than one, possibly two dates anyway.

“Right,” she agreed to Susie’s suggestion for future dates, lifting her index finger from her glass to point in agreement as she nodded and squinted her eyes a little in comprehension. Point taken and memorised! But, why was her head feeling slightly fuzzy and her cheeks a little warmer? Not used to drinking in any great quantities and certainly not hard liquor (she didn’t really like the taste but she’d drank it without lemonade because Susie hadn’t offered any) she thought it must have been the heat from the radiator and took another sip to try and cool herself off.

Mary-Lou was starting to warm to her topic as well as her surroundings. “What do I do if he asks to come upstairs?” she added, a bit embarrassed. She didn’t think that Edward was the type to be so bold, but then according to Susie if he was having dinner with her then it was certainly on his mind and her cousin hadn’t lead her astray before. Well, not since they were nine anyway (and that boy had deserved to be kicked in the family jewels). “Isn’t it a bit... slutty to not make him wait a bit longer?” She said the word ‘slutty’ like it was thick peanut butter in her vocabulary of finer condiments.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie tried desperately not to look a little put out by the rather blunt assertion by her cousin, having taken a man or two straight to bed in her lifetime, but she was terrible at hiding her emotions and it showed anyway. She shrugged, trying to play it off, not because she was really so ashamed (though perhaps a little embarrassed) but because having found out that Mary-Lou was a nun she knew exactly how it felt to know more about your cousin's oddities than you wanted. The last thing Mary-Lou probably wanted to know about her was that she was, as she put it, a slut. (But only occasionally, thankyouverymuch.)

"It depends on what you want," she pointed out wisely. "He probably doesn't expect anything on the first date. I think the magic number these days is the third date," she said with a shrug. "But you'd have to read Cosmo for that, because I don't pay any attention to it, and you definitely don't have to follow it if you don't want to, because it's completely stupid." She shrugged, and then, because she thought it was quite a silly question, she added in an incredulous tone, "If he asks to come upstairs tell him no!"

Then, she looked at her cousin seriously. She envisioned the event, Mary-Lou standing there trying to emulate Susie's tone, and coming across as a stone-cold bitch. Since Susie generally wanted to come across that way and her cousin didn't, she figured she had better correct herself. "Tell him," she added, tilting her shoulders in a girly way. Then she smiled a little coquettishly, an expression that was as becoming as it was foreign on the straight-forward detective. "Another time, maybe..." Feeling more than a bit silly, she quickly let the pretense drop. "You'll figure it out," she told her cousin, showing a bit more confidence in her abilities than she might have if she thought about it. Trial and error did wonders; it just so happened Susie had a lot of that behind her.

[Mary-Lou White]

Because she was hopelessly clueless when it came to people most of the time anyway, Mary-Lou had no idea that she’d offended her cousin and would have apologised profusely if she had noticed. As it was, she was keener to hear Susie’s advice (and more than happy to follow it, seeing as she didn’t really know what the whole dating game was about anyway. If her infinitely cooler-than-her cousin had told her it was perfectly acceptable to take a man to bed on the first date – or even without one – Mary-Lou might well have tried it, such was Susie’s unwitting influence over the blonde.

She couldn’t help but stifle a giggle at Susie’s advising her to tell him no if he asked to come upstairs; she really didn’t think he would at any rate. The serious look from the wiser chocolate eyes of her cousin quietened and laughed at Susie’s imitation of the way she should phrase such a possible rejection. Eventually settling for nibbling on her bottom lip thoughtfully, she supposed that Susie was right and she would figure it out. It didn’t mean that the endless ways in which it could go horribly wrong didn’t scare the pants off her anyway!

“Thanks Suze,” Mary-Lou smiled, leaning forward to clink her glass with her cousins’. “You’re the best. Now I only have to think about what to wea---ARGH!” The ripping of a shower curtain back and the dramatic swirling of blood around a shower drain silenced the blonde for a moment and the pair resumed their movie, each with her own thoughts to ponder for the time being.