Closing the front door behind me, I waited in the hallway for a moment, listening to the police cruiser drive down the street.
The short hallway led straight to the kitchen and living-room combo. To the right were two doors, each leading to a small bedroom.
“Roberta?” I called out.
“In the kitchen,” she answered.
U.S. Marshall Roberta LaRosa sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee out of my mug. My mug had a drawing of three Hollywood Walk of Fame stars, below which it said, “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” Somehow, the saying comforted me. Guess I’d been feeling life was pretty gloomy.
Roberta shook her head, looking down at the cup with disgust. “Instant coffee? You’re a barista for crying out loud, and all you’ve got for me is instant coffee? Your fridge is no better.”
I went to the fridge. Looking inside, I was struck by how sad it looked. A couple of bags of pre-washed lettuce. A bottle of Italian dressing. Some seltzer water. A row of ginger ales. Otherwise empty, so empty.
I’d been living off frozen pizza and soda while binge-watching old episodes of House and Murder, She Wrote and Remington Steele. My life was empty, so empty.
I turned to Roberta. “I can’t stay in Carmine.”
“Because your boss was murdered?”
“For starters, yes.”
I bristled. Her cool, unflappable tone bothered me. Mark got stabbed and set on fire, and she was upset about my instant coffee?
“Honestly, Carmine was a mistake from the very beginning. I should never have come to a small town. I should never have gotten a job at a cafe where so many people would be snooping around, asking questions.”
“Guess you’re referring to Peter Piatek of The Carmine Enquirer.”
I threw up my hands. “Well, if you know everything already, why am I bothering to talk?”
Roberta took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. Then she nodded at the chair opposite hers.
“Sit.”
I grabbed a can of ginger ale and sat down with a heavy sigh. My back spasmed as I sat, reminding me of the many hours spent at the police station.
“Here are the facts we’ve got to work with: Jay Casanova has attempted to uphold his image of innocence among his most die-hard followers. My initial fears were that a crazed fan would attack you. But Jay is in prison. He’ll stay there for many years, possibly until the day he dies. His popularity is waning, and polls show that more and more people believe you spoke the truth in court.”
“Well, that’s nice.”
“It appears Jay Casanova, increasingly, is no threat to you.”
“Appears so?” I said, knowing it wasn’t true. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in witness protection in a small town in New Jersey.
“Harry Casanova, his brother and business partner, has gone missing. The DEA struggled to connect him to Jay Casanova’s crimes, but new evidence has come to light. Before they could bring him in for questioning, he disappeared. It’s my belief he’s looking for you.”
“He wants to do what Jay can’t do.”
“That’s right. He wants revenge on you for testifying against his brother and destroying their business empire. Since they indicted Jay Casanova on trafficking drugs and guns, Casanova Enterprises has filed for bankruptcy. Many of the brothers’ assets have been seized as part of the DEA investigation. If Harry is indicted, too—which I believe he will be—he too will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
“But how does coming after me change any of that?”
“It doesn’t. The man wants revenge, Bernie. It’s not a rational thing.”
“He’s crazy.”
Roberta nodded. “Crazy as a loon.”
I took a sip of ginger ale, thinking through the implications. No matter how I looked at it, it was bad. And my situation in Carmine made it worse.
“All the more reason for me to leave this town, Roberta. It’s only a matter of days before someone figures out who I am. The chief of police already knows and—”
“Chief Tedesco,” she said. “I know. I told her.”
“You what?”
I gaped at Roberta.
“The U.S. Marshalls Service can’t protect you 24/7. So, as per best practice, I informed the local chief of police, Diana Tedesco, so she knows about your situation. We’re confident—I’m confident—that you’re as safe here in Carmine as you could be.”
My stomach tightened, threatening to curl up and play dead. I could see Roberta’s logic. In theory, local cops keeping an eye out for me was safer than me solely relying on my own secrecy. But Chief Tedesco wanted to pin Mark’s murder on me.
“Roberta, I don’t think I’m so safe here in Carmine.”
“The computer disagrees.”
“The computer?”
Roberta reached down to the floor, where a laptop bag rested against her chair. She pulled out a slim laptop and opened it. She tapped a few keys and swiveled the device so I could see the screen.
A spreadsheet with seemingly endless columns of information.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Your witness protection matchmaking report. The computer, aided by artificial intelligence, analyzes a data set covering 399 factors, such as place of birth, parents’ education, your favorite music in high school, and so on.”
“My favorite music? You’re saying that because I listened to punk music in high school, your computer chose Carmine as the best place for me to hide out?”
“Punk music, Bernie?” Roberta raised an eyebrow. “Are you being completely honest with yourself? This isn’t the music you used as a social lubricant with friends. This is what genuinely sparked joy in you.”
“Right—punk music,” I insisted.
Roberta stared at me. I thought. I knew what my favorite music was, I’d always known it was punk, and I—
A memory flared into my mind. Fireplace with flames crackling. Eggnog. Wool blanket over my legs. I could almost hear the music playing on the stereo…
I stared at Roberta, amazed. She was right. My favorite music hadn’t been punk.
“Christmas music,” I said.
“Correct.” Roberta swiped the mouse pad on her laptop, scrolling down and pointing out cell B273, C273, and D273. “Specifically, holiday songs by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. Also, you have a soft spot for ‘Dominick the Donkey.’”
She turned the laptop around again.
“The computer doesn’t lie. Carmine is the best option for you. What you need to do is meet people, make friends, put down roots.”
An echo of what Officer Ferrante had said in the car. I sighed. Was everyone out to get me killed? Couldn’t they just leave me alone and let me hide away? I would go anywhere, as long as I could keep my secret.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I won’t stay, Roberta. I don’t care what the computer says. Carmine isn’t for me.”
“You don’t even know Carmine.”
“I know enough about it,” I said. “Now show me what the computer recommends as a Plan B. There is a Plan B, isn’t there?”
Roberta sighed and shook her head. “Of course there is.” She tapped on her keys and then swung the laptop around for me to see. “Here we go. The computer has one other option for you—just one—and this is it.”
A PDF report was open on the screen. An image dominated the top. The photo showed a cabin surrounded by deep snow, the roof covered in a thick blanket of white. Snow shoes hung on the wall next to the front door. In the background stood tall pine trees.
“What’s this?” I said.
“This is Alaska.”
A chill went through me. The place looked freezing cold. But I couldn’t rule it out. I stared at the picture, trying hard to imagine living there. “I hear Anchorage is a big enough city. How close is this to Anchorage?”
“This is nowhere near Anchorage. In fact, Bernie, this is nowhere near anything. The computer concludes that if Carmine is still too big, too connected to keep you safe, we need to go more remote. And this—” She pointed to the photo. “— is as remote as it gets.”
“It looks—”
I failed to find the right words. It looked lonesome. And cold. So cold.
“How chilly does it get?”
“Oh, 40 below is pretty common. Though it can hit 70 below in winter.”
I shuddered. I thought of Los Angeles, waking up to sunshine nearly every day of the year. If the temperature dropped below 60 degrees, people would complain. “People” being me.
Speaking of people…
“How close is this cabin to its neighbors?”
“The closest neighbor is three miles.”
My stomach shrank to the size of a tennis ball. I’d told myself I needed to get far away from people with all their questions. But the thought of living so far from other human beings made feel a little sick. I took another swig of ginger ale.
“I can’t live there,” I admitted.
“Fresh air, fishing, the Northern Lights—the place has a lot going for it,” Roberta said.
“I’m sure it does,” I said. “And it would make someone very, very happy. Only that someone isn’t me. Can you even get internet up there? TV? A decent cup of coffee? What’s the nearest cafe? I would go crazy. I would—”
I would freeze to death.
I shook my head. “I can’t do it.”
Roberta stared at me, then shrugged. “Okey-dokey,” she said. She closed the laptop, mercifully removing the cabin from view.
“Carmine is your only other option, Bernie.”
“My only option…” I said in a daze.
Somehow I’d imagined Roberta would fix my problems, whisking me away from Carmine and Chief Tedesco and the unhappy mess I’d landed in.
“But I don’t even have a job,” I said.
As soon as I’d said it, I realized how important a detail that was. Even if I didn’t go to Alaska, I needed, as the U.S. Marshalls Service defined it, “gainful employment.” There had to be a Plan C.
“Carmine is small, and no one is hiring. I don’t have a car and can’t afford one, so even if the computer thinks it’s a good personality match, I really don’t think the logistics work out. Unless, of course, I could get a car and commute to, say, New York City. I’d stay in Carmine, but only to sleep. My daily life would be in the city. The big, anonymous city. There are lots of jobs in New York, and let’s be honest, without a decent job, I’ll never build a new life.”
Roberta slid a postcard across the table. On the front was a photograph of a bakery. I recognized it even before I read the sign above the front door: Moroni’s Italian Bakery.
“What’s this?”
“Flip it over.”
I turned the postcard. On the back, in smooth, curvaceous handwriting, it said:
Bernie—see you at 5 pm!
XO Angelica.
I looked up at Roberta. “What is this?”
“This,” she said with a triumphant smile, “is an invitation to a job interview.”
* * *
Inside, Moroni’s Italian Bakery was warm in every sense of the word. The late afternoon sun cast a golden sheen across the tiled floor and the air was toasty and fragrant with the smells of baking cookies and freshly ground coffee.
Still, as I sat at one of the cafe tables, I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. My body ached, and not just from the chair at the police station. I was bone-weary. It had been a long, hard day.
“This should help,” Angelica said, placing a warm cup in my hands. My nose filled with the rich scent of chocolate.
“Hot chocolate?” I asked.
“A Moroni family secret. But trust me, it will make you feel better. Just checking: You’re over 21, right?”
“You’re flattering me,” I mumbled.
“Where hot chocolate fails, flattery can work wonders.”
I took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was sweet and strong, and its warmth spread from my chest out into every limb. I let out a long sigh.
“This is magic,” I said.
Angelica’s face lit up with a giant smile.
Even without the smile, she had a beautiful face. A long aquiline nose held up a pair of thick, black brows, perfectly complementing her chocolate-brown eyes. Her black hair, streaked on one side as if with a single white brushstroke, struggled to free itself from hairpins, and a curly strand hung loose down her cheek.
I finished the hot chocolate and before I could protest, she’d grabbed the mug and returned behind the counter to make another.
The glass counter ran all the way from the front door to the back, where another, smaller display case extended perpendicularly to the long one. Behind the glass lay a dizzying array of Italian baked goods: amaretti, pignoli and rainbow cookies, macaroons, and dozens of other kinds that I couldn’t name.
A door at the back led to a hallway, and I assumed, the bakery.
Half a dozen small tables dominated the rest of the space, each decorated with a stocky candle in the tricolor of the Italian flag: red, white, and green.
Behind the counter, Angelica ducked down. I heard a cupboard open, and she came up with a bottle. I was pretty sure it was liquor—her secret ingredient—but I wasn’t going to argue that it was too early for anything. After finding a dead body and being accused of murder, I was willing to rethink my rules around happy hour.
She came back to the table and handed me the cup of steaming hot chocolate. She sat down and watched me drink.
As the warmth spread through me, my limbs grew heavier and heavier. My shoulders slumped. My eyelids slid down. I blinked and sat up straight.
I bit my lip. Had Angelica noticed? I was supposed to be interviewing for a job and here I was falling asleep.
“You must be exhausted,” she said and reached across the table, laying a hand on mine.
I nodded, at a loss for what to say. Her touch sent more warmth through my body, and I was suddenly aware of how long ago someone had comforted me.
Angelica’s face blurred around the edges.
“Here, mia cara,” she said, handing me a napkin.
I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Sorry.”
The door opened, and a bell jingled softly overheard, as delicate as a wind chime, and a customer came into the cafe.
Angelica got to her feet. “Want to give me a hand?”
I nodded and followed, my body feeling half asleep.
The customer ordered two dozen pignoli cookies and paid. Then he dawdled, obviously pretending to look at the display case, and every few seconds casting me a glance.
“Have a nice day, Victor,” Angelica said.
It was clearly a nudge to get him to leave. He gave her a sheepish smile and cast me another curious glance before hurrying out the door. The next customer, an elderly woman with an unfortunate head of orange hair, stepped forward, ordering a dozen cannolis.
“Help me with these, will you?” Angelica asked me.
Hardly thinking, my mind in a muddle, I washed my hands at a sink by the back wall. She showed me where the cardboard boxes were and I put one together and carefully filled it with cannolis.
Meanwhile, Angelica dealt with the payment as yet another customer came in. This customer showed as much interest in me as in the sesame cookies she was ordering, her eyes scanning me ravenously.
“You’re the talk of the town,” Angelica whispered to me as, together, we filled a bag with the cookies.
I groaned. “Oh, no. That’s the last thing I want.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. It’ll blow over. They’ll find whoever did this horrible thing and then it will become another piece of gossip. Carmine has lots of gossip. If you have nothing shocking to add to the story, then your part won’t matter so much.”
Would my secret identity as the actress who played Eve Silver, now hiding in witness protection, qualify as “shocking”? I was pretty sure it would.
Angelica’s brow furrowed. “As long as Chief Tedesco doesn’t do something silly, of course.”
“What do you mean, silly?”
My stomach did a three-quarter turn, making me queasy.
“Well, earlier today, Chief Tedesco stopped by to ask me some questions. Diana has always been even-keeled. Although after what her sister did to her…”
“What did her sister do to her?”
Angelica sighed. “Diana was happily married and loved her husband. But there was one person she loved even more. Her sister. They weren’t just sisters, they were best friends. Until…”
“What? What happened?”
“I shouldn’t gossip.”
“Please, Angelica. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Diana’s husband had an affair and Diana caught him in the act.”
I put a hand to my mouth. “No. Not the sister.”
Angelica nodded. “That was last month, and Chief Tedesco has been acting strange ever since. But can you blame her?”
I felt sympathy for Diana Tedesco. What a blow it must have been to her to discover that her best friend—her own sister—was having an affair with her husband.
“Still, maronna mia,” Angelica continued, “today Chief Tedesco was so worked up. I expected her to say she’d caught you red-handed stabbing Mark in the back. See, she said the security camera outside Joanna’s offices—that’s Joanna Parisi of Parisi & Parisi—it shows no one near the cafe, except Mark and then you.”
“The killer must have come in the back,” I said.
“And Diana did say that. She said the person must have had a key. Which employees do.”
“Employees like me,” I said, my stomach turning again. I swallowed the nausea with a gulp. “I think only Mark and I had keys to the cafe.”
“There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Angelica quickly said. “And Diana herself admitted she had no tangible leads yet.”
I could almost hear Chief Tedesco’s cool voice emphasize that last word: “Yet.”
How would I view the crime scene if I were the cop? I put myself in Chief Tedesco’s shoes. Or tried to. Somehow I pictured her shoes one size too small, squeezing my toes and making me grumpy. Maybe her heart was a couple of sizes too small, too.
I put myself in Eve Silver’s shoes instead. That was a better fit. How would she—detective extraordinaire—approach this investigation?
First, she’d say the motive was too thin. The suspect didn’t stand to gain by killing her boss and bringing more attention to herself.
Thank you, Eve. My thoughts exactly.
Next, what was the concrete evidence? There was only one suspect, and everything pointed to her guilt.
They had caught her fleeing the scene of the crime (once again, I inwardly groaned at my stupid decision to run). Apart from the obvious—Mark’s body with a knife in his back—there were no indications anyone else had been present at the cafe that morning.
I sighed. So much for Eve Silver solving the case.
With a smile, Angelica handed the bag of sesame cookies to the customer.
“An espresso, please,” a man said.
Angelica turned to me, an eyebrow raised, silently asking me if I wanted to make the coffee. I hurried to the espresso machine. It was long and gleaming. If the one at Cafe Roma had been a rusty old scrapheap, this was a sports car. I made the espresso, inhaling the rich scent of coffee as it poured into the little cup. Even the coffee smelled ten times better here than at Cafe Roma.
I placed the cup with its little saucer on the counter, and the man thanked me. He downed his espresso with expert grace. At the same time, his phone rang. He fumbled for his phone and set the cup down, missing the saucer and placing it on the glass counter instead.
He walked away, talking into his phone.
Angelica removed the cup and saucer and tossed me a cloth to wipe off the counter. The espresso cup had left a round smudge.
I froze, my hand holding the cloth over the smudge. An image flashed across my mind. I saw Cafe Roma again and the counter with Mark’s keys and the paperback lying next to his half-finished cappuccino. And something else, too.
There had been a smudge next to Mark’s cup, and now I knew what it was. It was a coffee ring. But a small one. Not the size of a regular coffee cup. An espresso cup.
When Mark and I had closed the cafe for the day, I had wiped that counter.
It was unlikely that Mark, the morning he died, had made an espresso, drunk it, then removed the cup before making himself a cappuccino. No, someone else had drunk that espresso and removed the cup afterward. The killer.
Angelica was eyeing me with apparent concern, her head cocked to the side.
“Your thoughts are far away,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mind is on the job.”
I was in no state to do a job interview. If I were Angelica, I wouldn’t hire me.
“Try this, Bernie.”
She leaned into the counter, and retrieving a cookie, handed it to me.
Only it wasn’t a cookie. It was a handful of marble-sized balls of fried dough, sticky with honey, and covered in colorful sprinkles.
I popped them in my mouth. The fried dough and honey melted on my tongue, the sprinkles adding a little crunch between my teeth, and I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the incredible flavor.
“It’s struffoli,” Angelica said.
“Wow,” I said, and my stomach rumbled in agreement.
I put a hand on my gut, embarrassed by the sound.
Angelica let out a huff of exasperation. “Angelica, you fool. This poor woman is suffering from starvation and you’ve got her running around the bakery serving people. When was the last time you ate, Bernie?”
“This morning at breakfast,” I said. But I was quick to add: “But it’s fine, I’ll find some food after this. I’ve got frozen pizza at home.”
“No, no, no.” Angelica waved her hands. “Out of the question. You will eat and you will eat well. Maybe we can get Carlo—he’s my brother and owns the restaurant next door—to bring over a plate of lasagna…”
“Don’t worry about it, Angelica,” a voice said.
Nat stood on the other side of the counter. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d entered as the last customer had left. He smiled and pushed his glasses back on his nose.
“Bernie won’t need food from Carlo’s.”
“I won’t?”
“Nope. Because you’re coming with me to the Old Mill for a drink and a bite to eat.”
I backed away from the counter and put up my hands. “Uh, no thanks—I’ve got plans…”
Suddenly, the lights in Moroni’s felt too bright. A person passing outside on the sidewalk looked in, gazing at me with obvious curiosity. I couldn’t risk going to the Old Mill with Nat, let alone work at Moroni’s, which had a constant stream of customers.
But Angelica clapped her hands together with delight.
“Great idea, Nat. But don’t keep her out too late, you hear?” She turned to me and put a gentle hand on my cheek. “You need to get some rest, Bernie, so you’re ready for your first day of work tomorrow morning.”
My face felt hot. Should I be happy or horrified?
“I can’t,” I spluttered. “I shouldn’t…”
Angelica smiled. “Oh, you’ll do great.”
* * *
As Nat held open the door to the Old Mill, I made a promise to myself: I would stay for a bite to eat and one drink. Be a wallflower. Then be gone. I could still catch a few episodes of Murder, She Wrote before bedtime.
“You coming?” he said.
I sighed and stepped inside.
The Old Mill was a long, low wooden structure, and it was easy to see that it had once been a sawmill, as Nat had informed me on the ride over. Exposed wooden beams cut across the ceiling. Wide floorboards stretched under the few tables and booths. The long bar gleamed with the confidence of polished hardwood.
“Welcome to Carmine’s best bar,” Nat said. “It’s also our only bar. But if you must have just one bar, the Old Mill ain’t bad.”
A stuffed deer head jutted out of a wall, antlers and all, and below it stood an old jukebox. The music piped out of top-notch speakers placed high in the dark corners of the ceiling was pure throwback: “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin. It would have felt old school if the bartender didn’t sport a beard and a flannel shirt that would have been at home in Portland, Oregon.
“This is Jerry,” Nat said, introducing me to the bearded bartender.
He gave a small nod. “Drink?” he asked, apparently a man of few words.
“Beer, please.”
He pointed at the taps built into the bar.
I pointed at one of the craft brews.
He nodded, grabbed a pint glass, and pressed down the tap handle to fill it.
Something about his demeanor eased the tension in my chest. Here was a guy I could sit across from at the bar, and drink after drink, he wouldn’t ask me questions, instead offering companionable silence.
If only the rest of Carmine’s citizens were as tight-lipped.
Nat ordered a beer as well, and when we each had our pint glasses in hand, we raised them.
“Here’s to good coffee,” Nat said.
“And freshly made cannolis,” I added.
We drank. The beer was delicious. Dry and crisp with a sharp hoppy bitterness. Maybe I should swap my ginger ale for some beer at home.
“Quiet tonight,” Nat said. “But not bad for a weeknight.”
There were probably half a dozen people in the place, besides Nat and myself. I recognized the woman who’d quarreled with Mark. She was a classic beauty, with brown curls and full red lips. I wondered what the connection was between her and Mark. She was sitting in a booth talking to two other women, both younger.
Nat caught me looking and said, “That's Maria Ferrante. The one with short red hair is Emma Francis.”
The red-head, Emma, was leaning close to the other two women, listening rapturously to what Maria had to say. From where we stood, I had a good view of her face. Freckled cheeks, with a roundness that I suspected would vanish in a year or two as adulthood squeezed out the last of her “baby fat.”
“Emma’s aunt and uncle live on Cedar Hill,” Nat continued. “That’s the fancy part of town. After graduating from college, she came to stay with them. She worked at Moroni’s over the summer to make some extra cash. She’s starting graduate school in a few weeks. Masters in Psychology.”
Emma caught sight of us and beamed, waving at Nat. He waved back.
“Friendly,” I remarked. “Who’s that next to her, in the corner? The blonde.”
“That’s Susan Davis. She works at Joanna Parisi’s law firm.”
“Parisi & Parisi?”
“That’s the one. The other Parisi is her husband, Gino.”
The name “Susan” was ringing a bell.
“Did you tell me about a Susan at some point?” I asked Nat.
He nodded. “I did. She’s another veteran from Cafe Roma. She’s Mark’s cousin.”
“The one he fired?”
Nat grinned. “That’s the one.”
He pointed out a group of guys sitting in another booth. Among them was a dark, handsome guy I recognized.
“Isn’t that Officer Ferrante?” I asked, trying to sound casual about it.
“Anthony Ferrante,” Nat said. “Good-looking, isn’t he?”
“Ferrante? Maria’s husband, I guess.”
My heart sank a little. Of course, Officer Ferrante was married. But why was I even thinking about good-looking guys? I couldn’t afford the luxury of dating, not when I was actively trying to stay hidden.
“Brother and sister,” Nat said.
My heart did its annoying fluttery thing again.
Carmine can’t be a long-term solution, I told my heart. So forget about it.
I wondered if Chief Tedesco had shared the intel on me, revealing my true identity to her officers. It made me feel strangely unsettled to think Officer Ferrante, cop pinup of the month, had been briefed about me.
Uh, Earth to Bernie, hello? Remember your promise. One drink. Wallflower. Then home. Got it?
Got it.
As Nat and I were speaking, Emma got up from her seat to allow Susan out of the booth.
Susan came to the bar and Nat introduced us.
“Where are you from?” she asked me.
A simple and very reasonable question, but it made my heart hammer wildly.
“California,” I said. Then almost gasped. That wasn’t my line. I was supposed to say “out west” or “Michigan.”
“Michigan, actually,” I said. “Michigan.”
“Where in California did you live?” Susan said, ignoring my mention of Michigan. “I’m going to California.”
“Susan’s big dream is to go into showbiz,” Nat explained.
“Not just a dream,” Susan said, giving Nat a playful push. “I’m going. In fact, I almost have enough savings to make it happen. This fall I’m going to move to L.A. and enroll in the Casanova Acting Academy. Or whatever it’s called now.” She put a hand over her heart. “What a shock that they wrongfully accused Jay—and then that they actually sentenced him to prison.”
I gripped my pint glass hard, hoping it was strong enough and wouldn’t shatter in my white-knuckled hands. I took a sip of beer to hide my reaction. Just my luck to meet an aspiring actress who was a Jay Casanova fan. Had Roberta’s genius computer included data on Susan Davis? Because this wasn’t ideal.
Susan was rattling off details about why the academy was so fantastic.
As she talked, I studied her. A hint of dark roots by her scalp revealed she dyed her hair blonde. With her high cheekbones and blue eyes, plus the platinum blonde bangs, she fit the model of a Gold Girl to a tee.
That was the name the media had given the actresses that Jay Casanova liked to pair up with for his role as Adam Gold in the spinoff movies. The prototype had been Eve Silver—me—in the show Silver & Gold. For Jay's feature length movies, he’d chosen a new female co-star each time. Adam Gold always played opposite a blonde with bangs, and he demanded that women dye their hair the exact color he wanted. In fact, these days you could go to any stylist in America and say, “I want a Gold Girl hairdo,” and they’d know exactly what you wanted.
Susan flicked a blonde curl over her shoulders and explained why the acting curriculum wasn’t the most important reason she’d chosen the Casanova Acting Academy.
“The industry’s all about who you know, and the academy helps you make connections,” Susan explained to me. “Hard work and talent aren’t enough.”
As she lectured me on how Hollywood worked and what the life of an actress looked like, I relaxed a little. She assumed I was entirely ignorant of what happened in show biz. Which meant she had no suspicions about my true identity. Good. All I had to do was listen and nod and pretend to be interested, and keep feigning ignorance.
Susan ordered a round of drinks “for the girls” and then headed back to the booth where Emma and Maria were sitting.
“She’s got big ambitions,” Nat commented after she was out of earshot. “Ever since she played the lead in the high school musical, she’s been unbearable. Can you imagine what a pain she’ll be if she actually becomes famous?”
“Is she a talented actress?” I asked.
“Does it matter? She’s got the look.”
It was a cynical opinion, but clearly he’d seen what I’d seen: She had potential as a Gold Girl. Yet, in my experience, the ones who had “the look,” but couldn’t struggle their way through a script, didn’t last long. Studio executives loved a pretty face, but there were so many to choose from—why not pick one that could also act?
Anyway, I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. My acting career was over, with only the happy memories of playing Eve Silver left.
I took another gulp of beer, emptying my glass.
There are no return tickets to the past, I told myself. It’s time to move on.
In fact, it was time to go home.
I slipped off my stool and turned to Nat, preparing to say goodnight, when he brought up a bag and pulled out cylindrical packages in butcher paper.
“What’s this?”
“Subs from Martini’s Italian Market. I told you we were eating dinner. The Old Mill doesn’t serve food, but we can bring in takeout.”
Nat waved a hand, and from down the bar, Jerry responded with a grunt. Before I could stop him, he poured another couple of pints of beer.
“Let’s eat,” Nat said.
I settled back onto the bar stool with a sigh, mentally revising my promise to myself: I’d have a bite to eat and one more drink, no more, then I’d go home.
One more drink, Bernie. No more.