The Good Cop Read Free Page A

lobby. I took the elevator to the sixth floor and found my way to Apartment 6-G. I had my fingertip about half an inch from the buzzer when the door opened to reveal an incredibly handsome, grinning Tom. We shook hands and, as soon as the door had closed behind me, exchanged a bear hug. Over Tom’s shoulder, I could see Lisa and Carol coming out of the kitchen, smiling.
    If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I’d wandered into a typical heterosexual family scene. Both Lisa and Carol looked great, and both were what my lesbian friend Mollie Marino calls “lipstick lesbians”—very feminine. I doubt very much, had I not known them all before, that if I met them at a straight cocktail party, I’d have any idea they were gay.
    I exchanged hugs and cheek-kisses with the women and we all went through the usual mildly awkward confusion that ensues when old friends first see one another again after a long absence. I handed Lisa the wine which she acknowledged with profuse thanks and then insisted that Tom and I sit while she and Carol went into the kitchen.
    The apartment, I noticed as Tom and I sat side by side on one of the two love seats facing one another across a glass-topped coffee table, was very comfortable and, again, gave not the slightest hint that the occupants were anything than an average heterosexual couple.
    Carol came back into the room carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres, followed by Lisa with another tray with wine glasses and a bottle of wine, which they set on the coffee table.
    “We’ll have your wine with dinner,” Lisa said. “This here’s chattin’ wine,” she added with a smile. Tom poured the wine as the women sat on the opposite love seat, and we all leaned forward to click our glasses together in a toast.
    “To old friends,” Tom said.
    “And to new beginnings,” Carol added, looking at Tom.
    ???? I thought.
    *
    It was a great evening. We talked about our college days and exchanged favorite memories, and caught up on news of classmates and mutual friends, and laughed a lot, and the years melted away and it was another place and another time.
    Dinner was excellent—pork roast with garlic-roasted potatoes and some kind of succotash that Lisa’s grandmother had taught her to make, and a Bavarian torte for desert. The wine was pretty good, too, I was delighted to discover: I’d just asked the owner of the liquor store what he’d recommend—my knowledge of wine isn’t much above the level of Mogen David Port.
    Tom and I sat on one side of the table with Lisa and Carol on the other. It was obvious that the two women were lovers, and had been ever since college. We talked a bit about it, and about the inconveniences of Tom and Lisa’s arrangement, which meant Carol and Lisa couldn’t live together. But they’d apparently worked it out to their mutual satisfaction, and while I couldn’t imagine such a situation for myself, it wasn’t my place to pass any sort of judgment on it.
    “We’re so glad we found you again, Dick,” Lisa said. “We don’t have many gay friends here, and it’s going to be even harder now.”
    I’m afraid on this yet-another-reference-to-something-apparently-important I couldn’t keep my face from reflecting the question I hesitated to ask.
    All three apparently noticed my confusion and exchanged smiles.
    “Tell him, Tom,” Lisa said, reaching across the table to tap his hand.
    Tom turned toward me. “I’m joining the police force. I’m going to be a cop.”
    “ Whoa! ” I heard myself say, and then just sat there like someone had just beaned me with a frying pan. The three of them sat quietly, looking at me with identical smiles.
    “Are you sure?” I asked, feeling immediately stupid for having done so. “I mean, do you have any idea of what you’d be getting yourself into?”
    He nodded. “I know. But it’s really what I’ve wanted all my life.”
    “But…” I started, then couldn’t remember what I’d intended to come after