Dating Is Murder

20

It had been a week since Mrs. Glück’s initial phone call, the one that changed my life. If not for that call, my frog mural would be finished, I’d have studied for my math-assessment test, I’d certainly have had more rest. But Monday night found me fidgety, distracted, and sleep deprived, facing work on Biological Clock, a show that had once seemed merely seedy and now looked sinister.

The setting didn’t help. RockiSushi was on south La Brea, a block where you took everything of value out of your car after parking it, then considered removing your tires. Fredreeq and I arrived an hour before the B.C. shoot to do hair and makeup, and Joey, as producer, came to ensure that the restaurant was open for us. On a real TV show, Joey said, there would be a makeup trailer at the location, a generator to power it, transportation people to help you park, and a catering truck with coffee and food for everyone. Low-budget reality TV was a lonelier affair. “Paul said they were expecting us,” she said, peering through a window, “but is this place even in business?”

The door was unlocked. We walked into a room empty of people and smelling of fish. Through a curtain a man moved toward us as if through a fog, intoning, “Table for three?” Joey introduced us as B.C. people. He sighed and showed us to the restroom.

Fredreeq stuffed Kleenex around the neckline of my raw-silk blouse while we filled Joey in on the day’s events. I did not, however, mention the tall man. “This Führungszeugnis-” I said. “I think someone discovered that A

“Listen, if it’s good for business, Elliot and Larry would make their own mothers disappear. If they weren’t already dead.”

Fredreeq sponged foundation on my face. “Could they make mine disappear?”

“Speaking of mothers,” I said. “First Mrs. Glück calls me every day, twice a day, and now-nothing. Your child’s missing, what’s the first thing you do when you walk in the house? Check your messages. You’d never leave your phone machine off. So why can’t I reach her? Speaking of phones, would you go in my backpack and make sure mine’s on? P.B.’s been trying to reach me.”

Joey emptied out my backpack. “What’s Algebra, Geometry, and Beyond?”

“Seventh-grade honors math.” Ruby, my almost-stepdaughter, had sent it to me from Japan a month earlier, with instructions to skip the boring parts and go right to the “and Beyond.” Her confidence in my ability was touching, albeit misplaced. “I thought I’d take another stab at that math placement test next week.”

“Next week’s the eclipse,” Fredreeq said, powdering me. “You can’t pass a test in the shadow of the eclipse.”

“I have to. There’s a registration deadline. What’s a shadow of an eclipse?”

“Astrology. Take the test tomorrow, before the eclipse effect kicks in. I happen to know, because I’m comparing your chart and Sava

“I can’t take it tomorrow,” I said. “I’m not nearly ready.”

Joey flipped through the book. “You can be. I’ll coach you: what’s an integer?”

“I can’t focus on math tonight. Someone on this show was tormenting A

“I think you can leave yourself out of the lineup,” Joey said.

“Hold the phone.” Fredreeq stepped back, hands on hips. “You know my theory on this: I wouldn’t put anything past the saboteurs, but you can’t go acting like you’re on America’s Most Wanted. Sava

“Okay, but-”

“No. Joe Friday is not attractive. Hold still while I tweeze your eyebrows.”

“So let’s get back to integers,” Joey said.

“I have no idea what an integer is,” I said.

“A number without a decimal or fractional part,” Fredreeq said.

“If a vertical line can be drawn through a graph that intersects that graph more than once, can the graph in question be a function?” Joey asked.

“No,” said Fredreeq.

“Correct.”

I let my friends talk math in the small bathroom, wondering how so many people in the world understood something so foreign to me. I needed A

Vaclav Gadosh, the third male contestant on Biological Clock, greeted me with a wrestling-hold embrace. He was my height and a few pounds lighter, with a model’s chiseled face. He had a scrappy attitude with men and a flirtatious one with women. I found him engaging in a dissipated sort of way.

“Vollie, how are you?” he said, pouring me sake. His accent was subtle, except for the transposition of v’s and w’s. I’d asked him, on our first date, where he was from and he’d told me Culver City. He was reticent about his past. And his present.

Vaclav worked at Rand Corporation, a think tank. For me, the term “think tank” brought to mind people sitting around in swimsuits, dangling their feet in water as they pondered grave issues of international importance. I’d been excited to meet a real tank thinker, for clarification on this, but Vaclav had declined to enlighten me. “I would tell you what we do,” he’d said, “but then I’d have to kill you.” He delivered this shopworn line with pride, as if he’d made it up. Fredreeq believed he worked there in a janitorial capacity.

I studied Vaclav now, chewing absently on a cuticle and sipping sake. He had callused hands, I noticed. How well had he known A

“Vaclav,” I said, “are you-attracted to-teenagers?”

He looked up, a smile forming. This was his kind of conversation. “Are you?”

“Not sexually. But I know age differences can be-for some people-”

“Do not knock it. You must try it.”

I had a sudden vision of Rico Rodriguez, how he’d made me blush. But then I thought of Mr. Tall, the blue-eyed man, twice Rico’s age, and my whole body went weak. What was happening to me? I was interrupted from contemplation of this interesting question by the arrival of Bing.

It was clear our director-producer-cinematographer was having a bad day. The whites of his eyes were pink, indicating sleep issues I could relate to. He told us that the Biographical Question was religion, moved us to the sushi bar, and began filming.

Vaclav and I sat side by side. Bing got us in profile, then turned his camera toward the sushi chef, edging closer to me until his waist was next to my cheekbone. Something in his pants hit my breast. I hoped it was a gun, a knife, a banana-anything but an anatomical part. The fish smell was getting to me. I fought off a wave of nausea.

Isaac, the sound guy, moved in, headphones covering his ears like earmuffs. What did the customers think, a camera the size of a microwave creeping around them, another man with his long-handled boom microphone looking like he was fishing? The five actual diners seemed not to notice. This was, after all, L.A.

At Bing’s signal, I posed the night’s question to Vaclav, expecting him to reply that religion is the opiate of the people. Vaclav surprised me.