precise, but, based on size alone, it could have given any living juvenile orca a run for its money. It gazed up at us with black oval pupils as if pleading for understanding.
“Don’t you get it? A day after I met Monty on the beach in San Diego he took me to Sea World for our first real date! He bought me a Shamu to show me how much that day meant to him! Isn’t it perfect?”
“Shamu?” Dena repeated, clearly baffled. “God, Mary Ann, he’s as big as my love seat!”
“A love seat,” Mary Ann repeated, clasping her gloved hands together as she emphasized the second word. “That’s perfect. And look! He can act like a love seat, too! See? You can sit on him!”
She plopped down on top of her new pet. Shamu barely budged under her weight, but then again Mary Ann couldn’t be over a hundred and ten pounds. It was doubtful that she had the power to crush a baby Chihuahua.
“Is he comfortable?” I asked doubtfully.
“Well, no,” Mary Ann admitted. “But I bet the real Shamu isn’t all that comfortable either, and the trainers ride him all the time!”
“So now you want to straddle an orca?” Dena laughed.
“Don’t be crude! This orca is one of the most romantic gifts Monty has ever given me! Not that you would understand. Your idea of romance is a pink dildo with a vibrating dove flopping around at the end of it!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Dena waved her hand in the air dismissively. “They don’t make them with doves. You’re thinking of the rabbit with the twitching nose…or maybe my rubber ducky vibrator but he’s not attached to anything, the vibrator is the duck. You just hold it—”
Mary Ann sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. “You’re missing the point!”
Dena shot me a pleading look but I refused to intervene. I have published ten murder mysteries including Fatally Yours, which was currently on the New York Times bestseller list, and I have managed to solve more than one true-crime case before the police could, but debating the emotional significance of a giant plush sea mammal was well beyond my mental capacity.
Mary Ann recognized our silence as a victory and smiled. “There’s more.”
“Oh?” I asked, trying not to sound apprehensive.
“Yes. Yesterday was our eleven-month anniversary and to celebrate the day Monty put together a whole gift pack with something to remind me of each of the wonderful places he took me to during the first week we were together.”
“Wait a minute.” Dena adjusted the low cowl neckline of her army-green tank top before dropping down on the flowered couch. “You guys celebrated your eleven-month anniversary? Shouldn’t you have waited another month before exchanging gifts?”
“Monty says that would be too continental,” Mary Ann explained.
Dena and I were quiet for a moment as we tried to work that one out. “You mean conventional?” I ventured.
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Both Dena and I tactfully chose not to answer the question.
Mary Ann shrugged and got back up to her feet. “You want to see what else he got me?”
“Can I have a second to think about that?” Dena teased.
Mary Ann rolled her eyes and went to the mantel of her mock fireplace. Carefully she picked up a snow globe that I hadn’t seen before.
“Check it out, it’s two flamingos like the ones we saw at Wild Animal Park! Isn’t it cute the way their heads are pressed together so their necks form a heart? And he had it engraved and everything! Look!” She pointed to the little plaque on the front of the snow globe. “M & M! For Monty and Mary Ann! He says that life with me is just as sweet as the candy. Isn’t that cute?”
Neither of us said anything for a moment and then Dena turned to me. “Do you have any Tylenol?”
“Oh, come on.” Mary Ann smacked Dena on the arm with a tad too much force to be considered playful. “It’s sweet! You think it’s sweet, don’t you, Sophie?”
“Well,” I hedged, “it’s certainly unconventional. I mean, well, they put flamingos in a snow globe. I’m not judging or anything but…wouldn’t penguins be somewhat more appropriate?”
“Penguins can’t make their necks look like a heart!”
“Actually they sort of can—”
“No, they can’t!”
“Oh. Okay.” I sank back as Dena muttered swearwords under her breath.
“And I’m sure that flamingos would love the snow if they ever had the chance to play in it!” Mary Ann continued. “Humans aren’t the only ones who like to mix things up, you know!”
I nodded quickly to show that I was willing to concede the point. Of course it wasn’t the flamingos that I had difficulty with despite their peculiar climatic versatility, it was the inscription. Comparing a relationship to the sweetness of M & Ms? If Anatoly ever said something like that to me I’d whack him over the head with a toothbrush.
Dena lifted her fingers to the bridge of her nose as Mary Ann replaced the globe and crossed to the other side of the room. But this time what she pointed to was a rather interesting and well-rendered piece of modern art that she had hung high above her low bookcase. The blue backdrop perfectly offset the bold black and white strokes that graced the canvas.
Dena immediately perked up. “Monty gave you that?” she asked. “It’s actually pretty cool!”
“Isn’t it?” Mary Ann looked up at the painting lovingly. “It was painted by an orangutan at the San Diego Zoo!”
Dena opened her mouth, then closed it, then started rocking slowly back and forth like a mental patient trying to comfort herself. “Maybe I should pour us all something to drink,” I suggested hopefully. “Something strong.”
“In a minute,” Mary Ann promised. “First I have to show you this.”
She crossed to the side table by the couch and lifted up a delicate little treasure box. It was made of porcelain and was as smooth and beautiful as Mary Ann’s complexion. On its lid stood a small figurine of Tinker Bell. Her delicate but spirited face was upturned and her little wand was arched high above her head as if she was trying to command the stars to dance.
“It’s pretty,” Dena begrudgingly admitted.
Mary Ann nodded solemnly. “It’s Lennox. It was at Disneyland that I knew I was truly in love with him. Tinker Bell flew over Sleeping Beauty’s castle and the sky lit up with fireworks….” Her voice trailed off and she took a deep, shaky breath. “He kissed me then and the way I felt when I was in his arms…the entire experience just opened my eyes to a whole new world!”
Dena grabbed my wrist and gave it an urgent squeeze. “She’s going to burst into song!” she hissed. “It’s like some kind of nightmarish scene from Mamma Mia!”
Mary
