“Even The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant?”
“Has its moments.” Arvo grinned and eased out the cork. “But I’ve got to admit, that one’s a bit of a turkey. There’s a similar movie with Ray Milland and Rosie Grier in it that’s pretty funny, though. Ray Milland plays this racist and he ends up sharing a body with Rosie Grier’s head. Weird.” The cork made a loud pop and champagne foamed around the mouth of the bottle but didn’t spill over.
“I can see you’ve done this before,” Maria said.
“Uh-huh.” Arvo poured the champagne carefully into the flutes. “My mother taught me.”
“Sounds like an interesting mother to have.”
“She was.”
“What did she do?”
“She was a chef.”
“What happened to your parents, Arvo? I know they’re dead, but you never told me how. Auto accident? Plane crash? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I understand.”
Arvo was silent for a moment. It was true he had never told Maria or anyone else on the unit what had happened to his parents. Why, he didn’t know. Now, it didn’t seem to matter. Or maybe he wanted Maria to know. The only person in LA who had known was Nyreen, and she was gone now; he had no one else to share it with.
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “They were murdered.”
“Both of them?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How? Where?”
“Windsor, the Canadian side of the border, where my father taught university. Very ironic, seeing as we lived in Detroit, which is a pretty dangerous city.”
“What happened?”
“As far as anyone knows, they were on their way home from a faculty party, stopped at a red light on Wyandotte, when some kid came running out of a Mac’s Milk store he’d just robbed, jumped in the car and told them to drive. The Ontario Provincial Police found my parents the next morning about ten miles out of town. Both of them had been robbed and shot in the back of the head.”
“My God. I... I don’t know what to say, Arvo.”
“Well, maybe that’s why I don’t usually tell people. It embarrasses them. Anyway, it was over four years ago. I guess I’m as over it as I’ll ever be by now.”
Maria shook her head. “You don’t ever get over something like that.”
“No. That’s true. It does change you forever.”
“Were they ever caught? The kids who did it.”
“Nope. Never. Anyway, I didn’t want to stay in Detroit any more after that — nothing to stay for — so I put in for a transfer. When an opening on this unit came up, I took it like a shot. New life. New world. California, here I came. They were well-insured, and Dad had done pretty well on the stock market, so I inherited enough for the convertible and the down-payment on the house... And that’s about it. Story of my life.”
“And then along came Nyreen,” said Maria.
“It never rains... ”
Arvo put some Billie Holiday on the stereo. It was maybe more suited to bourbon and smoky bars than French champagne in a smoke-free living room, but what the hell. Maria held out her glass. “Here’s to next year,” she said. “And may it be better than the last one.”
“Amen,” said Arvo and clinked glasses. They drank.
“Mmm,” said Maria. “This does taste good.” She sat down on the sofa and Arvo sat in the armchair. “Busy day?” she asked.
“Jack Marillo’s funeral.”
“Was the actress there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have you fallen in love with her yet?”
Arvo remembered his exchange with Sarah Broughton at the funeral, then he remembered seeing her naked the other morning. He felt himself blush.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Maria said. “I didn’t mean anything.”
Arvo laughed. “No, it’s fine. Really it is. And no, I’m not in love with her. I’m not sure I even like her, and she sure as hell doesn’t seem to like me. She’s scared, so at least she does what I say now, but as for liking... ” He shrugged. “I don’t think she could ever like someone who’s had to make her reveal so much of herself, give up so much of her privacy.”
“Hey. Can’t win ’em all.”
“I’ll drink to that.” For some reason, Arvo didn’t want to tell Maria that he had spent the night at Sarah’s place, albeit alone in an armchair. Or that he had seen her naked. It was crazy, they were colleagues, friends, they’d known each other ever since Maria came to work the unit only a few months after Arvo. Yet there were some things they never talked about.
Over the past three years, they had shared an occasional drink and a problem or two, patched up a few of one another’s bruises, just the kind of things friends do without even knowing much about one another’s taste, without even knowing exactly where one another lived, or so he had thought. There should be another category, Arvo had always thought, between friends and acquaintances, because that surely was where most people in his life belonged.
They had drifted apart when Arvo married Nyreen. Maria hadn’t said anything about it, but then she hadn’t needed to; her silence said it all. For a while, he had resented her for that, resented the idea that a friend should not be as happy as he was about his wedding, and their relationship had cooled. But that was when he had been head over heels in love with Nyreen.
Shortly after he began to realize what a mistake he had made in marrying Nyreen, he heard, through others, that Maria herself was breaking up with the guy she’d lived with for four years, an artist who lived in Venice. Arvo had always thought him a bit of an arrogant asshole on the rare occasions they had met socially. Burdened with his own problems, still pissed at Maria, he hadn’t been there for her. So now there was a lot unsaid, a lot unresolved between them.
“More champagne?” he asked.
“Sure. You mind if I put the TV on? Regular network TV. I just like to watch the Times Square celebrations. It’s a family tradition.”
“Sure.” Arvo flipped on the TV and found the right channel. “My brother lives in New York.”
“Will he be there?”
“Michael? No, too afraid of getting mugged.”
Maria laughed and Arvo went to the fridge to get the champagne. He still felt awkward, on edge.
When he went back she was perched at the edge of the sofa watching people in tuxedos and evening gowns dance to a big band, with her hands folded in her lap. He handed her the glass, and when she took it she looked up to catch his eyes and the next thing he knew he was kissing her on the lips, gently at first, savoring their softness and the scent of champagne on her breath, and then harder, probing with his tongue, intoxicated by her response.
The kiss ended and she stood up close to him. She put her arms around him. “That was nice,” she said. “Why don’t we go in the bedroom?”
“It’s a mess.”
“Good, we’ll make it even messier.”
“The champagne... ?”
“We’ll take it with us.”
“Maria—”
“Sshh.” She put her finger to his lips. “We’ll talk later. Right now, this is what I want to do, no strings, no explanations, and most of all no bullshit.”
Arvo took her hand and led her to the bedroom.
“It’s not a mess,” she said. “At least the bed’s made.”
Arvo laughed. He left the door slightly ajar so they could make out outlines by the light from the other room. They could still hear the television, but he was in no mood to go back and turn it off. They put their champagne flutes on the bedside tables and sat together on the edge of the bed.