“Ah. Okay. I’ll take the hint. You can just say no. You wanted a fling. I understand that—”
She cut him off with a kiss, laughing when he started in surprise.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. I definitely want to see you again, Nick. But if we make it dinner, then we have to figure out where to meet and who travels, and it becomes this big production, with expectations and pressure and …” She made a face. “General awkwardness. I’m too old for that. But I would like to spend more time with you, see what happens. I think the best way we can do that is to work together on another case.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Is that a yes?”
He leaned down and kissed her. “Yes.”
CHAOTIC
ONE
“So what kind of stories do you cover?” my date asked, bathing my face in champagne fumes. “Bat Boy Goes to College? Elvis Shrine Found on Mars?” He laughed without waiting for me to answer. “God, I can’t believe people actually buy those rags. Obviously, they must, or you wouldn’t have a job.”
My standard line flew to my lips, something about tabloids functioning as a source of entertainment—quirky pieces of fiction that people could read and chuckle over before facing the horrors of the daily paper. I choked it back and forced myself to smile up at him.
“I did a Hell Spawn feature once,” I said, as brightly as I could manage. “That’s True News’ version of Bat Boy. I covered his graduation from kindergarten. He was so cute, up there with a little mortar and board perched on his horns …”
I crossed my fingers under my cocktail napkin and prayed for “the look,” the curl of the lip, the widening of the eyes as he frantically searched for an escape. Escape would be so easy—a crowded museum gala, everyone in evening wear … Come on, Douglas, just excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and conveniently forget where you left me.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Hell Spawn’s kindergarten graduation? Now that’s a fun job. You know what the highlight of my workweek is? Nine holes of golf with the other AVPs and I hate golf.”
That was the problem with guys like Douglas—they weren’t evil. Boring, boorish, and borderline obnoxious, but not so awful that I could justify abandoning them. So I was stuck hoping he’d be the one to declare the date a dud and beg off early.
When my boss gave me tickets to the museum gala, I’d needed a date, and I’d thought of Douglas—my mom had been trying to set us up for months. It seemed like the perfect solution. He’d agreed, and suggested dinner first. That had been a mistake. I should have insisted we meet here, at the party, so if things didn’t go well, we’d only have been sentenced to a couple of hours of each other’s company. But when he invited me to dinner, even as I’d been thinking No! my mouth had done the polite thing, and said, “Sure, that’d be great.”
I’d spent forty-five minutes at the table by myself, fending off sympathetic “You’ve been stood up” looks from the servers, and going through two glasses of water. Then Douglas had arrived … and I’d spent the next hour listening to him complain about the cause of his lateness, some corporate calamity too complex for my layperson’s brain to comprehend. It wasn’t until we arrived here—at the opening of the museum’s new wing—that he’d even gotten around to asking what I did for a living.
“So what’s the weirdest story you’ve ever covered?” he asked.
“Oh, there are plenty of contenders for that one. Just last week I had this UFO—”
“What about celebrities?” he cut in. “Tabloids cover that, right? Celebrity gossip? What’s the best one of those stories you’ve done?”
“Ummm, none. True News includes some celebrity stories, but I’m strictly the ‘weird tales’ girl, mainly paranormal, although—”
“Paranormal? Like ghosts?” Again, he didn’t wait for me to answer. “Our frat house was supposed to be haunted. Frederick and I—your brother-in-law and I were frat brothers, but I guess your mother told you that. Anyway, one night …”
My poor mother. Reduced to canvassing my sister’s husband’s college buddies for potential mates for her youngest child. She’d long since gone through every eligible bachelor she knew personally.
“I don’t need you to find me dates, Mom,” I said the last time, as I’d said the hundred times before. “I’m not so bad at it myself.”
“Dates, yes. Relationships, no. I swear, Hope, you go out of your way to find men you wouldn’t want to know for more than a weekend. Yes, you’re only twenty-six, hardly an old maid, and I’m not saying you need to settle down, but you could really use some stability in your life, dear. I know you’ve had a rough go of it, struggling to find your way …”
What do you expect? I wanted to say sometimes. You gave me a demon for a dad. Of course, that wasn’t fair. Mom didn’t know what my father was. I’d been born nine months after my parents separated, and grown up assuming—like everyone else—that I was my father’s “parting shot” before he’d run off with his nurse.
At eighteen I had begun to suspect otherwise, when I’d realized that my feelings of being “different” were more than adolescent alienation.
Douglas finished his haunted frat house story, then asked, “So what kind of education does a tabloid writer need? Obviously, you don’t go to journalism school for that.”
“Actually, I did.”
He had the grace to flush. “Oh, uh … but you wouldn’t need to, right? I mean, it’s not real reporting or anything.”
I searched his face for some sign of condescension. None. He was a jerk, but not a malicious one. Damn. Another excuse lost. I had a half-dozen girlfriends who wouldn’t need a justification for ending this date early. They’d cut and run. So why couldn’t I? I was a half-demon, for God’s sake. I had an excuse for being nasty.
I scanned the room. The gala was being held in the reception hall, which was also—as discreet signs everywhere reminded us—available for weddings, parties, and corporate events. A jazz trio played in the corner, beside a tiny portable parquet dance floor, as if the organizers acknowledged this wasn’t a dancing crowd but felt obligated to provide something. The main event here was schmoozing—fostering contacts while basking in the feel-good glow of supporting the arts. Large-scale replicas of statues and urns dotted the room, to remind guests where they were and why … although the pieces seemed to be getting more use as coat-racks and leaning posts.
“The buffet table looks amazing,” I said. “Is that poached salmon?”
“Wild, I hope, but you can’t be too careful these days. I had dinner with a client last week, and he’d been to a five-star restaurant in New York the week before, and they’d served farm-fed salmon. Do people just not read the papers? You might as well eat puffer fish, which reminds me of the time I was in Tokyo—”
“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’m going to grab something and scoot back.”
I bolted before he could stop me.
As I crossed the floor to the buffet, I was keenly aware of eyes turning my way. A wonderful feeling for a woman … if those eyes are sweeping over her in admiration and envy, not glued to her dress in “What the hell is she wearing?” bemusement.
It was the dress’s fault. It had screamed to me from across the store, a canary yellow beacon in the rack of blacks and olive greens and navy blues. A ray of sunshine in the night. That’s how I’d pictured myself in it, cutting a swath through the darkness in my slinky bright yellow dress. Ray of sunshine? No. I looked like a banana in heels.