Kay Howard thought she might be the last woman on earth to be at a lunch talking about work/life balance. True, she was a sergeant, but the zeal that had led her to success on the street, and in theory had gotten her here, had kept her from being the kind of smooth-haired, soft-voiced grade-grubbing type that departments liked to make deputy chiefs out of. It was finally getting easy to admit that, whatever her rookie’s dreams of a limitless future might have been and how much work she’d put into the task(including, she noted with some intellectual satisfaction, really high test scores), she’d probably climbed as high she could on the chilly metal ladder of the Baltimore Police Department. Much like the little bits of shrapnel left in her body from the shooting, the realization only hurt once in a while.
Also, until recently, apart from a brief epiphany following being shot, there hadn’t been much to balance. A few affairs, and, like Danvers, snatched dating that felt like affairs. Work had been everything. Now it wasn’t, though she still liked finding a challenge and digging in hard, which must be what got her invited to this little shindig, and maybe, what made her crazy enough to finally say yes, instead of letting the invitation be one of the few brightly-colored things in her wastebasket.
Out of habit, she studied the other panelists. Even though she had taken trouble with her look today, she could see that some of the other women held some sort of style secret she didn’t. Her basic black felt like a waitress uniform in some indefinable way. When Kay was in high school, she’d had a black-and-white dress that she’d loved until she’d gone to some school dressy occasion and worn what the waitresses had on.
In those days, the realization had gotten her back up, but lately she’d been cribbing from Bayliss’ endless store of meditation techniques, and was able to think about it calmly. All the same, she’ll be happy not to see any waitstaff until she’s done speaking. She was still nervous, but she hoped it didn’t show. Maybe it did a little because the little moment that often accompanied microphones with the squeal of feedback got more of a a snicker from the crowd than usual.
Hello,” Kay said. “I’m Sergeant Kay Howard, and I don’t know about anyone else here, but I’d be more comfortable on a drug corner right now.” She suddenly wished Munch hadn’t had to be in court in New York today. She could count on him to find her funny, even sometimes when she wished he wouldn’t. If Quinn were here, at least it would be easier to feel that a little social awkwardness wouldn’t be the worst thing she could face in a room full of cops.
She’d known bits and pieces about his shooting incident; there was a small community, and if there were anything cops liked more than drinking, it was gossip. They weren’t any better than citizens, though, at separating what they saw from their own prejudices. People called Terry careless, and, in one persistent ignorant internet loudmouth’s case, continued to imply everything from Quinn being dirty to his being high on cocaine. None of which she’d noticed, but given how she’d met him, she figured that her comments would not be welcomed.
With a guilty flush, she understood why she sometimes found Munch hunched over his laptop muttering to himself. Some of these online people were out of their minds.
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