Loud Pipes Save Lives

by Jennifer Giacalone

  Maggie rolled her eyes. She was about to poke at them with some affectionate barb when from the corner of her eye, she saw Finlay and Lily Sparr entering the room.

  Two things struck her. The first was how much they resembled pictures of their parents from the society pages that she’d seen growing up: Finlay, with his vaguely lupine, elegant features and serious eyes, and Lily, with her red hair swept up off her neck and her slender shape shimmering in a purple Vera Wang sheath dress that caught the low light perfectly.

  The second thing that struck her was how incredibly attractive Lily Sparr was. She’d mainly seen her cop headshot, the photo they took for her department I.D.; it was what they showed on the news and in the papers, and her hair was always stuffed up into a hat, with her collar buttoned all the way up, her clear eyes staring into the camera with the look of someone who hated being photographed. It would take her several minutes to match that image up with the woman on Finlay Sparr’s arm.

  She breezed over. She’d met Finlay a few times at benefits in the last couple of years, ever since he took over his father’s company. “Mr. Sparr,” she addressed him with weapons-grade warmth and cheer.

  “Miss Burnett,” he replied, friendly but guarded.

  She looked at Lily. “I have to say, Mr. Sparr, your wife does not look Chinese.”

  He smiled. “My wife’s in Hong Kong with family. This is my sister, Lily. Lily, this is New York City District Attorney Maggie Burnett.”

  Lily took her hand and shook it firmly. She was smiling broadly at her and seemed a little flushed and maybe even starstruck. “Miss Burnett,” Lily said. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m very impressed with your work. You’re quite a powerhouse.”

  Maggie turned up the wattage on her smile. “If I’m correct, you’re no slouch either. Aren’t you the detective responsible for the Woodbine bust?”

  She noticed a look of mild surprise flit across Finlay’s face.

  Lily blushed some more. “Just doing our jobs,” she said humbly, suppressing what seemed like nervous giggling.

  Maggie waved dismissively. “And so am I, Detective. That’s no excuse for false modesty.”

  “Oh…” Lily paused, seeming suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m off duty, tonight, Miss Burnett. You can just call me Lily.”

  Maggie smiled. “All right then. I’ll see you two around. Wonderful to see you again, Mr. Sparr. Lovely to meet you, Lily.” She breezed away, waving to someone across the room who she was reasonably sure was a board member for a wheelchair basketball organization.

  Finlay went off to mingle while Lily got herself a wine and some miniature egg rolls stuffed with truffles or something. She was mildly annoyed with herself for the way she had fangirled the district attorney and wanted to disappear for a few moments to regroup. She wandered out to the balcony, which was empty at the moment, listening to the jazz drifting in from the ballroom and watching the crowds wander around in Washington Square Park at sunset. They were playing “Fine and Mellow,” and she found herself wishing she could have brought Miri.

  “Lily Sparr.”

  Lina Schulze-León stood behind her, in red formal wear, bejeweled and, while she was older than the last time Lily saw her in the flesh (which had to have been nearly a decade ago), she still looked like nothing so much as the disturbingly still-attractive black-widow matriarch in a telenovela, with stiletto heels, manicured nails and a shortish “I just rolled out of bed like this” haircut that clearly cost about three hundred dollars.

  “Ms. Schulze-León,” she replied, recalling that Lina had hyphenated, and tortured and humiliated anyone who didn’t get their mouth around all of it.

  Lina was a beautiful woman; even at her age, she had suitors sniffing around, despite her reputation as a “complicated” individual. “I just use Schulze now. It smacks less of nepotism, given my current position.” She paused, assessing Lily. “I hear you’re a police officer now,” she remarked. The “isn’t that adorable” at the end was implied.

  “A detective, actually,” Lily replied carefully.

  “Well, then. In Queens, isn’t it? I saw something on the news a few months ago.”

  Lily nodded. “Yes, you probably did. I’ve been recently moved, though. I’m in Midtown South, now.”

  “Really? Transferred to the same precinct that handled your father’s death?” She clucked her tongue. “Terribly inconsiderate on someone’s part.”

  She looked Lily up and down, and Lily felt queasy, like she was being picked over by a vulture.

  “Whitaker’s working for Lyonsbank. He finished his MBA not too long ago, and my father is fast-tracking him at the Zurich office.”

  The mere mention of his name made Lily feel sick. Whitaker had been the only boyfriend she’d ever really had, back in prep school. Everyone close to her assumed, even now, that her lack of interest in dating and sex was because of her relationship with him. He’d left bruises on her, in tender places, because she had refused him in the first place. And then, when it became clear she wasn’t afraid of physical pain, he threatened her: “I’ll tell everyone you blew me,” “I’ll have Stillman and Frost beat up your little brother,” “If I can’t get what I want from you, maybe I’ll get it from your sister.” She gave in, for a while. But it had ended badly, with Finlay almost taking both Whitaker’s eyes out and Whitaker being mysteriously moved to Exeter in the middle of the semester.

  She met Lina’s eyes, and said as coolly as she could, “Good for him.”

  “Boys get it all handed to them in life, don’t they,” Lina went on, casually acting oblivious to how uncomfortable it made Lily to hear anything at all about her eldest son.

  Lily held onto the stem of her glass so tightly, she was afraid she might break it.

  Maggie was in the middle of chatting up an elderly heiress about pre-K programs when she caught sight of Lily Sparr on the balcony with Lina Schulze, and she could smell the tension from fifty feet away. Even at this distance, she could see the nervous scuffing of Lily’s toe against the floor and the anxious working of the fingers of her free hand as she spoke. Maggie politely excused herself and swept out to the balcony.

  “Lily, there you are, darling! I’ve been looking all over for you.” She turned to Lina, keeping the sparkle up and charm full-blast. “Madam Deputy Mayor, what a pleasure. Tommy said you were around somewhere. I had no idea I’d find you chatting with my new best friend. Isn’t Lily Sparr the loveliest person you’ve ever met?”

  Lina’s silky mouth smiled, but her eyes said, Go fuck yourself, Maggie. “Oh, yes. Detective Sparr and I have known each other for several years, isn’t that right?”

  Maggie saw Lily’s nerves jangling; it wasn’t an uncommon reaction to Lina Schulze, but nevertheless, she felt compelled to rescue her. “Lily, they’re going to be closing the bar during the reading, and you really need to try one of these cocktails before they do. They use rose water in it, it’s so subtle and lovely, come with me. Come, come!” She slipped an arm around Lily’s waist and ushered her off the balcony before Lina could say anything else. “I’ll see you later,” Maggie called to her.

  “Thank you,” Lily whispered as Maggie whisked her away.

  Maggie squeezed her elbow. “I know what she’s like. I couldn’t leave you out there alone with her,” she replied reassuringly, and she found she couldn’t help letting her lips brush against her ear as she did.

  Lily didn’t react; she didn’t pull away but didn’t change anything else about what she was doing either. “You don’t know the half of it,” was all she said. They walked to the bar, still linked together, and Maggie ordered a pair of those rose water martini things.

  Lily sipped at the delicately-flavored drink and suddenly realized that Maggie Burnett’s eyes were focused on her in a way that made the rest of the room disappear and shrink away until there was only Maggie, looking at her with a degree of interest that made her stomach lurch. Maggie was a powerhouse, and Lily had admired her for as long as she’
d been aware of her. She was attractive and impressive and charming…and yet the walls felt like they were closing in.

  Everything made her feel claustrophobic: Maggie slipping a coaster under her drink, Maggie lightly touching her elbow, looking at her with feline eyes that made her feel she was about to be pounced on. Yes, hunted, that was it. She felt hunted, and it didn’t feel good. Her head felt like it was full of cotton. She stopped being able to even hear what Maggie was even saying.

  And then the lights dimmed, and one thing that Maggie said poked through the cotton in her brain: “… but if you do happen to find something on your free time, Detective, don’t bring it to me in pieces. Bring it to me whole. Bring it to me whole, and I can help you.”

  Then the lights went down, and Ian McKellen began reading the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V. Lily politely extricated herself and ran from the room, the sound of his British accent booming after her as she hurried away: “…By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive…”

  12

  Lovers, Nighttime, New York City

  The first thing Vea saw when she opened her eyes was Eilidh’s hair, the red-gold flames across her pillow. She would never get tired of it, she thought. Never get tired of the music of her accent, never get tired of the fierceness of her laugh. She would never get tired of her wild eyes, her whiskeyed kiss, the way she seemed ready for anything that Vea was. Eilidh drove her mad—she picked fights, she stole the covers at night, and Vea loved it. All of it.

  She woke up in the dark, in a sliver of moonlight piercing the blinds, loving the contrast of their limbs tangled together, light and dark, sticking out from under the sheet. Loving the smell of her hair: aloe shampoo and cigarettes. Loving the smell of her, of her, all over her hands, her fingers, lingering on her lips.

  Vea got laid a lot, but not like this. Not with a girl that she would fight beside, not with a girl who was as fiery as Vea was cool, not with a girl that took that cool sometimes and rolled it up in a little ball, and used it to sink a three-pointer in the trash can from across the room. Whatever Empress might say, Vea couldn’t be convinced in some secret part of herself that Empress didn’t pick Eilidh just for her.

  “Wake up, star,” she whispered, kissing Eilidh’s cheek, brushing her tongue around the pale shell of her ear, kissing her along her chin and jaw, kissing her down the tendon of her neck to the base of her throat, making her mouth as soft as she knew how to do.

  “What time is it?” Eilidh whispered, not opening her eyes.

  “It’s the wee hours,” Vea answered, not relenting in her slow, soft, hungry exploration, nesting her fingers in Eilidh’s burning-copper hair.

  “Oh, right then,” Eilidh sighed sleepily, enjoying the attention. “Carry on, princess.”

  Quin and Nadia sat, their bikes parked side by side on the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights. They watched the boats slip down the East River, watching the lights twinkling on the shining sides of the buildings of Lower Manhattan.

  “The towers of Zenith,” Nadia remarked, admiring the mirrored surfaces of the office towers, the glowing skyline that felt almost close enough to touch.

  “Sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods,” Quin answered, smiling. They often talked in book quotes, and tonight they were speaking the language of Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt. She was fluent in the language of literature, in a way that few other girls he’d dated had been, and it made him feel like he had come home. She appreciated and shared a body of knowledge that came to him like breathing.

  He slipped his arm around Nadia’s waist. She sat in front of him on his bike, eating a chocolate ice cream cone she’d bought from a vendor truck that was still out this late on a Saturday night. “Let me have another bite,” he said softly in her ear.

  She raised the cone over her shoulder, glancing back at him, and dabbed the end of his nose with it.

  “Hey!” he protested, wiping his face with a bandana he yanked from one of his pockets.

  “I told you, you were gonna see mine and want your own.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He leaned his head forward, pushed some of her dark curls out of the way, and started kissing the side of her neck, nipping softly with his teeth.

  She sighed and leaned back into him, letting her head drop against his shoulder. “You should listen to me more,” she breathed.

  Quin didn’t care about walking again. Being with her felt like flying. She knew how to fix a bike, she argued literature with him, dissected Almodóvar films, teased him, kissed him like she meant it… He drank it up and wanted more. Her warmth, her sighs, the way she arched her back against him when he slipped a hand lightly up beneath her shirt… He felt himself getting stiff against her back. He felt what he’d been missing being returned to him.

  “Your ice cream’s gonna melt,” he whispered.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Promise?”

  She turned halfway around, and looked at him, a little smile creeping across her red lips, her eyes dancing. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  He kissed her mouth. She tasted like chocolate ice cream.

  Ainsley sat cross-legged on a raggedy blanket on the grass in Bryant Park, staring up at Breakfast at Tiffany’s playing on the huge movie screen, her arms around Khady, who was leaning back against her. They had staked out a spot in the middle of the lawn, dead center, in the sweet spot for the giant speakers. They’d gotten there shortly after lunch just to be sure they’d get a seat where they wanted, and they’d been sitting, picnicking and discreetly smoking weed from a small metal hitter that looked like a cigarette. It was a strange collective experience, more so than seeing something in a theater; they were two little dots in a sea of people spread across the big lawn, surrounded by the towers of midtown Manhattan.

  Khady had never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but it was one of Ainsley’s secret favorites, despite all her tough-chick posturing. Audrey Hepburn always broke her heart. And she would always well up at this scene, mouthing the words to George Peppard’s speech along with him, just as she was doing now:

  “…You call yourself a free spirit, a ‘wild thing,’ and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

  Khady was all covered up, the way she usually was in mixed company: long-sleeved linen shirt, faded jeans, hair covered under a hijab that had some kind of subtle pattern on the fabric. Before being with Khady, Ainsley had never understood: How could hair possibly be such a sexual thing that you needed to hide it?, but when they were together like this, she found herself burning to run her fingers through all of Khady’s hair, to look at it framing her face like sunshine, to brush it out of the way to kiss the back of her neck. Khady turned around to smile at her, and Ainsley noticed a lock that had half-escaped near her ear; she stroked it once, lightly, and tucked it back under the fabric.

  This earned Ainsley a warm, gentle kiss, the kind of kiss that felt like Khady was trying to breathe her in. Ainsley wondered as she sat there in the warm evening, swooning against her soft lips, How could I possibly have something like this? How am I the one who gets to open this beautiful gift? Why is she looking at me like this moment is all she wants in life? Ainsley couldn’t help it. It slipped out of her mouth: “Are you in love with me?”

  Khady gave her the sweet, amused that look she often gave Ainsley when she’d said something very silly, and ran a hand through Ainsley’s dark, choppy hair. “You really don’t know?”

  Ainsley shrugged. “I’m asking.”

  Khady looked at Ainsley with what suddenly felt like all the affection that the world could hold. She said, “Of course I am. Of course,
ya shamse o nojomi.”

  “What’s that mean?” Ainsley whispered.

  “My sun and stars,” Khady answered, and she kissed Ainsley again. Ainsley felt her heart collapse in on itself, just like a sun. Just like a star.

  Miri, in her pajamas, opened her door to find Lily standing there, stunningly lovely in her shimmering dress. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the thing?”

  Lily flung her arms around Miri’s waist and breathed in all the scents that made her smell like her: herbal body wash, coffee, raspberry mints. She rested her head against Miri’s broad chest for a minute, trying not to shake. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into her shoulder. “I had a really weird evening. Can I stay here tonight?”

  “Of course.” Miri squeezed Lily tightly for a minute, stroking her back with a firm, gentle touch that almost instantly unwound the marble-hard knots in Lily’s neck and shoulders.

  Lily pulled back and looked at her uncertainly. “Do you want to kiss me?”

  Miri’s face was quizzical. “Um… I never thought about it… I don’t think so.” It was a rare moment that she found her former partner difficult to read, but this was one of them. “Do… uh… do you want me to?”

  Lily shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I just… I just want to be…” She floundered. “…near you.”

  Miri pulled her inside the apartment and shut the door, and drew her close again. She gave Lily the same pair of gym shorts she’d borrowed last time she was there and a t-shirt that went down almost to her knees. They curled up together in Miri’s bed. Miri spooned on the outside, rubbing Lily’s shoulder gently. Lily pulled up the thick comforter, cocooning against the air conditioning that Miri always kept blasting on nights like this when the heat of Indian summer was thick, burrowing back further into Miri’s embrace; and as she drifted into darkness on the sound of Miri’s soft snoring (how was it that she could snore in a way that was gentle and comforting?), she thought, I don’t want anything else but this.