Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss Read online

  “You’re not leaving me yet,” Marcus said firmly.

  “Tell you what, I’ll bring Starbucks-man to you! I’ll deliver him with a big bow and a bottle of exotic oils. I’ll get right on that.”

  “Sophie,” Marcus said again.

  I sat down sullenly.

  Marcus smiled triumphantly before turning back to Jason. “Let’s finish you up, and you two,” he said, pointing at Dena and Kim, “go wait in the reception area until I’m ready for you. You’re bothering my client. And you,” he said pointing at me, “are going to give me a thirty-percent tip for this.”

  I nodded. The only part of the plan I objected to was that it didn’t include more mimosas.

  Kim looked like he wanted to disappear. Dena, on the other hand, just looked pissed. She grabbed Kim’s hand and dragged him back to the reception area as Jason slumped in his chair.

  “She never even called,” he whispered as Marcus resumed clipping. “I told her…I told her how much she meant to me and she just cut me out of her life!”

  “Jason,” I said carefully, “Dena may say that she likes to stay on good terms with her exes, but that only really works for her when the ex was never all that attached. She probably thought that being friends wasn’t going to be enough for you so—”

  “It wouldn’t have been! God, we have such great physical chemistry. Have you ever read The Multi-Orgasmic Man?”

  “Jason, sweetie,” Marcus cooed, “there are some details that we don’t really need to know.”

  “All right, then I’ll just say that the book only made sense to me after I met Dena. And with no warning, no warning at all, she just ended it!”

  “Yeah, well, Dena doesn’t like long goodbyes or, you know, emotional complications,” I said, trying to be as gentle as possible.

  Marcus gently tilted Jason’s head to the side. “Don’t worry, sweetie, by the time I’m done with you the ladies will be lining up with the ice cream scoopers.”

  “But I don’t want ladies,” Jason sighed. “I just want Dena.”

  “Okay, but, Jason?” I took his hand and smiled at him with the same gentle condescension I would have used with a distressed child. “Dena doesn’t just want you.”

  Jason stopped talking after that. Marcus fulfilled his promise and made him look fairly fabulous, deviating slightly from the picture he had shown him in order to better complement Jason’s features. Jason didn’t object, or approve, for that matter. He just sat there dully looking at his reflection in the mirror.

  “I insist you comment on my work,” Marcus finally said as he pulled the apron from Jason’s neck.

  Jason stood up and took a step closer to the mirror. “It’s good,” he acknowledged. Then he turned and cast his gaze in the direction of the reception area. “I’m just not sure…” he started, his voice heavier now, “I’m not sure it’s going to be good enough.”

  Marcus put his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Honey, no hairstyle is that good. Do yourself a favor and find yourself a nice supermodel. They’re more accessible.”

  Jason didn’t answer and after a moment Marcus removed his hand.

  “Come on,” I said to Jason, “I’ll walk you out.”

  Jason walked by my side, his head lowered and his feet shuffling. Part of me felt that I should shout out, “Dead man walking!” but instead I simply linked my arm through his and tried to hurry him along.

  In the reception area Dena and Kim were flipping through a Rolling Stone. They both looked up as I walked up to the reception desk, checkbook in hand. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kim try to get up, his countenance full of apology and regret, but Dena held him back. I paid as quickly as I could and dragged Jason out of there.

  We walked along the street for a few minutes. Fillmore was teeming with its usual crowd of trust-fund babies and dot-commers looking for trendy and socially responsible avenues for their consumption. The store to my right boasted sheet sets made from organic Egyptian cotton for the low price of $550 and to my left there was a woman admiring the “cruelty free” diamond brooch designed to resemble a skull and crossbones in another store’s window. Quintessential San Francisco. The scene was reassuringly familiar enough to strip away the anxiety that had been building up during the course of the last hour. I closed my eyes and breathed in the clean, damp air. Everything was going to be okay.

  Then I opened my eyes and looked at Jason and realized that our surroundings had only managed to soothe one of us.

  “I knew she’d be sleeping with other guys,” he finally said. “I’m cool with that. Human beings are primates. We’re not meant to only mate with one partner.”

  “Gee, Jason, that’s romantic.”

  “But the ice cream,” he moaned. “She told me she had never done that before. That meant something, you know?”

  I didn’t know. How could dumping food all over your lover’s stomach be interpreted as a tender expression of love? I scooted aside as a passing Chihuahua strained against his pink leash in an attempt to sniff my shoes. “Are you giving up on her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, man.” He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Ew!” I recoiled. “You smoke?”

  “Only when I drink,” he said, reaching for a lighter, “or when I’m seriously depressed.”

  I snatched the pack away. “These will kill you, and you don’t want that.”

  “Yeah?” he said sarcastically. “How should I get myself killed then?”

  “You could hang out with me some more,” I suggested. “I attract homicidal maniacs like mosquitoes, baby.”

  Jason cracked up and then stopped suddenly in his tracks. “You know what we need to do?”

  “Is this still about Dena?” I asked warily. “Because if you want my help getting her back, there really isn’t a lot I can do.”

  “No, this has nothing to do with Dena. This is about Venus and Amelia.”

  “Amelia? The happy hippy chick?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. We should talk to her about Venus. She knows her brother.”

  A series of sonic booms coming from a car stereo caused our conversation to pause until it passed. “Venus has a brother?” I asked once I knew I could be heard again.

  “Yep. See, Amelia says she knew Venus’s brother, William, from Carnegie Mellon. Not well, but they were part of the same study group once. Only she didn’t know he had a sister. When she found out who Venus was and who her family was she got all excited and asked after him, and Venus got all uptight.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Turns out William’s dead. He checked out six years ago.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. I didn’t want to feel sorry for Venus, but to lose a sibling…

  I looked up at the darkening sky, all those rain clouds making their intentions known. Despite the craziness Leah brought into my life, I never wanted to face a world that didn’t have her in it.

  “Thing is,” Jason continued, “Venus was seriously sketchy about what went down. Was it a car accident, suicide, some weird illness—no way to know because Venus wouldn’t say.”

  “Too painful to talk about?”

  “I don’t think so. You didn’t see her face or hear the way she said his name. Venus hated her brother. You could feel it just emanating off of her. Amelia and I talked about it and we both wonder if maybe…” His voice trailed off.

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe Venus had something to do with it.”

  And there you had it, problem solved. Now, not only did I not have to feel sorry for her, I could hate her even more than I already did.

  “I remember Amelia saying she was going to look into it,” he added.

  “Do you have Amelia’s number by any chance?”

  “Yeah, but not her work number and that’s where she’s at right now. She works for a florist south of Market. Forgot the name of it, but I know where it is. You wanna pay her a visit?”

  I whipped out my car
keys. “Absolutely.”

  Jason and I took two cars, which was convenient in that we could both go our separate ways when we were done talking to Amelia, but inconvenient in that it took what would have been a thirty-minute search for parking and turned it into one that lasted nearly an hour. You would think that with all the talk of energy conservation and fewer people driving there would be more parking spots. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. People don’t drive now, they park. And then they leave their cars in that parking spot for an entire week while they catch the bus to their various destinations. I was bitching about this to Jason, but quickly forgot my complaints when we stepped into O’Keefe’s, Amelia’s place of work.

  O’Keefe’s was of significant size and from the ceiling the green leathery leaves of the Swedish ivy mingled with clambering branches of the more sumptuous purple passion vine. On the floor and on the shelves were exotic bouquets of bird of paradise, anthurium and dendrobium orchids, each flower adding its own signature to the perfumed air. And among it all was Amelia. In her tie-dyed skirt and purple T-shirt she was every bit as colorful as the flora around her. As she danced among them, sprinkling the plants with water like Tinkerbell with so much pixie dust, it was hard to remember that she wasn’t meant to simply be part of the decor. It was while she was watering a gardenia that she first noticed us.

  She pushed her mane of brown curls off her shoulders and greeted us with open arms. “What a fantastic surprise!” she exclaimed after she had given us both lingering hugs. She stepped back and examined Jason’s hair with an approving nod. “Groovy new look! I’m totally into it!” But then her smile faded and a small line materialized on her forehead. “You didn’t come for a pickup, did you?” she asked, her focus still on Jason. “I told you I wouldn’t be able to get the stuff until Friday.”

  “Nah, I got enough to last me the week. It’s cool.” Jason turned to me and explained, “Amelia supplements her income by dealing marijuana and hash.”

  And just like that my Tinkerbell metaphor was blown to smithereens.

  “Then you came by just to say hi!” she suggested, instantly brightening. “Or maybe you want some flowers? I just put together a killer bouquet of Gerbera daisies and chrysanthemums. You know both those flowers are major air purifiers. Gets rid of the carcinogens.”

  “Yeah, that’s not why we’re here.” Jason looked to me, signaling that it was my job to broach the subject.

  “Right,” I said awkwardly. “Well, we actually came here because I wanted to ask you about Venus.”

  A moth flitted in front of Amelia’s face and she forcefully swatted it away. “Why ask me about Venus? I barely know her.”

  “Yeah, well, neither do I, but she kind of has a problem with me, and Jason here says that there’s a small chance she’s a murderer, so, you know, it just seemed like something I should check into.”

  “This is about William then,” she said. A few more lines popped up on her face and I suddenly realized that she might be a little bit older than I had first assumed.

  “You said that you were going to check into that whole thing,” Jason reminded her.

  “Yeah,” Amelia said slowly. “And you said we weren’t going to just be a one-night stand. I guess people just say things, huh?”

  Amelia took in a deep breath and turned to me before I had a chance to mask my surprise. Although I probably should have taken this new revelation in stride. After all, it wasn’t like they were talking about the sexual possibilities of Ben & Jerry’s.

  “Sorry about the negative energy,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gone there. Anyway, I did look into how William died and it wasn’t murder. He went in for elective surgery and, you know, sometimes those things don’t work out the way they should.”

  “Meaning?” I asked.

  “He died under the knife.”

  “Good God.” I took an involuntary step backward, almost knocking over a ficus. “Why was he getting surgery?”

  “It was cosmetic.” Amelia started watering plants again, although her earlier enthusiasm for the task had dissipated.

  “What exactly was he getting done?” I pressed.

  “I didn’t take the time to get all the details. All I know is that he died in surgery and it wasn’t murder.”

  Amelia’s tone was measured. No word bore more emphasis than any other, making it hard to interpret her real meaning. What was clear was that she wasn’t going to tell me anything more. Something about Amelia’s demeanor told me that she just didn’t think it was her place.

  I glanced over at Jason, but his eyes were now back on Amelia. He walked over to one of the more exotic bouquets. “Are these dendrobium orchids?”

  “You know your flowers,” Amelia said, seemingly relieved by the change in subject.

  “They have to be imported from Thailand, don’t they?”

  “During the winter, yeah. We can get them from Hawaii during the summer.”

  Jason dropped his hand and exhaled loudly. “That sucks,” he declared. “We use how much fossil fuel for this shit? And why? So some bourgeois socialite can say she got the most expensive bouquet to decorate her oversize table in her oversize, energy-inefficient mansion?”

  Amelia smiled. “You are so raw, Jason. I just love that about you.”

  “Yeah?” He took a step toward her. “I’m sorry I haven’t taken you out in a while. I’m still having a hard time getting over Dena. Remember, I told you about her.”

  “And I told you that I was cool about that,” she said as she leaned over to water a monkey tree. “I just like hanging with you, Jason.”

  “Yeah? You want to hang out tonight?”

  Amelia immediately came back to life. The wrinkles in her forehead were replaced with ones that appeared around her eyes and mouth and she graced Jason with a brilliant smile. “I would like that.”

  Jason smiled down at the floor. “Should I pick you up after work or did you drive?”

  “I don’t drive, remember?” Amelia said, turning back to her plants. “It’s either my bike or the bus for me. Today it’s the bus.”

  “I’ll pick you up then—I just got a Prius,” he added quickly.

  Although I was glad Jason was picking up on someone other than Dena, watching him do it was not what I had come for. As they continued to make plans I began to slowly make my way toward the door, stopping here and there to smell a star-shaped flower or admire a bonsai tree. I was just about to announce my exit when Amelia broke away from Jason and caught up with me. “Hey, I hope it’s okay, but Scott told me about your problems with Kane.”

  It was so out of left field that it took me a good minute to process what she had said. “Scott came to you with that?” I finally managed. “Why? I didn’t even know you two were close.”

  “We’re not,” Amelia said emphatically. “But sometimes I think he’d like to be.”

  “Of course he would.” I let my fingers run over the soft flowers of a silver sage and imagined how fun it would be to rip Scott’s face off. So now he was using my problems as a pickup line. No wonder Venus was so insanely jealous. The only way Scott could ever be trusted around other women was if someone had the decency to turn him into a eunuch.

  “You won’t tell Venus I said that, will you?” Amelia asked, as if reading my thoughts. “She kind of gets agro about that stuff.”

  “I won’t say anything.” God, I wish I could tell Venus. How great would it be if I could direct her attention to another target?

  “Thank you,” Amelia said, rather emphatically. “The only reason I bring it up is…okay, I do believe in ghosts, so if you could channel Oscar and Enrico that would be supercool, but if you can’t then maybe you should talk to Maria.”

  “You mean to try to figure out if she killed Enrico? Remove myself as a suspect?”

  Amelia shook her head. “I can’t believe that anyone would think you’re a suspect. Anyone who knows anything about energy and auras knows that you could never kill anyone.”

&nbs
p; I kept my focus on the silver sage. It wasn’t silver at all, really. More like a cool green. Not like the silver of the gun I had used when I actually did kill a man. That had been over a year ago and it had been in self-defense. I had no choice. Still, a man was dead because of me. You would think that the guilt would set in at some point. You would think it would have at least altered my aura, right? I was still waiting for that to happen.

  “Maria isn’t a killer, either,” Amelia said. “But she did know Enrico better than anyone else. I bet she knew things about him that no one else did.”

  I looked up from the plant, beginning to get her meaning.

  “If you could get her to give you that information and then have her promise not to tell anyone she gave it to you—”

  “I could fool Kane into thinking that Enrico’s ghost gave it to me personally,” I finished.

  Amelia nodded enthusiastically.

  “I understand she’s been kinda a homebody since you guys found Enrico, so it shouldn’t be hard to get in touch with her. I’ll get my cell. I have her number and address in my contacts.”

  As she ran off to another room to get her cell, Jason took her place by my side. “I’ll find out what she’s not telling us about William tonight,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  I did a quick double take. “That’s why you asked to spend time with her?”

  “Nah, I dig Amelia. She’s cool. I just know how she is. Tonight she’ll bring out the ganga and start talking. She just needs to loosen up, that’s all.”

  I didn’t have a chance to respond because Amelia was back with an index card filled with all of Maria’s information.

  “Thank you.” I pulled the card from Amelia’s delicate and unmanicured fingers. “I’ll try to make this work for me. In the meantime, do you think you could vouch for me to Kane? Tell him that I have the power to summon ghosts or—”

  “Sophie,” Amelia interrupted, “I have about as much sway with Kane as he has with me, which is zilch. Don’t tell anyone else, but both him and Venus freak me out a little. I mean, I’m sure that deep down underneath they’re good people, but they both have murky auras. Never trust anyone with a murky aura.”