THAT night Peter and I had planned one of our infrequent, much-anticipated date nights. I fed Ruby her favorite dinner, macaroni and cheese. I tossed in a couple of microwaved broccoli florets (which would, of course, never actually pass Ruby’s lips), and I had a well-rounded meal sure to satisfy even the most scrupulous of nutrition advocates. Okay, not the most scrupulous, but good enough for me.
Once Ruby had finished her macaroni and cheese and pushed her broccoli into a pile at the side of her plate, I rousted Peter from his office, where he was pretending to work but really busily clicking his mouse and slaying Ganon and other cybervillains.
Once I’d convinced him that it was really time to go, I yet again found myself standing naked in my room, idly scratching my itchy belly and studying the contents of my closets, like I expected to find lurking therein a Sasquatch, a paving stone from the lost city of Atlantis, or the propeller of Amelia Earhart’s airplane. Or, at the very least, something to wear. Early in my first pregnancy I had excitedly gone to a maternity store, happily imagining myself in all sorts of elegant ensembles that artfully disguised my girth while showing off my glow. Yeah, right. Elegant is not what the designers of maternity wear have decided is the appropriate look for their corpulent clientele. “Cute” is the adjective of choice. Bows, ribbons, little arrows pointing down at the belly. Prints of smiley faces and happy flowers. Lots of pink.
I don’t know who decided that pregnancy requires the infantilization of a woman’s wardrobe, but I’d like whoever it was to spend a few moments with me while I model those outfits. It’s hard enough for me to look like a grown-up, since I’m only five feet tall. With my width fast approaching the same dimensions as my height and my face assuming the proportions of the moon, the last thing I needed was a frill on the collar of a pastel blue ruffled smock.
I’d stocked my closet with black leggings and oversized shirts in neutral colors. Each day I resolutely tried to find a new and interesting combination. Raiding Peter’s wardrobe helped alleviate the monotony, but that was becoming less of an option as I slowly but surely inched up toward and, horrifyingly, past his weight. I was outgrowing his clothes as fast as I had outgrown my own.
Tonight I was determined to look decent. Peter and I were going to a movie premiere. We didn’t often get invited to these Hollywood events. We’re not exactly A-list material. However, the producer who’d optioned Peter’s latest script had just released a new film, a typical shoot-’em-up action movie starring a taciturn, kickboxing Swede who made Steven Seagal look like a candidate for the Royal Shakespeare Company. While the movie was bound to be both jarringly loud and earth-shakingly dull, I was looking forward to the premiere hoopla. It had been quite some time since I’d hobnobbed with Hollywood’s elite.
I dragged on a pair of my ubiquitous black leggings, hauled them up over my belly, and confronted my closet yet again. A flash of sequins caught my eye. There, in the back of my closet, lurked a seemingly ill-advised purchase, a sequined shirt of clingy spandex in a deep, shining green. I’d bought it years ago when I went through a brief club-hopping phase. I used to wear it tucked into that leather skirt. I pulled the shirt over my head and snapped it down over my bulging belly.
There are, I believe, two ways to dress when pregnant. One possible avenue hides the belly under loose, smocklike tunics. It is the more obvious choice. The second celebrates the size of the belly, calling attention to its contents. Green sequins drawn tight enough to see the outlines of my navel fall squarely into the latter category. It was a risk, but I have to say it worked.
I made up my eyes elaborately and chose a dark red lipstick. I jammed my puffy feet into open-toed platform sandals and waddled into the bathroom.
“So? Whaddya think?” I asked in my best Jewish-princess-from-Long Island voice.
Ruby was sitting in the tub, her hair full of shampoo and pulled into triceratops horns at the top of her head. Peter sat on the floor next to her, attacking her with a three-inch, blue T. Rex figurine. They turned to look at me.
“Wow, Mama, you look so fancy!” Ruby said, smiling.
“Wow, Mama, you look so sexy!” Peter said, leering.
My two loves, each with trashier taste than the other.
“Do I look good enough for Hollywood?”
“You look good enough to eat,” Peter said, grabbing a fistful of my rear end and squeezing.
ANDREA, Ruby’s anorexic baby-sitter, showed up on time for once. As usual she had brought a Tupperware container full of carrot sticks and celery stalks. I’d long ago gotten over asking her to help herself to the food in our kitchen. For a while I’d even provided her with her favorite veggies, but to no avail. She always brought and ate her own. It was as if she thought our carrots had soaked up extra calories by virtue of their presence in our fat-polluted fridge. Like the bacon was secretly rubbing itself on them when the door was closed.
Eating disorders aside, Andrea was a great sitter, responsible and creative. Ruby loved her. They were playing a round of Candyland as we left, and Ruby didn’t even look up to say good-bye.
Peter parked the car as close as he could to the movie theater, but it was almost a ten-minute walk before we arrived at the edges of the bleachers that had been set up for the Swede’s adoring fans. By that time I was limping in my platform shoes and holding my stomach with both hands, hoisting the load off my bladder. Peter gripped me by the elbow, propelling me through the throngs of hysterical kickboxing fanatics, many of whom actually seemed to be practicing their favorite moves while they waited for their idol to appear.
“Hey, watch it, pregnant woman here!” he said, deflecting a Nike that grazed my belly.
We finally made it to the police barricades set up to keep the crowds off the red carpet leading into the theater. Peter thrust his engraved invitation into the face of one of the security guys manning the entrance. The guard motioned us through a gap between two barricades, and we stepped up on the red carpet. The area in front of the theater was lit by a huge phalanx of hot, white Klieg lights. The carpet was crowded with reporters fawning over stars and thrusting microphones in their faces. As we stepped up, the crowd of hoi polloi behind the barricades turned in one motion to look at us. An audible sigh of disappointment escaped them as they realized we were nobody. A camera operater who had turned his oversized video camera in our direction snapped off the light and turned away, leaving us in a little, dark island of anonymity in the midst of the bright, star-filled field of red. Peter and I looked at each other and smiled ruefully. There’s nothing like a Hollywood opening to make you feel like you don’t exist.
We walked quickly up the carpet toward the door of the theater. Suddenly, a hand reached out and grabbed my arm, jerking me roughly. I staggered, my balance thrown off. Peter threw his arm around my waist to keep me from falling, and I turned around to see where the hand had come from. I found myself staring up at the beet-red face of none other than Bruce LeCrone. He was already screaming by the time I turned my head.
“Who do you think you are, you bitch! I’m going to have you arrested for stalking! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you know who I am, you disgusting cow?”
My mouth dropped open and I stared at him blankly, utterly taken aback by his invective. Not even my creepiest clients had ever abused me that way.
Before I could gather myself together to blast him back, Peter took hold of LeCrone’s hand, wrenching it off my shoulder and pushing it away.
“Back off. Back off, now,” Peter said quietly.
LeCrone leaned into Peter’s face. “Your wife has been following my nanny around, accusing me of beating up my kid. I’ll kill her and you!”
Peter, his white face and set chin the only outward evidence of how truly angry he was, put his hand on LeCrone’s chest and pushed him gently but firmly away.
“No one has accused you of anything. Now we’re going to turn around and go into the theater and I suggest you do the same.”
By now everyone was staring at us. The reporters had stopped in midinterview. The videographer who had previously considered us too boring to merit his attention had his camera trained firmly in our direction. From the corner of my eye I could see two security officers rushing our way.
“Look, I happened to bump into your nanny at the park and we got to talking, that’s all,” I said, hoping to calm the furious man down. What had possessed Lola suddenly to turn loyal? Peter turned to look at me in surprise.
“You just happened to ask her if I beat up my kid? Bullshit!” LeCrone said, his voice only slightly quieter than a shriek.
“Can we just cut out the screaming?” Peter said. “There’s obviously been some kind of misunderstanding here.”
“Exactly,” I interjected. I decided to go for broke. After all, I couldn’t get the guy any more furious than he already was. “I was actually trying to find out if you had an alibi for the night Abigail Hathaway was killed.”
LeCrone exploded. With a bellow, he reached his arm back and shot out a fist, aiming it directly at my face. Peter jumped in to deflect the blow, managing to put his shoulder between LeCrone’s balled hand and my nose. Peter took the punch and staggered back with the force. LeCrone was getting ready to deliver another strike when the two security officers finally arrived at our sides. They grabbed LeCrone, one on each arm, and hauled him back a few feet. One raised a warning hand at Peter.
“That’s it, buddy,” the officer said.
As they hustled LeCrone off, he turned back and shouted over his shoulder, “I was at a reception at ICA, you dumb broad. That’s my alibi.” The last word was delivered in a snide snarl.
I turned to Peter, who was staring at me, shaking his head.
“I guess he has an alibi,” I said sheepishly.
At that moment a long white limo pulled up at the curb and the Swede leaped out the door, arms outstretched to greet his public. A roar rose up from the crowd, and all attention was diverted from us and toward the evening’s kickboxing prince.
“Juliet, what in God’s name were you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Peter said as he grabbed my hand and dragged me into the theater.
“Hardly,” I responded. “I just asked his nanny a question. How was I supposed to know that the guy would lose his mind?”
We walked down the aisle and found ourselves two seats toward the back.
“Might I remind you that you yourself called him psychotic and capable of murder?” Peter said.
I settled myself into the chair. “Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t realize exactly how psychotic. Anyway, he has an alibi.” I reached across Peter’s body and gingerly touched his hurt shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. Are you okay? Does it hurt?”
“Yes, it hurts. And don’t touch me,” Peter said, wincing and shrugging my hand off his shoulder.
“My knight in shining armor. My hero,” I said, smiling sweetly.
Peter snorted and turned his face to the screen. I could tell that under his irritation was a wellspring of macho pride happily bubbling to the surface. He’d protected his woman!
“Thank God you were there. I swear he would have knocked me out if you hadn’t deflected that punch,” I said, leaning my head against his good shoulder and staring up at him admiringly.
Peter grudgingly reached his arm around me and gave me a squeeze.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too. Even if you are an idiot.” He smiled despite himself. “I was about to really let him have it when those security guards showed up.”
“It’s lucky you didn’t. You’re in much better shape than he is and you probably really would have hurt him,” I said, exaggerating more than a little but not more than necessary. A man’s ego is a fragile thing. It never hurts to give it a few pats every once in a while.
We settled in to watch the movie.
News travels fast in Hollywood. Bad news faster than good, and misinformation at the speed of light. By the time we got home that night our answering machine was blinking like a hopped-up cokehead with a twitch. Peter’s agent had called to ask if he had given any thought to his career before punching out the head of Parnassus Studios. My prenatal Yoga teacher had called because she’d heard I’d been beaten up and gone into early labor. Stacy left a hysterical shriek on the machine, shouting, “Juliet, my God, are you okay? I heard that you got into a fistfight with Bruce LeCrone at the premiere of Rumble in Rangoon! Did he hurt you? My assistant just told me that LeCrone knocked Peter out and had to be dragged off by four cops! What did you say to him? Are you nuts, Juliet? Are you totally insane? Call me as soon as you get this message. Call me right now!”
I called.
“Hi, Stace. It’s me. I’m fine. Nothing happened.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing happened’? Everyone is talking about this. The only people not talking about this are lying under slabs at Forest Lawn. What in God’s name happened?”
“Nothing happened. Nothing serious. LeCrone started screaming at me at the theater in front of every camera in Los Angeles, and that’s about it. Except that he also tried to punch me but Peter got between us. Peter’s fine. LeCrone hit him on the shoulder.”
“And no one’s in the hospital?”
“No, unless they locked LeCrone up in the booby hatch, which I hope they did because that is clearly where he belongs.”
“But what did you do? Why did he try to kill you?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, he did not try to kill me. Jeez, Stace, you’re beginning to exaggerate worse than I do! He took one tiny punch.”
“But what did you do, Juliet? People don’t just hit other people for no reason, not even studio executives.”
“Nothing, really. I just met his nanny in the park. I might have asked her if she thought he might have any violent tendencies. Nothing more than that.” I sounded defensive, but I knew she would flip out. And she did.
“Are you kidding me? What are you doing? What did you expect to happen? My God!”
“Well, it’s all moot now, and anyway, I’d like to point out that you could have prevented this whole incident if you’d told me that LeCrone was at one of your parties on Monday night.”
“What? One of my parties?”
“He said he has an alibi. He said he was at an ICA cocktail party.”
“Monday night? Monday night. What was Monday night?” She seemed to be flipping through a mental calendar. “Oh, right! Monday night was the unveiling. We had a cocktail party to celebrate the new Noguchi piece in the office lobby. I think I even remember seeing him there, now that you mention it.”
“Gotta say, Stace, I wish you’d remembered this a couple of days ago,” I said, trying not to sound irritated. After all, it wasn’t Stacy’s fault that I was playing Hercule Poirot.
“Gotta say, Jule, it never occurred to me that you would be accosting LeCrone’s household employees in the park. Otherwise, I might had worked harder to provide him with an alibi.”
Stacy wouldn’t let me hang up until I’d promised to leave the sleuthing to the professionals with the badges and the guns. I crossed my fingers and vowed to concern myself with more appropriate things, like whether I’d have another C-section or manage to deliver the new baby in the old-fashioned way or where we would send Ruby to preschool now that Heart’s Song was no longer an option.
As I returned the handset to its cradle it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Abigail Hathaway had been killed before putting her official rejection in Ruby’s file. Maybe we should apply again! I wouldn’t want to present too obvious a motive to Detective Carswell, but, on the other hand, I had Ruby’s future academic career to think about.
Peter came in from walking Andrea to her car and locked the front door behind him.
“Sorry your agent is so mad at you,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. You know, I think that’s the first time she’s called me in about two years!” He kissed me on the forehead and headed off to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
I followed him and we brushed our teeth side by side, alternating spitting in the sink. I pulled off my sequin shirt and leggings and climbed into bed. I dragged the full-length body pillow up alongside me and tucked one end up under my belly. As I was plumping the other pillows into position, Peter lay down on his side of the bed.
“Construction complete yet?” he asked.
“Almost,” I said, giving the pillow behind my back a last punch and settling down with a groan.
“You’re going to have to redo the whole thing in ten minutes when you get up to pee.”
“I know. Isn’t being pregnant fun?”
He put his head down on the lone pillow I’d grudgingly left for his use. Looking up at the ceiling, he said, “Well, at least this whole thing is over. We know LeCrone didn’t murder Abigail Hathaway, and you can stop obsessing over this.”
“I suppose,” I said.
Peter sat up. “Juliet!”
“What?”
“Your own best friend gave him an alibi. What more do you need?”
“I suppose,” I said again.
Peter rolled his eyes.
“Look,” I said, “doesn’t it just seem a little pat to you? I mean, why would Stacy suddenly remember that she’d seen him? I talked to her the night of the murder. I even told her that I suspected him. So why didn’t she tell me then? Why didn’t she give him that foolproof alibi then?”
That seemed to bring Peter up short. He paused for a moment and then shook his head. “You know what, Juliet? I don’t care. All I care about is that next time, you might just get one of us killed. Promise me that you’re not going to do any more investigating.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right. I’m sorry I even mentioned it.” I didn’t promise anything.
“Are you working tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Peter said, and hoisted himself up off the bed. “See you in the morning.”
“I love you.”
“Me, too. Good night.”