The Elizas: A Novel(45)
“I’ll join you!” He instantly looks sheepish. “Sorry, it’s just that I so rarely get days off when the convention is in full swing, and I’d love to see you, but if I’m being outré you can tell me to cease and desist.”
“It’s okay,” I say slowly, considering. I shouldn’t rope Desmond into this, but it might not be a bad idea to bring him along.
I take a breath. “I’m actually looking into my killer. Or, well, almost killer.”
“You mean from the pool?” He puffs out his narrow rib cage. “I’ll definitely accompany. You need protection.”
“Are you sure? Because I have this idea of what I need to do, and you might not like it.”
Desmond pretends to peel back his wrist and toss something in front of me. “The gauntlet has been thrown.” It’s a wonder he doesn’t have a real gauntlet. “When are you off? I’ll meet you here anon.”
I tell him, and he swoops his cape and exits with Edwardian flair. I am left with a symphony of strings and a whole bunch of lifeless, staring animals. I look around at them, wishing I could ask them if that actually just happened. I feel excited, kind of. In an eye-rolling sort of way. But before I can really dwell on it, a busload pulls up and out pour the other sort of people who buy from this store—busloads from God-knows-where, with their huge empty boxes. They look so normal, lumpy, suburban, and neighborly, but they come in here and fight over the weird objects rescued from babies’ stomachs and archaic tools of horrible things we used to do to one another before we knew any better. It’s a phenomenon, really.
Two hours later, Steadman arrives, relieving me from my shift. “We had great sales today!” I crow. I am trying not to walk too unsteadily or slur my speech, but I actually had three shots of meade, the only liquor I could find under a two-foot-high pile of papers in the cramped back room, in order to quell my buzzing nerves for my big Leonidas investigation. “We got a bus of tourists from Pasadena!”
Steadman slams his briefcase down on the counter and juts a thumb out the front door. “Someone’s waiting for you outside.” At first, I think he’s pissed because he knows I’ve been drinking. But then he adds, “He’s driving a Batmobile, and it’s taking up all the good parking.”
“He’s driving a what?” I scurry out from behind the counter. It takes me only a second and a half to cross the store and open the front door. Sure enough, Desmond is standing at the curb, and I’ll be damned, he’s stolen Batman’s car.
From The Dots
I have something to tell you,” Dot said softly to Marlon during art history. They were talking about the Impressionists that day, paintings of ethereal flowers and rain-speckled streets. It was exactly the sort of art Dot wasn’t into—when she was young, if she walked into a doctor’s office with a Monet print on the walls, she would turn and walk right out. Dorothy would indulge this, saying Monet made her want to kill herself, too.
Marlon gazed at her with interest, putting down his pen. But then, because Dot was afraid of anyone overhearing, she wrote it down on a piece of paper and slid it toward him: My aunt is back. You know who. And of course he knew. They were together by then. Dorothy was all Dot talked about.
I’m secretly meeting with her every Wednesday, Dot wrote after he read this first part and widened his eyes. She wants to meet you.
She slipped the paper to him again. He read it, nodded, and then wrote something down. Sure. I’m in.
Dot made him eat the paper so no one would see.
On Wednesday, they got in Marlon’s car. “Where are we going to meet her?” he said excitedly. “The Ivy? That new Korean place on Melrose? An S&M club? I mean, she’s fabulous and up for anything, right?”
“Actually, she really likes this steak house in Alhambra,” Dot said. Her boyfriend made a face. She squeezed his hand. “It’s cool, I promise. Wait until she tells you her stories. You’ll be blown away.”
Marlon’s brow creased anyway when he saw M&F, which looked, Dot suddenly noticed, only a notch better than the Texas Roadhouse chain. “It’s really nice inside,” she said, gesturing to the valet line. Of course, they didn’t use the valet: as usual, Dot went for the back entrance, rapping on the door like a pro.
“What’s with the speakeasy thing?” Marlon grumbled uncertainly.
Dot beamed. “That’s exactly what Dorothy said!” There, it was kismet: he and Dorothy were going to hit it off for sure.
Dorothy hadn’t arrived yet. Dot settled into her regular chair, and Marlon sat across from her.
“Shouldn’t we be at a better table?” he asked. “We’re next to a utility closet. Our food is going to taste like bleach.”
“Oh, stop,” Dot said. “No one bugs us here. We can talk.”
The bartender Dot now knew well was mopping the bar; he looked up and smiled. “Champagne?” he said, and it materialized immediately. Bernie the waiter set down three glasses: one for Dot, one for her boyfriend, and one at Dorothy’s empty seat.
Marlon looked at Dot nervously. “I thought you only liked beer.”
Dot shot him a look. “Don’t be such a prude.”
Dorothy appeared in the back hall in a flurry of mink and silk. Dot shot to her feet; Marlon lingered shyly behind her. Dorothy hugged both of them, exclaiming over and over how nice it was to meet Dot’s boyfriend, what a specimen he was. “So tall!” she cried, touching the top of his head. “And that hair! You should bottle it! And what do you do to remain so slender!”