Dating Is Murder

A buzzer rang.

“Lupe,” Maizie said, “please show our guest in.” She stepped over to the sink and washed her hands. She dried them on a dish towel, removed her apron, inspected her nails, then moved to Emma’s high chair. She smoothed the flyaway hair until Emma batted her away the way you’d shoo a fly. Maizie smoothed her own hair. The seconds dragged by. She gave me an uncertain smile. “It’s fine, really, I just can’t… fathom what that woman is going through. I have seen the news. It’s every mother’s nightmare, you know.”

I didn’t know. I wasn’t a mother. I could only guess.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. We all watched the doorway.

Lauren Rodriguez was medium height, shorter than Maizie and me, and ballerina slender. She preceded Lupe into the kitchen like a gazelle, long-necked and fragile. She looked nothing like Rico, her sandy hair pulled back into a ponytail and held with a tortoiseshell barrette. She wore khaki pants, a white blouse, loafers without socks, and carried a purse. Her only jewelry was a gold watch and a wedding ring. Her pierced ears were bare. She shook hands with us, with a strong grip. I remembered she was a politician’s wife.

“You’ve both met my son.” It was a voice unadorned with inflection.

Maizie asked Lupe to finish with Emma’s lunch. Then she led Lauren and me into what would’ve been described in another era as a parlor. It was a room suited to tense conversation. The furniture was antique mahogany with needlepoint cushions, small, dark, and hard.

“I met Rico-Richard-very briefly, last Thursday,” I said. “To talk about A

Maizie cleared her throat. “Two or three times he came here to pick up A

“Yes, he is,” Lauren said. “Thank you. What can you tell me about this girl?”

“A

I nodded. “Really smart. And energy-volunteer jobs, projects, college courses… generous and goal-oriented.”

A fleeting smile appeared on Lauren’s face. “She doesn’t sound like Richie’s type.”

“What’s his type?” I asked.

“Trouble.”

“A

“Yes, of course.” Lauren’s eyes darted around, her social mechanism breaking down. Already she looked older than she had on TV days before. A beautiful woman, affected by sleeplessness, anxiety, and heartsickness. She wore no makeup. Her pallor unsettled me.

“Lauren, I have a question-” I started, then stopped. There was really no graceful segue from teen dating to crime.

“Ask. I’ve been asked everything this week.”

“Was your son ever involved in-or were his friends into… um, drugs?”

Both women looked at me with blank expressions.

“No,” Lauren said. “Richie was never a problem, even as a little boy. He never liked guns or swords. Just fire engines and cars. His train set, of course. Then girls.”

What a strange answer. It told me nothing about him, but something about her, what she could bear to think about.

“I have this hope,” she said, “that they ran off together, Richie and this A

I looked at Maizie, who studied her hands, frowning as though trying to understand the question. I swallowed. “That wasn’t the impression I got from him,” I said. “But of course, I’d just met him; he’d hardly confide in me.”

Lauren’s thin fingers worked the clasp on her bag. “It’s a silly theory. Who elopes?”

“I believe A

Lauren appeared not to hear. “Also, he would never let me worry like this. He called Saturday from school to say he would sleep in on Sunday, but he’d be home to watch the game. Football. And di

She went back to rubbing the clasp on her purse. It was Prada, I noticed. How far from these women I lived, with no children, no husband, no holiday open house. I had odd jobs. And I was dressed in orange spandex bicycle shorts and a blue, red, and yellow rugby shirt, clothes belonging to dear gay Hubie, found in the bottom of a closet. I had no costly accessory to fidget with. The only thing I owned as expensive as that Prada handbag was my car.

After an awkward conversational lull, Maizie offered to show Lauren A

The attic bedroom was now a quilting room. Intricate quilts hung on the walls, and some sort of oversize frame was set up on the bed, holding a quilt in progress. They were gorgeous, but Lauren ignored them. She stood, breathing hard, as if she could inhale a clue. What was it she hoped to find? An emotional co

Maizie said, “There’s not much here. I sent most of her things back to Germany.”

“Already?” I said, wondering if anyone would be there to receive them. I hadn’t told Maizie that A

“Gene thought it was time.” Maizie’s lips pressed together, as though the next thought had to be held back. Then she said, “He felt a week was long enough.”

Lauren’s face went rigid. It was another story at her house, I guessed. Rico’s bedroom would be as he’d left it to go to Pepperdine: athletic trophies, his train set, plaid blankets on bunk beds. Nothing would’ve changed in the last few years, and now, unless he showed up alive, nothing in that room would ever change. Lauren stared out the window, and I stared at her. Her arms were folded, her right hand gripping her left bicep. Her nails were painted a shade of pale coral, but the polish was chipped and the nails themselves ragged and uneven. This shocked me. Like spotting a cold sore on the Mona Lisa.

“The police,” she said, as if someone had just asked a question, “think he had a date Saturday night with a girl. But they can’t find the girl. So when Kevin told me about A

We left the room, and then the house. Maizie walked us to the porch, and Lauren and I continued down the drive, to our cars. The film shoot that had been down the block last week was now across the street. A woman was setting up director’s chairs on the front lawn. I wanted to say something personal to Lauren, but everything I thought of sounded platitudinous to my ears. Like a bad greeting card.

“Did Rico talk about A

“Not by name.” A smile touched her face, making wrinkles around her eyes. This was someone who smiled a lot, in normal life. “The last time he was home-he comes home every few weekends-I said, ‘Is there anyone special?’ He said, ‘They’re all special, Mom.’ ”

I waited. She stayed with her memory until we reached her car, a Jaguar convertible, dark green. “He said a fu

“Um, no,” I said.

“It’s the way you described her. My husband respects a good work ethic. But whoever Richie ends up with will have to have more, and I think that’s what he was acknowledging.”

“What will she have to have?”

“Social prominence. Style, education. Things I assume this girl doesn’t have.”