Dating Is Murder

I looked at my watch. Simon, if he showed, wasn’t due for two hours. Plenty of time for me to run away from home.

Prana emerged from my bedroom, planted kisses on the cheeks of her brother-in-law and son, neither of whom she’d seen in five years, and a

Seeing him in my doorway with yellow roses in one hand and Dom Pérignon in the other nearly knocked the wind out of me. He was dressed in gray pants and a soft white shirt. I wondered about the effect he’d have on the seventeen gay men showing up for di

There was that awkward-for me-hello moment where we had the option to kiss, hostess to guest, but of course I couldn’t kiss an FBI agent, so I took the flowers and champagne, which acted as a barrier. I avoided looking into his eyes, as one avoids staring at the sun during a solar eclipse, and closed the door. The living room shrank. Did he have extra-high ceilings in his own house? Did the FBI live in houses, like regular people? Was he wearing a gun, by the way? Tucked into his sock? Why, why, why was he here?

He picked up a framed picture, the first greeting card I’d ever sold. He smiled.

“Okay,” I said. “Who’s Richard Feynman?”

“Ah, Feynman,” Uncle Theo said, coming out of the bathroom. “Marvelous man.”

I stared at him. “You know Richard Feynman?”

“Well, not now. He’s been dead since… the late eighties, I believe. I heard him speak once. While he was alive. Quarks.”

“But who was he, Uncle Theo?”

“The greatest physicist of the last century. Arguably. Of course, he was at Los Alamos with Oppenheimer and the others, but he was awfully young then, so we’ll forgive him. Hello, I’m Theo. Are you Wollie’s young man?”

Cringing, I introduced my uncle to my FBI agent, then moved into the kitchen and introduced Simon to Prana, who turned on the charm, and to P.B., who mumbled at him and returned to the radio.

“Don’t mind my nephew,” Uncle Theo said. “We had to leave his girlfriend at the hospital. Lovely child, severe case of body dysmorphic disorder. We invited her, but she won’t eat in front of people.”

Simon nodded pleasantly. I considered explaining P.B.’s living situation and then decided I needn’t bother, as the FBI probably had files on all of us.

“Body dysmorphic disorder?” Prana said. “Spare me the nouvelles diseases.”

“To quote Richard Feynman,” Uncle Theo said, “‘Every woman is worried about her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.’ ”

I was puzzling over the co

“Uncle Theo,” I said, “I don’t think-”

“Your mother felt it would be festive.” He pulled a baggie out of his poncho pocket and sat at the kitchen table. “Went to some lengths to find it, but I have friends who still turn on, it turns out. Estelle and I used to do this every Thanksgiving-when did that stop, Estelle?”

“Nineteen sixty-eight.” My mother popped open the champagne. “We did a blotter of acid, seven of us, and tried to contact Bobby Ke

“The séance!” Uncle Theo cried. “The one that turned you vegan. The turkey coming to life, crying out from the stuffing-”

I spoke up. “Okay, could we not-”

“The noble bird,” my mother said, “exploited as we ‘honor’ it, just as we ‘honor’ the Native American. Where is the Native American at our table? Do we respect his heritage, join him in his sweat lodge, worship his gods, or just gamble at his casino? We may love peyote, we may engage in sex with-”

“Screw the government,” P.B. said, surprising us all. “Feynman said that too.”

“Um, everyone?” I said. “We may be giving our guest the impression- Simon, care to see the rest of the apartment?”

“No. I think we should help out here.” Simon took the champagne from Prana and filled glasses. He offered one to my brother, but P.B., having made his social contribution, retreated into gloom.

“None for him,” Uncle Theo said. “They interfere with his psychotropics. Drugs,” he added helpfully.

The next hour brought back memories of the first half of my life. In a kitchen the size of a phone booth, Simon watched my mother and uncle get high while P.B. sat like a lump, staring at the radio as if reading lips. My brother had spent years seeing government agents everywhere, and now, faced with an actual one, he was unresponsive.

My mother was not. She was coquettish, even wrangling pots and pans. She sipped champagne, smoked grass, and played hostess. “What is your life path, Simon?”

“What do I do for a living?” He turned his stu

“Do you approve of this television program Wollie has sold herself to?”

“Prana, let’s leave that for now, shall we?” I relocated the men in order to set the table. “Simon’s very tall; he must be hungry. Do we have any hors d’oeuvres?”

Hors d’oeuvres. What a fantasy life I led. The entire meal consisted of sprouts, tofu-cranberry bake, undercooked yams, and Uncle Theo’s day-old kaiser rolls. I found some Wheat Thins to supplement things, but my mother forbade me to bring out cheese or even butter for the kaiser rolls, citing the exploitation of cows.

“We’re not meant to drink bovine milk,” she said, “but human breast milk. I intended to breast-feed Wollie and P.B. until kindergarten, but I had inverted nipples.”

“I never realized that, Estelle,” Uncle Theo said.

“We choose our parents prior to birth. My children chose intellect, creativity, and spiritual acuity over normal nipples. For them to resent me now is pointless and-”

“Mom-I mean Estelle-I mean Prana-”

“Had you offspring of your own, Wollie, you’d empathize. At your age you’ll probably stay single as well as barren. As for your brother, in that regard, the less said the better.”

“Then why don’t you say less?” I snapped. “Instead of talking about him as if he weren’t here, especially since you haven’t said one nice thing-”

Simon put a hand on my shoulder, a gesture powerful enough to stop me. If the moment was tense for me, I seemed to be in the minority. P.B. continued to arrange Wheat Thins in a pattern on the counter. My mother looked up in bland surprise. Uncle Theo took a healthy bite of tofu-cranberry bake. “Wollie,” he said, “I’ve given some thought to the young German girl gone missing, and I’m reminded of Joe Oklahoma.”

“Who?” I said.

“My uncle. Your great-uncle. Disappeared back in the fifties, when we lived in upstate New York. We heard he was headed for Oklahoma, which is how he came to be called Joe Oklahoma. We assumed he came to a bad end, but in 1979 your great-aunt Geraldine, while attending a bagpipe convention in Buffalo, ran into him. He’d been there all along. Never left the county. Twenty-four years living up the interstate, five exits, content as a clam.”

“Twenty-four years, and no one looked for him?” I asked.

“He wasn’t a family favorite. There was some unpleasantness over gravestone rubbings. They were all mad for gravestone rubbings in those days. My point is, happy endings. You never know when you’re in the middle of someone’s.”

Gravestone rubbings. The tragedy was, I couldn’t even pretend to be adopted. I looked like Uncle Theo in drag, the same ungainly physique. P.B. had it too.

My uncle poured himself more champagne. “But Wollie, our little bloodhound, she’s a faithful one. Keeping track of P.B. all these years, in and out of the hospital… and me. Always there with the car, because I don’t drive. Boyfriends, too. Followed a young man to Ohio once, she was so sweet on him. She doesn’t like to lose people.”