Dating Is Murder

My God, was it? I hadn’t given this any thought at all. I had no career goals for my preconceived child. The realization coincided with a severe leg cramp. I gasped, then straightened up to relieve it, and bumped into the waiter.

Soup bowls slid off the tray, sending eddies of lobster bisque into the air and onto the shopping-bag table, the waiter, and me. The bowls and tray made a lot of noise hitting the ground.

“Cut!”

All eyes turned our way. I flexed my foot, working out my leg cramp, and lowered my head, pulling the sweatshirt hood tighter around my face. The shopping-bag woman was making little whimpering noises. Her companion was swearing. The waiter was on his knees picking up soup bowls. My leg cramp eased, and I crouched to help him. The shopping bag under his companion’s chair revealed its logo: Macy’s. Fine. These people weren’t drug dealers.

“Wollie?” Bing yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I looked up. Bing Wooster and his broken fingers and his Betacam loomed above me. He was joined by Vaclav and Sava

I found myself face to face with Sava

She didn’t let go. She pulled me in close and said softly, “You better back off, bitch. I’m going to take you down.”

I pulled my hand out of hers and backed up. She was smiling again. She said something to Vaclav in the eastern European language, and he said something back and they both laughed. What did she think I was doing here? I turned, apologized to the shopping-bag people, and started back to my own table, feeling sick, embarrassed, tall, and soup-drenched. And stupid. In a nice restaurant, a hooded sweatshirt is as inconspicuous as a nun’s habit. What was I-

“Hi, Wollie.”

Isaac was sitting at my table. Our huge sound guy, his trademark headset covering his ears as if he expected airplanes to land. I sat, shocked. In two months, Isaac had barely uttered my name, let alone initiated conversation. “Hi, Isaac,” I said.

He took off his headset. “Whatcha doing?”

“Just… hanging out.” I stared, wondering what had prompted this overture. Maybe it was my civilian clothes, my lack of circus makeup, the complete spectacle I’d just made of myself. Something occurred to me. “Isaac, I never asked you: do you have any thoughts on what happened to A

“I always figured she found out about her boyfriend.”

“Her boyfriend? Rico? What about him?”

“Catting around. Getting it on with Sava

My mouth dropped open. “R-really? You know this for a fact?”

“Heard Sava

Well, yuck. I started to ask Isaac if he’d recorded this incriminating conversation, but Bing yelled, “Let’s go!” and Isaac lumbered off.

Sava

I wondered about several things over the next few hours, including what I was doing on the set, now that my cover was blown. Or was it blown? Did anyone know why I was here? Paul dropped by to say hi, as did Vaclav. Vaclav was the only one with a European accent; there were no more shopping bags, no pay phones. Either it was a slow night on the drug circuit or Little Fish wasn’t there. Or Little Fish was there but had canceled all dead drops.

By three A.M. it was a wrap. The work nights were getting shorter, as if Bing’s shooting style was losing steam along with the show’s ratings. I felt both frustration and relief. I’d learned zip for the FBI, I was no closer to A

“If only Sava

“How do you know she wasn’t his last date?” Joey asked.

“Rico told his mom he was seeing a blonde.”

Joey looked at me, her eyes wide. “Sava

“What?”

“She’s blond.” Joey looked back to the road. “Bing wanted a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead so the audience could keep you guys straight. They decided your hair was too thin, it wouldn’t survive coloring, so they made Sava

“My God,” I said.

Sava

And she was blond. She was the bad blonde, the mystery girlfriend of Rico Rodriguez, the last known person to see him alive.

36

I wanted to drive straight to the cops, but Joey dissuaded me.

“We stumble in at three A.M., saying Rico Rodriguez slept with a redhead who dyes her hair, according to some sound guy on some TV show, and some desk cop writes this on a Post-it, and that’s the end of it. We need a hard-core theory that makes sense of things, and hard-core evidence to back it up. But I agree, it’s the cops we have to go to, if whatever happened to A

There was no one lurking on my block. I was sure now that the previous lurkers were the plumber paparazzi, that my street, at least, was safe from whatever danger A

Except that my mother was waiting up for me.

“Green tea,” she said. “I had a bit too much, so I’m awake. You’re out of champagne.”

“It’s not a staple item in my life, Prana. No sign of plumbers, I take it?”

“No, but the mailman came to the door, as it was too much mail for the box. All those holiday catalogs. Such a waste of trees. How did it go in San Pedro, dear?”

I looked up in surprise, but she seemed interested, not like she was about to criticize my hair but like she really wanted to know. So I joined her in the living room. I told her about my night. Breaking and entering, near arrest, Joey’s assault on the photographer.

Prana nodded placidly. “I practiced civil disobedience with you in utero. Not with P.B., he gave me morning sickness, but you were a cooperative fetus. They put me on the front lines. The media loved it, the pregnant woman and the military industrial complex. Theo has clippings. Did I spot a Cabernet in the kitchen? I prefer white, but I’m having sleep issues…”

I left June Cleaver to her memories and went in search of wine and pajamas. My body ached, from being pilloried in a bathroom window, frozen at an outdoor restaurant, tortured at Krav Maga days before. If I were a tadpole, I could regenerate limbs. Four new ones would do.

I brought the Cabernet and wineglasses into the living room to find my mother surrounded by her Tarot cards in a pattern I’d seen all my life, a circle within a circle within a circle. “Whose fate are you reading now?” I asked, sitting opposite her.

“Your German friend.”