“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.”
“Or how you knew I was a cop.”
“Yes, one of those two. Ciao, ladies. Good night.”
As they walked along Isabella Street, Rachel argued persuasively that the man was a former Mafia boss in an RCMP witness-protection program. Miranda, having once been a Mountie, thought it more likely he was the illegitimate offspring of Prince Rainier.
Whatever the case, they agreed he was not a born restaurateur.
“I’ve only got V-8 juice. And some gin. Does that make a Bloody Mary?” Miranda called to Rachel from the kitchen.
Rachel answered through the open door of the bathroom. “It sounds wretched. Let’s give it a try.”
They settled onto the living-room sofa.
On the coffee table in front of them sat a large bottle of V-8, a bottle of gin, a salt shaker, and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Each mixed her own drink, Rachel licking the rim of her glass and dragging it through salt in the palm of her hand before mixing the gin and juice, Miranda shaking in enough Worcestershire to turn the liquid a muddy brown.
“I think,” said Miranda, raising her glass in a mock toast, “this drink is a Bloody Mess.”
“What do you suppose was going through the killer’s mind?” said Rachel.
The two women were relaxed with each other. Conversation no longer needed to proceed through a logical sequence with appropriate segues. Each could say what was on her mind and connections were made through personality, not content.
“I mean, was it all for a diabolical show? Were the murders collateral damage? It was a thrilling display of pathological depravity — horror with an edge.”
“An edge?”
“Of irony, I guess. It’s very contemporary, isn’t it? To make death a joke and a puzzle.”
“Horror films are funny,” said Miranda.
“They used to be scary. Think of Nosferatu, compared to Interview with the Vampire or the Scream movies, or Freddie the 13th. ”
“You’ve made a study of horror?” said Miranda. “Have you ever actually seen Nosferatu?”
“Only in clips, but whatever, the old films evoked our deepest fears. The new ones play to our vanity.”
“Vanity? Like, you’re frightened, but you understand why. We’re back to irony.”
“Death is the ultimate irony.” Rachel said this as if she were quoting someone. “There was a directness in old-fashioned horror; it was the real thing. Dracula. Edgar Allan Poe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Castle of Otranto, even Jane Eyre.”
“The real thing!”
“Where horror and terror converge.” She paused. “When we are terrified to be alive.”
“Wow, Rachel. That’s scary. I’ll take irony — with an edge.”
Rachel seemed preternaturally composed as she discussed the Hogg’s Hollow crime scene and related it to films and novels, showing an affinity for the ominous that Miranda found mystifying and strangely exciting.
“You’re lucky, Miranda. You get to think on the job.”
“All cops think. A traffic cop thinks. When I worked on Parliament Hill, striking in scarlet, I had to think.”
“About what?”
“About security, about whether my hat was on straight, about why I ever wanted to be a Mountie.”
“Why?”