Hi, you've reached Lisa and Cassidy. We think it's pretty important to have lives of our own, so chances are we're off doing that. But if you leave us a message, we'll get back to you when we get bored.


[ooc] you know the drill - IC and OOC comments welcome!

I don't think it's the same every time. Relationships end for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's your fault. Sometimes it's his fault. It's usually his fault. And sometimes you're both to blame. I think there are times when you don't even realize it's over until it's been over for weeks. As human beings we learn to delude ourselves. To hold onto things that are already gone.

I used to think it was over once you walked away, because where can you go from there? If you're not present, you've got nothing. But I've learned that relationships can long outlast physical presence. Everyone's had at least one relationship that just will not die. You try so hard to separate yourself, like yolks and egg whites, but that takes the kind of time and precision that most of us don't have. Maybe we don't want to have it.

Divorce papers mean nothing. Especially if they never actually go through. You can divorce yourself from any situation and still feel something. You can look at him, and think about everything he's put you through and all the night you waited up for nothing, and sometimes you still feel it. Love. That pesky, incessant little emotion that rules and ruins us. I don't know if you can ever really move on from it. You think, he hurt me, he killed me, he tore me apart. You hate him and wonder why there's still love there. But really, why would you ever want it to go away? Love is so stupidly rare and fantastic. So what if it hurts.

Anyway. Point is, relationships are never really over. Not if they meant something. Not to me, at least.

Muse | Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 283

After the Student Academy Awards, Cassidy doesn't even have the energy to talk to Donna Pascal. Weeks and weeks of raving about the star of Saturday Night Fever, and her loss has brought her down so far that she can't even enjoy it when the actress chooses to party after the show in our suite. Nash missed it, of course. Part of me wonders if that's half the reason Cass is so distraught, but the rest of me is positive that she'd be even more distraught if her father had been there to watch her lose.

Leaving poor Donna Pascal in Nick's company, I find Cassidy on the balcony, sulking. Of course. But I guess seventeen-year-olds are entitled to sulking privileges. Give it a few more years and everyone's just going to tell her to suck it up. We're both quiet for awhile, as I think of what the hell I can offer her to get her out of this funk. My first instinct is a dessert buffet, but she's already been complaining to everyone in San Francisco that it's my fault she's gained five pounds. As if I force my desserts down her throat or something. We could go up to Sonoma maybe, for a weekend. But what the hell would she do in wine country? Sonoma was the weapon Nash used to unleash on me whenever I got on his case for working so much. "Hey, hey, don't worry about it, I'll take you up to Sonoma next weekend." He never would, of course, but the mere proposition used to shut me up for awhile. And Cass is too old for Disneyland. I assume.

With a sigh, I sit down beside her sloaching frame and slip an arm around her shoulders. "Can't win 'em all, kiddo." She glances over at me, totally unimpressed. "Uh, thanks, Mom."

Seventeen-year-olds are hard to cheer up. The only real solution, I have learned, is to wait until they finally forget about it. And they will forget about it.

Muse | Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 340

Lisa decides she wants a divorce on a Sunday. By Monday morning at 10am, she has her husband's sister representing her. "If that's not a victory in itself," she says. "I don't know what is."

Hiring Stacy Bridges as her divorce lawyer was about as simple as anything else. Stacy and Nash were known to have their differences, and often clashed on a large variety of issues. Their respective approaches to marriage and family was one of them. And as far as this case went, Stacy was on Lisa's side. They spent weeks working together, sorting things out. Lisa made a long, long list of what she wanted - consisting mostly of things she knew Nash would contest - and an even longer list of what her grievances were. The day the two sides came together to discuss the paperwork. Neither lawyer got a word in edgewise over the sparring soon-to-be former couple. But it was Nash who eventually gave in. The more he argued with her, the more her terms seemed reasonable.

Following the meeting, Stacy made the mistake of taking Lisa to a bar. Lisa had never been much of a drinker - this was well-known amongst her circle of friends. Even in college, she had perpetually been the designated driver. Her friends, Nash included, always referred to her as their "drunk diary," because "the next day we can always open her up and find out what we did the night before." Lisa simply enjoyed the mocking that being the only sober one in the room allowed her to do. Mocking and, inevitably, leverage. Lisa had always been a very savvy woman.

But then AC/DC starts playing at the bar and before Lisa knows the difference, she's had more drinks than Stacy can count. And before Stacy can even try, they're outside the home of Joe and Inger Dominquez, which houses the couch Nash has been crashing on since Lisa kicked him out. Upon opening the door, Joe takes one look at Lisa and runs off to inform that his drunk soon-to-be ex-wife would like to see him. Stunned and marginally terrified at the prospect of a drunk Lisa, Nash reluctantly goes to the door, where Lisa promptly tells him that she never wants to see him again. "Uh huh," Nash replies, skeptically sizing her up.

"And furthermore," Lisa continues, her voice slurring madly. "Let it henceforth be known that when my time comes I would like to be cremated. Because I don't even want to give you the chance to come visit me."

The next morning, she wrote him a letter professing her love. And never sent it.

Muse | Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 406

She spends her night at home, waiting for him. Cassidy's in bed before nine, and Lisa is left with nothing but the evening news and an old romance novel she's read at least fifteen times. At least twice an hour she thinks about calling the station, but it's no use. "Baby, I'll be home as soon as I can, I promise." She takes him more seriously when he doesn't promise her anything. Making a promise is like overcompensating to her. He should mean what he says without having to throw in that little addendum at the end.

Still, she always waits up. When her eyes grow weary of the book and she can't bear to watch more footage of downtown shootings - knowing that in all probability, that's exactly where Nash is - she goes into the kitchen. For a long time, on these nights, she ate. She ate anything and everything, just to have something to do with her hands. Lately she's taken to cooking instead. Baking. She had always been skilled in the kitchen, but never had time to explore that skill before preparing the three meals of the day. Even if now she was a sad, lonely, worried wife of a cop, at least she was being productive. And productivity was key.

But there are nights, moments when she's positively bowled over by what her life has come. A young, vibrant, woman. Beautiful, smart, witty. Married to a man she loves, but hardly ever sees. A man she hardly even has the energy to argue with anymore. And with that gone...

Every night Lisa  absently licks the batter off the spoon and wonders what she's doing. And how she can get out.

Muse |Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 285

My teenage daughter hates every man I bring home. And loves every woman her father brings home.

...Is this normal?

My ex-husband and I are both flitrts. We were even when we met. That's how we met. If Nash and I hadn't both been unabashed flirts, we never would have even crossed paths. He likes the attention of a beautiful woman, I like the attention of the handsome man. And we're both attractive people, so attractive people were bound to approach us. And we were both always powerless in that kind of situation. And inevitably, when one of us would flirt, the other would inevitably find out. And inevitably there would be a screaming, crushing, massive fight. Which was always too bad for poor Cassidy. But for years, there was no way around it. Nash and I were far too stubborn to realize the pattern. And the fighting almost always led to sex, so neither of us were ever inclined to complain about it. The cycle was vicious.

Nine years after our divorce, flirting is still our downfall. He still can't stand to see me flirt with another man, or to see another man flirt with me. I still get angry with I see him with another woman. To be honest, things really haven't changed that much.

Muse | Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 199

Her latest was James Whitaker, and she had met him at a costume party. He had been dressed as a cop, though he looked more like a member of the Village People - or so Lisa remarked to a friend as he approached her. "Sorry," she had said with a dismissive hand wave and a facetious smirk. "I was married to a cop for twelve years. I don't find it very attractive." But he had kept one eye on her the rest of the night. The next morning, she got a call. His name was James Whitaker and he was an investment banker. Not a cop. An investment banker-not cop who couldn't stop thinking about her. He was smart, successive, overwhelmingly handsome, and exactly the type of man she wanted her ex-husband to see her with.

She had been dating him casually for about two weeks when he left for a brief business trip down to San Diego. He called her on the second night, sometime after eleven. They kept the conversation clean for about as long as they could, until suddenly they were finding unwitting sexual innuendo hidden in every other phrase.

"What are you wearing?"

Before Lisa even had time to blush, she heard a click. Her eyes widened and she jumped out of bed, calling out Cassidy's name. Holding the phone at her side, her angry footsteps traveled from room to room, her search yielding zero results. It was then that she remembered Cassidy had gone to study with a friend, and there was no one else in the house. Bringing the phone back up to her ear, she apologized to James, who was waiting on the other line thoroughly baffled. Halfway through her apology, she heard sirens and caught a glimpse of familiar red lights flashing through the window. And then the doorbell rang. She dropped the phone down to her side again and ran into the foyer, flinging open the front door wearing only her bathrobe.

"Nash!"

( Read more... )

Muse | Lisa Bridges
Fandom | Nash Bridges
Word Count | 732