Reflections

Chapter 2 - Girl with the Gin and Tonic

"Detective," the waitress said disrupting the quiet din of conversation around her. She looked up at the cheerful smile surrounded by golden curls that cascaded past her shoulders in a carelessly swept up ponytail. A few ringlets had escaped and were plastered to her temples. Her eyes were blue, like the sky on a clear summer day. Somehow her golden sweetness seemed out of place in the bar's stained, dark wooded interior.

"Is it that obvious Goldilocks?" Detective Solito leaned back in the booth. The glass in the window had been designed to deliberately blur out the sight of the busy sidewalk and street just beyond it. Usually, she found this feature rather charming. Sitting beside the glass panes of the window, she could forget the streets, the traffic, but mostly the people that inhabited this city.

"Were you trying to stand out from the clientele?" Her smile was accompanied by a soft chuckle, but it dimmed quickly leaving behind wary burning blue eyes. Her shoulders seemed to droop a little further. Or what that just a trick of the light? "You're not someone I could easily forget. I'm alive because of you."

"In the uniform we all look alike," Detective Solito said in a tight voice. With a careless shrug and a barely audible deep breath, she forced herself to relax. She looked up into the server's face, as if memorizing the details for a future line up. Her name tag said "Wendy" on it. "I was just doing my job, Wendy, like you're doing yours."

Wendy looked at Detective Solito, pen and pad in hand, ready to take her order. Wendy's blue eyes said she wanted to speak but, in the end, she decided to refrain from further expressing her gratitude and forgo any small talk. Smart girl. "What can I get you?"

"Get me Gianni's special." She looked away. She wasn't here for the company or the conversation. Tonight, she just wanted Gianni's gin and tonic.

"Sure thing Detective." Wendy's voice was soft as a stage whisper when she spoke after taking down the order. She turned to walk away but then hesitated slightly. Her mouth opened and the words poured out like wine spilled across a white tablecloth, entirely unavoidable. "I remember the look on your face when you pulled the trigger. I wished at that moment I had the guts to do the same. You set me free that night. How could I forget the face of my avenging angel?"

Detective Solito stared at her. She knew that look. They all had it. They were all so damn grateful. They were never more than victims looking for a hero, someone to save them. Sometimes she felt like the understudy to the understudy to the matinee lead, suddenly shoved into the role and onto the stage, left to stumble through lines she barely rehearsed. Maybe this is the part they left out in the comics, how Superman really felt when having to rescue the hapless humans. All that Kryptonian power and its only purpose was to save those who couldn't or wouldn't save themselves.

"Try," the word was a little too gruff. When she had saved Wendy's life, she had cast herself into a hell of her own making. It wasn't that she didn't care to remember that moment or the day, but that she couldn't. Forcing her voice so it sounded softer, she added "I was just doing my job."

"I am so grateful," Wendy said, her voice slightly breathless. And there it was, the earnest need for understanding, sympathy, as if they were of the utmost importance. The glowing gratitude emanated from her blue eyes, turning them a shade darker that made Detective Solito grimace with repugnance.

"Look Goldilocks," she said in a cold flat voice full of authority. "I'm not here to reminisce. So why don't you run along and get me that gin and tonic?"

Wendy looked visibly disconcerted. Her mouth opened as if to apologize at the detective's raised eyebrow, raised deliberately to discourage whatever was waiting to come out. She gulped, forced a blank, courteous smile onto her face before replying. "You got it, Detective."