Kissing the Beehive

It rang four times before her machine clicked in. Answering-machine messages tell a lot about people. Cassandra's mother said only, "You know the drill," and then came the beep. The most humorless man I know has the most embarrassingly unfu

"Ms. Lake, this is Samuel Bayer –" Before I could say more, the phone clicked and she picked it up.

"Hello, Mr. Bayer."

"Are you hiding behind your answering machine?"

She chuckled. "Yes I am. I like answering machines. They're like a bouncer at the front door: They only let in people you want to talk to."

"I never thought of it that way. Listen, I'm sure you're in the middle of ten things right now –"

"I'm not doing a thing. Did you have something in mind?"

"Actually I did. I was wondering if you'd like to have a drink." The words were out before I really knew what I wanted to say.

"I would love to! Are you nearby?"

"No. I'm sitting at a train station in Co

"Wow! You'd drive all that way to have a drink with me?"

"It's a nice night. It's a nice drive."

"And it's a nice idea! Where should we meet and when? Just say and I'm there."

Hawthorne's is the nicest bar in New York. The drinks are big, the clientele quiet and discreet and the surroundings are comfortably worn in. By the time I arrived it was almost nine. I'd driven straight to the city from the train station so I was still wearing my Sunday-at-home clothes. That was all right for Hawthorne's and for Veronica too. I saw her when I walked in the door and felt a second's worth of eerie because she was wearing almost exactly the same outfit I had on – a white button-down shirt, khakis and sneakers. Only her shoes were industrial-strength, high-top basketball jobs with enough home-boy decoration on them to rate her a free pass to a Crips meeting. She looked delicious – that big blond ice sculpture of hair, long neck and erotic rise beneath her shirt to make you wonder what it looked like underneath . . .

On seeing me, she clapped her hands. "We look like twins!"

"I was just thinking that. Who's your tailor?"

She patted the seat next to het for me to sit down. "How was the drive in?"

"Clean and fast. Sometimes it's a killer on Sunday night, but I guess everyone decided to stay in the country another day. What are you having?"

"Iced tea."

"You don't drink?"

"I do, but I didn't want to tonight. I needed a clear head if I was going to meet you."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're my hero. I don't want to chance saying something dumb and scare you away."

"You're a dream date, Veronica: Before I sit down, you say I'm your hero. I don't even have to tell you my stories to try and impress you."

"No, but I would love to hear your stories, Mr. Bayer."

"Sam."

"Do you know how often I've dreamed of hearing you say that? Dreamed of sitting with you in a place like this, just the two of us, and hearing you say, 'You can call me Sam'?"

"Are you always so, um, honest?"

"Lying is too much trouble. You have to make sure to taste each word before letting it off your tongue. I hate that. It's hard enough making people understand without lying."

The waiter brought my drink. Sipping it, I tried to get a better read on Veronica while we both thought of the next thing to say.

She looked younger than I remembered, more voluptuous and desirable. I had a bad habit of getting involved with ski

"What are you working on now? Can I ask that question, or is it too personal?" Her voice had some doubt in it, a little unsureness.

"No, not at all. I was writing a novel, but something happened recently that got me going on another project. I'm very excited about it."

"Can you say what it's about? By the way, are you a Pisces?"

I stopped and cleared my throat. I don't like astrology. Don't like people asking my sign. Too often when you tell them, they nod their heads sagely as if your birth date explains why everything about you is so fucked-up. It didn't surprise me that Veronica guessed correctly.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"You're a fish. I can smell it." She smiled and left it at that.

"What do you mean? I smell like a fish?"

"No, you smell like good cologne. Probably . . . Hermes? Hermes or Romeo Gigli. You smell great. I don't mean that."

I signaled to the waiter. "Time for another drink."

To my surprise, she leaned forward and took firm hold of my elbow. "Listen, I'm just a fan. I'm nobody. The last thing in the world I want to do is offend you. Your face says I just pissed you off, big-time. Please know I didn't mean to. Should I leave? Shit. I'm so sorry."

She slid her chair back. I grabbed it. "Veronica, I just drove two hours to New York. Four minutes into our conversation you say I'm a fish and now you're leaving? I think we should run our tape back a ways and start again. What do you think?"

"I think I'm scared to open my mouth."

"Don't be; I like your honesty. You asked what I was working on. Let's start there." I let go of her chair and sat back. She stared at me and didn't move.

"When I was fifteen, I found the body of a girl who had been murdered."

Telling the whole story took only a few minutes. When I was finished, she sat silently looking at the table. Only after a good long pause did she raise her eyes and look at me. Her expression said she had figured something out. "Pauline Ostrova was your dead mermaid. The end of childhood. All those impossible combinations we can only know and accept when we're young, you know? Woman and fish. Young and dead. Sex and murder . . ."

"Oxymoron."

She nodded slowly. "Precisely. Childhood is all opposites. You're either too hot or too cold. It's hate or love, nothing else, and it shifts back and forth in a second. What you had in that fifteen-year-old minute was all of 'em together in one. Right then in your life, a dead girl ivas sexy. Of course you wanted to stare at her underpants. That .makes sense to me."

"You mean I wasn't a burgeoning fifteen-year-old necrophiliac?"

"I don't know about you, Sam, but at fifteen I would have had sex with anything. You have a wonderful mouth, you know. I think I will have a drink."

She had vodka with ice. Her large hand with its salmon-colored fingernails wrapped around that glass of clear liquid was somehow so alluring that I sighed. When I looked at her, she was looking at me. She smiled guiltily, as if I'd caught her at something. She began talking quickly.