Tales of a Drama Queen (8 page)

 

Takes a surprisingly long time to fill the condoms with water, but I eventually get the hang of it. Consider filling some with glue, ink or wine, but am too mature to stoop to Eddie Munster's level.

Still, wine sounds good. Half a bottle of Prosperity Red later, and I am curled weepily under my duvet. What kind of twenty-six-year-old woman has never had a real job? Even women in the 1940s were gainfully employed. Rosie the Riveter and such. Possible I would enjoy riveting?

If the wedding had gone as planned—or even if it had gone disastrously, just as long as it had
gone
—I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be in a lovely apartment, and half of everything Louis made would be mine, and I'd spend my days shopping for lovely things, bored out of my fucking mind and so lonely that I slept fourteen hours a day.

I'm suddenly sober. Where did
that
come from?

Because it's not true. I was happy. I was happy-ish. I was as happy as can be expected. I was quite happy. I shopped and went to shows and exhibits and had lunches. I mean, I didn't even have to clean house; we had a nice Ecuadorian woman, named Columbia, come in once a week. I always liked that, and wondered if there was a Colombian woman named Ecuadoria, somewhere. Of course, I always vacuumed and dusted and straightened before she came, but that's just polite.

Instead of counting sheep, I count names of places which are also names of people. I am not thinking at all about the Planned Parenthood disaster, the condom disaster, the ten
key disaster or any of the other assorted disasters. I fall asleep to thoughts of Jordan (as in Michael), Paris (as in Hilton), Georgia (as in O'Keeffe) and Chicago (as in Merrick).

T
he address listed in the classifieds is an old office building just off the main drag. I stumble through hallways which house various small businesses—a mediator, a barter network, a tailor—until I reach Suite 202. The plaque on the door reads
James “Spenser” Ross, Investigative Services.

Inside, I discover Tony Danza's doppelgänger. He introduces himself as Spenser and I tell him I'm Elle, here about the ad. We sit down at the avocado-green Formica kitchen table he uses as a desk.

“So,” he says. “Think you got what it takes to be a private dick, do you?”

“Well, I saw your ad, and…” And I didn't know it was a private detective firm. I thought it'd be a private shopping firm, and I will ignore his use of the word
dick.
“…and I'm good at shopping.
Really
good.”

“Shopping? You think they come to Spenser for shopping? You think it's about the shopping, you might as well walk out that door, 'cause this business ain't one inch about shopping.” Any resemblance to Tony Danza is fading fast.

“Maybe I've made a mistake.” I hand him my newspaper with the advertisement circled.

“Is it a misprint?” I ask. Please don't let it be a misprint. When I'd spotted it this morning, wedged between ads for a Machinist and a Line Cook, it'd been like a religious experience. I could get paid to shop!

“Well now, you tell me.” He leans back in his chair and clasps his hands behind his head.

I know this is a test, and it's one I should try to fail, so I can get out of this freak office. But I
need
a job. Thick stack of cash has become thin stack. If I don't get this job, I'm going to be kicked out of my trolley, living in my car (parked outside Maya and Brad's, of course) and forced to shoplift groceries….

“You catch shoplifters,” I say.

“Well, now, ladies and gentleman,” he says. “Spenser's got himself a live one. Most of it is employee theft—that's the biggie. But I've got me a customer right now thinks they're losing too much money to two-bit sticky fingers. That's where you come in. You shop, keep your eyes open. You see a palmer, call security. Only thing to remember, wait until they're out of the store—otherwise it ain't shoplifting. Think you can handle it?”

“Perfectly. No problem.”

He shuffles some papers around on his Formica. “Customer is Super 9. You can start tomorrow?”

“I got the job? I mean—you're hiring me? I'm hired? You're hiring me?”

He stares. “Any reason I shouldn't?”

“No! No—this is…I'm just so pleased.” Though, in fact, I hate Super 9. I can't stand five minutes in that superstore discount hell. How am I gonna last a whole day? “Working in investigative services. Catching, um, sticky fingers.”

“You watch yourself. Some of these guys are professionals. It's a billion dollar industry.”

I nod in agreement, and we go over my wages (low) and benefits (none). He asks for my driver's license and slides me a W-2 form. Deductions, dependents…all very mystifying. I puzzle it out—probably in record time—and hand it over.

“Any questions?” he asks.

“Well, there is
one
thing.” I smile winningly. “Your nickname? They call you Spenser because of the books?”

“What books?”

“You know,
Spenser for Hire,
the private detective. Robert Parker, I think. There was a TV show, too.”

He looks blank.

“Starred Robert Urich?”

“Oh, you mean Dan Tanna. What's that got to do with me?”

“Umm…” Not worth it. “Nothing, I guess.”

He tells me to report to Phillip, the head of security at Super 9, tomorrow morning, and asks if I'm ready to start watching my training videos. I am, but I worry that we haven't bonded. I mean, if I'm gonna be Elle Medina, Girl Detective, I ought to have some rapport with my boss, right? So I ask if he's got any interesting cases.

He lights a Marlboro Red with his silver lighter, and I can tell he's pleased with the question. “Nothing new under the sun, Medina. Divorce, background checks and industrial security. Well, and a little something else. You heard about Holly? The bitch that went missing?”

I'm a quarter-second from snapping that I'll sue his aging-Tony-Danza-ass if he calls women “bitches” in my presence, when I remember: “The golden retriever puppy who needs her medicine?”

He blows a smoke-ring and nods.

“Do you have any, um, leads?”

“Nothing but dead ends,” he says glumly.

“I'm sure something will turn up,” I say. “If Ace Ventura can do it, so can you.”

“Ace who? Never heard of him.”

I try to explain, but he doesn't believe Jim Carrey was in anything other than
The Truman Show, The Majestic
and, for some reason,
Ocean's Eleven.
Then he sits me down in front of his VCR for four hours of investigation instructional videotapes from the 1970s. They're groovy, man. Shoplifting is a bad trip.

 

“What on earth is that?” Mr. Goldman asks as I heft the gigantic orchid (just like the one at Bread and Water) onto the bar.

“It's a gift. For Maya. For everything.”

“Ellie,” she says. “It's beautiful. You didn't have to—” Then she gets suspicious. “Where did you get it?”

“At that cute little garden shop around the corner.”

“You mean Honeysuckle? They charge twelve bucks for a single rose.”

“I know, everything is
gorgeous.
”

“What did it cost?”

I refuse to tell. I'd lie, but she'd check.

Mr. Goldman chuckles. “You girls, always the same since you were this high. I'll see you tomorrow.” He waves goodbye, and leaves out the back.

“I love your dad,” I say, to distract Maya.

“Elle,” she says. “You can't spend money right now. Do you understand this? Money is not for any passing whim,
for anything that catches your eye, you have to plan and you have to budget, and you—”

She enlarges on this theme for five minutes, not pausing for breath until Perfect Brad comes in.

“Hey,” he says, leaning over the bar to kiss Maya. “Where'd the tree come from?”

“Elle,” Maya says. “The real question is, how did she afford it?”

They look at me, and after a dramatic pause I say: “I got a job.”

I am hugged and kissed and exclaimed over, and I eat it up with a spoon.

“Well, who's the lucky boss? Where are you working?”

I brace my hands on the bar. “Grab hold of your barstools, boys. There's a new sheriff in town.”

Maya giggles. “What?”

“You're working for the Sheriff's Department?” PB asks.

“Better. I'm a private dick.”

“Elle, those badges in Cracker Jack boxes aren't real.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Brad says. “Are you investigating, or being investigated? If it's anything like Planned Parenthood…”

I flick a cocktail straw at him. “I am working for Ross Investigative Services, thank you very much.”

“Do you get to go undercover?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” I brief them on my duties.

“You're getting paid to shop,” Maya says, wide-eyed. “
You
can do that.” She makes it sound like a chipmunk would be overqualified.

“Thanks, Maya.”

“No, really. You actually did it! This calls for a celebration.”

I wag in my chair. That's more like it.

Brad says, “We'll take Elle to dinner when the new guy comes in. Go to Shanghai and drink too much Tsingtao.”

“What new guy?” I ask.

“New bartender,” Brad says.

Maya shoots him a look. “He's not really
new,
” she says. “He used to work here, and Brad's been after me to get some help, and I promised this guy—who worked here before—”

“You already mentioned that part,” I say.

“Elle, you wouldn't have liked working here. You need to do something that's yours, not Louis's or mine or anyone else's.” She's gentle and sympathetic. “And I promised the guy I'd hire him again if I could.”

I finger a ring of condensation on the bar. “It doesn't matter. I didn't expect you to hire
me.
I'd be a terrible bartender.”

“Come have Chinese with us,” she says firmly.

“It's a fantastic place,” PB says, apparently trying to cover his faux pas. “Robert Zemeckis goes there.”

His awkwardness makes me realize that Perfect Brad has actually stuck his foot in it. I'm elated. He's
not
perfect! Then I think: if he were
always
perfect, he'd be unbearable, thus making him imperfect. So, the fact that he screwed up makes him even better and more perfect. And not only is
he
perfect but their relationship is perfect. And it does hurt that Maya didn't want to hire me. I know it's silly, but it does.

“Sorry—just stopped in to drop off the orchid,” I say, suddenly wanting to be alone. “I have places to go, people to stake out.”

I almost run over Monty on my way out the door. He greets me in a courtly manner—he's natty as ever in a beige linen suit with a yellow silk tie—and I remember what I forgot to tell Maya and PB.

“Oh, and guess what his name is,” I call back to them.

“Louis,” Maya says.

I laugh. “No, that'd be too Russian novel. His name's Spenser.”

“What's wrong with Spenser?” PB asks.

“It's a private detective series. There's like a thousand books.”

“Robert Parker,” Monty says, taking his usual stool.

“See,”
I gesture to Monty. “Monty knows. Robert Parker.”

“Never read him,” Brad says.

“There was a TV series with Robert Urich, and the big black guy, Hawk?”

“I thought you said Robert
Parker,
” Brad says.

“That's the
author,
” I say, exasperated.

“Was that the one that was like in Vegas or something?” Maya says.

“That's Dan Tanna.” I shake my head in disgust. “Just forget it.”

I bump the door open with my hip and…

…the dame stepped out of the juke joint like a crime wave waiting to happen, her shapely gams seductive as a pair of Manolo Blahniks on the 50% off rack. It was early Wednesday evening, but she was dressed like late Friday night, in a suit black as widow's weeds and sexy as Marilyn Monroe's whisper. Sure, she was hurting. Who wouldn't hurt, stabbed in the back with a jade dagger by the orchid woman who owned the juke? The orchid woman who had a hunk of man wrapped around her little blond pinky, while the dame had nobody except a mysterious Mexican with a hypnotic voice, and Babyface Eddie Munster hot on her tail. But as she walked to her jalopy, a smile played around her ruby lips….

I'm going to be a private detective! My first real job.

 

I plan on going straight home to condition my hair for the big day tomorrow, but get sidetracked by the mall.

Barnes and Noble has a surprisingly well-stocked section on private investigation. Three books. On the cover of one is a woman P.I. holding a gun. Sexy, in a woman-with-a-gun sort of way. Perhaps P.I. Elle will need a gun. First, however, I need a credit card, so I can buy the book. I shoot thanks-but-no-thanks to the cashier with my finger pistols, and head to Nordstrom.

I ponder shoes while wondering where people buy guns.
Pawn shops? There must be gun shops, of course, but—ooooh, Cute BCBG heels. Only $145. I got a job, I deserve a new pair of shoes. I ask salesgirl to bring me a pair. Notice violet Charles David mules while I'm waiting. Girl brings me BCBGs, and begrudgingly heads back for the purple mules.

I strut the BCBGs in front of a full-length mirror. They're cute, but…what will the other girls be wearing? Will there be other girls?

“You look good in those,” the salesgirl says, as she plops the Charles Davids on a bench.

“Do you think I could run in them?” I ask. What if I have to chase down a shoplifter?

“Ummm…” she says, and wanders off to help another customer.

I try on the Charles Davids. Then the BCBGs. Then the CDs, then the BCBGs again. Hard to decide. The BCBGs have a strap, though, which might make shoplifter-apprehension easier. I glance around to see if anyone is watching. Free and clear. I do a quick skip and start running. Just a couple steps, to see.

Unfortunately, I'm aiming toward the front door.

“Stop her,” the salesgirl shouts. “She's wearing our shoes!”

My fear of being tackled by the perfume girls overcomes my fear of having to deal with this, so I skid to a halt, to explain. Explanations are not forthcoming, however, as my right heel snaps off, and like a track star who's missed the hurdle, I wrench my ankle and sprawl to the tile floor.

I check to see if only my pride is wounded, not my ankle, and look back to find a pair of Bally wingtips standing in front of me.

“Can I help you, ma'am?” the wingtips say sternly.

“I was only—”

“She asked if I thought she could run in them,” the salesgirl says. “I never thought she'd try to steal them. Sorry, Todd.”

I struggle to my feet and face Todd.

I know him. He was in my high school chemistry class. We dated briefly. Great. Can this get more embarrassing?

“Todd? It's Elle. Elle Medina? From high school?”

“Elle? What are you doing stealing shoes? I thought you lived in D.C. or something.”

“I wasn't stealing. Honest. I was just—running.”

The salesgirl snorts.

“It's all right, Celia,” Todd says. “I'll take it from here.” He points to my tote and shoes, which look forlorn sitting on a couch surrounded by shoeboxes. “Are these yours?”