He took a last drag on his cigarette and then crushed it out with finality.
“I never expected you when Lieutenant Manning told me I would be working with a detective,” Mandy said, reaching up to touch his cheek, which was growing rough with stubble.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Middle aged, sloppy baggy suit, a cigar. Maybe a fedora.”
He was laughing. “You’ve watched too many old movies. You forgot the trench coat.”
“I didn’t expect young and sexy and…”
“And?”
“A personality.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that I have a personality?” he said teasingly. Then he saw that she was looking up at him lovingly and he bent to kiss her.
“Let’s go back to the bedroom,” he murmured. “Being here reminds me of the time you got the last note from Cameron. I gave you that drink and you slept all night on the couch. It wasn’t the best time I’ve ever had.”
“Why?”
“I spent the entire night half awake, fighting to keep myself from taking you into the bedroom.” He helped her to her feet and then stood up after her, taking her hand in his.
“You could have fooled me. I was trying hard to seduce you, to no effect.”
“You were drunk, Amanda.”
“I wasn’t that drunk. I was trying to seduce you and you wouldn’t go for it because of your police ethics. You’re such a Boy Scout.”
“On my honor, I will try,” he said softly, lifting her hand to his mouth.
“Try what?”
“Try to keep Amanda Redfield from seducing me,” he said. She could barely see him in the dark but the flash of his white teeth told her he was smiling.
“Too late,” she whispered.
He led her inside and along the hall to the bedroom, pausing every few seconds to kiss her.
“I’ve made a decision,” she said, turning her head to avoid his seeking mouth.
“What?” The word was barely audible as he pressed his lips to her neck.
“When you no longer desire me I’ll go to Italy and join a cloistered convent where the nuns pray all day.”
“You’ll be too old to travel by then,” he murmured huskily.
“I’ll take a vow of silence,” she added.
“I’d buy a ticket to that,” he said dryly.
“And I’ll connect with the outside world only through a grille.”
“A barbecue grill?” he muttered, pushing open the bedroom door.
“Is that a hint that I should be cooking for you?”
“Certainly not. You had no time for cooking lessons between law school and studying for the bar and then putting the bad guys in jail. I love pizza and chow mein and tabu-whatever that stuff was.”
He set her down on the bed and dropped next to her.
“Tabouleh.”
“Magically delicious,” he said in a vaudeville brogue.
“It’s very good for you,” Mandy said, laughing at his sudden accent.
“You’re very good for me.”
“I can tell that you’re not taking me seriously, Brendan.”
“How can you tell that, Amanda?” He turned and pulled her into his arms.
“I can tell because you’re distracting me with sex,” she said, nuzzling him.
“Sex with you is very distracting,” he countered.
“You smell so good,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Being close to you just intoxicates me, always has. It’s pheromones.”
He rolled off her and put his arm across his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What are pheromones, professor? I’ve heard the word but don’t know the details.”
“Animal attraction. It’s a scientifically proven fact that certain people find certain other people magnetic because of their scent. It’s predetermined and you can’t fight it.”
“I do not intend to fight it.”
“Nature designed your very essence to be irresistible to me.”
“As long as you like it, Red,” he said simply. “I will never ask another thing of God or fate or whatever is running this universe if you stay as in love with me forever as you are right now.”
Mandy felt her throat close and the prick of tears behind her eyes. How could she not love him when he said the most endearing things when she least expected to hear them?
She had never thought it would be so easy to love anybody, but it was.
12
For the next two months Mandy was with Kelly every chance that she got, and they did everything together. She discovered some things about him that she hadn’t known: he sent all of his clothes for the detective squad out to be laundered and pressed, which was why he always looked like he stepped out of a bandbox on the job. Aside from his plainclothes for police work, he had uniforms for those occasions which called for them and then an assortment of castoff athletic wear and jeans for every day. She had seen him wearing T shirts and sweatshirts from various teams and organizations but never knew that the man didn’t own a cardigan sweater, for example, or a polo shirt or a pair of casual pants. When she saw him wearing a team shirt with a date on it and learned that it was from his eighth grade soccer team she realized that he never threw anything away. He also washed everything together when he had to do laundry, and waited until he had nothing left to wear before he did that, like a college freshman coming home for Christmas. He did whatever was quick and efficient, and it often seemed to her that he was living like an orphaned bear cub in a cave. She undertook to civilize him, and was only partially successful. There was a part of him that would always be wild, no matter how many loads of white laundry he set aside to be bleached, as she instructed. With that in mind she overlooked the dozens of voice messages from women still left on his machine; she was satisfied when no new ones were added. He eventually erased the originals and thereafter only reminder messages and solicitations could be heard. It took her a few days to realize that from the start he had given her the cell number he used for his family and his job; the previous females had gotten the number for the message machine, so he could filter the calls. Slick, she thought, and then thought, but I knew what he was like before he met me. She had seen enough evidence, provided by everyone. She could live with it, as she did with the other remnants of his past.
For example, he had the most bizarre eating habits she had ever seen. She often wondered why he was still alive, rather than dead of starvation or ptomaine. He ate anything that happened to be handy and didn’t seem to care what it was or how it tasted. Health considerations and nutritional value were foreign concepts to him. He hated supermarkets and avoided them, so if all he had in his apartment was beer and cocoa puffs, he had beer and cocoa puffs for breakfast. And so did she. After several mornings of this questionable fare she dragged him to the grocery store and they had a tutorial about the express lane and coupons and how to avoid the little old lady writing a check for $7.36 getting in front of you. He couldn’t be bothered with any of it and told her that was why he was always in restaurants, and it didn’t matter anyway because hamburgers with ketchup, also pizza with sausage, covered all the food groups. He groaned and rolled his eyes at her advice but he indulged her and listened, and she was amused at the end of a month to find him comparing prices in a supermarket flyer and then laughing at himself for doing it. He teased her about someone of her privileged background clipping coupons and rating detergents, and she replied that boarding schools taught you very quickly how to shop for food and sort laundry. Their clothes became intermingled in both apartments and they commuted between Mandy’s condo and Kelly’s monastic cell as if they lived in both. They were so into each other that they avoided everybody else and that was fine, since they needed no one else.
Mandy learned that Kelly’s self deprecating sense of humor was one of his most charming traits. His sly, understated wit came through more often now that the barriers were down and he trusted her enough to tell her what he really felt and
thought. She wanted to be with him all the time, and she was. Like teenagers, they went everywhere and did everything together. She took him to a concert( he fell asleep) and he took her bowling (also not a success; he collapsed laughing as the ball dragged her down the alley). They went to the movies and to baseball games and to malls. It didn’t seem to matter what they were doing as long as they were together. They arranged their schedules to coincide and Kelly switched shifts to accommodate her commitments to the DA’s office. The unlikely duo, born of a stalking incident, raised eyebrows and caused comment at first; neither one of them cared and when the gossip got no response it died down and then vanished. Tom Henderson was royally pissed but silent; showing a reaction to his ex’s new beau would mean that he cared and he didn’t want anyone to think that he did. Mandy’s parents were also silent, her father out of tolerance and her mother in the hope that the relationship’s white heat would cause it to burn out quickly like a flash fire. So the onlookers waited, while Mandy basked in the glow of the first fulfilling affair she had ever had.
She was hungry for Kelly all the time and always seemed to be undressing him, a circumstance which embarrassed her but which he encouraged as much as possible. Mandy loved him, loved him, loved him. And he relaxed and loved her back, confident finally that his trust was not misplaced.
It was seven weeks after Kelly’s spectacular flu when he awoke one Sunday morning to find Mandy planting a long line of kisses down the length of his spine. He opened one eye and said, mumbling face down into the pillow, “Don’t waste ‘em, sweetheart.”
He turned over and pulled her into his arms, which resulted in a forty minute delay in beginning the day’s assignment: attacking the pile of dishes which was growing out of the sink and onto the counters in the kitchen of his apartment.
“I think moss is growing on the plates,” Mandy said morosely as she pointed toward the hall from the bedroom.
He sighed.
“That tower of cups is reaching critical mass,” she added. “The nuclear reaction is imminent.”
He sat up and felt around for his clothes, which were on the floor. “I told you we should be using paper plates,” he said reasonably.
“We should be wearing paper clothes too,” Mandy said. “The laundry is a more pressing problem than the dishes, haven’t you noticed?”
“There are only three bags of laundry in the hall,” he said.
“Only three?”
“The rule is we don’t start washing clothes until the only thing I have left to wear is that pair of shorts that says ‘Welcome to Coney Island’ across the butt. Then I know it’s time.”
“It’s time, Brendan, trust me.” Mandy got up and pulled on one of his old track team T shirts and he admired the view as she moved across the room.
“You look better in that thing than I ever did,” he said.
“Thank you,” she responded graciously.
“Come back here,” he said, in an urgent tone which told her that if she obeyed him another forty minute delay was in the offing.
“Nothing doing, Kelly. Forget the dishes for now. Come out with me and let’s drag the bags down to the basement before the old ladies load up all the washers.”
He groaned audibly.
“Forthwith,” she said, adding the police term that indicated something should be done immediately, if not sooner.
“Pickin’ up the lingo, darlin’, are ya?” he asked, in his exaggerated brogue.
Mandy pulled on a pair of sweatpants and scraped her hair back into a pony tail with a clip. “I am,” she said.
“Good. Now all I have to do is get into that online Latin course and we’ll be able to talk to each other. You know the one you see advertised on TV? ‘Learn the language of the Caesars in three days’.” He was grinning as he yanked on his jeans and shirt.
“We talk to each other,” she said, looking at him.
“We do,” he agreed. “ In lots of ways. Like right there.” He pointed to the bed.
Mandy smiled back at him as she led him to the front hall of the apartment. He picked up the two larger bags and she shouldered one smaller one. Then they marched into the outer hall and down the stairs to the communal laundry room, where two senior citizens were removing and folding items from the dryers.
“Good morning, Detective Kelly,” the taller, white haired lady said. She smiled at Mandy.
“Hi, Mrs. Gilchrist,” Kelly said, appearing decidedly uncomfortable.
“He looks just like his pictures in the paper,” Mrs. Gilchrist’s companion said in a loud stage whisper.
The two women were sisters, both deaf, so conversation died as the old ladies stacked their clothes in plastic bins and nodded genially as they left. Kelly watched them go and said to Mandy, “Thank God. They make me nervous.”
“Why?” She was smiling.
“They haven’t gotten over the publicity from the Cameron case, seeing me on TV and all, and now they’re watching the two of us every day to see what happens next. I can just hear them saying to each other, ‘Why doesn’t he make an honest woman of that sweet little redhead?’”
Mandy leaned against the wall, helpless with laughter. “I’m already an honest woman, Brendan. They’re a hundred years old. Who cares what they think?”
He shrugged, dumping a bag of clothing on the counter in front of them. A T shirt emblazoned with “Jenna loves Kelly” fell to the floor.
Mandy bent to pick it up and he pulled it from her grasp, depressing the pedal on a nearby garbage can and dropping the shirt inside it.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I don’t want that any more.”
“Who’s Jenna?”
“A stewardess with Qantas. She dropped me for a Brazilian soccer player.”
“So now her new shirt reads ‘Jenna loves Pele?’” Mandy suggested.
“Pele is seventy years old.”
“ ‘Jenna loves Pele’s grandson?’ ” Mandy said.
He was silent, tossing clothes into an empty washer.
“Come on, Brendan,” Mandy said. “Who was Jenna?”
“She was just a jock banger, she liked toned athletes. I had to devote some major time to those rowing machines in there to keep her interested,” he replied, pointing to the gym room next to the laundry and smiling ruefully.
“I hope I’m not as demanding,” Mandy said, sobering.
He turned to look at her, then put his arm around her shoulder and caressed her cheek with his free thumb thoughtfully.
“You want something else, Red,” he said softly, looking down at her. “Something a little tougher to deliver.”
“What?” she asked, concerned at his expression.
“You want me to be good,” he said quietly.
“You are good.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not.” His tone was resigned.
“You’re good looking,” she said lightly, trying to dispel his sudden change of mood.
He shook his head again. “I didn’t earn that.”
“You’re a good cop,” she said.
He shrugged. “Only sometimes.”
“You’re a good lover.”
“Only with you.”
“Look, let’s change the subject,” Mandy said, as she felt the conversation taking an unexpected turn from bad to worse.
“Fine with me,” he said, as he released her and then threw a towel into the washer tub with practiced aim. She put her arms around his waist from the back and stood on tiptoe to say into his ear, “How about those Phillies?”
She felt him relax under her hands and after a long moment he said, “Come on, help me dump this stuff in the washers before Mrs. Gilchrist comes back to interview me for the Old Biddies Quarterly, or whatever the hell that magazine is she’s always reading.”
“ ‘Senior Citizens On Parade,’ ” Mandy corrected him, laughing. And then, after a moment, “What’s a biddy?”
He turned to look at her in astonishment. “You do
n’t know what a biddy is? I used a word that YOU don’t know, professor?”
“Gasp,” Mandy said.
He widened his eyes comically. “Is the sun still shining, is the globe still spinning? Has a new world order been declared overnight?”
“There’s no need to make fun of me, Brendan,” Mandy said primly. “So what does it mean?”
He shrugged. “A nosy grandma type, interfering, gossipy. Mrs. Gilchrist to the teeth, if she had any.”
“Oh, you mean an old crone, a yenta.”
“‘Biddy’ must be Gaelic if you don’t know it,” he said, smiling.
Mandy slid her hand under his T shirt and ran her fingers caressingly up his back. “You’re Gaelic, and there’s a lot I want to know about you,” she murmured. “I don’t think I’ve learned it all yet. Can we go upstairs so you can give me a tutorial?”
He dumped the rest of the laundry into the tubs and slammed the lids shut as she watched, amazed at the speed with which he moved. Without turning around he said to her, “Where’s that bag of quarters?”
Amanda's Blue Marine Page 24
