Jane snapped awake, jolted by the eerie sense that someone was staring at her. Her startled gaze was met by a pair of toffee-colored eyes framed by flaming orange hair.
"Hey kiddo, good morning. You an early bird too?
Annaliese wrinkled her nose and made a gagging sound. "Your breath smells like farts."
"O…kay. That's because I'm a grownup and grownups can be stinky. It has to do with mouth bacteria and other stuff. Maura or your Nana would be able to explain it better."
The child shrugged. "Whatevs. I'm starving."
Jane reached over and patted the empty bed beside her. Maura must be up already. She yawned, careful to cover her mouth lest she release more fart-breath into the air.
"What time is it?"
"Time for fucking breakfast, I'd say."
Jane raised both eyebrows, but said nothing. The girl wasn't exactly a brat, but she was very opinionated and cursed like a stevedore. Maura had remarked on it before they went to sleep, wondering why Faye and Kaye refrained from correcting their granddaughter's foul language.
She felt under her pillow for her phone and heard it clatter to the floor behind the headboard.
"Fuck me!"
Her expletive was met by a delighted grin, exposing a crooked line of teeth where several had fallen out, but their replacements were only half grown in.
"Um, sorry. Could you get that for me, Sweetie?"
Annaliese scrabbled under the bed and returned with Jane's phone. "It's nine o'clock. I've been up for hours."
Jane swung her legs to the floor, glad she had opted to sleep in a pair of Maura's silky pajamas instead of her usual tank and nothing else. She stood and stretched.
"I find it hard to believe that you've been up for hours and no one gave you anything to eat."
"Maura gave me one of those shitty cereal bars, but it tasted like crap. I almost barfed so I fed it to your dog."
Jane knew exactly what she was referring to and privately agreed with her assessment. "All right. I did promise you pancakes, didn't I?"
"Yeah. You and Gran were s'posed to make them while Nana and Maura went to work, but you've been snoring your ass off in bed and Gran is doing the same in the back yard."
"I'm sorry, kid. I should have been up, but let's let your Gran have her little nap. She drove a million miles yesterday."
"334.3 miles."
"That's still impressive."
The child shrugged. "It's not a million. A million miles would be more than four times the distance from the Earth to the moon. You're an exaggerator, Jane."
"Yeah, I guess I am."
"And your pajamas are too short. You have high waters."
"Right again. These are Maura's." She wondered why she felt the need to explain herself to a six year old.
"You should buy a pair that fits or don't wear anything at all. My parents sleep nude."
Jane blushed. "TMI, Kiddo. Go trot downstairs while I get changed. Be prepared to work when I get down there; we're making breakfast together. Got it? You can take the butter out of the fridge to get soft."
"Don't forget to brush your teeth. I don't want to smell your fart mouth while we're cooking."
Jane took an exceedingly quick shower; rinsing, soaping and rinsing again without washing her hair. It would take half an hour to comb out the tangles and blow dry it enough so she wouldn't look like the Obama family's Portuguese Water dog when it was fully dry. She could only imagine what trouble the red-headed devil was getting into without adult supervision. She gargled and brushed her teeth before and after her shower. She even flossed, a hygiene extra that she performed only when she was certain that she and Maura were going to make love. She sniffed the jean shorts that she'd kicked off the night before and frowned, but her choices were limited so she pulled them on along with her purple Queen of All Lesbians tee.
When she reached the kitchen, Kaye was standing in front of the opened refrigerator, one of Maura's frilly aprons tied around her thick waist, her glasses perched on the end of her nose.
"Good morning."
"Hey Jane, what do you know about crêpes de froment?"
"Not a fucking thing."
Annaliese giggled.
"Me neither, but this one…" She ruffled her granddaughter's auburn curls. "…she spent a week in Montreal with her parents, and regular American pancakes aren't good enough for her anymore."
Jane was tempted to quote her father. When the Rizzoli kids complained that they didn't like their dinner or they wanted a toy out of their parents' price range, Frank Sr. would draw his prodigious brows together and say, "Ya know what they say in the Russian Navy, 'Toughski Shitski.'"
Instead she pulled out her phone and googled the recipe. "Okay. Eggs, flour, milk, salt, oil, and vanilla extract. I think we have everything we need. You sure you don't want some Boston-style flapjacks, Kiddo? I got a spankin' new box of Aunt Jemima on the shelf and my Ma taught me to make them shaped like bunnies."
"Nope." The child crossed her arms over her skinny chest and shook her head. "I want crêpes de froment with crème fraîche and apricot preserves."
Kaye shot her an apologetic look, but Jane waved it off. "No problem. We got this. Let's get cooking and we'll surprise the doctors. You ever make these things before, Kaye?"
"Yeah, but only under strict supervision. I'm not allowed to make a move in the kitchen without Faye being on hand to instruct me. Even without her eyesight, she knows if I'm doing something wrong." She pitched her gruff voice up an octave and mimicked her soft spoken spouse. "Kaye, I don't smell fresh basil. You're not cheating and using the McKormick's in the shaker bottle, are you? Kaye, that sounds more like a sizzle than a sauté. Turn down the flame."
Annaliese giggled. "That sounds just like Nana." She began twirling around the kitchen, expending energy that children seemed to have in unlimited reserves. She came to an unsteady stop in front of a bookcase crammed with paperbacks and medical texts. "Is this your trophy Jane?"
The detective had stored the purloined Cock Gobbling award behind a stack of Sudoku books on the bottom shelf until she could decide how best to return it to its rightful owner.
"Umm, kind of."
Annaliese picked it up. "Why is there a hotdog coming out of the man's pants?"
"It's just a silly joke. I was in a hot dog-eating contest yesterday. I ate 44 franks." She patted her flat stomach proudly.
"I think it's s'posed to be a penis." The child intoned. "Who would want to eat a barbecued penis?"
"Who, indeed." Kaye took the statue out of her granddaughter's hands and placed it on the top shelf. "I've been thinking about that situation and I have a couple of ideas."
"Good! I'm fresh out."
Maura entered through the small door leading from the clinic. "You're up, Jane! Don't forget your promise." She gestured to the dirty ragged clothing hanging on her fianceé's frame. "This Ol' Drag. Today."
"Yeah, I know. Right after breakfast, babe. You think you and Faye can tear yourselves away from your patients to eat a couple of fermented crepes?"
Maura tilted her head, questioning, before recognition dawned on her face. She was rapidly becoming fluent in Jane-speak. "Crêpes de froment? Certainly. That's an ambitious project."
"We got it covered." Kaye answered without conviction.
"Any interesting patients today?"
"Just one, not very interesting; a hydromedusae sting."
Annaliese shot across the room, her eyes wide with excitement. "A jellyfish! Did you pee on it?"
"No, of course not. I just came in to pick up the sea salt." She opened a cabinet and pushed a few items aside until she found a pale blue container labeled 'sel de mer,'
"We're going to scrape the wound with a scaler to remove any stinging cells then rinse it with salt water. That's the prescribed treatment. With a few Tylenol and a light coating of cortisone cream, she should be fine."
"You have the entire Atlantic Ocean down the block and you're making your own salt water?" Jane scratched her head.
"We will be using bacteriostatic water; there are all manner of micro-organisms living in the ocean. Besides, this closet is closer than the Atlantic."
"I want you to pee on her. I saw it on television. You need to piss on a jellyfish sting." Annaliese pouted and stamped her foot. "I can do it. My pee is younger and fresher."
Maura studied the little redhead, then squatted so they were on eye level. "While human urine does contain some sodium, it also contains uric acid, nitrogen, and low levels of bacteria, even in healthy individuals, which can aggravate a wound and hinder the healing process. You should never urinate on a wound or…" Maura frowned. "…or on anything else."
"Except the toilet bowl." Annaliese corrected, her caramel eyes gleaming with triumph at having had the last word.
"Yes. Urinate only in the toilet bowl."
"When we were driving to Montreal, my dad stopped on the thruway and pissed in the bushes." The child added.
"Well, sometimes emergencies happen and we have to make due with what's at hand."
"So you could piss on a jellyfish sting if you had no salt water around, like if you were in a car on the thruway and you had no salt and your water bottle was empty."
Maura bit her lip, clearly out of her depth with the child's persistence. "No. In that case, you should…"
"Hey, Kiddo, there are no jellyfish on the thruway. Now let Maura get back to her patient and start cracking some eggs. This breakfast isn't going to make itself."
She ignored Jane. "What if you had a pet jellyfish named Fuckface and you kept him in a fishbowl on your lap and you spilled him and he stung you in the middle of the thruway."
Kaye chuckled. "She never gives up, Jane. She's either going to be a Madison Avenue attorney or a criminal mastermind."
D'Fwan appeared in the doorway. "You find that salt, Dr. Isles?"
"Yes!" Maura's confused look lifted and she hurried out of the kitchen after her nurse.
"Is that a man or a woman?" The redhead asked.
"A man."
She took in the information, remaining blessedly quiet as she cracked eggs into an aluminum bowl and her grandmother carefully measured flour.
Jane rooted through the fridge. "I don't have any buttermilk. Will plain whipped cream be okay?"
"No," came the girl's instant reply.
"Then I have to run to the store. How about this? I can stop at the Cherry Pit and pick up a couple of dozen readymade crepes. We can tell Maura and your Nana that we made them ourselves. They'll be very impressed."
Annaliese scowled, her little mouth pursed. "That's lying, Jane. Lying is wrong. Gran says it's especially bad to try to fool Nana because she's blind."
Jane blushed, chagrined. "You're right. I'll just go to the store. Do we need any else?"
"Powdered sugar, vanilla, apricot jam, fresh strawberries, blueberry com…compost…and maple syrup."
"Compote; compost is rotting garbage you use to fertilize your garden. Put both words in your vocabulary journal." Kaye quietly corrected her granddaughter.
"That's what I said." The girl snapped. "But I'll put them in, right between clusterfuck and crap."
Jane slipped out of the door just in time to avoid the conversation she was dreading.
"Is that nurse transsexual or just a transvestite?" Annaliese asked her Gran.
"Maura said that I'm in charge of you today." Annaliese skipped out ahead on the walkway, her fiery braids swinging behind.
"She probably shouldn't have said that." Kaye grimaced.
"That's not what she said." Jane jogged after the child.
"Is too. She said, 'You're in charge of Jane today. Don't let her come home without a dress and some appropriate casual attire.'" Annaliese had managed to capture Maura perfectly, from her ramrod straight posture to the raised lecture finger pointing aloft.
Jane had to smile, imagining her love as a small know-it-all, albeit without the foul mouth. "I take that to mean that you are in charge only as far as getting me to buy some shitty outfits at the drag queen boutique, not a carte blanche."
"Nope. You're my bitch today, Jane." With that she bolted in the direction of the beach, the flashing lights in her Power Puff Girl sneakers flickering like fireflies.
Jane loped along behind her, increasing her speed to a sprint as the child rounded the bend onto Lewis Walk and disappeared. "I got this, Kaye, I'm her bitch, remember?"
The older woman slowed to a jog. "Good. I haven't chased anyone since the mid '80s when a crackhead swiped my service revolver."
"Did you get it back?"
"Hell yeah. It would have been my shield if I didn't."
Jane gave her a thumbs up as she rounded the corner in time to see a red braid zip around the bend and onto the neighboring walk. The girl was heading back toward the bay. Good, let her exhaust herself, maybe she'd need a nap. With her quarry in sight, the detective stopped running and strolled along the planked boardwalk, enjoying the dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves of juneberry and black oaks that lined the path.
The child had stopped at the corner where she was pacing in front of a wood-shingled cottage, her mouth agape. Jane increased her strides, hoping the girl wasn't witnessing a sex act through someone's open verandah door.
Annaliese turned her head, caught sight of detective and waved her on. "Jane, you have to see this. It's the most fucked-up and beautiful shit I've ever seen."
Jane took her time, stopping to admire the mosaic walkway leading to a brightly painted cottage. The elaborate tile work featured two naked men bent over a bench while a third inserted flowers into their asses, or maybe he was pulling the flowers out. Jane squinted at the composition until the individual tiles became discernible; jagged pink and peach flecks forming strong buttocks, against teal and smoke grey, the stormy Atlantic in the distance. An elegantly stenciled sign hung above the gate, "A Rose by Anus Other Name."
Kaye caught up and stood beside Jane, shaking her head. "That must have cost a cool hundred grand. Can you imagine?"
"I can think of better ways to spend it. People are weird."
"Jay-yun! Come on! This shit is un-fucking-believeable."
"I'm coming." She shouted and then to Kaye. "What could be more unbelievable than this?"
The older woman blanched. "The real thing."
The two women dashed down the walk, prepared to grab the little redhead and drag her away before whatever she was seeing could become permanently etched in her mind.
They reached the corner property, an unremarkable craftsman cottage with cheerfully painted yellow shutters. Jane appraised the building with her detective's eye, noting a torn window screen and a furry green swath of mold growing under the eaves where the sun never reached. No one appeared to be home. She exhaled.
"Look!" Annaliese tugged at her T-shirt.
Only then did she allow her eyes to wander to the garden below the foundation. Plants did poorly in the sandy beach soil, leading many homeowners to decorate with artificial greenery and whimsical statues; lighthouses and unicorns, ceramic gnomes and plastic puppies were bountiful. The ornamentation here was less banal.
The bare earth was studded with tiny pikes, each topped with the severed head of a doll. There were dozens of Barbies, their vacant cornflower eyes stared into nothingness, blonde tresses matted by rain and splattered with mud. Baby dolls with perfect "o" mouths tilted toward the sky as if silently howling their fate. A weather-beaten Pillsbury doughboy grinned slyly, impervious to the popsicle stick impaling his chubby torso. Mrs. Claus with broken spectacles loomed above a dimpled Cabbage Patch baby. A hand-painted Victorian girl, half her porcelain cheek cracked off, leaned drunkenly against a Medusa with pale green skin. Kewpies and China dolls, troll children and sad clowns all skewered and transfixed as if to illustrate that death holds us all in equal disdain. In the far corner, a naked plastic harlequin stood watch, the keeper of the crypt, the grinning guardian of the cemetery.
"I want to play with them." Annaliese announced, breaking the spell that kept both Jane and her grandmother rooted in place, their wide eyes darting from one horror to the next.
"No way, Kiddo, this is…I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's not for you."
The child stamped her foot and jammed her balled fists against her hips. "They're dolls. Little girls are s'posed to play with dolls."
"You don't like dollies, sweetheart." Kaye soothed.
"I like these dolls. They're like…" She scrunched her face up. "…like zombies."
"Yeah, they creep me the fuck out." Kaye pulled out her cellphone to snap a photo to show her wife, then realized Faye couldn't see it. She snapped it anyway. She'd look at it and describe it in all its eerie detail to her spouse.
"Let's go." Jane held out her hand to the girl.
"No." She stamped her foot again. "I'm the boss of you, Jane. I want you to play dead dollies with me."
Kaye, used to dealing with the willful child, took a different approach. "You're supposed to get Jane to the drag queen boutique and make her buy a fancy dress that she'll hate to wear. I'm sure Jane would rather spend all day playing in the dirt than trying on frilly clothes. If you don't get her to the dress store, she wins."
It worked. With one last longing glance toward the graveyard of decapitated moppets, she grabbed Jane's hand and pulled her toward Bayview Walk. "No fun for you, Jane. You're going to get a dress that makes you look like a fairy fucking princess and you're going to hate it."
Jane feigned horror and then resignation, reluctantly shuffling toward the town center.
"Who do you think lives in that place?" Kaye asked.
"A serial killer, a misogynist, Jack the Ripper." Jane mused.
"I think…" Annaliese proclaimed. "It's a witch, like in Hansel and Gretel. But she's a fucked-up witch. She cooks children and eats them, but she doesn't like their brains, so she leaves them outside to rot on sticks."
The answer made Jane's hackles rise and she peered curiously at the small child who was happily swinging her hand as they made their way past Cherry's.
"Can we have lunch there?"
"Only if you like borscht." Jane answered.
"No. I want a burger." She pointed to a powder blue building next to The Ice Palace Hotel and Disco. The sign above the door read "Burger Queen."
"You just had breakfast." Kaye took the pointing hand in her own and kissed it. "Later, lovebug. Let's get Jane her frilly, spangly, pink polka-dot, princess gown first."
The girl's eyes narrowed. "With matching fuzzy pink fuck-me pumps."
Jane groaned, that was probably an accurate description of what she would find inside. She braced herself, sighed and opened to door to This Ol'Drag.
The shop's decor was straight out of Jane's worst nightmare. The walls and ceiling were painted a bright pink, half a shade lighter than the high-pile carpet underfoot.
"I feel like I just walked into a bottle of Pepto Bismol." Kaye groaned.
Racks of clothing cluttered the center of the room, trailing feathers and lace. Garish fabrics spilled from rolls, electric blue zebra print battling with nuclear orange leopard for most dizzying.
Lining each wall were racks of falsies, beige with deep cocoa nipples, fair and freckled tipped in pale rose, tear drop shaped and round, silicone and latex with adhesive tape or shoulder straps, from barely Bs to double Ds and beyond. Breasts lay haphazard on top of glass display counters and in a heap on the carpet. Nipples stared from every corner like the sightless pink eyes of lab rats.
Annaliese busied herself bouncing rubber mammaries like gelatinous beach balls. "Look, Gran, I can juggle."
"Nice. Your dad would faint if he saw that."
Jane stood in front of a modest cardboard display featuring a dozen plain beige briefs, by far the most understated garment in the shop.
"I need some panties. I can't believe these aren't bespangled and dripping rhinestones."
"Yeah, those are pretty damn boring. Even I wouldn't wear them and I'm seventy." Kaye joined her in front of the display.
"They're called 'My Secret Panty.' I guess the secret is that they're so fucking ugly." Jane picked up the smallest one and held it up to her hips, revealing the secret. The crotch opened exposing an anatomically correct labia, magenta inner lips protruded from the slit fabric like the lolling tongue of a thirsty heifer.
"Whoa! That's just wrong." Jane flung the briefs back onto the rack.
Kaye pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, laying the underpants just so to capture the realistic vulva. "Jane, what do you think these puppies cost?"
"No fucking idea. I get three pair of Hanes Her Way for ten bucks, so probably more for those. Maybe $20?"
"Ha! Try $125."
"You're shitting me!"
"Having fun, ladies? If you like the secret panties, we also carry full bodysuits in beige and black." A male voice startled them, causing Annaliese to drop the pair of enormous rubbery breasts she had been tossing.
A short, chubby man in khaki bermuda shorts and an I love NY T-shirt entered from a back room. "Ah, Detective Jane. Are you hot on the trail of serial sodomites?"
Jane peered at the little man through narrowed eyes, then grinned. "Butthole-Fly!"
"The one and only." He curtsied.
"Is this your shop?"
"Alas, it is not. I got a raise in my social security check this month so I am treating myself to a new kimono. I popped in for a fitting with Carmen Erecta. This is her shop."
"Is your name really Butthole?" Annaliese gaped in wonder at the dragless queen.
"It's my stage name."
"That's so cool."
"Thank you, my dear. Is this one yours, Jane, the fruit of your womb or did you just supply the batter and bake her in that lovely doctor you've been smooching on all over town?"
"Uh, neither. This is my friend Kaye and her granddaughter Annaliese."
"Charmed." He extended one smooth white hand and shook with Kaye and the child.
"So?"
"So, I need some clothes and Maura thought I should shop here because I'm tall." Jane blurted.
Butthole-Fly giggled and clapped his hands. "Oh, this is going to be so delicious. Carmen! Do come out, you have a customer."
Carmen Erecta was easily six foot five barefoot, but neared the seven foot mark with his Texas-style blonde bouffant wig. His face was fully made-up from artfully arched eyebrows to glossy red lipstick. He wore a pair of figure-hugging red pedal pushers and a black tank top, exposing well-muscled upper arms and strong shoulders. A yellow paper tape measure hung around his neck.
He ran an appraising eye over Kaye, then Jane and finally Annaliese. "Who's the customer?"
"Me." Jane stepped forward.
"Good. I thought it might be half-pint over there. We have a midget over at the Belvedere. He calls himself Honey Doo-Doo and struts around in Toddlers in Tiaras drag with a Miss Cherry Grove sash. He's a real diva, would scratch your eyes out if you copied his style."
"He's not always in drag. I saw him at the clothing-optional pool and he's hung like a horse." Butthole-Fly gestured, his pale hands held a foot and a half apart. "That thing all but hits the ground when he walks.
"Mmm-hmm." Carmen agreed. "I had to sew a custom strap into his panties so he could wrap it under and tie it behind his back."
"I'm not a midget, dipshit. I'm a child." Annaliese glared at the enormous blonde.
"I think midget is an offensive term." Jane muttered, remembering her recent sensitivity training session. Maura would be proud of her.
"Please, sister, we're talking about a man who until last year called himself JonBenet Pansey and wore a rope around his neck as part of his outfit. He'd be the last person to be offended. You dykes are so politically correct."
"Humorless." Butthole-Fly added.
"I happen to be very funny." Jane rested a hand on her sternum.
"She is." Kaye agreed.
"Whatever." Carmen looked bored. "What are you in the market for?"
"Umm, a dress that I can wear out to dinner."
Carmen eyed the lean woman in front of her. "I don't work for women. You dykes should open your own store. You could call it Joyce Lezzies."
Jane's cheeks burned. "Fine. Go fuck yourself." She turned to walk out of the shop.
"Wait!" A huge hand sporting a delicate French manicure grasped her elbow. "I was pulling your leg and a very long leg it is. I'm just a bitchy old queen, don't mind me."
Jane stood on a stool while Carmen and Butthole-Fly buzzed around her, taking measurements.
"Inseam, 34 inches. I can do a lot with that. Waist, 25."
"I wish my waist were 25, even 35. Sweet lesbian Jesus, I'd settle for 45." Butthole-Fly sobbed.
"Are you writing this down, Myron?"
"Yes, yes. Don't get your panties in a knot, Charles."
"Don't call me that. Once I step on that ferry, Charles is dead and Carmen is reborn from his ashes, like a great rainbow-spangled Phoenix."
Kaye tried to keep her granddaughter occupied playing catch with a silicone C-cup. Annaliese had a good arm. A future softball player, Jane mused.
Carmen put down his measuring tape and snapped his fingers in impatience. His friend passed over the pink writing tablet where he had recorded every number. Carmen studied the sheet, then studied Jane.
"I'm thinking she could pull off Morticia Addams. She's tall and thin." He slowly circled the stool where Jane was now sitting. "I envision a form-fitting black mermaid gown with a train of inky tendrils trailing behind."
"I can see it." Butthole-Fly nodded. "We'd have to blow her hair out straight and she'd need a few props; a cigarette holder and a black cat."
"Try again." Jane vetoed the idea.
Butthole-Fly pursed his lips. "Elvira Mistress of Darkness?"
"No. She's too…" He gestured impatiently, looking for the right word. "…swarthy and not enough tit."
He paced the length of the shop, tapping his manicured fingers against his temple. Finally, he stopped, a predatory smile on his ruby lips. "Cher!" He exclaimed.
"Why can't I just be Jane?"
"Booor-ring." Butthole-Fly trilled.
"Cher might work; she has the deep voice. The question is; which Cher? I personally adore early '70s Cher; that Cherokee look from the Half Breed album." He cleared his throat and pitched his tenor down half an octave.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves We'd hear it from the people of the town. They'd call us gypsies, tramps and thieves. But every night all the men would come around and lay their money down."
He took a breath, but Carmen covered his mouth with a big hand and his voice was stifled.
"Then there's 1980s Cher with her big hair and fishnet body suit. Myron, if you start to sing 'Turn Back Time' I'll choke you."
The smaller man closed his mouth, biting back the "If" that was already floating in the air.
"I have twenty yards of fishnet in the back. We'd just need to add a modesty panel over her crotch and perhaps a stylized flower approaching, but not entirely covering her nipples. What color are they, dear?"
Jane flushed and stammered.
"Never mind. I assume they're dark. Pink nipples should be covered; they're shy, but brownies are a fashion accessory unto themselves."
Jane swallowed. "No exposed nipples."
"So tedious, these dykes. They wouldn't know fashion if it climbed up their leg and licked their pussy."
The two men cackled and Carmen jotted a few notes on his pad. "Cher it is, but era to be determined. Right now you look like Silkwood Cher after a double shift in the Kerr-McGee plant, so anything I design will be an improvement."
"I should be insulted, but strangely I'm not."
"That's the power of camp." Carmen intoned.
"That's like gay sarcasm, right?"
"Yes and so much more. Camp is an attitude, poking fun at the ridiculousness of human existence. Aren't we all just bags of meat stuffed with shit and come, yet we strut around trying to look pretty."
"Amen." Butthole-Fly nodded. "I'd cross myself, but I'm a good Jewish boy from the Bronx."
Jane stood. "I also need some casual stuff to knock around the island in. You know, some cargo shorts and maybe a pair of khakis; play clothes."
"Play clothes? I don't think I've ever been asked to design those before. I suppose I could whip up something using fabric from my bedroom curtains like Fräulein Maria did in The Sound of Music, but I hardly think floral lederhosen would be a good look for you."
Butthole-Fly clapped his hands. "Sound of Music drag. Oh, I love it." He took a deep breath and began to sing, dancing away from Carmen before he could be silenced.
Dildos and butt plugs and bears in black leather.
Boys who will tickle my ass with a feather.
Fellatio, sodomy, men in g-strings.
These are a few of my favorite things.
Carmen rolled her eyes, her oversized eyelashes waggling like warring spiders. "Really, Myron, must you ruin every beautiful show tune in the world?"
"Ruin? I improve them." He twirled and continued.
Cross-dressing drag queens and men hung like stallions.
Huge uncut foreskins on Greeks and Italians.
Cavity searches and studded cock rings.
These are a few of my favorite things.
He bowed, the perfect gentleman, to Annaliese and extended his hand. She took it, laughing wildly and the pair waltzed around the shop, knocking over a mannequin dressed in a red velvet ball gown.
"Rump bum bum, rump bum bum, rump bum bum," he hummed. "Can you feel the rhythm, little one? Waltz is in 3/4 time. Good, good. You're a natural."
He began to sing again as he spun the delighted girl through a rack of feathered boas.
Deep throating rent boys who dance in gold cages.
Tea dances, bath houses, toilets and rages.
Clamps for my nipples and velvet sex swings.
These are a few of my favorite things.
"Myron! She's a child." Carmen shouted, his large hands resting on ample hips.
Butthole-Fly waved him off, intent on finishing his song.
When my cock droops.
When gonorrhea stings.
When I'm feeling sad.
I simple remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel…
He held the note for a full half minute.
So bad.
"Sing it again! Please!" Annaliese begged.
"Once is enough. I always like to leave my audience wanting more."
"That has never happened." Carmen deadpanned. "Any-hoo, I will work my magic and have something for you tomorrow evening, but no play clothes. Take the ferry to Sayville, there's a Walmart on Sunrise Highway. Carmen Erecta does not make cargo shorts and Who Farted t-shirts."
"I've been here four days now and I haven't seen the beach. It's literally one block from this house. Can you believe it?" Jane poured half a bottle of teriyaki marinade over the pair of marbled porterhouse steaks resting on a platter on the kitchen counter. She poked the meat with a fork and poured on the rest of the bottle, tossing the empty into the trash.
"I believe it." Faye put aside the potato she was scrubbing. "I lived in New York City almost my entire life and I've never visited the Statue of Liberty or the Stock Exchange or even the Empire State Building."
"Yeah, but there's a difference between being a local and a tourist. I'm a tourist here and when you choose to go on vacation in a beach town, you expect to see the beach."
"Why don't you and Maura take a walk to the ocean now? Kaye and I will prepare dinner. Take a bottle of wine and a blanket. Enjoy the sunset."
"I want to go to the beach. It's one of my favorite things." Annaliese waltzed around the kitchen, singing. "Doodoos and Butt bugs and sodomy sex swings…these are a few of my favorite things."
Kaye claimed it as a victory that the child had misremembered most of the song and hoped she would forget the rest by the end of their vacation.
"Nana, can you believe it? The man's name was Butthole."
"I find that very hard to believe, although your Gran assures me it is true."
"Pumpkin, those things in the song are Mr. Butthole's favorites. You should write your own song with your own favorite things."
"I like this one."
"Annaliese." Faye turned her sightless green gaze toward her granddaughter. "Take out your vocabulary journal and make me a list of your favorite things."
"I want to sing them."
"You may, but only after you write them down. Go on."
The girl pouted but listened, skipping up the stairs, crooning "Rump, bum, bum. Rump, bum, bum. Rump, bum, bum."
She returned a moment later, clutching her Hello Kitty notebook. "My favorite things by Annaliese Alexandra Capasso. The beach. Farts. Pizza. Christmas and spending time with Nana and Gran."
"Very nice. I especially like number five."
Maura appeared at Jane's side, her golden hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and her face scrubbed clean of makeup.
"You look gorgeous, baby."
"I don't know about that. I've completely forsaken my beauty ritual today, but I do feel at ease. Having Faye here has lifted a tremendous burden from my shoulders. My pulse has been a steady sixty all day, even with two emergencies."
"Two?"
"Yes. The hydromedusa sting, and right after you left Volga came in with a deep cut to her thumb. She was slicing beets to make borscht and…"
Maura's gaze fell upon the steaks, now floating in a brown pool of marinade. "Oh, Jane, those are Pat LaFrieda Prime Angus Porterhouse. All they need is a little salt and pepper."
"It's teriyaki, Maur. You're looking at it like it's diarrhea. What's so great about this Pat La Freaka?"
"LaFrieda Meats supply all the finest restaurants in New York." Faye explained. "Maura saw them on display in the grocery window when we walked into town. We forced you and Kaye to eat a healthy salad for dinner last night and neither of you complained, so we thought you earned a steak dinner."
"Not just a steak dinner, a LaFrieda steak dinner." Maura amended.
"What's the difference?"
"About $90 a pound."
"Oh shit. For that money, the steak should eat me instead of the other way around."
Kaye joined them. "It should eat us both and then hold us all night and read us poetry."
Maura busied herself pouring the excess teriyaki off into the sink and patting dry the steaks with a paper towel.
Jane gasped. "No! Maura, that teriyaki is $400 a bottle. It's hand made in small batches by Yoko Ono from her own tears."
Maura poked her in the ribs. "Nice recovery, detective."
"Speaking of detectives, Maura and I discovered a clue to your hot dog caper this afternoon."
"Really? Our doctors were playing detective, Kaye. What do you think of that?"
"Sounds sexy." Kaye reached for a tomato from the plate in front of her wife. Faye sensed the movement and swatted at her hand, but missed. Kaye looked chastened and placed the tomato back, patting her spouse's arm.
"What did you find?"
"We went to Burger Queen after the clinic closed…" Maura began.
"You had burgers for lunch and you made me eat a cucumber and turnip green sandwich? That's not cool, babe."
"We did not have burgers." Faye corrected. "We treated ourselves to a green tea, flax seed, and spirulina smoothie."
"Eww."
"Delicious and very high in both omega-3 and gamma linolenic acid."
"Delicious my ass. Spirulina tastes like the scum that I skim off the top of the koi pond in summer." Kaye groused.
Maura finished drying the steaks and sprinkled each with a miserly dose of kosher salt and a more generous helping of pepper which she ground in a heavy wood mill. "I think no harm was done."
"So…the clue." Jane prodded.
"Yes, we overheard another customer placing an order in Burger Queen while we waited for the barista to prepare our smoothies. Did you know that Burger Queen has a vegan menu?"
"And…" Jane motioned that she should get to the point.
"And someone ordered a soy whopper with tofu-cheese. He said the only meat he eats hangs between a man's thighs."
"Blech. I think I just vomited into my mouth."
"It was Denis, Jane."
"So?"
"Denis who won the Great Cock Gobble."
"Yeah, Denis the pool-fucker. So what?"
"Denis whose trophy was found on our doorstep. He's a vegan, Jane."
"So are lots of people. They don't know what they're missing."
Maura sighed. "Do your gumshoe thing, Jane."
"He's a vegan, so he didn't actually eat any hot dogs during the contest. But, we knew that. I was the only fool who stuffed my face with those cheap weenies. Everyone else just sucked them and tossed them to the dogs."
"Right. Faye and I did the gumshoe thing on our own today. We walked across to the Cherry Grove Grocery where I noticed the steaks in the window and when we went in to purchase them, I asked the counterman if he sells more steak or vegan soy products."
"Okay." A deep furrow creased Jane's brows as she tried to follow Maura's logic.
"He said he sells much more meat. In fact, only one person bought any soy meat substitutes this week. I asked who that was and I might have led him to believe that I wanted to talk with the person about nutrition and vitamin supplements. But it wasn't a lie, because I do plan to have that conversation when he comes to have his penis abrasions checked later in the week. I did not break out in hives."
"Denis bought the soy dogs?"
"Yes. The very evening before that unfortunate surprise was left on our porch Denis purchased a package of Hollymeade soy frankfurters and a jar of organic strawberry preserves."
"Ha!" Jane wrapped Maura in a crushing hug. "Good work, Maur. You're a freakin' genius."
"Yes. I am."
"So he planted the trophy and the fake amputated penis to….?" Kaye was trying to understand his motive.
"Foster seeds of division in the community." Faye explained.
"But what about V.U.L.V.A and those angry women who said they'd rip the trophy from his hands after the contest?"
"Maybe the trophy was left by the angry dykes and Denis left the bloody penis to make them look crazy," Kaye suggested.
Jane's phone pinged. She pulled it from her jean pocket and swiped the screen. "I guess we can ask them ourselves. My membership request to join Vagina's United has been accepted."
The phone pinged a second time.
"Someone named Peppermint Patty wants to know if I'm an alto or a soprano."
"You're definitely an alto, Jane."
"I don't think they're talking about singing, Maur." She blushed, turning the screen around so Maura could see the woman's profile picture, a pair of fleshy hips girded with a strap-on.
Maura raised a suggestive eyebrow. "You're still an alto, Jane, and I wouldn't want it any other way."
Jane spread the blanket on the tightly packed sand. The tide had gone out, leaving a smooth expanse of cream-colored beach in its wake, studded here and there with a tangle of olive seaweed or a broken shell. They were alone on this stretch of beach, though farther down in both directions, tiny figures dotted the sand, some lying on blankets, others walking in pairs close to the waterline. Maura had left her sandals behind and rolled up her pant legs. She was wading in the rolling surf, digging her toes into the cold wet sand, enjoying the sensation of the sea pulling under her feet. She turned toward Jane and laughed, the wind whipping her hair around her face and ruffling her gauzy blouse, exposing and hiding the bare skin of her midriff.
"Come in, Jane, the water's fine." She waved and laughed again.
Jane was captivated, Maura with the setting sun behind her, glowing like an angel, her golden hair set off like a corona framing her smiling face. She reached for her phone and snapped a picture before tossing it into Maura's sandal and jogging across the sand to take her fianceé into her arms.
They kissed, their lips infused with the joy of the moment, the taste of salt on their lips and tongues. Maura pressed herself fully against Jane, reveling in the feel of hard hipbones digging into the soft skin of her belly and strong thighs pressing back against her own.
"This is one of my favorite things." She purred into Jane's mouth.
"Mine too. Probably number one on the list."
Maura pushed in closer, wrapping her arms around Jane's neck, boosting herself up, so she could wrap her legs around her love's muscular waist and press her sex against her firm belly. The relentless undertow pulled at Jane's bare feet and she struggled against it, unbalanced by Maura's weight she toppled into the surf, bringing Maura down with her.
"Shit! It's cold."
Maura just laughed. "We could roll around and make out in the waves like that scene in From Here to Eternity."
"I'm game." Jane rolled over in the surf, covering the smaller woman with her body and kissed her again. Despite their desire and the crush of their bodies, it was cold and they both began to shiver.
Jane broke the kiss and stood, offering Maura her hand. Maura plucked the blanket from the sand and wrapped it around them.
"At least my pants have been washed. Now I can get another four days wear out of them."
Maura chuckled. "No luck at the drag queen boutique."
"Some. They're making me a Cher-inspired evening gown, but Carmen Erectra does not do beach casual."
"I see."
"Are you mad?"
"No. Your complete lack of pretense that carries over into your poor fashion sense is actually quite endearing…one of my favorite things."
"What are your other favorite things? Name five, just like Annaliese had to."
"About you or in general?"
"Both."
Maura thought a moment. "My favorite things in no particular order: your voice when you say my name, that growl; it drives me to distraction. Science; acquiring knowledge and fitting new information into the preexisting framework of my mind, adjusting to the new information, learning and growing every day. Cunnilingus, both giving and receiving."
Jane snorted and pulled her closer. "That's on my list too. C'mon, you need two more."
Maura kissed her neck. "Looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you, planning our future, the small things mostly; a lifetime of laughing over coffee in the morning and fighting over the hairdryer, falling asleep with your arms around me, sneaking a bite of your cheeseburger when you go to the bathroom at the Robber."
"I suspected you did that." Jane laughed against her hair. "One more."
"My work; bringing closure to families, speaking for those who can longer speak for themselves, preserving human dignity when all else has been taken away."
"That's a good list, Maur."
"And yours?"
"Your innocence. I love when we're watching a movie and you fall asleep with your head on my shoulder. When I wake you, you're all goofy and disoriented, completely unguarded. I think I love you most in those moments; I live for it. Being a cop, not just when I get the bastards, but the whole process of running down leads, building a case, I fuckin' love grilling someone in the interview room, being a role model, doing the right thing even when it's tough. Sunday dinner at my Ma's when we're all together and I'm just surrounded by love and craziness and a sense of belonging, especially now that you're there and part of my family. The sex; I love that I can please you and when you come…there's nothing better."
Maura laced their fingers together. "One more."
"The Boston Red Sox. I love those guys. I know their winning or losing doesn't put money in my pocket, but it matters. They blow a game, and I'm in the toilet. They win, and I'm dancing on a cloud."
Maura smiled, her dimples deepening. "I was waiting for a sports team. I wasn't sure if you'd pick the Sox or the Patriots."
"Patriots are number six."
Jane reached behind her in the sand. "Do you want some wine? It might warm us up, but I'm afraid we missed the sunset again."
The fingernail sliver of sun which had been hovering over the face of the water just a moment before had disappeared below the horizon, leaving a diffused amaranth haze over the ocean.
"That's twice this week that you distracted me with those delicious lips. Not that I mind, you're more beautiful than any sunset." Jane pressed another kiss to Maura's cool, damp temple.
"No wine. We should head back. I'm sure Kaye has those steaks charred to a perfect medium-rare."
"Good. Because I forgot to bring glasses. We'd have to swig it out of the bottle like a couple of hobos."
Maura smirked. "One does not swig a Clairette de Die."
Jane popped the cork and took a defiant swig, tilting her long neck back. Maura watched, amused as she coughed and sputtered, wine shooting out of her nose and dripping from her mouth.
"Those damn bubbles."
Maura salvaged the bottle which had been tossed to the sand as her choking fianceé struggled to breathe. She took a small, ladylike sip, the pink tip of her tongue darting across her lips catlike to capture an errant drop.
"Chugging a sparkling wine is never a good idea, Jane. It causes a rapid release of the trapped carbon dioxide gas suspended in the liquid. You've turned your upper gastric tract into the equivalent of a shaken can of soda."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did.
Jane bent over to plant a kiss on her future wife's smiling lips, but an inch from Maura's expectant mouth she froze, her jaw dropped and a tremendous burp emerged, ruffling Maura's damp hair with its force.
"Sorry."
"No need to apologize, ructus is the body's most expedient way to release gas from the digestive tract. I was, in fact, expecting that."
Jane grinned. "If you're not offended, maybe we could have a burping contest at our wedding. I'm sure there will be a few Rizzolis flat on their backs, guzzling from the champagne fountain."
"I'll take it under consideration. Constance may give them rum for their money." Maura bent and picked up both pair of sandals, passing Jane her phone and the half empty bottle of fine Rhonish sparkling wine.
"A run for their money, Maur. Damn, I love when I can correct you. It doesn't happen too often."
"Why would someone give a run for money? Rum makes more sense as a equitable mercantile transaction."
Jane shrugged. "That makes as much sense as anything else. Now move your sexy ass up those steps before your million-dollar Pepe Le Pew steak is cooked to the consistency of my sandals."
"Pat LaFrieda."
"Whatever."
At the top of the beach stairs, Maura stopped to take in one last look at the ocean. The waves were rippling black lacquer under a blood orange sky; primal, otherworldly. Jane's arms snaked around her waist, her warm lips found the pulse point in her neck.
"What is it, baby?"
"The sky, the ocean. It's dark and beautiful and dangerous; like you."
"I'm not dangerous. I'm your trained puppy."
"Botticelli got it wrong, Jane."
"The blind Italian opera singer?"
"No. The artist, Sandro Botticelli. His painting, The Birth of Venus hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Venus or Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, sex and desire. The Greeks believed she rose fully formed from the sea after Cronos castrated Ouranos and threw his genitals into the Aegean."
"Whoa." Jane pulled her closer
"Botticelli's Venus is a pale, curvy blonde with a bored expression on her face, she does nothing to inspire lust. She stands on a scallop shell modestly covering her hairless pudenda with a lock of her own long hair. The sea behind her is placid and pale blue in bright daylight."
"So you think she should have been born at night?"
"Not full night, but in the gloaming; now, when the sky is most dramatic and the sea threatening. I imagine her looking like you with wild dark hair and a strong lean body, gloriously bushed. She wouldn't simper on a half shell, she'd stride warlike from the ocean, shaking sea water from her mane, black eyes flashing."
"Oh babe." Jane kissed her ear. "I wish we were alone or that I had fixed the squeaky bed frame because I want you so bad right now…or is it badly?"
"Bad is correct since 'to want' is not a verb that implies a direct action; it may be modified by an adjective."
"What if the wanting leads to a direct action?" Jane leaned in and captured Maura's lips in a hard kiss, her long fingers pushing aside sea-damp pants and panties in search of a warmer, wetter heat.
"Wheeeee!"
Their passion was interrupted by a whoop of joy behind them. "Out of my way, lesbians, I just hit the island and I'm going skinny dipping."
A pale, naked brunette in large glasses, strapped to her head with a yellow sports strap zipped by them at astonishing speed. She flew down the long flight of wood stairs leading to the beach. When she hit the sand she flipped into the air and did a series of cartwheels landing right at the waterline. She lifted her head to the half moon and howled before diving into the black waves.
Jane and Maura watched in amused astonishment. "Ming!"