Some services offer therapeutic help if you’re not matchable. Social skills can be improved; communication can be worked on. Everything is fixable, even if you’ve always eaten peas with a knife and your idea of scintillating conversation is a verbatim recital of the Magna Carta. A full makeover is available if necessary. Some services are even happy to consult about problems or discuss feedback—negative and positive—received from the “dates.” All at a substantial additional fee, of course.
—How to Avoid a Mismatch, and Other Tips for Finding Your Perfect Mate from the research notes of Cynthia Weatherford
My message machine was flashing. “Elena, this is Lili,” my mother’s caregiver said in the slow Spanglish she knew was necessary for my comprehension. “Your mother is very upset. I think she is saying your father has been calling again.” She paused. “I know she was talking on the phone when I came back from the store this afternoon, but she shut the door when she heard me come in. You know how she is.” I could hear her sigh into the phone. “I promised I would tell you. Please come.” Beep.
“Elena, this is Lili again. Your mother is sleeping. Maybe she will forget about the whole thing. I will let you know.”
I pushed the “stop” button, disturbed by my mother’s fixation on my father. Usually her delusions—a movie-star lover, a thieving maid—mutated in a few days. It was rare for her to persist this long. Besides, my father was not a topic calculated to help her retain her shaky grip on reality.
I sighed and mentally penciled in a visit before the end of the week. I remembered Mrs. Garcia and felt ashamed of my reluctance. It didn’t matter that my mother had been born without the nurturing gene; she’d probably done her best. She’d gotten up and gone to work every day so that I could have clothes and food and an education. I knew how hard it was to be a single parent; I should have been more appreciative of what she’d done. She’d even given me words to live by, though they were mostly things like “a man doesn’t pay for what he can get for free.” It wasn’t her fault if she couldn’t do any more. At least neither of her offspring had ended up in jail.
The phone rang right under my hand. I picked it up.
“Ellen St. James?” A man’s voice.
The moment of truth. Nobody knew me by that name except Ivanova Associates. In fact, I now seemed to have three identities—Santiago, St. James, and Laws—according to who was on the receiving end of the conversation. I could, in perfect honesty, say “no” and just hang up.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Melanie Klein gave me this number,” he said. He had a reasonably pleasant-sounding voice, so low that I wondered if he had a cold or a sore throat. At least it wasn’t reminiscent of ax murderers or cannibals, or not the movie versions anyway.
“Oh. Yes.” At this rate, I was sure to wow him with my powers of conversation.
“From Ivanova Associates,” he prompted.
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard.” Damn. I’d already said “I’m sorry,” and the conversation was only thirty seconds old. My forehead broke out in a sweat. I hadn’t felt this socially inept since age fourteen.
“Is this a bad time?”
This was a bad decade, but it wasn’t going to get any better. I remembered I was supposed to sound awesomely well-to-do. What should I say: I was just watching the maid dipping my diamonds, and I completely lost track of time? I was in the middle of having my garage floor re-parqueted? “No, not at all,” I told him.
“Good. I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me on Thursday. We can go anywhere you suggest, but if you don’t have a preference, I happen to like La Bourgogne in Redondo Beach. I thought it might be easier to meet at the restaurant.”
“Yes, I know it,” I said, surprised. It was only a few blocks from where I lived. “It’s very good. That…that would be fine.”
“Excellent,” he said briskly. “Shall we say eight, then? Or is that too early?”
“No, eight would be fine.” I had a consultation at ten on Friday with Julia Livingston, and late dinners always wrecked my sleep. “I have to go to work the next morning.”
“Oh, really?” He sounded surprised. I wondered if I’d already committed a faux pas. Maybe all your wealth was supposed to be inherited. “Well, that’s set, then,” he said briskly. He was all efficiency. I wondered if he might be a lawyer or an accountant. “See you Thursday.”
“I—” I was listening to the dial tone. Then it hit me. I really must have been out of practice.
I hadn’t even thought to ask his name.
Of course, he hadn’t volunteered it, either, so maybe he was less self-assured than his no-nonsense, get-right-down-to-things manner suggested. No preliminaries like a name or a job description or even a favorite food. Maybe it was a Freudian slip. Maybe I was going to look like a fool in La Bourgogne, meeting someone whose identity was a total mystery.
“What do you think I should wear?” I asked Andrea. I hadn’t wanted to involve her, but I was too insecure not to get a Second Opinion, even from someone whose normal attire was skin-tight jeans and T-shirts bearing the logos of music groups I had never heard of.
“How about body armor?” she said, hands on hips.
I turned from the closet, where I was lifting more traditional outfits from their hangers, one by one.
“I’m serious, Mom. I can’t believe you’re going to meet some guy when you don’t know one thing about him. Not even his name,” she emphasized.
I held up a beige knit dress for her inspection. She rolled her eyes. I put it back in the closet. “I admit I might have been a little careless about that,” I told her. “But—”
“A little careless? Mom, I don’t believe you. What if I pulled something like that?”
“I’d probably be in cardiac arrest,” I said, because she expected it. But I wouldn’t. She’d done worse; she just chose not to remember while she was in the guise of her Responsible Adult persona, and I certainly wasn’t going to remind her. “Look, the whole point of the article for City of Angels is to see what turns up. Besides, the men are supposed to be prescreened. And he’s taking a risk, too, don’t forget. He doesn’t know anything about me, either.”
“Including your real name. This whole setup sounds like something out of a James Bond movie.”
I laughed. “So what does the well-dressed spy wear for dinner with 007?”
“You’re really going through with this?”
“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “I wouldn’t know who to call to cancel.”
“Ha, ha,” she said grimly. She reached into the closet and pulled out a matching black gabardine jacket and pants I’d bought at Nordstrom’s. “Wear this,” she said. “It’s classic. It’s elegant. It doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard.” She smiled, saving the best argument for last. “It’s slimming.”
“Sold,” I said, taking it out of her hands. “What should I wear under it?”
She laughed. “Normally, I’d say just some beads or a camisole, but in this case, make it a turtleneck.”
These companionable moments were the benefits of having a nearly grown daughter, a reward for weathering the teenage years all alone. After Michael died, I’d been so worried about her that I scarcely let her out of my sight. Then I worried that I might be smothering her. I thought about Lupe Garcia and my eyes filled, I was so grateful for the way she’d turned out. It was mostly luck. “Andy,” I said, trying not to sniff.
She had her back to me. “What?” she asked. She was looking through my shoe boxes.
“If I forget to say it sometimes, I really do appreciate your concern.”
She turned, a pair of low-heeled black shoes in her hand. She caught me in the throes of sentiment and rolled her eyes again. “Oh, Mom,” she said. But she let me hug her.
Ramon Garcia called while I was in the shower, getting ready for my mystery date.
“Talk fast. I don’t have much time,” he said, when I had come dripping and panting to the phone. “What did you want?”
He had a don’t-mess-with-me prison voice. For all I knew, it was his real one.
“I want to know what happened that night at Ivanova Associates.”
Silence.
“Don’t know, lady. I wasn’t there,” he said finally.
“Then how did the stuff from Natasha Ivanova’s office get into your mother’s car?”
He laughed, a smirky sort of giggle that made me want to throttle him. “Like Johnny says—”
“Who?”
“Johnny. My brother. Like he says, the pigs set me up.”
“They stopped you on your way home from somewhere and planted the stuff in your car, is that it?”
“That’s it. Was out getting myself laid. Long and slow, like I like it. You like it like that, lady?”
I ignored him. “You have a witness?”
“Just some ho. Hos don’t tell you their real name.”
“And you told your attorney Ms. Ivanova gave you all that stuff because…”
“Because I was scared nobody would believe me about the pigs. Yeah, that’s right.”
I sighed. This was getting nowhere. “Look, I know you haven’t got any reason to trust me, but—”
“You can say that again, lady.”
“But your mother wanted you to talk to me.”
“What’re we doing?”
“You’re telling me some version of the story you and Juan worked up before you called. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the complete truth.”
“What do you frigging want from me, lady? I don’t need any help from you. If I get out of here, you better be watching your back.”
“By the time you get out of there, I’ll be in a nursing home,” I told him. “I’ll be the oldest living person in a bullet-proof wheelchair.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Just think about it, Ray. You’ve got nothing to lose. I need to hear what really happened that night. You’ve got my number. You can—”
The receiver slammed down with the click of a weapon.
Not only that, but now I was going to be late for my dinner.
La Bourgogne is a tiny restaurant on a busy street. It serves classic French food in surprisingly elegant surroundings. From the outside, it looks like it might have been a former paint store or something equally inauspicious. Inside, it is filled with tapestried chairs and the accoutrements of fine dining without pretensions. If it were in France, it would probably rank a Michelin two-knives-and-forks and cost three times as much. Besides, it had never been trendy, so the maître d’ acted glad to see you, and nobody snubbed you when you called for a reservation. I had taken my mother there, before she started thinking the waiters were trying to poison her and insisted on sending the steak tartare back to be cooked. Maybe she was anticipating the E. coli and salmonella scares, but I doubted it.
Since I didn’t know who I was meeting, I gave my name to the hostess and asked if anyone was expecting me. I tried not to scan the dining room as she checked her notes. “Why yes,” she said, smiling brightly in relief that I wasn’t being stood up. “Right this way, please.” I wished she hadn’t sounded quite so surprised and delighted.
She led me to a table against the wall. The man seated there was writing something in a notebook. When we approached, he looked up and capped his pen, putting the notebook in his pocket. He stood. He was tall and slender with a cleft chin and a strong jaw. His hair was light brown, with just the right amount of gray for distinction. His eyes were an attractive metallic blue-gray, a color you might order specially on a new car. He looked as if he’d been born in a suit. A very expensive one.
So far, I had to give Ivanova Associates high marks.
I extended my hand. “I’m Ellen St. James,” I announced. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” I didn’t volunteer that I’d been held up by a phone call from a convicted murderer.
The hostess looked from one to the other of us with suppressed curiosity. Mystery Man didn’t acknowledge her presence. “That’s quite all right,” he said, relinquishing the handshake. His voice had the same low pitch as on the phone, so at least I knew it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. “Please sit down.” He pulled out my chair. “I’m happy to meet you.”
I sat. I didn’t want to, but I was going to have to prompt him. “And you are…?”
He looked at me as if I might have taken leave of my senses.
“I’ll just leave the menus,” said the hostess, backing away. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
“You forgot to give me your name when you called,” I informed him.
He gave a small, amused smile. “William Collins,” he said.
“Like the Jane Austen character,” I said, without thinking.
He looked startled.
“Pride and Prejudice,” I explained lamely, cursing myself. “William Collins is a minor character.” Actually, Mr. Collins is a buffoon, and I couldn’t believe I’d brought it up. I was definitely not cut out for dating if I was going to continue in this vein.
The smile came back. “Oh, right. I get that all the time. Do you by any chance teach literature?” he asked me eventually.
“No, I just read.”
He laughed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t.”
“Actually,” I said hurriedly, “I’m an art consultant.”
“Is that like a decorator?”
Touché. “Sometimes,” I confessed. “Sometimes it’s more exalted than that. It depends on the client.” My theory about telling people about your career is that you give them a capsule summary and keep your mouth shut after that, unless they demand more. Too many people go prosing on and on about things that are inherently fascinating only to themselves.
The wine steward brought over a bottle of white Burgundy that had not been discussed in my presence. Either William Collins was a regular, or he had ordered it before I got there. They both looked at me. “Will this be all right? This is a good year, but if you’d like something else…” It was polite, but I could tell he wasn’t expecting opposition. Clearly a take-charge kind of guy.
I wasn’t going to quibble. I loved white Burgundies. I just couldn’t afford them. “It’s fine.”
“So what kind of clientele do you have?” he asked me, when the wine rituals—the sniffing and the swirling—were over.
“All kinds,” I told him, not sure what the question meant. “I help artists starting out, and some who are famous. I have clients who are well-known collectors, and some who just want a nice painting for the corporate boardroom, one that doesn’t offend anyone’s taste. It depends.”
“I see.” He gave me a penetrating look that I was at a loss to interpret. “So your clients are mostly well-to-do?”
Since I was supposed to be well-off myself that could hardly come as a surprise. Besides, it was true. “I suppose you could say that.”
“I see,” he said again. “Shall we order?” It was another rhetorical question, because he’d already signaled to the waiter.
Despite my usual propensity to eat hearty in periods of stress, I chose lightly and took the filet of sole. He ordered sea bass. “Just grilled. No fat. Sauce on the side,” he said.
Uh-oh. Another fitness freak or a cardiac patient, neither of which was a plus. I hoped he wasn’t the kind who carried his own water bottle everywhere, too.
He saw my expression, and I’m sure he read my mind. He looked amused, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t giving anything away. I thought it was my turn to talk and was about to dust off my repertoire of innocuous “date” questions, revised since I’d last trotted them out more than twenty years before. I thought I could safely retire “What fraternity are you in?” but after that, I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
He preempted me. He folded his arms on the table and gave me another searching look. “How did you hear about Ivanova Associates?” he asked.
“A friend recommended it.”
“A friend in the art world?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“A client?”
There was something very wrong here. I might have been out of the social scene for a long time, but my instincts about appropriate dating banter couldn’t have been that out-of-date. This was no Bogey and Bacall movie. He wasn’t trying to impress me, or flirt, or stir up any chemistry. He seemed to be forcing himself through the motions, exercising the minimum requirement for civility. He seemed tense and secretive. In fact, the entire conversation seemed more like an interrogation. “Possibly,” I said, “What about you?”
He smiled. “Have you tried your salad? It’s delicious.”
It was. Maybe he was just nervous, despite every appearance to the contrary. Maybe he didn’t like to have to admit he’d employed the services of a matchmaker. I tried another tack. “So what do you do?” I asked him.
He sat back in his chair. “I’m an attorney.”
Ha. I knew it. “What kind?”
He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “A little of this and that. I’m retired now.”
He was being deliberately mysterious. It had to be high-tech. He’d incorporated some computer company when it was two guys working out of their garage and gotten a million dollars in stock when it went public. He was too young to have retired in the normal way, but, on the other hand, maybe he just had a trust fund.
“So you don’t work at all?” When it was out of my mouth, I knew it was a hopelessly middle-class question, but I couldn’t help it. The Anglo side of my inheritance (as opposed to the work-is-a-curse-to-be-endured Mexican side) made me sound disapproving.
“I didn’t say that. I take on projects I believe in. I’m free to pick and choose. I guess you could say I’m a sort of freelance consultant now. It’s very liberating to have the freedom to turn things down, don’t you agree?”
I thought of having the wherewithal to refuse to work with Valentin ever again. “Yes, it must be,” I said.
“Well, of course, you must be in the same situation,” he said pleasantly.
“Pardon me?”
“Free to pick and choose. After all, under the circumstances, you can’t be working for the money. I admire that.”
“Well…”
The waiter brought our fish and set the plates down in front of us. I concentrated fiercely on mine, hoping the arrival of the meal would deflect the conversation. There were baby vegetables surrounding the sole; I fixated on a tiny zucchini, as if might vaporize if I removed my gaze. I hadn’t thought the financial issue would arise as blatantly as this.
He was relentless. “That is correct, isn’t it, Ms. St. James? I don’t like to bring this up, but Ms. Klein assured me that all of the women would be carefully screened.”
My fork froze in the air with a bite of sole on it. Too bad; it looked delicious. The evening was over for all intents and purposes, but I might still be able to salvage some research. “So you’re only interested in meeting rich women?” I asked him.
To do him justice, he didn’t look outraged; he just smiled. “I thought that was the purpose of this entire exercise,” he said. “I take it you don’t agree that it pays to be extremely careful in these circumstances? I would have thought, for example, that a careful person would not want to accept everything he or she is told at face value.” He looked at me.
“What are you trying to say?” I asked him. I remembered Cynthia’s advice: Never volunteer. But if he asked me outright, I didn’t think I could bring myself to lie.
“What I’m saying, Ms. St. James, is that we’re both in this to meet somebody rich. Isn’t that the truth?” He cut himself a bite of fish, chewed it with evident satisfaction, and sat back in his chair. He looked as if he had just sent a big-time felon up the river to pay for her crimes. I would have loved to wipe the look off his face.
“Not on my part,” I told him. At least that was the truth.
He folded his arms and looked at me. “Come clean, Ellen. I’m on to you.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean,” I said. But I could.
“I did some checking.”
Uh-oh.
“I used the Reverse Directory. There is no listing for an Ellen St. James at your phone number.” He paused, certain that he was about to spring the goods on me. “Who is M. Laws?”
“My husband,” I said, looking away.
“You’re married?” he asked incredulously.
“I was.” I wasn’t about to tell him anything more. He could assume whatever he wanted. All I wanted was to extricate myself as quickly as possible and head for home.
“I’m divorced, too,” he volunteered.
“What a surprise.”
“You’re annoyed,” he said. “You don’t have to be. Look, I checked out your address. You have a nice townhouse, but it’s not worth a lot of money. You drive a moderately priced car. You’re using an assumed name.” He smiled consolingly, presenting his summation: “You are not rich.”
“Bingo, Counselor. What is it you’re implying?”
“There’s no need to get testy about it, I told you. You seem very nice. You look and act the part. Just because you misrepresented yourself—at least, I assume you did—at Ivanova Associates so you could land a rich husband, doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. But what I—”
“I think I should clarify that, at this point, your opinion of me is immaterial,” I interrupted him, digging my nails into my palm. “But just for the record, I don’t suppose you’ve considered that there might be another explanation?”
He looked dubious. “Such as?”
“Such as, I’m working on a sociology project on matrimonial services, or I’m a journalist working on an article, or I’m an author trying to get background information for a novel. Take your pick. You haven’t considered the possibility that you might have made a big mistake?”
He laughed. “Actually, no, I haven’t. Have I?” I would have loved to sock him with the truth, but I didn’t dare.
I fumbled in my purse for my wallet. “Yes,” I said, “but never mind. Now that you’ve unmasked me, I assume the evening’s entertainment is over.” I looked at him. “I do wonder why, if you knew all this before you called, you wanted to go through with this charade of a dinner. Well, on second thought, maybe I don’t.” I took out two twenties and put them on the table. “That should pay for my part of the festivities.” I started to get to my feet.
He put a hand on my arm. “Wait, please.” He looked hurt. I couldn’t believe this guy. “You think I set all this up just to embarrass you?”
“That explanation had occurred to me,” I said. “Please take your hand off my arm.”
He pulled it back as if it burned him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Look, you’ve got this all wrong. You have to understand. I’ve misrepresented myself, too. I—”
I snorted. “You mean you’re really poor and ambitious like me? You had designs on my nonexistent fortune, but now I’ve disappointed you?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m not poor, and I don’t have designs on your fortune or anything else. What I—”
“That leaves ambitious.”
He closed his eyes. “What I want is information. I’m hoping you’ll help me. Just tell me what you know about Ivanova Associates, about the men you’ve met through them. I won’t expose you. I can even make it worth your while.”
I stood. “That sounds precariously like blackmail. Or bribery.”
“You’re deliberately misunderstanding,” he hissed. “I’m not free to give you the details, but I am conducting an investigation. You could help me a lot by cooperating.”
“You’re the police? FBI? IRS? What?”
He shook his head.
“Show me your wallet,” I said.
He drew in a quick breath but didn’t say anything.
“Well?” I said.
“I can’t,” he mumbled.
“A card? A picture?”
Silence.
“What about your favorite color?”
He stared at me. The smart-ass mood was overtaking me. It was time to beat a hasty exit. Maybe he was a certified nutcase who got off on exposing the foibles of the underclass. That would make a good one for the article.
“Okay, then,” I told him. “I’m outta here, as they say.”
“You’re not giving me a chance,” he said.
“I’m not giving you a chance? That’s rich.”
I’d always wanted to say “That’s rich” to somebody. I was especially pleased by its resonance under the circumstances.
He extended his hand. I ignored it. “I’m sorry; I can see that you’re offended by my candor,” he said. “I wish there were some way to make you reconsider helping me.”
I stared at him. He reminded me of something for a moment, but I couldn’t think what. I picked up my purse, hoping I could get out without making a further scene. I prayed he wouldn’t follow me to the parking lot.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I practically jumped out of my skin. Mark and Andrea were planted behind me, their faces masks of concern. I stared at them in shock. I’d been so involved in my own little drama I hadn’t even heard anyone come up.
“Everything all right?” Mark asked me.
“I was just leaving,” I said. I glanced across the room to an empty table with two untouched salads. I was going to have words with Mark about this afterward, but right now I was grateful for the rescue.
“I’ll see you out,” Mark said and grabbed my elbow. We walked toward the door.
“It’s green,” William Collins called out.
I didn’t look back.
“What’s green?” Andy asked me. Mark’s face was expressionless.
“His favorite color.” I told her. Mark rolled his eyes.
“Wha—”
“Don’t ask,” I said to her when they had walked me out to the car.
Mark held out his hand.
“What’s that for?”
“The keys. You’re too pissed off to drive, I can tell.”
“Mark, we’re only six blocks from home.”
“You know what they say about accidents. Besides, you’ve been drinking wine. I saw it on the table.”
“I had less than one glass.” I regretted that, actually. The wine was first-rate. I gave him the keys. “What about your car?”
“Andrea can drive it home.”
I shuddered. Mark had a leased BMW 740iL, in pristine condition. “Drive carefully,” I called out emphatically to my daughter. I had problems enough, as it was.
“Oh, Mom, for heaven’s sake. Don’t be so paranoid.” She grinned at me.
“I can’t believe you were spying on me in that restaurant,” I told Mark, when he had closed the door and started the ignition. “You had no business doing that.”
He exited the parking lot. “After our conversation the other night? You scared the shit out of me, Ellen. Somebody needs to look out for you. Besides, don’t be such a hypocrite. I saw how thrilled you were with Mr. Wrong in there. What was he, Charles Manson in Armani? Does he like whips and chains? What?”
“A lawyer,” I told him.
He slapped his forehead. “Oooh.” He paused. “Not medical malpractice?”
I laughed. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s the big deal?’
“Don’t ask me to explain, Mark. It’s too weird, and it’s not worth going into. Let’s just say the chemistry wasn’t right.”
“I’m an expert on chemistry.” He looked at me. “You know, if you have to have somebody fulfill some perfect picture, everybody you meet is going to fall short. Maybe you should think about adjusting your standards a little. Otherwise, the only long-term relationship you might be having is with your fantasies.”
This from a guy whose principal dating criterion was the Recommended Height-Weight Chart. Still, I was too tired to argue the point. “So tell me how you just happened to be having dinner with Andrea in the very restaurant where I was meeting my date?” I asked him, to change the subject.
“Andrea told me, and I suggested it. And don’t be annoyed at her. She was seriously concerned because you didn’t know anything about the guy. She doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not annoyed at her; I’m annoyed at you. You should have known better. It wasn’t the perfect evening, and I admit I was glad to see you, but I really didn’t need help. I was on my way out before you came.”
“And what if he’d followed you to your car? What if he followed you to your house? You’re so naive, you could get into all kinds of trouble.”
“Ridiculous,” I told him, though I’d wondered the same thing myself.
“And anyway, you should be grateful,” he persisted. “I had to pass up a perfectly good salad to rush to your side when I saw you getting into a flap. I had to leave a really big tip, too, so the waiter wouldn’t be disappointed.”
“Okay,” I said with a laugh. “I give up. Thanks. But please, don’t think you have to be my bodyguard. I’d much rather you didn’t. I have to do this on my own, really.”
“Do what?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” I looked out the car window at the lights speeding by. “Remember how you told me to ‘get a life’?”
“Ellen…”
“Well, I’m getting one.” I laughed. “Flaps and all.”
Three A.M. Both sides of the pillow were hot, and I’d heard the clock chime every quarter hour since 1:30. I’d tried every possible stratagem to keep from reliving the evening’s events in my head, but finally, defeated, I let them unroll, like a movie.
Not exactly a triumphal reentry into the dating scene. I wondered what sort of shadow this would cast on my future outings with the opposite sex, in the unlikely event there ever were any that weren’t being paid for. I mean, even before he pulled his Grand Inquisitor act, I hadn’t exactly bowled him over with my cleverness and sophistication.
No witty repartee, no Nick-and-Nora sparring. Not even Moonlighting.
No chemistry, unless you count the kind that produces hydrochloric acid.
All right, to be fair about it, I was on the date on false pretenses, so I suppose I shouldn’t have minded so much being unmasked. But being thought a fortune hunter rankled. And anyway, he was there on false pretenses, too, wasn’t he? If he wanted me to help with whatever he was doing, he should have leveled with me from the beginning.
I wondered why I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I wondered how I was going to nerve myself for the next Ivanova Associates close encounter.
I turned the pillow over again and punched it up with my fist. This was going to make one hell of an article for City of Angels.
Pow! I sat up so fast in the bed, I jerked my leg and got a charley horse in my calf muscle. While I was standing beside the bed, kneading my calf, I realized where I had heard “Mr. Collins’s” glorious bass voice before. Now that I’d thought of it, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me already.
If there was any justice in the world, I was going to have a whole lot of fun with this one. Right before I made him squirm.
I walked off the muscle spasm and climbed back into bed. I set the alarm for 7:30 and plumped up the pillows again. Then I pulled the covers over my head and slept soundly for the remainder of the night.