Trying to act more like a grown up, she prepares herself a big salad and spends the rest of the night watching “Call the Midwife” and “Downton Abbey” on PBS.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, she oversleeps. With less than twenty minutes to get to work on time, she skips breakfast and quickly puts on some clothes. She is in no mood to talk to Joshua yet—besides, she didn’t have time to shower—so, she takes the long way around the courthouse, by the law library and the Wall of Honor, where the homeless guys camp out.
She ignores their cat calls. I hate walking this way. After opening the back door to the library, she hurries to her post at the reference desk next to Nicole.
Nicole says, “Where have you been? Joshua and I called you several times yesterday. We were worried about you!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was busy.”
“Busy doing what? Thinking about that detective? Listening to your aunt’s 1980’s albums again?”
“You know me way too well. Guilty as charged.”
“Well, you could’ve called, you know.”
“I’m sorry. I set my phone to voice mail and haven’t had time to check for messages yet this morning.” Isabella crosses her legs and tries to pull down her short skirt while saying this.
Nicole notices her doing this and starts laughing, “Oh, my God, Isabella!” she says, pointing at her friend’s shoes.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Look at your shoes. You’re wearing two different ones.”
“Holy crap! Look at me!” They both start laughing. She says, “Oh, my God! This is what I get for buying two pairs of black shoes that both have straps that crisscross.”
Nicole says, “And you didn’t even notice that when you were putting them on?”
“Obviously not,” Isabella says and continues laughing at herself.
Her friend observes, “You really do have it bad.”
“I know. I know.”
The phone at the reference desk rings and Nicole says, “You better answer that. It’s probably Joshua. He’s already called here three times looking for you.”
Isabella rolls her eyes, and answers, “Reference Desk…Oh...Hi, Joshua. Yes, I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back yesterday. I forgot to check my messages.”
Nicole stands up and leaves the reference desk in order to give them some privacy. When she comes back a few minutes later, she asks her friend, “So, is everything okay with you two?”
“Yeah. He wanted me to come get some coffee off his cart, but I told him about my shoe fiasco. He just laughed.”
“Isabella,” Nicole says, putting on her judgmental/holier-than-thou tone, “Do you like Joshua?”
“Well, sure I do. He’s cute. What’s not to like?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure. He is kind of young for me.”
“I know. But don’t lead him on. He seems like a nice guy.”
“You sound a bit like you want him for yourself.”
“I would never date your boyfriend.”
“But, what if he were free? Would you go out with him, then?”
“I’m not sure how easily he’d get over you. I don’t want to date someone who’s on the rebound.”
Isabella says, “On the rebound? We were never bound in the first place.”
“I saw the way you two were making out after the show.”
“It was our first date. You always kiss on your first date.”
“I don’t always.”
“Are you saying I’m a ‘ho’?”
“No.”
You can be so judgmental sometimes.”
“I don’t mean to be.”
“So, anyway, Nicole. Let’s change the subject. I am just dying to call that detective. But I don’t know what to say. Any ideas?”
“Well, he gave us his card, right? He’d like us to call if we thought of anything helpful to the murder investigation. Maybe you’d better think of something.”
“Like what?” Isabella asks.
“Well, think about it. Did you see anything unusual that night? Was somebody there acting in an unexpected way?”
“I can’t think of anything right now.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Isabella. You always do.”
Isabella gives her friend a dirty look and they don’t talk to each other for the next half hour. Finally, Isabella says, “That’s it! I thought of something.”
“What did you come up with?”
“Well, I remembered seeing that Hamid guy acting strangely.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he was there at the bar when we arrived, but after the show started, he seemed to vanish for a while, letting that waitress take the drink orders.”
“So?”
“Well, then after the lights dimmed and the actors came out with the flashlights, I could’ve sworn I saw him wandering around from table to table.”
“What do you think he was doing?”
“I don’t know. He never really seemed like he was part of the show, did he? It was like he was too serious for it or something. Maybe he owns the place?”
“I think you just found your reason to call the detective.”
“You’re right. I think I just did.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“For my ‘official morning break’, then I’ll call him?”
“Oh, puhlease...”
“Well, I am a dedicated government worker, after all.”
They both start laughing.
*******
On her “official morning break”, Isabella calls the number on the detective’s card. He picks up on the first ring. She’s surprised to hear his voice and her stomach does flip-flops. It takes a few seconds to find her voice and she says, “Hello, Detective Sterling. This is Isabella Forshey calling. Remember me from the night of the murder at the dinner theater?”
“Oh, yes. How are you Isabella?”
“I’m fine. And you?”
“I’m fine, too. How may I help you today?”
Isabella can think of a million ways he could help her, some of them happening in the bathtub with her, but she behaves herself and says, “I’ve thought of something that might help your investigation.”
“Great. What do you have?”
“Well, I was hoping I could meet you somewhere. It’s pretty long and involved, what I have to tell you.”
“Okay. Why don’t you come into the station and we’ll talk?”
“Well, police stations kind of give me the creeps. There are a lot of scary looking guys lurking around all the time.”
“Okay. Where do you suggest?”
“How about Original Mike’s? Do you know where that is?”
“Sure. I’ve been there a few times.”
“How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Sounds good. See you there at noon.”
“Okay. Bye,” Isabella says, wishing they could have talked more.
Chapter Ten
That night, Isabella is in a panic over what to wear to her meeting with the detective. She doesn’t like anything in her closet. She tries on several outfits; then gives up. Time to go shopping at South Coast Plaza, she tells herself, grabbing her car keys.
She has a favorite store at the mall but has never had the courage to go inside. It’s one of those boutique shops that only the bussed-in tourists from Japan can afford to shop at. She’s always admired the window displays at “Missoni” when she and Nicole walked by the store on their way to “Wolfgang Puck’s” for pizza. Tonight, she finally has garnered the courage to go inside and try on some of their very expensive dresses.
“Maybe, I’ll just look around,” she tells herself.
“Missoni” is a very small store with only about forty dresses on their racks. She wonders how they stay in business since she rarely sees customers inside. She hopes that she won’t be the only shopper getting all the attention. To her
discomfort, upon entering the store, she realizes she’s the sole customer. She walks over to look at a rack of dresses and a saleslady comes up to her, introduces herself, and asks her name. She asks what brings her to the store and Isabella says that she’s always admired the window displays, but has never tried on any dresses yet. The saleslady shows her some dresses and Isabella says that they are very pretty but she can’t wear horizontal stripes because they make her look fat. Isabella looks around at all the dresses in the store and before settling on three to take to the dressing room. The saleslady informs her that these dresses are 40% off. Isabella does the math in her head. Forty percent off of $850.00 still costs $510.00. That is a freakin’ boatload of money.
The saleslady tells her that the dresses are a bit tricky to try on because their slips are sewn into one shoulder seam of the dress. “You must put the slip on first, then the dress,” she tells Isabella. This is more difficult than it sounds and Isabella is all thumbs trying to first get the slip on. She is a tangled mess when the saleslady checks back in with her. Isabella asks if the lady could help her dress, which she gladly obliges. Her first choice is beautiful: the knit dress has an Art Deco Fleur de Lis design, in cherry, teal, and black. She has never seen such a gorgeous dress. The saleslady admires how pretty she looks in it. Isabella says, “I think it makes me look fat. I wish I would have worn my Spankx.”
“Do you want me to go next door to the lingerie shop and see if I can borrow a girdle for you?”
Isabella says, “They’d let you do that?”
“It’s worth a try,” she answers.
Wow! This store is a whole other shopping paradigm. They’d never do this at Kohls. While waiting for the girdle, Isabella tries to put on the other dresses. Once again, she gets tangled up in the slip straps and can’t figure out which hole to put her arms and head through. The saleslady comes back with the girdle and sees Isabella struggling with the dress. She offers, “Would you like me to take the dress and detach the slip for you?”
“Sure. You’d do that?” Isabella says in amazement.
“Yes. I’ll sew it back on later if you don’t want to buy it.”
“Okay. That would be great.”
The saleslady asks, “May I get you some bottled water while you try on your dresses?”
“Sure.”
“Would you like Perrier or Evian?”
“Perrier is fine, thank you.” Wow! This must be what it’s like to shop in Beverly Hills.
The lady brings back some bottled water on a silver tray. (Isabella feels like a princess). Then she brings the detached slip and dress back for Isabella to try on. Isabella says, “Are all your customers as inept as I am trying to put these clothes on?”
“You’re not the only one. That’s why our customers detach the slips once they get home. We just keep the slips sewn on so that they don’t get lost from the dresses they belong to.”
Isabella squeezes herself into the borrowed girdle and tries on all three dresses. She loves each of them; it’s hard to choose which one she likes best. She can’t even afford one, let alone three.
She tells the saleslady, “I can’t decide. I can only afford one. I don’t usually pay this much for my clothes and I want to be sure that it’s exactly what I want. I look at it as an investment.”
The lady agrees, “It is an investment. You will have this dress for a very long time.”
They decide that they like the first dress she tried on the best and Isabella takes the plunge and spends more money than she’s ever spent on clothes in her life.
What have I just done? she asks herself when she leaves the store with her shopping bag and walks back to her car.
Chapter Eleven
Before getting into bed that night, Isabella makes sure to set the alarm. She’s going to need some extra time to put herself together tomorrow morning for her big lunch meeting with Detective Sterling.
When the alarm goes off the next morning, she has trouble dragging herself out of bed. She didn’t sleep well the night before; she was too busy scolding herself for paying $510.00 for a dress. I hope this investment pays off, she tells herself. She showers, does her nails, and fixes her hair into a stylish French twist. Just when she gets her hair fixed the way she likes it, she realizes that she should have put the dress on first. If she puts it on now, it’ll mess up her hair when she’s pulls it over her head. She gives it a try anyway. She squeezes into some Spankx, rearranges the fat bulges, and puts on the slip and the dress over her head. Miraculously, her hair doesn’t get too messed up after doing this. It must be because of all the hairspray I used. My hair is in a nice “helmet-head condition” and it isn’t going anywhere, she thinks. She puts on her sexiest strappy sandals, grabs her purse, and does a last-minute-mirror check before she goes out the door. She plans to drive to work today instead of walking. That way, she can get back and forth to Original Mike’s without using up too much of her lunch hour.
Sitting outside in the Palm Court Oasis, she enjoys the perfect weather and the sound of the water fountain in the center of the patio. Original Mike’s is such an unusual place: it has Victorian-era horse-drawn carriages outside that people sometimes climb up into to get their picture taken. There’s a sign by the main entrance that says, “Hippies use other door.” The patio is made up of bricks that were originally from adjacent buildings that were torn down. It definitely has a lot of ambience. She orders a glass of wine and stares at the parking lot, hoping to spot him as he drives up. She checks her lipstick in her compact one more time when she finally sees the detective walking towards her.
Wow!! He is mouth-watering handsome. She stands up to wave at him; he smiles and waves back. The first thing he says to her is, “What a beautiful dress you are wearing.”
This investment is worth it. Just to hear him say that, she tells herself.
The waitress comes over and asks if he’d like anything to drink. He orders an iced tea. Isabella says, “Isn’t this a gorgeous spring day?”
“It certainly is,” he answers. “So, Isabella, what is the information you have about the night of the murder?”
She notices he has no wedding ring and thinks, Yay! Then she says, “Well, I thought that Hamid guy was acting strange.”
“Hamid the bartender?”
“Yes. You know, the guy who looks like an extra on ‘The Soprano’s’.”
The detective sets a small tape recorder on the table and says, “Do you mind if I record this?”
She says, “It’s okay…I guess.”
“Don’t let it intimidate you. Just talk as you would naturally,” he reassures her.
“Well, I hope I don’t say anything stupid.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” he says and smiles at her.
“Uh…okay. Where was I? Oh, yeah…Well, so here’s what I noticed. Once the show started, it seemed that Hamid had left for the night because he wasn’t at the bar anymore and the cocktail waitress was serving all of our drinks. I thought that maybe he’d gone home for the night. And then, all of a sudden, I could have sworn I saw him moving around the tables when the actors with the flashlights came out.”
“Tell me about what you saw.”
“It was almost pitch-black. We had trouble seeing our plates to eat our dinners. You needed a flashlight to see.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Well, when the flashlight guys were looking around, I could’ve sworn I saw Hamid moving between the tables.”
“Any idea why?”
“No. It was weird. I wondered what he was doing.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Okay. That’s good information. Thank you for telling me.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says. That was a stupid thing to say. This is a murder investigation. It’s not supposed to be pleasurable, for heaven’s sake, she scolds herself.
He smiles at her and asks, “Do you have anything else you’d like to tell me?”
> You mean like, I’m falling head over heels in love with you?
She moves uncomfortably in her seat and the shoulder strap of her purse that’s hanging on her chair slips down to the floor. She reaches down to pick it up just as he is also reaching down. Their hands briefly brush together as he gives her purse back to her. His touch sends shivers through every fiber of her being.
She tries to regain her composure and says, “So, how’s the investigation coming along?”
“Pretty well.”
“So, do you have any suspects?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I wish I could.”
“Maybe when it’s all over?”
“Yes. Maybe when it’s all over.”
The waitress brings their meals and Isabella can hardly eat a thing she’s so nervous. Plus she doesn’t want him to see any food that might get stuck between her teeth. She plays with the food on her plate. He says, “Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m not that hungry. I’ll take it home with me and have it later.”
“So, do you live around here?”
“Yes. I live in a neighborhood called ‘Washington Square’.”
“Oh, yes. I know that area. I went on a home tour there with my girlfriend.”
Uh-oh, Isabella thinks. She asks, “So where do you and your girlfriend live?”
“Oh, we’re not together anymore,” he says. Isabella lets out an audible sigh. He hears her and says, “I live in San Juan Capistrano.”
Perfect! she thinks. “I love that area. The Mission is so beautiful. I’ve gone there so many times. I never get tired of it.”
“Me neither.”
“One time my friend Nicole and I took the train down there and went to the mission. Afterwards, we had dinner at Sarducci’s.”
“I love that place.”
Isabella almost says, “Why don’t we go there together sometime?” but restrains herself. Instead, she says, “I like sitting in their patio and watching the trains pull up. I love the romance of a train trip.”
Watchin' The Detective: A Mystery Dinner Romance Page 4