Red Blooded Murder

15

He walked into my apartment, and the atmosphere shifted. He wore a green Seagram’s T-shirt. The gold-and-black serpent on his left arm seemed to slither out of his sleeve. His hair looked newly washed. Oddly, he looked a little nervous, which surprised me. He was a wunderkind from what Jane had told me. And he was hot enough to get anyone he wanted, male or female.

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked. It sounded so awkward. I didn’t know how to date anymore.

He held up a brown paper bag. “I brought refreshments.”

He walked into my kitchen. I trailed behind. He reached into my cabinet and took out two highball glasses, as if he’d been there fifty times. “I’m glad I got to see you,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m leaving on Monday for Isla Natividad.”

“Where’s that?”

“Mexico. Little island. You can only get there by boat or plane. My partner and I go once a year for a few days to surf.”

“You’re a surfer?” For some reason, this made me want to have sex with him.

“Oh, yeah.” He crossed the kitchen to my freezer. “And this island is amazing. No cell service, no hotels. Just the sand and the surf.”

“Sounds a little remote for me.”

He laughed, pulling ice cubes from the freezer and dropping them into the glasses. “It’s a little remote for most people.” Out of the brown bag, Theo took out three oranges, round and vibrantly stained in a crimson color. He pointed at them. “Blood oranges. No seeds. They make excellent screwdrivers.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t. He seemed to take over my kitchen with his tall frame—so different from Sam’s solid, shorter body. What was I doing asking him to come here after I’d just seen Sam? It was something I wouldn’t have considered before. I felt different from any other Izzy McNeil I had been in my life.

Theo selected a knife from the butcher block and quickly sectioned the oranges. With the practiced movement of a bartender, he held a hand over each slice as he squeezed and juiced them into the glasses. He took a bottle of Belvedere Vodka from the bag and poured some into each glass. The kitchen was silent. I stood behind him, staring at his ass, at the red ribbons trailing from his other arm. He must have felt my eyes on him, but he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he liked it. He picked up one of the oranges again, squeezed more juice into the glass.

He turned around, a crimson orange in his hand. His eyes flicked over my body, and I felt as if those eyes were licking me. He walked toward me, took my hand and turned my arm over. He raised the orange and squeezed a few drops of juice on the white flesh of my wrist. Then he lifted my wrist slowly to his mouth and sucked lightly on my skin.

“Good to see you,” he said. “Sorry about your weird day.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

He turned and picked up one of the glasses, handing it to me. “Try it.” It seemed as though he was talking about more than the drink.

I took a sip. The vodka bit; the blood orange soothed it over. “Delicious.” I didn’t take my eyes from him. “How was your day?”

“You still want to make small talk?”

My heart tripped around, my body temp went higher. What was this kid doing in my kitchen at midnight sipping blood orange juice and vodka?

“Isn’t that what civilized people do?” I asked. “Make small talk?”

He put his glass on the counter. He took my glass from me and placed it next to his. “What I’m going to do to you is not civilized. Not even a little bit.”

16

The Fig Leaf was a little jewel of a store. From the front window, you could see silk slips hanging from pink, padded hangers. Delicate panties in dazzling colors overflowed from open wood chests, like piles of jewels. Nightgowns and bustiers were stacked on white cushioned benches. From the ceiling hung billowing ivory fabric, giving the place the look of a sumptuous little harem.

I was about to push open the front door when it opened for me. “You’re late,” Josie said. She looked down on me at the street level, her body blocking me from entering the store.

Josie was on the tall side. She seemed to tower above me in a white blouse and a long black skirt that hugged her curvy body. Her severe bobbed hair was deep brown with a cherry-cola red tint, and it was sleek, as if it had just been washed and blow-dried professionally.

“I apologize.” I decided not to offer any excuses. I had none, except that it had been hard, near impossible, to boot Theo out of my bed.

She jutted one leg out and crossed her arms. Through thin silver glasses that looked like lines of ice around her eyes, she gave me a formidable stare. “Look, Lexi, let’s get something really clear, okay?”

I shivered a little and nodded. It was still cold in the mornings in Chicago, but optimistically, I’d shoved my wool coat to the back of my closet. My ivory-colored spring coat with the tulip sleeves was doing little to keep away the chill.

“I know your parents are friends with Marie,” Josie continued, mentioning the owner, “and I love Marie for opening this store and for hiring me, but I run it, got that?”

“Sure.”

“I run this store, and I run it well. In fact, I run it exceptionally.” She looked down her nose at me. “Now it’s true that I cannot run it alone, and I need assistance, but if I had it my way, I would have conducted interviews, and I would have decided who my clerk should be. Please don’t think that because you know Marie that you’ll be treated any differently. I need you to work. Really work, do you understand that?”

“Absolutely. Marie said you’re the captain of the ship here.”

That drew a little smile.

“And I’m very sorry I’m late.”

She crossed her arms tighter, but she seemed to have softened. “Let’s get going.” She turned and made her way quickly through the store, weaving past a round table piled high with sleek pajamas.

For the next two hours, Josie lectured me. First, she taught me the front of the store—the workings of the faux-antique cash register, the location of the two little girly dressing rooms, the placement of the stock. She told me where she wanted me to stand and greet customers. Always, she said, greet each customer individually, and don’t say the same thing to each one. She made me stand there and practice. Hi, welcome to the Fig Leaf … Good morning … Hey, how are you? … Great day out, isn’t it?

As I rehearsed my lines, I pretended I was standing in court, stepping in front of a judge. Suddenly, I missed practicing law. Very, very much.

When Josie was finally satisfied, she declared me ready for the back of the store. I followed her, taking my first big breath of the day.

But then Josie suddenly stopped and spun around.

“Oh!” I said, practically colliding with her. “Sorry.”

“I forgot to tell you something. I have regular customers.” Her eyes peered at me through her silver glasses. “I won’t have your inexperience causing them to migrate to another store. When my regular customers come in, I wait on them. Understand?”

My friend Maggie had worked at a clothing store during our second year in law school, and she told me about the competitiveness that sometimes arose between salespeople over regular clients.

“No problem,” I said.

“You do make commissions,” Josie said, seeming to feel momentarily chagrined. She lectured for ten minutes on how the commissions were tallied and paid. “But not on my customers. I wait on my regular customers.”

“Got it.” I gave an affirmative, nonargumentative bob of my head.

She took me in the back, a chaotic and yet somehow organized warren of rooms piled with heaps of panties and mountains of pajamas. She also showed me the big black door where stock was delivered from the side alley. Josie instructed me on how to open boxes when they arrived, how to steam the contents and then how to hang them or fold them gently so they were ready for the “front of the house” when needed.

She watched as I practiced opening and preparing three boxes of merchandise. The bras were the trickiest. Each strap came wrapped in plastic, which had to be removed, and then the strap had to be attached to the bra. Steaming the bras was challenging, too. If you blasted the steam too powerfully it permanently stained the fabric (a loss which Josie told me no less than fifteen times would have to be deducted from my paycheck), but if you didn’t steam enough, the cups would retain an unsightly crease.

It was monotonous work. Finally, Josie tapped her watch. “Eleven o’clock!” She smiled for the first time that day. “Open the front door, please, and start greeting customers.”

“Sure,” I said, grateful for the change in task.

I charged to the front with a burst of energy and unlocked the door. I took a position near the table of pajamas. Josie told me that you had to look busy when customers came in. You didn’t want them to feel that you were going to jump down their throats or were desperate for the business.

So I refolded the pajamas, most of which were made of satin in various spring colors. I had refolded the table three times before I decided to move on. When, exactly, did the customers start arriving?

The next table, also sleepwear, held cashmere short-shorts in whites and yellows and matching cotton tank tops. Once again, I refolded the merchandise to perfection, about four times, and still no customers.

As I was moving to the rack of slips on the right side of the store, the front door dinged and two women walked in.

“Hi, guys,” I called over my shoulder, before I darted a glance at Josie. She nodded at me to go ahead. Not her regular customers.

One woman was looking for a strapless bra. I remembered the section where Josie kept them. I found three for the woman and showed her to the dressing rooms. When she bought one of the bras ten minutes later, I was proud of myself.

But Josie wasn’t. “You should have showed them the spring panties,” she said when they left. “And the lounge-wear. We make money in this business not just giving people what they want, but also by showing them what they don’t yet know they want. Now, while we’ve got some time, let me show you how to handle returns.”

I came around the desk to stand with her. She rang up a pair of lavender cotton panties with a white branch pattern on them.

“Now …” She held the panties aloft. “First thing, check to make sure the tags are on and ask them if they’ve been worn.” She then started to rattle off a series of complicated steps to return the panties. She gave me more information than I had needed to take the bar exam. I struggled to memorize it all, watching her hands fly across the register, as if she were operating the Space Shuttle.

“Then,” she said dramatically, “sniff.”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed to the crotch of the panties. “Make sure you sniff.”

I had to be misunderstanding something. “Do you mean …” No, she couldn’t mean.

“Yes,” she said in an irritated voice. “We have to ensure that the merchandise wasn’t worn before it was returned.”

“Would someone do that?”

She gave me a look that made it clear she thought I had reached new levels of stupidity.

“So we have to smell the underwear to make sure they didn’t do that?” I said, just to make sure I was hearing her right.

“Yes.” No hiding her irritation.

“Well, isn’t it rude to the customers to smell the panties right in front of them?”

She actually rolled her eyes this time. “You do it surreptitiously, of course. Like this.” She turned her body away from the register and grabbed one of the return forms behind the desk. As she did so, she casually and quickly lifted the panties and waved them in front of her face, taking a clandestine inhale.

“Got it?” she said.

“Sure.” Despite myself, I giggled a little.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Another small laugh escaped my mouth. God, I wished Q was here. The fact that I was sniffing undies for a living would slay him.

“Lexi …” Josie said in a stern voice, not bothering to complete the sentence.

“I’m sorry. Really.” I squelched down a laugh and gave the panties a practice sniff.

From the vantage point of the watcher in the crowd, Jane Augustine looked stunning. She stood in front of the Daley Center, the sunlight glinting off the Picasso sculpture and giving her face a luminescent glow. Her hair and her smile gleamed as she spoke into the camera.

“Welcome to Trial TV,” she said, flashing a vivacious grin, “where we bring you gavel-to-gavel coverage of the courtrooms topping the news. From New York to L.A., from Chicago to Miami and from every city in between, we’ll bring you up-to-the-minute reporting, but we’ll also give you the real stories of what’s happening behind the scenes. We’ve got the best news team in the business. We’ve got our ears to the ground. If there’s breaking legal news, you’ll hear it on Trial TV first.”

She paused. She flashed that smile again.

“Cut!” her director yelled.

The crowd that had gathered to watch broke into a smattering of applause.

Jane gave a half bow to the onlookers. “Thanks!” she called out.

She began to discuss something with her director, pointing at the courthouse behind her, then at the light. They glanced at their watches. They moved a few inches to the right and seemed to be preparing to try another promo shot.

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