“The two of you had me at hola,” Lisbet said.
“Before I exhaust my bilingual skills, I can offer you some vino or cerveza. The wine has only been in the refrigerator for thirty minutes, so it might need to age another half hour. The beer is cold.”
“You can’t improve on the combination of beer and pizza,” she said.
“You’re a girl after my own heart. Do you want to eat at the table or dine in the living room?”
“Let’s enjoy the fire,” Lisbet said.
“Get comfortable while I get the fixings. You have four choices of pizza: pepperoni, tomato, mushroom, or sausage.”
“How many pizzas did you order?”
“Two half-and-half,” I said. “I wanted to make sure you had a variety to choose from.”
“In that case I’ll take one slice of each kind.”
“And I’ll make imitation the sincerest form of flattery.”
I went out to the kitchen and plated our pizza. “Glass for your beer?”
“That would spoil the ambience of the meal.”
“I think that’s the first time the word ‘ambience’ has ever been used to refer to one of my meals. I feel so inspired I’m going to remove the cap to your beer.”
“Who says that chivalry is dead?”
I brought her the pizza and beer-sans cap. She was sitting in the sofa nearest the fire. After delivering her plate, I went for my own and then joined her on the sofa. She extended her bottle my way, and I tapped glass to glass. The contact sent the foam up and over the lid of her bottle, and though Lisbet raised it to her lips, she wasn’t quite in time and some of the beer spilled on her sweater and jeans.
“What a waste of good beer,” I said, handing her my napkin.
“You’re not offering me your shirt?”
“If it worked that way, I’d be spilling all over myself.”
I went out to the kitchen to get more napkins and also brought back a wet dish towel.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the dishcloth. “Luckily, it was just a little foam, but I better keep this towel handy. For my next trick I’ll probably spill some pizza on my blouse.”
“I don’t think I have any club soda. How does beer work as a stain remover?”
“I think beer is more likely to get you into than out of trouble.”
Raising my bottle, I asked, “Can we toast that?”
“No, we can’t,” she said, moving her bottle away from me. “And besides, I notice you still haven’t removed the cap to your own beer.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed that.”
I popped the lid and then took a long pull on the beer as a preventative spilling measure. Half-empty bottles don’t go Vesuvius very easily.
Both of us started in on the pizza. Lisbet hadn’t just put in her order for show. She took a bite or two from each of the four pieces of pizza, savoring the flavor of each. After that she attacked the pieces indiscriminately, probably in an attempt to match me bite for bite. In that contest I prevailed and even went for an extra piece, choosing the tomato.
“There goes my diet,” Lisbet said. “Next time do me a favor and order an anchovy, olive, and green pepper pizza. That way I can pretend I subsist on small green salads and tepid tap water.”
“Hold the anorexia,” I said. “I prefer your healthy appetite. I just wish I had some of those nuns’ chocolates to offer you for dessert.”
It was easy talking with her, and we talked about everything and nothing. Slowly but surely the space between us closed. One of us would say something and touch the other; one of us would shift and our legs would press up together; then there came the moment when both of us moved in unison and we were holding each other and kissing.
The moment lasted a minute, and another, and then we lost track of time. There was no doubt what we both wanted and where we eventually would be headed. I think both of us were grateful we’d weathered our first fight. Jen had used to say there was a great reason for our fighting: make-up sex.
When you lose a spouse, it’s easy to look back upon your marriage with rose-colored glasses, something I was certainly guilty of, but that’s not to say that Jenny and I didn’t ever fight. Even when we argued, though, the spat seemed to serve the purpose of allowing us to reconnect and renew. After whatever raw emotions of our disagreement were stripped away, it was always that much easier to remember how exciting our love was. One moment we would be angry and posturing, and the next our clothes would be off and we’d be saying how much we loved each other. Nothing brought out our heightened passion like make-up sex.
Once or twice I thought of extending my hand and leading Lisbet to my bedroom, but I didn’t feel the need to rush. Besides, we were enjoying our time on the sofa entirely too much.
What I hadn’t counted on was my cell phone ringing. It was bad timing and then some. I wanted to ignore it, but I was as trained as Sirius to respond to certain commands. “Excuse me,” I said, checking to see who was calling. The readout said it was Anna Nguyen. “I have to take this call,” I said, and with some untangling and readjusting of partially unbuttoned and opened garments, I managed to rise.
Detective Nguyen said, “We think we’ve found all three of your attackers.”
I was about to say that was good news when she added, “They’re all dead.”
“Shit.”
“Each of them was done execution style, with a bullet to the head. They were dropped at the arboretum. I’m told the dumping spot is near Australia, if that means anything to you.”
“It does.” The arboretum is set up by continents with flora native to each.
As the kookaburra flew, the arboretum was about twenty-five miles east of Sherman Oaks in the city of Arcadia.
“Traffic willing, I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes,” I said.
I pocketed my phone and turned around to face Lisbet. “It’s work. I am really sorry.”
She smiled to show me that she was good with duty calling and said, “Do you want me to wait here for you?”
I thought about it and shook my head. “It will be late before I get back. That wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“I wouldn’t have made the offer if I didn’t want to.”
“And I appreciate that offer, and I’ll hold you to a rain check for another time, but not this time. Do you have plans for tomorrow night?”
“Yes, I’m cooking dinner for you and Sirius.”
“I can make it, but I’m not sure about him. He has quite the social life.”
“What about it, Sirius?” Lisbet asked.
At the mention of his name, Sirius came over to her and put his head in her lap, prompting me to say, “Hey, that’s my gal.”
“He tells me he likes roast beef,” Lisbet said.
“I do, too, in case you were wondering.”
She stood up. “Seven o’clock?”
“Count us in.”
We sealed that deal with a long kiss. And then I walked Lisbet to her car, where we kissed again.
I hadn’t been to the arboretum in close to a decade. Naturally, it was Jen that had arranged our first and only visit. I hadn’t wanted to go, but she told me it would be fun, and she was right. There had been waterfalls, I remembered, and a turtle pond, and trees and plants indigenous to the featured continents (“What? No Antarctica?” I’d asked Jen). During our visit, one particular peacock had acted as if he was in love with Jenny and had kept following her around while displaying his plumage and trumpeting his unearthly call. For years afterward she had laughed whenever I attempted my peacock imitation.
That had been a long time ago.
There were police barricades up on Baldwin Avenue, and I had to flash my wallet badge to several officers while I made my way to Australia. Lights had been set up to illuminate a spot not far from Colorado Street. There were police cars on both sides of the street. I found a parking spot and, like a good moth, followed the brightest lights.
It wasn’t cold, but the wind was whipping around, and I hugged my jacket close to me. The arboretum trees and plants were being stirred up by the wind, and the shaking branches sounded like a thousand threatening rattlesnakes. The high grass just off the road whipped at me as I made my way forward. Fronds moved in front of the light and offered the illusion that the dead were dancing. The three bodies had been dumped in a spot not far from the road, one right next to the other. Their legs and hands were still bound with duct tape.