long have you been standing there?”
“Awhile. How long did you know I was watching?”
“Awhile. It’s Morgan’s report. He writes really well, but it’s not exactly police-appropriate.”
“You gonna change it? Do you want to go for a drink?”
“Yeah. This’ll wait. The superintendent has other things on his mind.”
“A messed-up marriage.”
“Do you know him?” she said, glancing through Rufalo’s door. “How do you know that?”
“He smiled at me,” said Rachel. “He never smiles at uniformed officers. Not at the women.”
“You’re kidding.”
“So, what I figure, he’s got woman problems, he’s in the wrong, he’s compensating, trying to prove to himself he’s not a chauvinist double-pig.”
“Double?”
“He’s a cop.”
“How sixties. You’re not in uniform now — ”
“So he doesn’t recognize me, which proves my point!”
“It does?”
“He’s a man.”
“He’s a good man. A bit of a prick, but a good man,” she said in a whisper. “His wife’s a lawyer.”
“I heard.”
“So, let’s go for a drink. This case is giving me the creeps.”
“Weird, eh?”
“I feel like I’m in the middle of a play by Samuel Beckett, trying to make out what’s going on in the audience.” She liked that — the turn of phrase, a Morgan-like inversion. She wondered if he was diving.
“I played Estragon in a school production of Waiting for Godot.”
“Some school,” said Miranda.
“Some play. We had a great teacher. She insisted that if you know what the play means, you’ve ruined the play. She’d say things like that. To understand is to misunderstand. She was a superannuated hippy on the verge of retirement. It was funny and sad, and I never knew what the play was about, not even now.”
“The fine line between madness and genius…”
“There’s no line at all. Let’s get outta here.”
When Miranda woke up, Rachel was naked in bed beside her. Without lifting her head, and with only one eye open, Miranda surveyed the situation. They were lying on top of the covers. Rachel was facing her, her head on the other pillow; she opened her eyes and smiled.
“G’morning, Detective.”
Without saying anything, Miranda got up and went into the bathroom. She sat on the toilet with her arms propped on her knees and cradled her head between her hands. She was mildly hungover.
Rachel stood in the doorway, legs akimbo, arms folded beneath her breasts. Miranda looked up, smiled sheepishly. She had never been with a woman.
With calming deliberation, her eyes traced Rachel’s body, starting at the long toes and slowly rising, exploring the deep colour of the woman’s skin, sliding up past her trim ankles, knees, hard thighs, delving into the folds between her legs accentuated by the soft curly fringe of glistening hair, rising over her taunt stomach, her gently articulated ribcage and diaphragm, lingering on the sullen precocity of her small breasts, rising past her collarbone, which gleamed ebony through her skin, up the long neck to her chin, the full lips, the fine broad nose, the deep-set gleaming eyes, her face surrounded by a thick fringe of sleek, black hair. Is this woman my lover, she wondered?
Neither demure nor provocative, Rachel let Miranda survey her body. She said nothing. After a few moments she rose to her toes, lifting her entire form into an alluring and yet innocent pose, and slowly, softly, began to laugh. Miranda glanced away in embarrassment, then looked back, catching the vulnerability and strength in her eyes, and began to laugh herself. Two naked women, one sitting on a toilet, the other holding a statuesque pose. Miranda did not know where to go from there so she began to pee. This took them both to the edge of hysteria.
“Hurry up,” said Rachel. “Now I’ve gotta go, too.”
“Use the shower,” said Miranda. “Don’t be shy, girl.”
Their laughter died out as Rachel stepped into the shower and closed the door, turned on the water, squealed until the hot water came through, and began to sing in such a low voice, the words and melody were inaudible.
Miranda brushed her teeth, handed a spare toothbrush over the shower door to Rachel, and after a few minutes Rachel opened the door and drew her in beside her. They began to soap each other with gentle exploratory gestures. Miranda wondered if perhaps the night before had been a prelude: she could summon only a vague recollection of sensuous well-being.
Rachel turned Miranda away and worked a lather on her back, then reached around with soapy hands to cup her breasts against her palms. Miranda relaxed against her and gazing down admired how fingers against flesh gleamed ebony and alabaster in the streaming water. One of Rachel’s hands slid lower and her fingers splayed across the curls of Miranda’s pubic hair, squeezing rivulets of foamy subs, but did not descend further between her legs, making no proprietorial assumptions. Miranda turned and surprised herself by arching away to hold Rachel’s breasts one at a time, gently caressing them with suds.
Fascinated by her own lack of inhibition, she let her arms drop to rest against Rachel’s hips and leaned forward, their bodies gently touching. Rachel’s breasts pressed softly against Miranda’s, which were a little heavier and, despite their similar heights, a little lower, and pressed into Rachel’s diaphragm; they stood like that with the water streaming over them, passively rinsing. Their lips brushed against each other, foreheads touched, they tilted their heads to the side as if to kiss. Each cocked a leg slightly, pudenda pressed warmly against the upper thigh of the other. They did not move, feeling the intimate warmth of the pressure. They did not kiss. Somewhere in the mind of each there was the ambiguous image of Rodin’s sculpture, and the remnants of last evening’s discussion about undecidability in the works of Samuel Beckett.
Suddenly, the water went cold. They leapt from the shower, giggling, jostling each other through the narrow stall door. They did not dry each other off. Both realized their moment of intimacy had passed.
After Rachel left for work, wearing borrowed panties under yesterday’s clothes, Miranda went back to bed. Gradually, she remembered sitting around in the living room drinking Bloody Marys after leaving the pub. She recalled how natural it had seemed, with Rachel staying over, the two of them walking into the bedroom, stripping to the buff like girls at camp, and climbing side by side into bed. Some time during the night they must have kicked off the covers.
Her hangover didn’t amount to much but she was tired. She might have slept fitfully, being naked in bed with another woman. She was not in the least upset about compromised sexuality. She had no idea whether Rachel Naismith was a lesbian, or whether she herself was unexpectedly bisexual. Time would reveal all that. She was curious more than anything else. Miranda was comfortable with her own sexuality, if not with sex itself. If only she could get them together — sex and sexuality. She wondered if it were possible.
She remembered sunbathing beside the mill race near Waldron, the village where she grew up. She remembered the shadow of a man looming over her. The rest she forgot until he reappeared in her life, twenty years later, driving a Jaguar. The girl in the closet had a story of her own. But she died. Miranda could refuse to remain a victim; she could not.
They had talked late into the night, Miranda and Rachel. After meandering up Yonge Street, past shop after shop catering to bizarre sexual, psychic, and spiritual proclivities and the occasional outlet for mundane necessities like toilet paper and party balloons, they had found an anonymous trattoria and settled in for a surprisingly bad dinner with a nondescript bottle of wine. Afterward they each had a shot of grappa, courtesy of the owner.
Halfway back to Miranda’s place, Rachel realized she had left her pack behind. When they returned to the restaurant, the proprietor was waiting inside the door with the pack in hand. He had not tried to call after her — maybe he had discovered it too late — but he was visibly pleased to find her in his debt.
“Officer,” he proclaimed. “This is yours.”
“I know it’s mine, paisano. Did you find anything in it of interest?”
“Your uniform. That’s how I knew it was yours.”
