I. I Love It When You Give Me Things
Mac has learned, like the people of Troy before him, to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, and so, when Stella smiles and slides the brightly-wrapped package across the table, his first reaction is to study it with a wary eye.
"Happy birthday," she says.
He adjusts the napkin on his lap. "It isn't my birthday until next week," he says.
"Oh, come on, Mac. You think I don't know by now when your birthday is? Please." Stella pushes the package closer to him. "I also know that, if you thought for even a second that I was taking you out to dinner tonight to give you a present, you would have turned me down and hid in your office until the vernal equinox."
He shoots her a look.
"Am I wrong?"
"Well...no," he admits.
"So if I had asked you to grab a bite closer to your birthday, you more than likely would have guessed, and not gone. So..." She shrugs. "I did an end-run around your likely reaction to such a scenario."
"Have you been reading the NYPD code of conduct handbook again?" he asks. "You sound like a textbook."
She swats at him. "You're a fine one to talk. You with your 'slang is the mark of an illiterate populace and will lead to the downfall of society' rant."
"I never said that."
"Practically."
"All I said was that I prefer to be precise in my choice of language. And that slang terms are, more often than not, not the best way for a person to express whatever they're trying to convey."
"You mean like the way Danny talks?"
He sighs. "Danny is a walking thesaurus of urban slang, I'm afraid."
"Yes, but Danny wouldn't be Danny if he dropped 'ain't' and 'cocksucker' from his vocabulary. You have to admit it's colorful," Stella says.
"Colorful," he says. "That's one way of putting it. And his deliberately bad grammar is a different matter entirely than his insistence on using street lingo to express himself."
"You don't seem to mind all that much." Stella's tone is so innocent that he shoots a suspicious look at her, wondering what's behind this remark, or her choice of what word to emphasize. But she's staring casually off into the distance, smiling to herself and humming a soft tune. Since he can think of no graceful way to pursue the topic, he decides to drop it.
He glances around for the waitress, wondering if their food is ready yet; it'll be a convenient distraction.
"We only ordered five minutes ago," Stella says.
He blinks. "How did you--"
"Because you're hoping to avoid having to open your gift. And it's not going to work. It never works." She pushes the package a little bit closer to him. "Go on, see what it is."
"Maybe I should--"
"Unless, of course, you don't want my gift." She presses a hand to her heart. "My gift that I stayed up nights thinking about, and spent days looking for, and paid for with my very own credit card. Is that how you feel, Mac, because I'll tell you, that would honestly and truly hurt. And furthermore--"
"Stella..." He puts a hand to his forehead. She isn't the least bit hurt, and they both know it. This is all just part of the annual routine. Every year since she was first hired at the crime lab, she's made a production of giving him his birthday gift, and every year he waits with equal parts anticipation and dread to see what she's come up with this time. There have been a few stunners over the years, along with a few gifts that have made him wish for a convenient hole to open up in the middle of the floor. The problem is, he never knows which one it's going to be. Stella would argue that this is part of their charm, that birthdays are all about being surprised. He would, given his druthers, take a little bit of predictability.
Then again, he thinks, studying her across the table, Stella wouldn't be Stella if she were inclined to give him any sort of a break whatsoever.
"I'm going to open it," he says. "I promise. And I'm sure that it's...lovely, whatever it is."
"Well, then?" she asks.
He starts to reach for the package, steeling himself, but just then, the waitress does arrive, and as they sort out her blintzes from his soup and sandwich, and try to make room for the coffee, he convinces her that it'll be better if they wait until they're having dessert. She acquiesces with a grumble, and they settle down to dinner.
Whatever the present is, he reassures himself, eyeing it as he would a ticking time bomb, it can't possibly be any worse than some of the other things she's come up with over the years. He's immune by now to gift-induced embarrassment, or at least he should be. Whatever Stella has taken it into her head to give him this year, he can take it. Sure he can.
II. A Pretty Girl in Her Underwear
Mac hasn't quite figured out yet how he ended up in this position, but he's pretty sure that, somehow, Stella is responsible for it. He doesn't know how, or why, but she is. And he's going to find out the motive as soon as he can.
He is standing in the middle of the crime lab. There's a girl, nearly naked except for a sequin-covered g-string and tassels dangling from her breasts, and what look to be impossibly high heels, dancing in front of him. There's a song playing, something with a heavy, seductive-sounding percussive beat. And, scattered around the room, there are what appears to be every last one of his employees, almost all of whom are laughing and clapping along to the beat, as well as providing the occasional whistle or shout.
He caught a glimpse of Stella somewhere nearby when this all began, a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile plastered across her face, but after that he lost track of her. Possibly because he's now afraid to move, or even blink too much. He also can't figure out where to look or what to do with his hands, and has settled for his best military at-ease posture, hands folded behind his back, eyes fixed firmly forward. Trying to think about something other than the girl's legs or nearly bare crotch, or admittedly very nice breasts.
He had been standing at a counter, reading a tox report from the lab, when he'd heard a voice behind him. "Detective Mac Taylor?"
"Yes." He had turned around to find a young woman in a police uniform standing there. Had he been a bit quicker on the uptake, he thinks now, he might have noticed that she was wearing much more makeup than the average uniformed officer had a tendency to, or that her skirt was about three inches too short, her blouse open to the midpoint of her cleavage.
"I was told to come see you if I had evidence to present."
He had set his report down. "Well...yes. What is this about?"
She smiled, and pulled off her cap, shaking her head to let her hair fall around her shoulders. "Your birthday, Detective. And the evidence to prove that I can be a very, very bad girl."
With that, the music had started, and it all became one big, mortifying blur.
The girl gyrates in front of him, pasty-covered nipples occasionally brushing the front of his suit jacket. At one point, she grabs his tie to shimmy against him and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, their eyes meet. In hers, he reads amusement, tinged with an edge of irony. At that, something inside him relaxes and he permits himself a small smile; she sees the silliness in this performance as much as he does. Now if only he could stop blushing. If only this weren't taking place in front of the entire lab.
The song comes to an end, finally, and the girl finishes with a flourish, then goes into a deep curtsey. The spectators burst into cheers and applause, and he claps along politely, still smiling. Still, he can tell, bright red.
The music starts up again, a slower beat, and she smiles at him. "Sit down, baby."
"What?"
"Sit down." She nudges him towards a chair, trying to keep on the beat as she does so.
"For--?" He has a sneaking suspicion what for, but wants to be certain.
A hand slides along his arm. She has little spangles of glitter on her eyelids. "For your lapdance," she says in a low voice.
"Oh, no. No." He stands up straight and pulls back slightly. "No lapdance. I'm sure it's very well-done, miss, but the one dance was enough. Thank you."
She eyes him. "Are you sure? It's been paid for."
He nods. "Yes. Thank you." Please put your clothes back on.
"All right." She shrugs and smiles and starts to gather up her things, to catcalls of disappointment.
"Back to work, the rest of you," he calls, and some of them even listen. He turns to the girl again. "Miss? I'm not sure of the protocol here. How much should my tip--"
"I got it, Mac." Stella materializes beside him and hands the girl an envelope. "Thank you," she says. "That kicked ass."
She pockets the envelope. "Thanks. I'm not sure how much the birthday boy enjoyed it, though."
Stella waves a dismissive hand at him. "He liked it. He's just shy." She leans in, stage-whispering. "Intimacy issues."
The girls nods, world-weary. "I've seen plenty of that. He's a gentleman, at least. Not like some of the guys I've danced for."
"That he is."
Mac thinks of protesting the "intimacy issues" diagnosis, then decides to keep his mouth shut; that isn't an argument he wants to get into with Stella. Not in front of witnesses, anyway.
"Hey, honey." Flack leans in, flashing bared white teeth at the girl. "He don't want the lapdance, I'll be happy to take it."
"Flack, not here," Mac says.
The girl takes a step back from Flack and produces a business card. "Here's my work number," she says, voice distant and professional. "If you call, booking will be happy to provide you with a schedule of my rates."
Flack smirks. "I'd book you any old time."
She takes another step back. "Well, you let them know that. Bye, now."
"Bye, Maggie," Stella says. "Thanks again."
"For you and him, any time."
"What about me?" Flack calls as she walks away. "Don'tcha wanna help with my intimacy issues?"
"Flack, you're a pig," Stella says.
"Yeah? Then oink me, baby."
She raises a dangerous eyebrow. "If you--"
Mac steps between them. "Don. Enough. Don't you have any suspects to brutalize?"
"Yeah. Fuck this anyway." Flack snaps his gum. "I'm gonna go call Gavin, see if he wants to take in a gentlemen's club some night this week." He strides off; Stella rolls her eyes.
"Don't you actually have to be a gentleman to get into those places?" she asks Flack's back. "They'll never let you in."
Flack flips her off without turning around.
"Can you say compensator?" she asks. "I'd bet you anything he has a tiny, little--"
"Stella."
She grins at him. "I'll stop."
"Thank you. I don't want to hear about Flack's tiny anything." He pauses, then adds, "I might have known you were behind all this."
"Well, that's why they pay you the big bucks." She walks with him into his office. "When did you figure it out?"
"About the time her top came off."
"Good man." She sits down on the edge of his desk, displacing a stack of folders. "So?"
"So?" he repeats.
"So what did you think?"
"She was very..." He pauses, thinking. "A very skillful dancer."
"That's it?" she demands. "That's all you have to say? A 'skillful dancer'?"
"What's wrong with that?" he asks. "Would you prefer it if I critiqued her form?"
"But, Mac..." Stella shakes her head. "Only you would talk about a stripper by praising her dance skills. Not that she's sexy, not that she got you hot, not even that you were surprised she didn't have fake tits -- which she doesn't, I hope you noticed. No, you're impressed by her dance moves."
"Which leads into my question." He sets down the file he's been flipping through and comes over to sit next to her. "Why a stripper, Stella? Do you just live to torment me? Is that it?"
"Actually, yes." She smiles at him. "And I thought you could use something special for the big four-oh."
He sighs. "Oh. That."
"Yeah, that. C'mon, Mac..." She elbows him. "I know you're all not into making a big fuss over your birthday, but you can't tell me that this one doesn't mean at least a little something to you."
"It's another decade." He shrugs. "I'm glad I survived it."
"You're impossible. Are you and Claire doing anything special?"
"I don't know. She said something about coordinating our schedules for a nice dinner out. We'll see." Coordinating schedules has become a growing issue in his life over the past six months or so; weeks go by when the only time he sees Claire is when he crawls into bed at night, and she's a vague, sleeping form on the other side of the mattress. Or in the mornings, if they're leaving around the same time, and then she's a quick blur in a business suit and heels. She probably thinks much the same of him, minus the heels.
He glances around, aware that Stella is studying him, and wishing for a file to hold, to sort through. Anything. Unfortunately, the closest ones to hand are trapped under Stella, and he's not about to go that route, even though -- or perhaps because -- he knows the kind of game she would make out of it if he asked her to let him have the folders.
"Well, that sounds nice. And don't just choose the local coffee shop if she lets you pick the place," Stella says. "Go for the gusto."
He has to smile. "The gusto?"
"Sure. You know, something swanky. Les Halles. Daniel. I could give you a list of suggestions."
"I'm sure you could. I'm not much for swanky."
"Mac, when someone else is treating, you learn to be."
He laughs, and they sit in silence for a minute.
"Well," she says eventually, "I think either of those would be out of my price range, but how about you and I have lunch tomorrow at that place on St. Mark's? My treat."
"No more strippers?" he asks.
"No more strippers." She holds up one hand. "Scout's honor."
"Then it's a date."
"Fantastic." She jumps off the desk. "I have to go see Hawkes about a corpse, but we'll talk about it more later."
"Will do." He stands up and watches her go, adding, "Hey, Stella?" when she's almost out the door.
She turns back. "Yeah?"
"Thank you for today. I think."
She grins. "Happy birthday, sailor."
III. My Mama Said Gently, You Can Buy Her a Bentley
The year of the stripper was probably the high point -- or low one, depending on how he looks at it. Stella hasn't been able to top herself yet, though it hasn't been for lack of trying. The following year, while they're sitting in his office after hours and sharing a bottle of gin, she presents him with a gift basket from Toys in Babeland: an assortment of flavored condoms, several silk scarves, a container of lube, a vibrator, and what Stella explains to him is a cock ring.
"See," she says, and slides her fingers through the ring. "You put it on, and then you can stay--"
"Stella."
"--hard for longer, but still have orgasms. So, as you can see, this is a very good thing for both you and the woman in your life, because--"
"Stella."
"What?" She stops talking and looks over at him, blinking for a moment, then a wide smile spreads across her face. "Oh, Mac. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"I kind of got that," he says, shaking his head, and reaches for the bottle of tonic water.
"I didn't mean to imply that you had trouble maintaining an erection or anything. This is good even for guys -- like you, of course -- who don't have trouble with premature ejaculation. It's more for --"
"Stella."
"--tantric sex. You know, like Sting? What?" She takes her fingers out of the ring, and puts it back in the basket.
He's shaking his head at her. "You are...what on earth would make you buy something like this?"
Stella props her elbows on the desk. "Because it's your birthday, of course."
"You couldn't just get me a card?"
She waves her hand. "Of course not. That's so dull. Cards are for people you don't know well. You, my friend, get the special treatment."
He sighs, and slides her glass, which he has just topped off, across the table to her. "I'm not so sure that's a good thing."
"Of course it is. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to top the stripper. Or, at least, I haven't thought of a way yet that I can do so." She clinks her glass against his, then takes a drink. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to try, though."
"All right." He sorts through the contents of the basket, carefully, not entirely sure that he's not going to start some bad chain of events by doing so. "But what exactly am I supposed to do with this stuff?"
She laughs. "Mac, if you need me to tell you that..."
He can feel the familiar blush creeping up the back of his neck. "I don't mean...I know that. I know technically what to do with...well, most of this, anyway. I just don't know what this is supposed to be good for, in the grand scheme of things."
"Spice up the old love life," she tells him cheerfully. "Take Claire up to the Berkshires for a weekend and rock her world. She'll never stop thanking you for it."
When he mentions that this might not be the best idea, she's at a loss.
"You would think it was funny if one of your husband's female co-workers gave him a basket full of sex toys for his birthday," he says, incredulous.
"Well, sure. It's not like you and I are going to use them," she says. He raises an eyebrow. "You know what I mean. It's for you and Claire. Go." She makes a shooing gesture. "Have fun."
He sighs. "All right."
"Good." She drains the rest of her glass, then stands up. "Now, listen. You go have a happy birthday. Celebrate in style."
"I'll try." He stands up to walk her out.
"Dinner soon?" she asks.
"Veselka," he says. "Your treat."
"Of course."
"In the meantime, I've got work to finish before I go home." He gestures to the ever-present folders. "I have two interviews tomorrow morning for that new grade-three position, and I'd like to be prepared."
"You always are, Mac." She gives him a quick squeeze, and he touches her shoulder lightly.
"Good night, Stella."
"'Night."
He brings home the condoms and scarves, but stashes the rest of it in a locked desk drawer, and he doesn't mention where he really got any of it; despite what Stella says, he knows that Claire will never understand. He can't quite wrap his brain around the idea of tying his wife to the bed, which is what he knows the scarves are for, but maybe it'll be fun at that.
(Claire stares at them for a long minute, and then says, "Maybe," in a tone of voice that he knows means Never, no way in hell is that going to happen. Later he hears her on the phone with one of her friends, saying something about a mid-life crisis. She never brings it up again, though, and he never dares to ask. Some of the condoms get used, and it's fine, though he can't say with any authority that they make a difference in his sex life, one way or the other.)
When Stella asks him, a month or so later as they eat dumplings and noodles at Momofuku, how the gift basket went over, he says, "Fine," and then starts to ask her about a case.
She snorts. "You didn't even bring it home, did you?"
He hesitates, twirls a noodle around his chopsticks. "Some of it," he says at last.
"Let me guess: the vibrator and the cock ring are hiding in your office somewhere."
He wishes she had said "cock ring" in a slightly lower voice, but no one seems to notice, or care. "Great. You win," he says. "Very perceptive."
"I know you." She reaches over and steals a shrimp from his plate. "So does that mean you brought home the rest of it?"
"Yes. Well, not the...the lubricant. But the other things."
"And did you use them?"
He studies his water glass.
"Mac?" she asks.
"A couple of the condoms," he says at last, not looking at her. "And the fact that we used two of them in a month is probably some kind of record these days."
Silence spins out. He sits there, hating himself, silently cursing his moment of weakness.
"Mac..." Stella begins, and above all, he can't bear the sympathy in her voice. It hasn't quite slid into pity, and thank Christ for small favors, but he doesn't need any of it. Doesn't need her prying into his private life any more than she already does.
"Forget it, Stella," he says.
He glances up, and she's frowning, forehead creased with worry. "If I crossed any lines--" she begins.
"You didn't. You couldn't have known." He pushes his plate aside, no longer hungry. "Now, look, about this thing in Harlem..."
She lets him change the subject.
That year turns out to be the last one she gives him any gifts that bear any relation to sexual matters whatsoever, because, as it turns out, that's the last year he has any need for such things. Even if September 11th had never happened, he thinks sometimes -- in his darker, more bitter moments -- he might not have had any continued need for them.
So she sticks to safer, if still humorous (at least in her own mind), selections from there on in. Four years later, he's beginning to think that condoms might have a new place in his life after all. Certainly, lubricant does. He doesn't entertain the notion of scarves, though, much less anything more exotic; and he doesn't mention any of these new possibilities to Stella.
Knowing her, though, and knowing his luck, she'll probably figure it out anyway.
IV. I Could Dress In Black and Read Camus
The year of the Velasquez case, which is also the year that he recommends Danny Messer for promotion, and the year before he starts to think again about things like proper condom use and not waking up alone, Stella presents him with what he considers one of her better gift selections.
"It's..." he begins when he opens the package.
"It's a caffeine molecule," she says proudly. "See the little coffee cups mixed in?"
He holds the tie up to his chest; it's a surprisingly nice shade of blue, and the label claims it to be 100 silk. The repeating pattern looks like an ordinary abstract one from any kind of distance. Only when studied up close do the chemical formulas and tiny mugs become apparent.
"Stella, where do you find these things?" he asks. "More to the point, why do you find these things?"
She flashes him a flippant smile. "I'll never tell. A woman has to maintain some of her mystery. As for why, I thought: why not let Mac wear his favorite addiction on his chest? Anyway, admit it. You like it, don't you?"
As reluctant as he is to encourage her, he has to admit that he does.
Stella has always had a penchant for mixing in truly thoughtful gifts with the ones that are designed to embarrass him (or, at least, to make him laugh): a reproduction set of antique microscope slides with blood samples and throat cultures from the turn of the century that she discovers at the Museum of Natural History gift shop for Christmas one year, for example. Her best finds, though, are the old editions of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
"It's not worth anything much as an antiquarian book," she says, shrugging, when he protests over the Hemingway. "I just thought it was nice. The guys at the bookstore couldn't understand why I wanted such a 'worthless' -- their word -- edition, when they had much better ones for sale. I told them that this one had the nicest cover. And you like old Ernest, don't you?" He does.
Other people, when they buy him books, tend to pick out things by Tom Clancy or, worse, Clive Cussler, and don't know him at all. He says thank you on these occasions, and leaves the book on the coffee table. Maybe, in the case of Clancy, he'll read a few pages here and there as distraction on nights when he can't sleep and there's nothing good on television. A while later, when he thinks of it, he'll donate the book to St. Agnes' annual book sale, or leave it on the table in the lobby of his building.
He keeps the old hardcovers of Tender Is the Night and A Farewell to Arms in a neat row above his work desk at home, along with his Marine Corps training manual and physics textbooks, and Saint Augustine's Confessions. He will, on occasion, take them down and read a few paragraphs; he's familiar enough with both books that he no longer has to read through them chronologically in order to know what's going on. The pages are gently browning at the edges, and both give off a faint whiff of must and old ink.
The slides sit in their box on the same desk, and sometimes, when he's been working a case hard and can't seem to find his way through the maze of DNA and fingerprints and carpet fibers, he'll take them out and look at them for a while. It's a way of grounding himself, of forcing his mind onto another subject long enough for the onslaught of information to slow down and to process through his neurons. There's something soothing about looking into the past, about seeing how unchanging some things are. A blood sample is a blood sample, whether it's 1900 or 2005, and the structure of human blood doesn't give a damn how much the technology may have changed in the intervening century.
He wears the caffeine molecule tie, because the pattern is subtle (as these things go), and it does amuse him. Stella is the only other person to get the joke.
V. Dance with Me, My Old Friend, Once Before We GoThe dinner plates have been cleared away and they're waiting for their dessert order when Stella says, "Okay, no more excuses," and pushes the package towards him.
"No, I guess there aren't." He looks it over for another minute, then picks it up. Nothing rattles.
"For God's sake, Mac, stop looking at it like it's going to explode in your face," Stella says. "It's not even anything embarrassing this year, I promise."
He looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "Really?"
"Really. Would I lie to you? Now go on."
"All right." He slides the ribbon off, then rolls it into a ball and sets it to one side. Stella watches this without saying anything, but when he begins to slide his finger under the tape, she lets out an exaggerated sigh.
"Problem?" he asks.
"Can't you just rip the paper off like a normal person?"
"There's nothing wrong with the way I open a package," he says.
"Yes, except for the fact that this isn't the Depression, and you're not going to save that to use again. You--oh, for God's sake." Stella lunges across the table and tries to grab the package away from him. He fends her off, then slides his chair back far enough to finish opening it in peace.
Stella freezes halfway across the table, glaring at him, and it's in the middle of this stalemate that the waitress brings their pie over. She leans back in her seat, looking flustered, and he smiles at her; she flips him off in return.
"That's not very nice," he says mildly, after the waitress has made her escape.
"Oh, fuck you," she says. "You want to see nice? I'll show you--thank Christ, finally." He drops the wrapping paper on the table, then takes the lid off the box, steeling himself just in case. She watches him closely.
"Stella," he says after a moment, studying the papers in front of him.
"You like?" she asks.
He holds up the certificate: he's been enrolled in the Coffee of the Month Club. "I think I'm vaguely insulted at the implication that I'm a caffeine addict," he says, "but I have to admit this is nice."
She beams. "I knew you would like it. You get a different gourmet coffee from a different country every month for the next twelve months. You even get to grind the beans yourself, because they stay fresher that way. And I think it comes with some kind of little 'history of coffee' booklet or something each time. It's all there in the paperwork."
"I look forward to it." He looks at her. "Thank you."
"Any time, my friend." She starts digging into her pie. "I figured that if you're going to drive yourself into caffeine fits, might as well do it in style. All the coffees you get are the super-caffeinated stuff, too, none of this pussy decaf soy shit."
"I'd expect nothing less." He closes up the box and sets it down next to his plate, then starts to eat his pie.
"See, I don't embarrass you every year," she says.
"No, just most years," he says agreeably.
"Just wait till Christmas, buddy boy. You'll get yours then."
They come out of the restaurant onto Third Avenue twenty minutes later, and stand talking for a few minutes by the curb; it's a mild night, and he has a little bit of time before he needs to leave for his next appointment. Just as he's about to look at his watch and suggest heading for the subway, Stella exclaims, "Oh! I almost forgot," and pulls something out of her coat pocket.
"What's that?" he asks, looking at the small pink paper bag with a wary eye.
She smiles and holds it out. "The other half of your present."
He takes it with a sinking feeling, and looks inside. An array of flavored condoms gleam up at him, and he has a sudden, very clear memory of Stella sitting in his office and pushing her fingers through a metal cock ring, explaining to him in blithe, oblivious tones what it was for. He bites back a smile, puts on his sternest face, and looks up at her. "Condoms," he says. "How thoughtful."
"Lube, too," she says happily. "Flavored. It must have fallen to the bottom."
"Ah." He shakes the bag a little. "Yes, there it is."
"Well, you know." She shrugs. "I figured it's the Boy Scout motto: always be prepared. And I thought, well, you were a Scout when you were a kid. Might as well help you be prepared just in case you ever have need of some of these."
"I don't think this is quite what the Scout leaders had in mind," he says.
"You have to adapt or you'll die out. Like the dinosaurs." She smiles at him, and she's so smug, so pleased with herself, that it takes everything in his power not to burst into laughter. To encourage her.
"Well, thank you, Stella," he says. "Now it feels like a real birthday."
"Go, team me."
"And I have something for you, too," he adds, and reaches into the inner pocket of his coat for the package that's been there since yesterday.
"Me?" She looks at him in honest surprise, and he's pleased; it's a rare thing that he gets to throw her for a loop.
"Yes, you." He puts the package into her hand. "Go on and open it."
"It's not my birthday," she says suspiciously.
"I know," he says. "But I knew you would be getting me some sort of present for mine, and I thought that just once I would surprise you for a change, too."
"You're a very complex person, Mac." He waits patiently. "Is this going to be something embarrassing?" she asks.
"Can't remember."
She shoots him a look, then sets about opening it, pulling off the paper quickly and without regard for rips ("See, Mac, that's how you open a gift"), and when she's done, she looks down at the book in her hand with an expression he can't read.
"Is it--" he begins. "I mean, that's the right book, right? The right author? The one with that poem you used to say all the time."
"Yes," she says, and looks up at him, smiling. "Yes, it is. I just can't believe you remember. I haven't said it in probably five years."
He shrugs. "I have a good memory, what can I tell you? The mark of a good criminalist is attention to detail."
"Detail." She rolls her eyes. "I bet I can say it right now, without even looking in here to refresh my memory."
"Go on, then."
She smiles and stands up straight. "'Razors pain you;/Rivers are damp;...'"
He listens, nodding, then joins her for the last line. "'...You might as well live.'"
"Perfect. I knew it." She looks at him, holding the book to her chest. "Mac, this is the best gift. Thank you."
"Any time," he says.
"Want to walk me to the subway?" she asks.
"Actually, I'll go with you on the subway," he says. "I've got another...appointment, and I need to head in that direction."
She nods. "Uptown?"
"Well. Actually. No." He steps to the corner to wait for the light to change. "Case in Queens. I need to check a few things out."
"Queens. Huh." She nods thoughtfully. "You know, I don't remember seeing anything on the docket for Queens."
"It came in after you left." He doesn't look at her.
"I see. Well..." She leans over and takes his arm, squeezing it. "You just be careful with this case in Queens, you hear?"
"I will be."
She mumbles something that sounds a lot like, "Good thing I got you that second present," but when he looks over at her, she's studying a store window as they walk along.
He feels a sudden urge to hug her, but knows that if he did, she'd either express loud shock or turn it into a public scene, so instead he settles for saying, "Thank you again for my gift...gifts."
She smiles. "Happy birthday, Mac."