by Lisa Seidman
“I doubt that,” Sandy said.
“Why?” Jennifer asked. “You heard them arguing. What was to stop Zack from picking up that award and zonking her over the head with it?”
“Because he didn’t. That’s why.”
“But you don’t know that,” Jennifer persisted. “You left the warehouse before he did.”
Sandy stared at her Welsh Rarebit. “Look. I just know. So could we please change the subject?”
Jennifer’s mouth set into a stubborn line. “That sounds pretty definite. How do you know?”
“What’s his motive?” I answered for Sandy. “It has to be Keller. I mean, he was obviously her drug connection. The police found his prints in her office. He had been lurking around the day of her death.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Do you really think Romulus would put Rebecca’s drug dealer on their payroll? That’s crazy!”
“Well, obviously, they didn’t know he was her drug dealer,” I said, defensive.
“If he was her drug dealer,” Steve interjected. He shook his head, smiling. “Man, you ladies like to dish.”
Ignoring him, Jennifer asked, “But what about Ray? Susan, you said he didn’t go home with Winifred that night. Where was he?”
“I said, change the subject!” Sandy’s voice was shrill and a couple of diners at nearby tables stared at us. Even Steve, chomping intently on his bacon cheeseburger, paused in alarm.
“Yes, let’s change the subject,” I said. “Steve, how are things in the T-shirt business?” I knew that would distract Jennifer’s attention. She loved talking about Steve’s little T-shirt shop, located on the boardwalk in Venice, just south of Santa Monica. For the rest of the lunch we talked about some of the sillier slogans customers wanted put on their shirts, pretending we weren’t the least bit curious as to why Sandy was overreacting to our discussion about the murder.
When I got home, I found Craig standing before the row of apartment mailboxes, reading a letter, grinning to himself. He looked up as he heard me approach.
“Guess what?” he said. “I sold a short story.” He waved a check in the air.
“Hey, that’s great. What magazine?”
Craig shrugged. “Just a small horror magazine. They only paid fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars is fifty dollars. What are you going to do with it?”
Craig looked at me, noticing the skirt and blouse for the first time. His glance turned admiring, and I felt my body grow warm.
“Take you out to dinner,” he said. “You look nice.”
“Thanks. It was Rebecca’s memorial service.”
“That’s right. How’d it go?”
“Well, if you’re serious about dinner, I’ll tell you then.”
“It’s a deal. Feel like California Pizza Kitchen?”
I always felt like California Pizza Kitchen and told him so. I hoped Craig wouldn’t be disappointed when I appeared at his door later that evening in jeans and sneakers. I would’ve been overdressed for CPK in my memorial outfit, but I did put on a bright red blouse that brought out the highlights in my hair.
Craig and I walked to the restaurant, which was across Wilshire and down San Vicente Boulevard, one of the main shopping thoroughfares in Brentwood, lined with upscale boutiques and restaurants. California Pizza Kitchen was on the second floor of an outdoor shopping plaza.
We sat outside, under a heat lamp, the air soft and warm. After our waitress took our orders, I recapped the memorial service for Craig, including Zack’s abrupt departure from the parking lot, and Sandy’s over-the-top reaction to any discussion of the murder.
Craig sat back, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “So, what do you think’?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was hoping you’d have some helpful insights.”
“Obviously, both Sandy and Zack know something they don’t want to share with the rest of you.”
“Yeah, but what?”
“If I knew that, I’d quit writing and become a psychic.”
“What did you want to be before you discovered writing?” I asked.
“Pro-football player,” he answered. “But even if I hadn’t busted my knee, I don’t think I would’ve made it.”
“Why not?”
He pointed at his glasses. “Bad eyes. And just not good enough.”
“Is that the truth or the nasty little voice of low self-esteem speaking?”
Craig grinned wryly. “The truth. ’Cause when the nasty little voice of low self-esteem hammers at me while I’m writing, I can shove it aside to write. I never could when playing football.”
“Okay. I accept that answer.” I clinked my glass of beer against his.
“What about you?” he asked. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Have I grown up? That’s news to me.” I smiled then thought about his question. “In no particular order: ballerina, veterinarian, teacher, President of the United States.”
“Not too ambitious, are you?”
“Knowing what I know now … I should’ve stuck with wanting to be president. I think it’s easier to get elected than it is to get an agent.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Craig said, and we clinked glasses again just as our waitress arrived with our food.
“So when did you begin writing?” Craig asked between bites of Jamaican Jerk Chicken pizza.
“Fifth grade. I had a best friend who wrote short stories and I thought it was the coolest thing. So I started writing short stories, and then I wrote a historical romance in sixth grade, and my parents were so proud they trotted me out at dinner parties and had me read portions of it to their friends. And then I thought, I love TV, I love to write, why don’t I combine the two loves and write for TV?” I paused to swallow a couple of strands of spaghetti Bolognese. “Unfortunately, my parents weren’t as pleased with my future plans and stopped trotting me out in front of their dinner guests.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Craig said.
“But here’s the funny thing. After grad school, when I told my folks I was moving to L.A., my mom came with me. She helped me find my apartment. And my grandmother—the one in Florida—loaned me money to buy a car.” And every month I sent her a check with a letter about my life, since she refused to get e-mail. Mom told me she’d loan me even more money if it meant getting letters from me for the rest of her life.
“So, your family is basically supportive.”
“Yes and no. It was really tough when I first came out. Getting temp jobs when I could. I was pre-law in college before I decided to pursue TV writing. Practically every week my dad was on the phone telling me to come home and go to law school. He said …” I trailed off, still stung by the memory but determined not to show it, “He said I was going to sell a script like he was going to Cape Canaveral and fly to the moon.”
“I’m sorry,” Craig said.
“But here’s another crazy thing. Each month he sends me a check for a hundred dollars with a note that says, ‘Don’t tell your mother.’ And each week I get twenty dollars in cash from my mom with a note that says—”
Craig finished for me. “‘Don’t tell your father.’”
I nodded. “Can you believe it?”
“They love you. They don’t want you to starve.”
“How are your parents taking it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to tell. My father’s so busy with his second family I don’t think he knows I’m writing. And my mom’s working hard to get my younger sister through college, so as long as I keep sending her some money to help out, she doesn’t care where it’s coming from.”
He said all this in a matter-of-fact tone of voice that brooked no answering pity or sympathy. I put a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth to give me time to think of a response he wouldn’t reject. But all I could think of to say was, “Thank God my parents are still married.”
Craig nodded in agreement. “Think they’d be willing to adopt me?”
“Sure. And if they won’t, I will.”
Craig grinned. “I think you already have.”
I smiled back weakly, hoping he didn’t mean that in the brother-and-sister sense.
Afterward, we strolled down San Vicente, looking through the windows of the clothing boutiques, stopping off at a frozen yogurt place for dessert. We passed the building where Mezzaluna, the restaurant where Nicole Brown Simpson had her last meal before she and Ron Goldman were murdered, used to be. I shivered, reminded of Rebecca and our meal at the Plum Tree Inn.
Craig noticed. “Cold?”
I shook my head, then instantly regretted it, thinking if I had said yes, he might have put his arm around me. “I was remembering Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson.”
Craig checked out the storefront then nodded. “Don’t blame you.”
When we arrived at my front door, I looked up at Craig. “Do you want to come in? I could make hot chocolate or something.”
Oh, to be sophisticated enough to offer him a nightcap.
Craig shook his head. “No, thanks. I think I’m gonna do some more writing.”
I tried not to show my disappointment. What did I expect? Craig to jump my bones? And was I really ready for Craig to jump my bones? I mean, wasn’t I still recovering from the news about Peter and Casey’s engagement? Did I want Craig to be just a rebound? Well, no … but who said that’s all he had to be? However, there was no way I was going to play desperate and needy so I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay. Another time.”
“Sure.”
Kind of a noncommittal response, I thought. Maybe he did only see me as his adopted sister. I opened my door and slipped inside, not wanting to embarrass myself by waiting for him to kiss me.
“Good night,” I said, trying to sound as noncommittal as Craig. I closed the door and leaned against it, fighting depression. There was a sudden knock on the door. Surprised, I re-opened it. Craig leaned down and gently kissed me on the lips.
“Good night,” he said, smiling at me, before crossing to his apartment and slipping inside. This time, when I closed the door, I was smiling, too.
8.
Zack was turning the pages of my Impressionist painters engagement calendar when I walked into the bullpen Monday morning. He looked up guiltily when he saw me approach.
“Susan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go through your things. I was just checking out dates on something.”
Zack had his own calendar, so I didn’t know why he needed to look through mine. I had brought in my Impressionist calendar to replace the office one damaged during the flood. But before I could ask if I could help him with something specific, he thrust some handwritten, yellow legal pages at me. “Here’s the new and improved Acts One and Two. I’ll have Three and Four for you by this afternoon.” He headed back toward his office.
I sat down behind my desk and glanced at my calendar. Zack had left it open at the week of Rebecca’s death. Last week.
I again used Sandy’s computer to put in Zack’s script changes. Sandy flitted in and out of the office all morning, doing chores for Ray, taking down his phone messages, trying to organize her files. She appeared less tense than she had at the Cat & Fiddle on Saturday, but her mind seemed to be a million miles away. I plugged the Act One changes into the computer and sat back to take my seventh-inning stretch. Sandy was at the file cabinet, shelving memos and production reports.
“Your office is a lot neater,” I said.
She looked up briefly. “Thanks.”
It really was. No more piles of paper on the floor or heaped across her desk. I could actually see the top of her desk and wondered if this new and improved space had anything to do with Sandy’s unexpected probationary period, imposed on her by Ray. But wouldn’t Rebecca’s death have nullified that?
Sandy cursed, and I turned around. She had dropped the papers she was filing, and I squatted next to her to help pick them up.
“Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know where my mind is these days.”
But I think she knew. She just didn’t want anyone else to know. I started to hand her the papers I had collected when the top one caught my eye. It was Rebecca’s promotion memo. I showed it to Sandy.
“I saw a copy of this in Charles’s office. Did you ever distribute it?”
Sandy made a face. “No. He was probably snooping through my things. I had a suspicion someone was. Only the office was always such a mess I could never be sure. That’s why I decided to clean it up.”
“Do you think Charles read the memo and convinced Ray not to promote Rebecca?”
“Oh, Susan, I don’t know. Could we just drop it, please?”
“But, Sandy, don’t you want to know who killed her?”
Sandy waved a dismissive hand at me. “It’s not our problem. Leave it to the police.”
She left the office before I could ask her why she was so disinterested. Was it because she knew who really killed Rebecca and was protecting that person? Who did she care about so much that she would let Rebecca’s murderer go free?
I wanted to discuss Sandy’s attitude with Jennifer but she was in and out of the bullpen, running errands for Charles, and I needed to concentrate on getting Zack’s script to production. I didn’t think it was much improved by the changes, or that people would keep watching Babbitt & Brooks just because of this episode or any of the others that were waiting to be aired. In fact, Zack’s script now emphasized the bounty hunter over the two stars, perhaps to make the show more interesting to male viewers. I doubted the two actresses would be pleased, and unless the bounty hunter was going to be played by Justin Timberlake or Robert Pattinson and turned into a vampire, I didn’t think our largely female audience would stay happy, either.
Zack himself was acting peculiar. He made a lot of phone calls in between rewrites and avoided Ray, Peggy, and Charles. He begged out of the afternoon story meeting in order to finish his script, and yet he had handed me Act Four only a few minutes before the others met in Ray’s office.
Zack and I stayed late, getting the script in shape to be distributed the next day. Ray asked to see it before its official distribution. He, Charles, and Peggy had been discussing story for the next episode all day, and I wondered if the script had been assigned yet. Did I dare go into his office and ask? Tomorrow, I vowed. Let’s just get Zack’s script out of the way and off everyone’s back.
I proofed the final changes I had made for Zack as everyone left for the day. Zack, in his office, was waiting to proof the script himself. I walked into the bullpen on my way to see him, then stopped when I heard crying. Peggy. Sobbing in her office. I didn’t know whether to walk away or go inside and offer my help. Her cries were gut-wrenching, despairing, and they made me shiver in sympathy.
To my surprise, Zack’s voice spoke above her cries. “I’m sorry.”
“What am I going to do?” It was the cry of someone at her wit’s end, a plea for help, a despairing demand for an answer she knew she would never get. I stood rooted to the spot, my hair standing on end at such a display of raw emotion.
Zack lowered his voice in an effort, perhaps, to get Peggy to lower hers. I heard him say, “ … tomorrow” and then, “I’m sorry” again. Peggy continued to weep, and I pictured her crying into a damp and torn tissue while Zack stood helplessly next to her.
“Please go,” I heard her say to him. Zack left without another word, fortunately not glancing in my direction as he headed back to his office. Peggy continued to cry, occasionally blowing her nose, sounding too wretched to move.
I returned to Sandy’s office and sat down at her desk, blindly staring at the script still clutched in my arms. Zack eventually found me, and I pretended that I had just finished proofing the script.
“Send it to Ray,” he said, looking whipped. He barely glanced at the script, and his eyes were red as if he had been crying right alongside Peggy. “Let him worry about it now.”
I nodded and started to send an e-mail to Ray, attaching the comp
uter copy of the script.
“Susan, I’m not coming in tomorrow. There are a couple of things I need to take care of. If anyone wants me, they can reach me at home.”
“What about the script? What if Ray has more changes?”
Zack’s mouth twisted in bitterness. “Let him make them himself.” And with that, he left.
What kind of things did Zack need to take care of? I wondered. Now that he had finished the script was he simply taking the day off to mourn, or did he have another, more secret agenda? I thought of Zack’s odd behavior at Rebecca’s memorial service and wondered what he had said to Peggy to make her cry. She left shortly after Zack, eyes and nose red, walking swiftly past Sandy’s office without saying goodnight. I dreaded going home to my claustrophobic apartment, too strung out by Peggy’s outburst to stare at my beige cinderblock walls. Instead, I crossed to the second warehouse, hoping to catch the cast and crew still shooting. Unfortunately, the sets were dark but a light was on in the production office, and as I entered I spotted Patrick behind the desk in his office, playing solitaire. He saw me hovering and beckoned me inside his office with a smile.
“My lady, Susan, what brings you across the moat to my domain?”
“Boredom,” I said. “Why are you here so late?”
Patrick’s office was also paneled in fake wood, but unlike the offices in the writers’ warehouse, he had a single, grimy, wire-meshed window set high against the outside wall. Cheap wood bookshelves held spiral notebooks filled with scripts; production reports and call sheets cluttered his desk, and metal cabinets bulged with dark green Pendaflex file folders.
“I’m waiting for his lordship Zack’s script,” Patrick said. “Is it almost ready?”
“He’s finished. But Ray wants to look at it before it’s distributed. You’ll have it tomorrow. I promise.”