Doors closing, doors opening
A little Leslie and Ben point of view on The Smallest Park. Not beta'd - hope you enjoy.
As he’s getting up from the bench and walking away, she suddenly knows she can open a different door. One that she’d been ignoring out of the corner of her eye for days, weeks, months.
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Ben, it’sLesliepleasedon’thangup. I know, I really know that you don’t owe me anything, but still I have one big favour to ask of you. Can we talk, just this one time? I have one thing I want to tell you and I was hoping it could be in person. Can you meet me for just five minutes, at the smallest park? At eight? Or let me know if you need it to be at a different time. But unless I hear from you, I’ll be waiting for you there at 8:00 and if you come, you can hear what I have to say and be gone by five after. That’s it. Thank you for listening. And I really hope you come. OK thanks. Bye. Bye.
Leslie sits at JJ’s and stares out the window. She’s not working, or checking for messages, or reading the newspaper. She’s just killing time. It’s 7:25, and soon she has to go clear the air with Ben.
If he comes at all. She can’t say she’d blame him if he didn’t. What if he doesn’t? Maybe she’ll just have to write him a letter of apology and leave it at that.
She’s letting Ben close the door on her. She can’t believe it’s come to this. But it really, really has. She’s trying to let it sink in that she won’t have Ben in her life at all - not as a lover, not as a friend, not even as a colleague any more. Just another person who works at City Hall who she doesn’t work directly with. Like Kyle. This what he is saying he needs, and she’s starting to realize how much he needs it.
But she can’t think about what that would be like. It’s just... it’s really like the door would close and she’d be in an empty hallway with nowhere to go. She can’t envision what’s next, after this conversation. Because nothing’s next. That’s the point, right?
She thinks about her conversation with Ann. She knows she steamrolls people. Or bulldozes them. Whatever. If she thinks back to high school or even college, she sees how much better she’s gotten at tempering her approach, to meld her ideas with other people’s - how she’s been able to work well within city government, which certainly doesn’t make it easy to get things done alone. And she knows she’s gotten better at it within relationships, too (although Dave might disagree, based on Halloween alone).
But it’s still the trap she will fall into. It’s partly defensive (she stops listening to other people), and partly offensive (she plows straight ahead), if she thinks about it. She does it more when she’s under stress, or unsure of herself. Which she’s been lately. Which she was more often when she was younger. But lately she’d been hitting more of a stride. She thinks about Harvest Festival, and how Ben’s influence kept her on track. That and being absolutely sure that she was doing something fantastic.
Sometimes she wonders what the hell she’s doing running for office, anyhow. Not that she thinks she has to be perfect, but still. What a mess she’s been making of things lately.
She also steamrolls over people more when she knows deep down she’s behaving badly. When she’s knows she’s wrong. When things are going in the wrong direction. Which... well, really, aside from her behaviour to, and around, Ben, things have been going pretty well. It’s just...
She toys with her fork. For once she doesn’t want to eat. JJ is going to think she’s got the flu again or something. Maybe she should take it to go in case he worries.
She thinks back to what she wrote about the waffles in her book - why can’t the perfect waffle be here? This is really such a great waffle. She’s quite prepared to think the best of it, that it could very well be the ideal waffle.
She pushes the plate away with a sigh and grabs her bag. It’s time to go and sit on that cute little park bench and see if Ben comes to talk to her for the last time.
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Watching him actually close that door is so very painful. But she does get it. She hears the pain in his voice. How he really does see it as the only answer that he can survive. And she says, “OK” because she really can do that for him.
But then she’s standing by herself in that empty hallway with nowhere to go next.
Or... no, actually, she’s not.
As he’s getting up from the bench and walking away, she suddenly knows she can open a different door. One that she’d been ignoring out of the corner of her eye for days, weeks, months.
And behind that door, it’s all there, all the things she wants, all the things she wants to say. This is what is true. This is how she feels.
She’s never said anything more important in her life.
And then she has to shut up.
But it’s awful.
“How do you feel?”
If she’d eaten any of that waffle, she’d probably want to throw up.
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As he gets up from the bench, he feels exhausted, aching. He’s getting what he asked for, and they’ve made their peace, but it’s the hollowest victory he could ever imagine.
“There is another option.”
What now? We can’t seriously be opening this up again.
Do this for real? What does that mean? Wait, what does that mean?
Screw it... screw it?
“We’d have to tell Chris...”
“Yeah!”
Huh.
“There might be a scandal...”
“Yeah.”
Wow.
“It might hurt your campaign.”
“Yes.”
How...
“How do you imagine we do this?”
Does she have a plan? Doesn’t Leslie always have a plan? There would have to be a plan... what could the plan be?
“I don’t know. But I know how I feel. I wanna be with you.”
Good lord. The hope in her eyes is...
“But I’m done steamrolling people. This is how I feel. How do you feel?”
And he sees the look on her face.
How do I feel?
I feel like I never want to see you look so scared again.
I feel like kissing you is the most important thing I can possibly do.
I feel like doing this forever.