Red Leaves

‘Come on,’ he repeated.

She tilted her head to the side. ‘Are you buying or crying?’ ‘Both,’ he said quickly, not wanting to show her how pleased he was.

‘Well, then, let’s go to EBA. They have Portuguese muffins that are to die for,’ she said.

‘I know,’ said Spencer. ‘I buy them by the dozen.’

They made a left on Allen Street and strolled to Everything but Anchovies, where they sat in the back next to the upright Coca-Cola refrigerators.

Spencer took off his mittens, coat, hat. He saw her watching him.

‘What’s with the hair?’ Kristina said.

Spencer ran his hand through it. He had just had it shorn to his scalp.

‘Oh, you know.’

‘I don’t. Are you in the army?’

Spencer rather liked his new buzz cut. The lack of hair made his deep-set blue eyes appear more prominent. He liked that.

‘It’s just something we did.’ He didn’t want to tell her that one of the women at work had been diagnosed with cancer and when she began her chemotherapy, he and his colleagues, not wanting her to feel awkward, had shaved their heads. Ironically, she had come to work in a wig. However, it was the men’s unbidden act of solidarity that counted. And Spencer, the mildest-looking of men with his subdued Irish features, aside from his exaggerated Cupid mouth, actually looked tough with his cropped hair.

Touching his chin, Spencer wished he’d shaved. But Kristina didn’t seem to mind.

Kristina ordered a muffin and a hot chocolate. Spencer hated hot chocolate but ordered the same.

‘Spencer Patrick O’Malley,’ Kristina said. ‘You go to Dartmouth? Like, who doesn’t in this town?’

‘I don’t,’ said Spencer. ‘I work for the police department.’

‘The Hanover Police Department?’

‘Sure.’

‘Really?’ She livened up. ‘Wow.’ She seemed impressed. She leaned into the table. ‘What do you do for them?’

‘I’m a detective,’ he said. ‘A detective-sergeant.’ He’d been promoted from plain detective only a few weeks ago, but he wasn’t about to tell this girl that.

‘A detective? Wow,’ she said. ‘Do you do a lot of… detecting?’

I detected you, didn’t I, out of the corner of my eye, he wanted to say to her. ‘Plenty,’ he said. ‘I detect cars that are parked in the wrong place, I detect meters that are out of time, I detect drunk drivers on a Saturday night.’

She looked at him uncertainly, with interest and curiosity, with warm, soft brown eyes.

‘So you play basketball?’ he asked her.

‘Yeah.’

‘I sometimes watch men’s basketball.’

‘A mistake,’ said Kristina. ‘We’re much better. We won the title last year.’

He looked at her hands, which were long and slender, capped with beautifully manicured red nails. He preferred the short, clean unpolished look on girls, but long nails were somehow right on her.

Pointing to the nails, Spencer said, ‘Hard to dribble with those?’

She studied her nails lovingly, smiling. ‘I’ve adjusted. Listen, the other team, they need all the handicaps they can get.’

‘Hmmm,’ said Spencer thoughtfully. ‘Quite rare for a university girl to have those long nails. Especially a basketball player.’

Kristina shrugged. ‘I like them.’

‘Are you good?’

‘Very good,’ she said, smiling wryly. ‘First-team All-Ivy three years in a row.’

‘Ahh,’ he said, impressed, but not letting on. ‘What is All-Ivy exactly?’

‘You don’t know what All-Ivy is? Some detective!’ She sat there in a mock snit for a few seconds. Spencer almost laughed aloud.

‘For your information, All-Ivy players are voted on by the league coaches, out of the nine Ivy League schools. For each position, there’s an All-Ivy player. The league votes on five players for the first team, five for the second team, and then five for honorable mention. I’m the senior center. I’m the only first-team All-Ivy player in Big Green basketball right now -’ She stopped suddenly, blushing.

Spencer, smiling, leaned over his hot chocolate and said, ‘Kristina, are you trying to impress me?’

Looking flustered and red, she said, ‘No, of course not.’

‘Because I’m impressed,’ he told her, and she outwardly relaxed and smiled.

‘Are you a good detective?’

Spencer was going to rattle off a list of his credentials and successful cases as a joke, but he didn’t. Nodding, he said, ‘They say some detectives have skill as interrogators, and some as crime scene investigators. To be a good detective you should be good at both.’

‘What are you good at, Detective O’Malley?’

The question sounded suggestive to him. He raised his eyebrows.

‘You must have a categorical imperative,’ she said.

He looked at her blankly. ‘A categorical what?’

‘You know.’ Kristina shrugged, taking a big bite of the muffin, chewing it thoroughly, and swallowing before continuing. ‘A categorical imperative, one that represents an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.’

Spencer’s eyes widened at her. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I got a number of those.’

Kristina took another bite. ‘No, just one,’ she said. ‘You only have one. Kant. Metaphysics of Morals. It means -’

‘I kind of figured out what it means, and yes, I suppose I wouldn’t be an officer of the law if I weren’t driven - without reference to any other purpose -’ he mimicked her - ‘to do my job.’