by Jenny Jacobs
Oh, ick, Rilka thought, and pasted a pleasant smile on her face.
“It’s someone who just signed up. If it doesn’t work out, it helps me learn a little more about both of you.” Not that I don’t already know more than I want to. “I’ll talk to her and then be in touch.” That’s your cue to leave, she thought, wishing her clients would pick up on her telepathic clues. But if they did, she’d have no clientele. Would that be good or bad?
“Sounds fine.” He extracted a business card from his wallet and handed it to her.
“So I don’t just call 911 when I need to talk to you,” she said.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “That’s reserved for emergencies.”
“I was joking.”
“We’re not allowed to joke about 911,” he said firmly.
Go away.
“Let me show you to the door,” she said.
Chapter 4
“Marcus,” Rilka said, opening the door. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Are you with anyone?” he asked, looking like the spy who came in from the cold. If only she could put aside her annoying law-abiding tendencies, she could be happy with Marcus. He was charming, romantic, a good conversationalist, and from all reports extremely thoughtful in bed. But she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She already did too much of that.
“No,” she admitted reluctantly. She had planned to spend this free half hour reading the paper and clearing her mind for her next client. Maybe start hitting the tequila, as she kept promising herself. Where was the follow through?
“Please?”
“All right,” she said ungraciously. “Come in.” She let him in, then turned and headed down the hall.
“Not the kitchen,” Marcus said with a pained expression, putting his hand on her arm to stop her. “Please don’t make me sit in that obscenely cheerful room one more time.”
“Okay,” she said, trying not to feel insulted, even though she hadn’t been the one to put all that thought into making the kitchen a cheerful room. Accommodate the client, Gran used to say. It’s about them, not you. Rilka halted their progress through the living room, then sat down on the sofa and gestured toward the armchair across from her. She tried to be generous. Perhaps Marcus was not a daffodil person.
“What’s up?” she asked, smoothing her skirt over her knees. She had started the morning with a firm commitment to herself to be professional and efficient and the suit was her effort to remind herself of the vow. “Steal any jewelry lately?” Hmm. Not, perhaps, the professional air she was trying to project.
Marcus gave her a sour look but let it pass. “I saw Deputy Deane here,” he said. “I dropped by earlier but saw him getting out of his cruiser so I kept going. What was he questioning you about?” From his anxious expression, she could tell he was expecting the worst. She wondered what he’d done now. No, she didn’t want to know. How many times did she have to tell herself? If she didn’t know she couldn’t go to jail as an accomplice. Probably.
Marcus looked on edge, the tension of waiting for an answer clear in his posture.
“I can’t disclose anything about other clients except what they’ve authorized me to,” she said, trying to ease his anxiety without actually violating a confidence.
He took a deep breath and covered his heart with his hand in a gesture of deeply felt relief. “Dare I believe? He was here because he can’t get a date?”
“You can’t get a date either,” she reminded him.
“That’s different,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at her. “I’m a suave, sophisticated man of discerning taste. Of course I have difficulty meeting the right woman. Deane, on the other hand, can’t get a date because he’s an unappetizing specimen of humanity.”
That did seem to sum the man up, but Rilka wasn’t about to admit it. If she started making disparaging comments about her clients out loud she’d never stop. Besides, it was easy taking potshots at people who came to what was essentially a dating service. Infinitely harder was admitting you were lonely and wanted help finding someone simpatico.
“Is that why you’re here? To see what Deane’s up to?”
“Keep your friends close,” Marcus said meditatively, “and your enemies closer.”
“Very nice,” she said, rolling her eyes. That was what she needed, epigraphs from the larceny-inclined. “Are you going now?”
“No,” Marcus said. “I came by to see if you would consider relaxing your rule about not dating clients.”
Rilka blinked. She had never gotten an I think you’re attractive vibe from Marcus, so his question took her by surprise. Of course, she’d gone five years without a man in her life, so maybe she’d just stopped being able to identify clues.
“Hmm,” she said cautiously. Not that she was going to get involved with a client. Just, how could she have failed to notice his interest in her? “And the reason you’re asking is?”
“I need a date to the art museum’s gala, and — ”
Rilka held up a hand. “No. You know I draw the line at abetting felonies.”
“A pity,” he said. “You’d be really good at it.”
• • •
“Thanks for meeting me,” Rilka said, giving Marilyn a half hug and scooting into the chair opposite. They were at Janie’s, a tiny restaurant downtown that specialized in the kinds of sandwiches you’d never make in your own kitchen, with Portobello mushrooms and goat cheese. It was Marilyn’s pick, of course; Rilka’s taste ran more toward a juicy porterhouse with mashed potatoes, gravy on the side. Not that she ever got such a thing in this town, with the friends she had. She needed a friend who didn’t wear Birkenstocks.
“You look a little … stressed,” Marilyn said as the waiter came to take their orders, paying a lot more attention to Marilyn than he paid to Rilka, but Rilka was used to that and Marilyn never noticed.
“I am stressed,” Rilka said. Marilyn had heard all of Rilka’s woes before and it was a mark of her friendship that she was still willing to listen to Rilka talk about them. “I got hit on by a client. Not because I’m so madly attractive but because he needed an accomplice.”
Marilyn gave one of her rare smiles, which made the waiter stumble as he delivered their plates.
Rilka took a nibble of her sandwich and looked at her friend. Marilyn was a statuesque brunette who had the kind of presence that made you notice her but a closed-off manner that prevented you from knowing her. Rilka had been her friend before the sad eyes and the closed-off manner, so she’d been grandfathered in.
“Maybe you need a matchmaker,” Marilyn said, taking a huge bite out of her sandwich. She was not as elegant as she looked.
A matchmaker. “Ha ha,” Rilka said sourly. “I’m not in the market.” And she wasn’t. Really. She had seen love and relationships up close and she wanted nothing to do with them.
“I mean it,” Marilyn said. “You know how shrinks have their own shrinks to keep from going crazy with the stuff their clients dump on them? Maybe you need a matchmaker to help you believe in your work again.”
“Trust me,” Rilka said, wondering how Marilyn knew that about shrinks and if it were actually true. “Nothing short of a verified miracle is going to make me believe in my work. And you know what I think about miracles.”
“You used to believe in your work,” Marilyn said, giving her a perplexed, somewhat wary look, as if Rilka had just admitted the desire to start tearing wings off flies. “Sometimes you even seemed to enjoy it.”
“I have never believed in my work.” Rilka took another nibble of her sandwich. “No. Let me rephrase that. I believed my work fed, sheltered, and clothed me, and therefore I was grateful to it. But I’m fresh out of gratitude lately.” Rilka knew she was whining and she disliked the sound of it but she couldn’t seem to do anything ab
out it. Maybe a margarita would help.
Marilyn gave her a knowing smile. “When you have to start counting your blessings, you know you’re in trouble.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Margarita,” she said as the waiter approached. “And keep ’em coming.” The waiter gave a pained expression but made a note before turning to Marilyn with an inquiring look.
“I’m fine with my iced tea,” Marilyn said. She worked as a bartender and saw close up the effects of alcohol, so she didn’t drink it. See? Rilka wanted to say. Same thing.
The waiter gave Marilyn a dazzling smile. Male creatures always reacted that way to her but she never noticed. Or if she noticed, she didn’t care. She’d given her heart away once and having done so had no further plans for it. A big waste all around, but Rilka wasn’t going to have that conversation with her again. Someday she’d find the right man for Marilyn, and she’d fix them up … somehow. Stealth matchmaking. Maybe that was the way to go from now on. No one could blame her for a failed match if they didn’t know they were being set up.
The waiter came back with Rilka’s margarita and she took a grateful sip, trying not to feel like a lush in the face of Marilyn’s abstention. At least Marilyn never judged. She just said, It’s not for me. Like Rilka and matchmaking. Rilka and love.
“So how’s your latest project coming?” Rilka asked, happy to move the conversation away from her problems, which were boring in their unchanging sameness.
Marilyn shrugged. “Wish I had more time. If I could just work! Instead of working all the time.”
Rilka had known Marilyn long enough for this sentiment to make perfect sense to her. Marilyn was a sculptor, but it was harder to make a living as a sculptor than as a matchmaker. So Marilyn worked as a bartender to pay the rent — and the insurance — on the warehouse where she lived and did her real work, the sculpting. She worked in metal, which gave her a sinewy strength that awed Rilka, who had trouble opening jars.
Marilyn’s problems also had a boring sameness. Two stuck people, spinning their wheels. Maybe Marilyn could create a work of art on that theme. They could give out anti-depressants at the show.
“How’s Henry’s? Have you seen my client yet?” She’d sent Jeremy to the bar where Marilyn worked so that there’d be at least one friendly face around to make him feel comfortable.
“Jeremy? Guy in the wheelchair? Yeah. He came in a couple of nights ago with a buddy.”
“That was probably his brother. How’d it go? Could you tell?”
“I don’t really pay attention to the customers.” So much for the friendly face to make Jeremy feel comfortable. Rilka should have remembered that Marilyn didn’t pay attention to much, except sheet metal. Maybe she should send Marilyn a man who was good with duct work.
Marilyn finished her sandwich and licked her fingers. Her face brightened. “Although you should stop in sometime,” she said. “That always makes the time go faster.”
Rilka thought of Marilyn tending bar, aware of the hours stretching ahead, hours she had to get through before she could go back to her real work. Killing time when what she needed was more time.
Rilka sighed. Marilyn needed a patron and barring a patron, she needed a sugar daddy. Someone who believed in her, would free her from tending bar. What did other artists do? Probably the exact same thing Marilyn was doing. But if anyone was entitled to a fairy tale, it was Marilyn.
“You need a Prince Charming,” Rilka said, taking a healthy swig of her margarita. It was a very good margarita.
“I had a Prince Charming,” Marilyn said gently and now she looked sad again.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean — ”
“I know you didn’t. Bill was the only man I’ll ever love.”
Bill had been dead for ten years.
“I know,” Rilka said hastily before Marilyn could get started.
But it was too late. Marilyn had a dreamy half smile on her face, not attributable to the iced tea. “When I saw him, I knew … and so did he.”
Marilyn had told the story so many times that she believed it. But Rilka remembered it differently, although she would never have the courage to tell Marilyn so. What the hell, let Marilyn have her story. It was all she had left of him.
Chapter 5
“So how’s it going?” Rilka asked. How many times had she asked that question lately?
“How many times have you asked that question lately?” Jeremy asked.
Rilka looked up, startled, from moving the kitchen chair out of the way for him.
“A lot,” she said. “I need a new line.”
She moved away from the table to put a bagel in the toaster, saying over her shoulder, “I missed breakfast.” She lifted the coffee pot in Jeremy’s direction. He shook his head and she brought her brimming mug to the table.
Fortunately, and unlike Marcus, Jeremy didn’t mind sitting in the kitchen. Today the sun was out, so the room was cheery and bright, the way it was supposed to be. And if she had to have someone in her kitchen, at least it was Jeremy. He was poking a daffodil blossom with his finger.
“My mom used to love these,” he said.
“Daffodils are my favorite.”
“She called them jonquils.”
“That’s the high-class version.”
“Well, Mom was a high-class broad,” he said.
“Had to have been, to produce you,” she said and that made them both smile.
The bagel popped up, and Rilka got up to butter it and bring it over to the table.
“I didn’t feel like eating earlier,” she said. Why was she explaining her dietary habits to a client?
“I thought you looked like you have a hangover,” Jeremy said, picking up half the bagel and taking a bite.
“I don’t have a hangover. I would have made a bagel for you if you had asked.”
“You could have offered,” he countered, once he’d swallowed. “That’s tasty. I missed breakfast, too.”
He was probably the one with the hangover, but she didn’t accuse him of it. If he was a closet alcoholic, she’d find it out soon enough. Probably the way she found out everything — at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way.
“You have any juice to go with that?” he asked. Then, with an unrepentant grin, “You did say I should ask.”
An unwilling smile crossed her lips as she walked over to the refrigerator and got the orange juice out. She poured him a glass and then because it looked good, poured one for herself, and brought both glasses over to the table.
“Thanks.”
He hadn’t answered her question. So how’s it going? She supposed she knew the answer. She took a sip of juice and said, “If you’d gotten laid, you wouldn’t be here. You would have accomplished your mission and our work would be done.” Although it was Jeremy, and he was a man, so he’d probably want to repeat the experience. She had a sudden image of the two of them sitting here forty years from now, Jeremy saying, “I want to get laid again.”
The idea of Jeremy still sitting across from her forty years from now was not as depressing as it should have been. Although if he were still saying, “I want to get laid,” she might have to kill him.
Jeremy didn’t answer, just chewed another bite of bagel. All right, so she’d answered the question for him. She needed to try another one. Coaxing information from clients was about as annoying as listening to them spill their guts, but it had to be done.
“Did you go to Henry’s last night?”
“No.”
Rilka nodded, and ate her own half of the bagel. Now what? She kept quiet.
“I was pretty tired after work, didn’t feel like going out,” he said, taking another swallow of juice.
“Sure.”
“Then I had trouble sleeping,” he said, which matche
d Rilka’s experience of life perfectly. “I finally fell asleep at dawn and when I woke up it was time to get over here for my appointment.”
Rilka nodded again. She’d visited a couple of websites after their first meeting, to learn a little more about people in his situation. Pain was a common problem, as was depression, not to mention other causes of insomnia. She didn’t think Jeremy would be impressed with her research, so she just said, “I hate insomnia.” She had experienced it herself a time or two, especially lately. “But it gives you a good excuse to watch the home shopping network.”
Jeremy grinned and she could feel his mood lighten. It was hard to have a dark night of the soul in front of a sarcastic bitch, she knew. Probably explained why she was such a sarcastic bitch: self defense.
“Can never have too many automatic slicing machines,” he said.
“Exactly. Why use a knife when you can clutter up your counter with an appliance that’s hard to use and hard to clean.”
His mouth was full of bagel, so he just nodded without responding. Then he slurped more juice and said, “So have you got me a date?”
“Not yet,” Rilka said, sorry they had to move on to business when she wanted to keep talking about something else.
Jeremy did not seem impressed by her industriousness, so she added, a little waspishly, “Give it a chance.”
“Patience shall be rewarded?” He was back to being a pain in the ass. Not that she really minded. She preferred Jeremy’s pain-in-the-assness to Deputy Deane’s disagreeability or Marcus’s pained smoothness. She wondered what that said about her.
He shifted in his chair and looked at the bagel crumbs on the tabletop. He reached over and picked up her plate and napkin and used the napkin to sweep the crumbs onto the plate. She was pretty sure he wasn’t being an OCD housekeeper, although you never knew.
Then he unlocked the wheels on his chair, put the plate in his lap, and brought it over to the counter. Rilka didn’t say I can do that, because obviously he knew that and she didn’t say My house and my dishes to deal with, because frankly if he wanted to come and do her housekeeping every day, she wasn’t going to kick.