INFORMANT (2 page)

Her smile widens. “Let me get this straight. You’re being stalked by a gorgeous, sexy guy who goes to San Francisco State and drives a BMW. I am
so
jealous.”

I start to correct her (obviously he wasn’t
stalking
), but something stops me. If you’ve ever watched a nature show, picture for a second the kind of look a cheetah gets before it pounces on some helpless rabbit. Pure predatory pleasure. That’s the look I read in his gorgeous blue eyes the instant our gazes met. There’s no other way to describe it. That’s what froze me where I stood, and what continues to rile me up as I recall it. It wasn’t a coincidence—he wanted to find me. A chill that’s part apprehension and part excitement races down my spine.

“Whatever,” I say, deliberately pushing the thought away. Clearly I need to get more sleep. I am being ridiculous.

“All right. Next. What about that Cuban hottie?”

“Ricco?” I lower my voice and say his name the way he does.
Ree-ko
, all curly and rough around the edges. Confession: I am not physically attracted to Ricco, but I love his accent. The way he talks—that hot Latino pronunciation—his deep voice wrapping around words, pronouncing even simple things in a way that makes them sound exotic and mysterious.
Muy caliente.
He moves well, too. He’s got a lean, jaguar-like sleekness to his body. Black hair, tight ass, and deep brown eyes.

“He asked me to tutor him after class.”

“That means he’s too shy to ask you out.”

I shrug, but don’t deny it. She’s right. I think he was trying to flirt. But since I’m not sure I want our friendship to move in that direction, I decide to change the subject. No more guys. Instead, we can talk about the actual schoolwork I’m doing. Not that I expect Jess to be especially interested in genome mapping and mitochondrial cells, but the topic will be far more comfortable for me. Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have. The lower door opens and Ronnie’s voice echoes up the stairs. “Babe! Customers!”

Jess sighs. She picks up Dally’s carrier and diaper bag, while I rinse our mugs and tuck them into the dishwasher. We make our way downstairs. As I head out the shop’s front door, I pass two mechanics tightening belts on a shiny new Lexus sedan.

“Shit,” says one, “if I had a ride like this, I’d get more tail than a toilet seat.”

Well, there you go. My day has officially begun.

Day One

Afternoon

The blonde is putting on one hell of a show. I try not to watch, but it’s so ridiculous I can’t help it. We’re in
chem lab
, right? Not some sleazy North Beach strip club. Despite that, the blonde—I think her name is Stephanie—is dressed in a pair of skimpy Daisy Dukes, a push-up bra beneath her stretchy black tank top, and platform sandals. Her lips are super glossy and her pretty curls are so heavily shellacked with hair spray I’m a little frightened of what might happen if she gets too close to a Bunsen burner.

Stephanie is Blue Eyes’ lab partner. Today our assignment is to investigate the properties of oxygen gas, particularly in relation to the combustion rate of iron, magnesium, and hydrogen. From what I can tell, very little investigating is being done by the two of them. So far, she’s done everything but a lap dance to get his attention. Run her fingernails over his forearm. Wiggle up against him. Purr her responses into his ear. Oops, she just dropped her pencil. Ass up in the air, she bends over to get it. If you’ve been dying to know what color thong she’s wearing beneath her outrageous get-up (and really, who doesn’t want to know?), I can now provide that information: hot pink.

Ricco is my lab partner. He watches her antics for a moment, (honest to God, it’s almost impossible not to) then shakes his head. His upper lip curls in mild disgust. “In my country, a woman like that would not waste her time in university.”

The remark has a definite sexist ring to it. But as Stephanie seems to be enjoying her sordid display, I decide not to rush to her defense. Instead, I glance at Blue Eyes to see if it’s working. He seems remarkably… indifferent. Maybe even slightly annoyed.

A feeling of victory rushes through me before I catch it and stomp on it.

Not my business.

Ricco moves closer. He places one large hand at the small of my back and bends down to say, “A real man prefers a woman who behaves like a lady. A woman who’s beautiful, intelligent, and classy. A woman like you.”

My mouth drops open in surprise. The remark catches me totally off-guard. Ricco and I are friends. Lab partners. Yes, I will admit that I did pick up a vibe that he was interested in me, but I’ve done nothing to encourage him. That doesn’t matter. There he is, his soulful brown eyes watching me, looking so hopeful that I might say something kind in return that anything else would be equivalent to kicking a lost puppy. That’s the thing about Ricco. For all his macho Latino strut, there’s this strange vulnerability about him.

“Thank you,” I say. Lame, but the only response I could manage.

He smiles, absurdly pleased with the exchange. His chest swells with victory. I realize in that instant that I’ve screwed up. By not gently cutting him down, I’ve just offered him an invitation to proceed. Like Pandora, I’ve opened a box that would be better off permanently sealed shut. Crap. Flustered, I pull back slightly and look away.

That’s when I notice Blue Eyes. He’s watching us intently. His gaze is keen and alert, hawkish in its intensity. There is no emotion on his face. He is just gathering facts—Ricco’s attraction to me, my seemingly encouraging response—and something seems to click. He nods almost imperceptibly to himself, as though a decision has been made. 

He stands abruptly, grabs his backpack, and leaves the lab. Just like that. He’s gone.

And Stephanie? For a moment her lips purse in a perfect ‘O’. She looks like a blow-up bachelor party doll with an
insert here
arrow. Now, without warning, the party is over. Her mouth slams shut and her heavily mascaraed eyes narrow. Suddenly aware that we (the entire lab, that is) are all looking at her, she flips the class the finger and storms out. Subtle, she’s not.

I choke back a laugh and return my attention to our process report. “Did you record the data on the temperature escalation?” I ask Ricco.

He smiles slightly, shakes his head, and we get back to work.

Two hours later I’m rushing out of the library, blinking as my eyes adjust to the brightness of the day. Although he offered to join me, I’ve brushed Ricco off. I needed to do some research for my bio class, and it’s much faster working alone.

I’m standing at the bus stop when I see him. Blue Eyes. I can’t actually see his eyes (he’s wearing a pair of mirrored aviator shades) but I know it’s him behind the wheel of the dark green BMW wagon. He’s alone. He drives slowly past me, not acknowledging me at all, though I sense he is as aware of me as I am of him. The ends of my nerves actually tingle. If I was swimming in the waters off Ocean Beach and spotted a shark nearby, I would expect to feel the same terrifying thrill. He pulls to a stop at Holloway Ave. For a fraction of a second, time stands still. The world shrinks to just the two of us. Then the traffic light shifts from red to green. Once again, he’s gone.

I realize I’m holding my breath and slowly let it out.

Day One

Night

How to describe Karma Café? Well, I suppose the first thing you should know is that it’s located on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Hippie central, back in the day. Ground Zero during the summer of Free Love. But don’t get the wrong idea—nothing’s free here anymore. Techies from the Silicon Valley snatched up the Victorian houses, repainted the gorgeous facades, and cleaned up the streets. Panhandlers were booted back to the Tenderloin. High-end boutiques and restaurants now line the sidewalks.

The Karma is a throwback to earlier days. We’ve got rough wood floors, brilliant stained glass windows, vintage concert posters tacked to the walls, and bushy plants in macramé holders suspended from the ceiling. A 60’s soundtrack plays in a continuous loop: Hendrix, Joplin, Dylan, The Kinks, The Doors, The Byrds, The Monkees, The Beatles… The food’s organic and expensive. We mostly cater to tourists, but locals drop by now and then to grab a batch of our homemade pot brownies (perfectly legal in SF if you’ve got a prescription).

I’m wearing standard Karma waitress attire: tie-dyed t-shirt, short black skirt, and sneakers. My legs are bare and my hair is long and loose. A crown of daisies sits on my head. It’s late and we’re about to close. I’m cleaning the cappuccino machine when he walks in.

Blue Eyes.

Holy shit.

That’s my only response. That’s literally all I’m capable of thinking. Then the gears of my brain slowly unclog and another highly intelligent thought pops to the forefront of my mind: WTF?

He slides onto a barstool at the counter and looks at me. “Hey.”

Now I’m irritated. That’s his opening.
Hey.
Nothing else, just that single word. As though it’s perfectly natural that he should be there. I laughed it off when Jess said he was stalking me, but now I’m not so sure it’s funny. Yeah, he’s gorgeous, but he’s also tracked me down like I’m some sort of fugitive. I don’t like it. I notice he’s picked up a menu and is scanning through the specials. I snatch it out of his hands. “Sorry,” I say, not sounding sorry at all. “The kitchen’s closed.”  

He shrugs. “Coffee?”

I take perverse pleasure in denying him that, as well. “Just turned off the machine. If you come back tomorrow—”

“Will you be here?”

“No.”

“Then that’s not gonna work.”

His gaze bores into mine as silence stretches between us. I take a minute to study his face. Until this point, I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing as the rest of the girls in my chem lab—sneaking furtive glances and hoping he doesn’t catch me. Now, for the first time, I really look at him.

He’s staggeringly handsome. Blue Eyes has been blessed with the kind of rugged masculine beauty you’d normally see in the pages of a high-gloss men’s magazine. Broad forehead, sculpted cheekbones, strong jaw, luscious male lips. Turquoise eyes framed by spiky black lashes. Bronze skin (a neat trick in a city that’s engulfed in fog eleven months a year). He’s older than I thought, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six.

Neither of us speaks, and I know what I should do: turn and walk away. Send Jim, our cook, or Shari, the waitress working the shift with me, out front to deal with him. But they were both busy in the back and it was my job to close up the front.

Also—I couldn’t move. I couldn’t have turned away from him even if I’d wanted to.

I’m a science major. I deal in fact. I like scientific reason, proof-based logic, and empirical evidence. I also know that energy—electricity, for example—needs a source. It does not simply conjure itself out of thin air. But wherever it came from, electricity was buzzing between us. The air was sharp and brittle, laced with tension.

“I need to talk to you,” he finally says.

“Now? Here?”

He glances through the glass partition doors that lead to the kitchen, where Shari and Jim are finishing the nightly prep work. “No.” His gaze flicks back to mine. “How about dinner? Tomorrow night?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He looks surprised, like he hadn’t seen that coming at all. “Why? You have a boyfriend?”

“What do you mean, do I have a boyfriend?”

“Is that why you can’t get together with me?”

I let out a breath of disgust. So typical. If a girl ever got up the nerve to ask out some guy and he said no, she would automatically assume it was because of her. She wasn’t thin enough, wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t pretty enough, whatever. Not guys. If a girl says no to a date, it must be because she’s seeing someone else. Otherwise she’d be all over him.

“Is that it?” he says. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“First of all, let’s just imagine for a minute that that’s any of your business.”

I meant to cut him down. Instead, he laughs. He leans closer, lowers his voice, and gives me his most seductive look. “You could make it my business. As a matter of fact, I’m very interested. Why don’t you want to go out with me?”

“Maybe I just don’t like you.”

“Nah. It couldn’t be that.”

I know he’s teasing, but his response is still incredible. I fold my arms over my chest and stare. “How does it feel to be so goddamned sure of yourself?”

His smile widens. “Pretty good, actually.”

Self-preservation kicks in. This doesn’t make sense. None of it adds up. He could go out with any girl at San Francisco State—any girl in the
entire
state—so why is he after me? “I’m busy,” I say flatly. This is the actual truth. Between school, work, and helping Jess, I have no time for anything. “If you’re looking for a date, I think your lab partner’s available.”

“My lab partner?”

“You know, Stephanie. Isn’t that her name?”

His smile vanishes. “No. It has to be you. You’re the one I need.”

You’re the one I need.

Once again, warning sirens go off in my head. He pushes off the stool and comes to his feet. He’s tall—at least 6’2”—and has the kind of muscular build that would make any girl’s mouth water. I can’t help but notice that. But what really pulls my attention is his expression. As he studies me, something that looks almost like regret enters his gaze. “And you need me, Kylie Porter. You just don’t know it yet.”

Before I can respond to that astonishing statement, the door to the kitchen swings open and Shari and Jim step into the dining room. They freeze. It’s more than just their surprise at seeing a customer out front after we’ve closed. That happens. It’s the tension in the room that sends Jim (Karma’s head cook is an aging hippie in Birkenstocks and a long gray ponytail), stepping forward with a protective frown.

“Is everything all right?” he asks. He’s actually brandishing a wooden spoon, though I can’t imagine what effect that would have as a weapon. The ridiculousness of the gesture, however, breaks me out of the spell I’m under.

I give a nervous laugh. “It’s fine,” I say. “I was just telling him that we’re closing.”

Jim and Shari’s heads swivel to look at Blue Eyes, but he’s only looking at me. “Do you know Romano’s on Columbus?”

I nod automatically. Everybody knows Romano’s.

“I’ll be there tomorrow night at eight o’clock. I hope you can join me.” He pulls a business card from his pocket and slides it on the counter between us. Then, with a polite nod to Shari and Jim, he leaves.

The soft jingle of the sleigh bells on the door echoes through the restaurant. Shari is the first to move. She’s African-American, older than my mom, but not quite as old as Jim. She turns to me and sends one dark brow shooting skyward. “Now that was one
fine
hunk of a man. Who is he?”

It takes a minute for my brain to click into gear. Finally I respond, “Um, just some guy in my chem lab.”

“Just some guy?” She laughs and shakes her head. “Honey, that was not
just some guy
. What’s his name?”

Like an idiot, I start to say Blue Eyes, but stop myself just in time.

You need me, Kylie Porter. You just don’t know it yet
. A shiver runs through me. He knew my name, where I work, and unless his presence outside the Java Hut this morning was coincidental (and now I can’t believe that it was), where I live. I know absolutely nothing about him. I reach for the card on the counter and turn it over.

Thomas Beckett Smith

That’s all. Just a name.

And an invitation to meet him tomorrow night.