Galatea(4/8)

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Spoilers: None. You can imagine this sometime during the second or third season. Your choice.

Disclaimers: The characters and situations of the television program "Charlie's Angels" are the creations and property of Spelling-Goldberg Productions and Columbia Pictures Television, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I retain the rights to the plot. You may download and distribute this story as long as my name stays on the by-line.

Rating: R

Summary: Part 4 of the Significant Other fanfic. Alan deals with his past, and luckily finds his friend Sabrina at his office afterwards. They have a long talk.

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Reality mirrored art. The tranquil interiors both charged with moods. Every action had meaning, every object could be symbolic.

I sighed. "Sylvia. What do you want now?"

"Oh Alan, we're both adults now," she replied, "let's be civil."

"You started it."

"I always had to start it," she said.

"I'm too tired of talking to you every month to be civil." I responded. "Let's just dispense with the charade, shall we? Why are you here? How did you find me?"

"I don't have to be a so-called detective to find you," she said with a smile. She looked like a benevolent crocodile. "I also don't have to be sleeping with you to know what attracts you."

"Like this exhibit…" she continued, "so typical of you, Alan. You're so predictable. That's why your painting's don't sell."

"What are you doing here?" I asked, seething.

"I'm slumming. Wondering when my starving artiste, soon-to-be ex-husband will sign the papers that will make me a free woman."

"You mean you're doing charity work now?" I asked, wishing I had drunk martinis instead of beers so that I could produce the perfect dryness. "Since when did you start giving it away for free?"

"At least I don't charge as much as that slut of a PI you're dating." Sylvia spat. "Give me a break. A female PI? We all know what sort of privates she investigates."

"You know, Sylvia, you've given such great head all your life, it's no wonder you've got nothing in yours."

She backhanded me. It didn't hurt much, but I did end up wishing that Donald hadn't set such a large diamond into her wedding ring. I grabbed her wrists and held them down on her lap. To anyone else, we would seem a tender couple, talking amongst the paintings.

"What do you want, Sylvia?" I asked through gritted teeth. She seemed momentarily frightened and the piteous look she gave me almost made me let go. Then her eyes took on the glint of steel they always had when we fought.

"You haven't signed the papers."

"Of course I have." I smiled. "After all, you're much too good for me. I wouldn't want to keep you from your paying customers."

"If you've signed the papers then they're somewhere in your filthy apartment." She said shortly. "Now get your hands off me before I accuse you of assault."

"Me? Assault you? You're the one who backhanded me, dah-ling." I said, imitating her accent perfectly. "Why not get big bad Donald Dah-ling, your accountant from hell, to try and beat the crap out of me? Isn't he going to protect his property? I'm sure he pays well enough for your services. Your fabulous future-in-laws and his trust fund would see to that. You are a costly, if dubious, trinket."

If I hadn't kept my grip on her hands my other cheek would have been stinging too.

"Take your hands off me."

"Only if you promise to leave." I said, looking her in the eye and making sure she understood that there would be no compromise, no negotiation on this score.

She laughed. "You don't take anyone's promises, Alan. Least of all mine."

I smiled and loosened my grip. She rubbed her wrists and looked at me, my brown eyes met her gray ones. Eye to eye, head to head, we assessed each other. I heard my students begin to return. It was close to the designated assembly time.

She smiled. "I trust we won't be continuing this conversation?"

"Not if you stay on your side of the tracks." I sneered.

"Excellent." Sylvia said, twirling on her heel. "Have that cunt you sleep with hunt up the papers. That's what she does, isn't it? I expect them to be at my lawyer's by Friday."

There's always a woman. In every story, every life, there was always a woman.

I thought I knew them, understood them. The way they talked without really saying anything definite. I thought I was fluent with the syntax of their deceit. Sylvia certainly was.

We had met in high school, she sat beside Sabrina in Algebra. Sylvia Carson was pure meltdown. She came from a long line of steel money and was one of the wealthiest scions in the state. Sylvia's trim body in her white cardigan inspired ten or twenty thousand youthful erections. I was convinced that in her arms I would find the purpose of my entire existence.

Sabrina, of course, not being what you could call conventionally-beautiful in high school hated her guts. Oh, not in a petty, envious way but on purely moral standards. Even then Sylvia had no concept of remorse. She would date whoever she wanted, sleep with whoever she wanted, and use whoever she wanted.

"Why you guys would want her oohing and ahhing about everything you do is beyond me." Sabrina used to snort.

I never did make a habit of taking her advice. There were other girls, sweeter girls, more sensible and level-headed, definitely smarter girls. But as every horny adolescent knows, you can't fuck a brain.

When Sylvia and I hooked up together in senior year, I shared the surprise of the entire graduating class. True, I wasn't hard to look at, but no one would've ever mistaken me for a linebacker. Then again, I wasn't the bongo-playing type either. I was one of those kids you always forgot was around. Sort of middling in every way. I wasn't even the best student in my art class. Mostly I drifted in and out of my classes, trying not to embarrass myself too much. After school Sabrina and I would take off, neither of us wanted to get home till after both of our families were done having dinner. We played chess, we played poker. We watched movies. We talked about doing something with our lives that would "make a difference." The two of us were horribly square.

When other guys started paying attention to Sabrina, somehow discovering as young men do, that she was blooming into a nubile young woman, I kept a wary eye on them. I was jealous of the time my only confidante spent with those bums. They probably thought she was some bleeding heart liberal, but were willing to put up with any nonsense just to get in her pants.

Then she went out with Louis McClelland, cool cat, prom king, certainly destined for the Rose Bowl. Louis had a reputation for not understanding the word "no". When he misunderstood Sabrina's very definite cries in the back seat of his Chevy I threw my one-hundred-and-twenty pounds of manliness on him and bashed his head in his locker several times before someone pulled me off.

I was lucky. I had the element of surprise. I also won myself a reputation that would have rivaled any romantic hero's. The biggest stroke of luck however, was that I had won Sylvia Carson's respect.

I treated her like a goddess, and as a proper supplicant, was torn between defiling her and deifying her. This combination of lust and shame overlaid by my hapless servitude must have turned her on. I could tell her interesting things, why shadows fell the way they did, what a blue moon really was…

She taught me to dance, to sing, to fit in with everyone else. I lost my virginity to her on a spring night when the cherry trees were in bloom. We must have been in love. It seems so long ago, but I think we may have loved each other once. After all, we did get married.

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"Alan, have you been drinking?" a familiar voice asked.

Sabrina Duncan stood outside the little office beside the art room the high school had so kindly furnished for me. A fat dossier was tucked under her arm.

"What makes you think I've been drinking?"

"Well, you usually say 'Hi' when you see someone in the hallway instead of walking right by them."

"Sorry. Just preoccupied."

I unlocked the door and allowed her to precede me. She made it a point to come close enough to smell me and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"You have been drinking!"

I nodded tiredly. I removed some of my student's work from the only other chair in the room, and motioned her to sit down. I put the pile beside another stack of artwork I'd been meaning to grade. Collapsing into my chair, I placed my duffel bag on the floor and stared at her.

"What brings you here?"

"I have to take art lessons." Sabrina replied. "And I heard Mr. Pierson was the sexiest teacher on the planet."

She waved the topic off and glared at me. "More importantly, what in the world were you thinking? You can't go to class drunk!"

"I am not drunk." I attested. There wasn't even a trace of a slur in my voice. I touched my nose with my eyes closed. "I only had three beers. One an hour, with some really greasy fries and some prime rib. I'm digesting everything perfectly. There's no need to worry."

"I think there is," she said softly.

"Oh come on, Bri." I complained. "You have more than one drink a day."

"Yes, I do." She agreed. "But always by choice, never out of need."

Sabrina's eyes pierced through the cloud of annoyance that had formed around me since I left home. "It's not the drinking per se that I'm worried about. It's the reason you're drinking."

"Look," she continued, "I know it's none of my business, but if you and Kelly are having problems—"

I gave a hoarse laugh. "How are you so sure that something's wrong between me and Kelly?"

"I've known both of you too long to miss the signs," she replied. "Besides, you only ever start drinking this early when it's about a girl."

"There's always a woman." I said, repeating my former thoughts.

Sabrina nodded. "There always seems to be when it comes to you."

I tapped my nose pensively. "You know me too well."

"Well, I haven't called the cops yet." Sabrina smiled, and offered me a breath mint. "I haven't had lunch yet. Care to escort me to the cafeteria?"

I gave her a look of intense horror. "You brave, brave girl."

"Is the food all that bad?" Sabrina asked.

"No," I replied, "but I don't think you want to subject yourself to teenage pick-up lines."

She pursed her lips and gave me a rueful smile.

"I'm serious," I continued, imitating one of my students. "Hey baby, you wanna see the back seat of my car?"

She rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "I'll try not to retch. We'll grab a sandwich and a soda—"

"We?"

"Yeah. You can watch me eat."

"Oh, joy." I said, clasping my hands to my chest.

"And then while you're preparing for your next class, I'll do you a favor and straighten up your room." Sabrina said, looking every inch like her mother as her nose crinkled up in disdain at the dust and disarray around her. "I'm surprised Kelly hasn't taken a rag and some Lysol to this place. It's filthy."

I shrugged. "She's never been here."

Sabrina looked at me curiously. "Never?"

"Never." I repeated. "She's been too busy."

"Ah," she said knowingly.

Before I could ask her what she meant, the din of four hundred high school students drowned out all thought. I pushed the swinging doors of the cafeteria open, and some heads — student and faculty — followed Sabrina as she got a turkey sandwich and a Dr. Pepper.

Back at my cubicle, she took genteel bites out of her sandwich and stifled a yawn as I tilted my chair back and meditated on the nondescript beige of the ceiling. "Why're you here again?"

"I have to pass myself off as an art teacher by tomorrow. Something nasty is going down at this prep school in Palo Alto and we've been hired by the board of directors to solve their…problems."

I grunted to signify polite interest. I wished Kelly could tell me these things.

"What is that melodramatic snorting supposed to mean?" Sabrina asked.

I had to laugh. I stopped looking at the ceiling and pulled open my desk drawer. "It means I have something for you."

"Really?" Sabrina asked, leaning over the desk and peeping into the drawer. "What? That horrible tie? I think it's already dead Alan, but I could shoot it for you just to make sure."

"Hey, I happen to think it's me!" I said, putting on the paisley monstrosity.

"Alan Pierson, if that's you, you need years of serious therapy."

I fished out a piece of oslo paper triumphantly. "Aha, here we go. I've been meaning to give this to you. I found it in my old sketchpad when I was sorting the junk to take here and the junk to leave in New York."

Sabrina took the letter-sized paper and her eyes widened and gleamed. Running her fingers over the drawing silently, she shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'll never get used to how talented you are." Sabrina said, the sincerity in her voice making my ego sing. "Look at this. It's like a photo. How in the world do you do that?"

"It's nothing." I said sheepishly. "It's all in the shadows. What's there and what's not."

Sabrina kept shaking her head. She held the charcoal sketch up to the light. In it a young Sabrina, her shoulder-length hair strewn in every direction, her face taut with concentration and ambition, looked out from the page. I had drawn her on top of her horse in that last summer before she moved away. The cross-country show-jumping course had always been her event, and she had made it a point to train for it every year.

"Whatever happened to Beauty?" I asked.

"Mother sold him when I married Bill." Sabrina replied softly. "She wasn't too thrilled about having two cops in the family. I guess she always thought he was a bad influence."

"For once, your mother was right." I said, taking out an empty plastic tube for the sketch and offering it to her.

"Hey," Sabrina warned, raising her hand to stop any further discussion, "clean your own kitchen before you meddle with mine, Mister."

"Where did you dig up that old chestnut?" I asked.

"Oh no," she said. "We are not going to change the subject."

"Moi? Change the subject?"

"Please, you're as complex as a plastic cup." Sabrina said, starting to arrange the piles of papers on my desk.

"I'd have to second that." Doug said, suddenly appearing at the door.

"Don't you ever knock?" I asked in mock-exasperation.

"No." Doug replied. "Sabrina, you should have seen him at his Figure Drawing class at UCLA this morning. They were doing nudes."

Sabrina smiled at him in undisguised curiosity.

"He was like Nixon preaching honesty. It was all very Freudian." Doug laughed. "You should have a shirt that says: 'take my advice, I'm not using it'."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said, glaring at him. I had probably been too engrossed this morning to notice that he was still hanging around. I sighed. Doug made himself comfortable on my desk and began to regale Sabrina with the secret screams of my unconscious.

"He said: 'Don't judge, just draw' and 'Weak drawing is often the result of not looking properly at the subject'."

His hearty laughter had mellowed into a smile you could mine for irony. "And here's my favorite… 'Don't be so frustrated. Just keep looking and keep drawing.' You had a gorgeous model, by the way, Alan. Where'd you find her? Should Kelly be jealous?"

I groaned. "Did you have a reason for coming down here?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Doug grinned. "I have an idea about how you can pay for all that food for the exhibit next week. I've talked to Benny, and we've decided that you can design our logo."

"You've already got one." I observed.

"It stinks." he said matter-of-factly. "It looks like something out of a bad UFO hoax, with matching little green men."

I shrugged, rubbing my tired eyes.

"Look, just do something tasteful but modern. It'll be on the neon sign outside and on the napkins and menus." Doug said. "You'll cut down the original catering quotation by 40%."

I grinned. "Now that is the best news I've heard all day."

"Nope." Doug replied. "The best news you've heard all day is that I'm determined to get you out of this funk. You're going to get yourself spiffed up, and we're going to go out on the town."

"I don't know…"

"Come on. We'll pick up some Cuban cigars and live it up." Doug coaxed. "It'll be like a moving frat party."

I sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"Well… let's go." Doug said expectantly.

"Uh, sorry to put a damper on your plans, Doug." Bri piped up. "But Alan needs to give me some art lessons."

Doug gasped. "I knew it! Alan, you two-timing swine!"

Sabrina looked at Doug and then shifted her gaze to me.

"Old joke." I explained.

"That's what he always said he and his girlfriends were doing." Doug said helpfully.

"Ah." Sabrina nodded in understanding.

"Anyway, you can drop Alan off at Benny's can't you? In return for the lessons?" Doug asked.

"Yeah, sure."

"Great, I'll see you later." Doug said, giving Bri a peck on the cheek. "And Alan…"

"What?"

"Do us all a favor. Burn that damned tie."