Death by Sarcasm

Thirteen

She did want a drink, she just didn’t want to have one with Braggs, Mr. Dual Personality. She wondered, did Visa realize the voice of their company was a complete psycho?

All she really wanted to do was relax in front of her fireplace and have some wine. Mary stopped at a little market a block or so from her condo. They had a good selection of wine and the only drawback was Julia Roberts always went there for this or that, so that meant there were always a few people going for a look at Julia Roberts. But despite the sometimes long lines, she loved their oddball selection. She picked out a chardonnay and a pinot grigio, then went back to her condo.

She was just about to her door when the door of the condo next to her opened. Mary was surprised. It had been vacant since about four months before when a young character actor she’d met once or twice had died of an overdose.

A man stepped out into the hall. He had on a tan sportcoat with jeans and tan leather shoes. He looked up at Mary and smiled.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Mary said back, momentarily caught off guard by how handsome he was. Really bright blue eyes and wavy light brown hair. Nice build. She stopped in front of her door.

“Do you live here?” the man said.

“I wish. I’m actually the plumber,” Mary said. She nodded her head toward her own door. “Their toilet’s backed up again.” She hefted the bottle of Chardonnay. “I use this instead of Drano.”

The guy raised his eyebrows, a slight smile on his face. He knew she was kidding around. Hmm, the guy was quick. She liked that.

She smiled. “Mary Cooper,” she said and stuck out her hand. “You’re moving in, I assume?”

“Yep.” He shook her hand. “Chris McAllister,” he said.

Mary liked his handshake. It was warm, not too strong, not too weak.

“Yeah, I just got the keys this morning,” he said. “Do you like it here?” he said.

“Yeah, except for the rats, they’re as big as raccoons.”

“Perfect, I’ve always been fascinated with rodents.”

Mary smiled, surprised that a guy that good looking had a sense of humor, too.

He laughed then, a soft easy smile that showed his perfect white teeth.

“Well,” he said. “I’m going to finish bringing this stuff up. It was nice to meet you, Mary.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. She stepped inside her apartment and closed the door behind her, then leaned her back against it. Whoa, she thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t see many handsome guys. There were plenty of them in L.A. Jake Cornell being one of them. Plus, a lot of her clients were in the entertainment industry, Home Central for the Hotties. But there was something different about this Chris guy. Something that just seemed more real. Not the primped and polished phoniness of so many of L.A.’s beautiful people.

Mary walked to the kitchen and got the wine opener. She twisted it, cranked it downward into the cork, then clamped down and slowly drew it out of the bottle. She liked her chardonnay slightly chilled, but didn’t feel like waiting now. Patience was overrated and instant gratification was just plain getting a bad rap.

She went to her stereo, run by her iPod, and put on some Jamie Cullum, the young British jazz sensation and her favorite artist of late. You couldn’t get a ticket in London to see him, but in the States, fourteen bucks got you front row seats.

She settled into her couch, put her feet up, and looked out her picture window at the dark ocean. Mary always thought about sharks at this point, and not the ones in the LAPD. No, she thought about the sharks, out deep during the day, coming in closer to shore to feed.

The chardonnay hit the spot. She thought about what Braggs had done to Jimmy Millis. That had been bad. All that racist bullshit. It just went to show you, no matter how much superficial beauty there might be, it could always hide something really, really ugly.

Mary got up and poured herself another glass of wine. She rummaged around the fridge for something to eat. The wine had gone to her head. She’d been popping Tylenol, still hurting a bit from the bomb blast.

Finally, she dug out a plastic bowl filled with some of her hazelnut pesto pasta that she’d made a couple days ago. She grabbed a fork and sat at the kitchen table, looking out past the living room toward the water.

For the millionth time, Mary wondered why she had insisted on a condo with a view of the ocean. Her parents had died in the Pacific when she was just three. Lost during a storm while sailing their 36’ catamaran. The bodies had never been found. It was right after that she’d moved in with Aunt Alice, who had raised her.

Mary toyed with the pasta but she’d lost her appetite. She threw it away then filled her glass again.

Her mind drafted back to her new neighbor. It had been awhile since her last relationship. Jake had really been it. There’d been a few serious guys before that. A few not-so-serious. You had to have those once in awhile. At least when you were younger. Now, it just seemed like a waste of time.

A lot of the guys she’d been with had two big problems with her: one, she was a little bit sarcastic. And two, she carried a gun and knew how to use it. A lot of times, guys were okay with one of those. It was the rare individual who could handle both.

Even Jake. He’d been fine with career. It was the mouth that got her into trouble. One of the last times they’d been together, they’d made love and Jake had asked her if she had fantasized about someone else.

She still laughed about her answer.

“You mean like Kevin Costner in ‘Dances with Wolves?” she had said. “Did I imagine Kevin and I on a buffalo rug in a warm teepee, with him pleasuring me to the thunder of the hoofbeats of Tatonka! No,” she’d said, calming down. “Absolutely not.”

Mary thought it had been a funny joke – it had been a joke. She may have fantasized about Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves when she was by herself, in her hot tub doing something naughty, but not when she was with Jake. And it wasn’t just that, they had cooled off slightly anyway. And they had never formally broken up, it just seemed that both of them were a little bit scared to make a decision one way or the other.

She’d had some really good times with Jake, not that they had seen each other that long. He was very kind, gentle, and funny in a way that complemented her sense of humor. Mary wondered if she’d made a mistake, if she should have told him how she truly felt. That she was in love with him. Was it too late?

Mary polished off her third glass of wine, her limit, and headed for the hot tub. After everything she’d been through, crying in her condo about a past relationship was not on her agenda.

She fired up the Jacuzzi in her master bedroom, sunk into the hot water, and thought about Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Had he ever been cuter?

Mary had a feeling she was going to see some Tatonka.