Ten

  Eva had a kind of Halle Berry thing going. Her hair was short, with tufts pointing in all directions like a shag rug after someone ran a vacuum cleaner over it. She had more curves than Halle Berry, which Casey didn’t mind, and round eyes, and her skin was the color of lightly done toast. Mose had told Casey that LaShonna had told Mose that she thought Eva would be perfect for his newly unattached buddy.

  She wore a simple dress with a scoop neck. A gold cross dangled on a slender chain just above her bosom. For that alone, Casey’s mother would consider Eva an improvement over Susie. His mother seemed to think that if Casey fell for a Catholic girl, his lust would lead him back to church. Fat chance.

  In any case, he doubted he would fall for Eva. Her assets notwithstanding, her voice contained an unpleasant whinnying quality, and she loved telling knock-knock jokes and laughing uproariously over them, and she was drinking one of those weird chic cocktails that bore a distant relationship to a martini but glowed a turquoise that strained his eyes and was served in an odd-shaped glass, and she’d never seen a Jackie Chan movie in her life and couldn’t imagine why she should. Like LaShonna, she seemed to have set her sights on snagging a businessman on his way up. Evidently, LaShonna had told her Casey was an entrepreneur. Eva hadn’t been able to hide her disappointment when Casey had explained that he was a bagel specialist hoping to open his own gourmet bread shop.

  Still, she was being a good sport about this blind date, and Casey supposed he could be a good sport, too, even though a large chunk of his brain had been hijacked by Susie. He had no idea where the hell she’d gone—but wherever it was, she’d taken a significant piece of him with her, leaving him incomplete and off balance.

  LaShonna had dragged Mose out to the dance floor, abandoning Casey and Eva at their dark little table against the wall. A retro spinning-mirror ball strafed them with floating dots of light, and the club smelled vaguely of beer and peppermint and assorted perfumes. Casey nursed his Killian’s Red while Eva nursed her turquoise whatever, and he scrambled for something to talk about while she bounced her shoulders in time with the music.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, acknowledging what those shoulders were telling him. “I’d ask you to dance, but I’m really a lousy dancer.”

  “Nobody’s a lousy dancer,” she argued with a smile. “Some people are good dancers with lousy attitudes, that’s all.”

  “My attitude has two left feet.” He smiled apologetically.

  She stopped twitching her shoulders, apparently resigned that he wasn’t going to escort her out on the dance floor. “So tell me, Casey—is that some kind of nickname?”

  “Is what some kind of nickname?”

  “Casey. Is that a nickname or something?”

  He took a deep breath and prayed for patience. He’d never had to suffer through small talk with Susie. From the first, their talk had been—well, not necessarily big, but interesting. Never this getting-to-know-you crap, this poking and probing on issues that were ultimately irrelevant.

  His name, for example. “My name is Keenan Christopher,” he told Eva, then added, “Junior.”

  “Wow, that’s a mouthful. Keenan Christopher Junior? Imagine if you were in big trouble at home and your mama had to call you on it. ‘Keenan Christopher Junior, I’ve got a mind to thrash your butt!’ Yeah, that would sure scare a naughty little boy. How’d you get from Keenan Christopher to Casey?”

  “The initials,” he said. At her perplexed stare, he broke it down for her. “Keenan starts with K. Christopher starts with C. KC. Casey.”

  “Oh. Okay. Wow. Yeah.”

  One of his molars began to ache—purely psychosomatic. Really, there was nothing wrong with Eva. She seemed like a nice person, and she was attractive, and…

  God, he missed Susie.

  “So how come Mose calls you Woody?”

  “From the movie,” Casey explained, willing his fingers not to drum out their tension against the tabletop.

  “What movie?”

  “White Men Can’t Jump.”

  “Never saw it,” Eva said.

  Great. She didn’t watch Asian martial arts films and she didn’t watch White Men Can’t Jump. “The two main characters are this white guy and a black guy who hustle folks playing basketball. Mose calls me Woody because the white guy is played by Woody Harrelson, and I call him Wesley because the black guy is played by Wesley Snipes.”

  “Wesley Snipes,” Eva purred. “Now, that’s one fine-looking man. Well, I guess I’m relieved. When Mose called you Woody, I thought maybe he was referring to your anatomy or something.”

  Casey swallowed, but a laugh escaped him anyway. Were all blind dates this bizarre? Was the bizarreness due to Eva or him, or the two of them together, combining in a particularly strange way?

  “Knock, knock,” Eva said.

  Casey tried not to cringe. “Who’s there?”

  “Woody.”

  “Woody who?”

  “Woody-who like to bite my ass?” Eva laughed so hard she snorted, sounding like Mr. Ed suffering an asthma attack.

  Casey laughed, too, partly out of politeness and partly because Eva’s laughter was so awful. “That was pretty good.”

  “I just made it up,” she boasted. “Right on the spot. Okay, so, tell me more about this store you’re opening,” she demanded. “I just can’t believe it’s all gonna be nothing but bread.”

  “Well, bread, bagels, rolls—gourmet carbs,” he explained. She stared blankly at him. “I think there’s a market for it.”

  “People eat bread, I guess,” she said dubiously. “A classy place, though—you should open it in Manhattan.”

  “I know.” At last, something they agreed about. He swallowed a mouthful of beer and leaned forward. The deejay was playing loud hip-hop, and Casey had to narrow the distance between Eva and himself if he had any hope of her hearing him. “I’d love to open it in Manhattan, but the rents there are way out of my price range.”

  “Manhattan is the cool borough. People in Manhattan would spend money on boutique bread. In Queens, people spend money on Catholic-school tuition and Mets tickets.”

  True. “But people are more homebodies in Queens,” he argued, trying to convince himself as much as her. “They’re more likely to eat at home, and to eat well-rounded, well-prepared meals.”

  “That’s what you want? Homebodies?” Eva sniffed contemptuously. “If I was opening a store, I wouldn’t want homebodies shopping in it. Did Mose tell you I’m working toward a real-estate license?”

  Casey felt his eyebrows climb toward his scalp. “No, he didn’t mention that.” He’d told Casey that Eva had attended Queens College with LaShonna and currently worked in a cubicle at an insurance company, and that she did flamboyant things to her fingernails—they were polished a glittery purple hue but otherwise were pretty tame, Casey thought; his sister put teeny dog decals on her nails, so it took a lot to impress Casey, manicure-wise—and that the odds of scoring with her on the first date were about thirty/seventy, maybe thirty-five/sixty-five. Mose valued precision.

  Casey had no intention of scoring with Eva on the first date. For one thing, he preferred to know a woman well before he slept with her, and for another, he wasn’t too thrilled about having to go back to donning the old formfitting latex sleeve. Which was actually just another way of admitting that he wasn’t ready to sleep with another woman so soon after Susie had walked out on him.

  Scoring, schmoring, as Susie would say. Mose had neglected to tell Casey the most important stuff about Eva: she liked to dance, she hadn’t seen any Jackie Chan movies and she was studying to be a Realtor.

  He sipped some beer, then leaned forward again. “Does that mean you have access to rental information for stores?”

  “I’ve got an MLS book,” she told him. He must have looked the way she’d looked when he mentioned Jackie Chan, because she elaborated. “A Multiple Listing Service book. It’s this big, thick catalog that lists all the properties in an area for sale or rent. I’ve got software, too.”

  He grinned. “I bet you do.”

  “Most people run their listings on Internet-accessible sites,” she told him. “You can use the software to access the sites and find out what’s on the market. Now, what you need, not that it’s my business or anything, is a chic place for this bread store, an address that would make people be willing to spend lots of money on bread. If it was my store, I’d want it to be the chicest bread store in the city. I’d want movie stars who just happened to be in town, you know—doing ‘Letterman’ or maybe filming some scenes from their next big movie—to drop by and pick up a few rolls. Of course, movie stars can’t eat rolls. Too many calories.” She shrugged. “I’d want it to be the kind of place where the Knicks would do their carbo-load before a game, or the mayor would grab some biscuits, or some famous fashion designer would want to be seen. I’d want P. Diddy buying his pumpernickel from me.”

  “Have you got a store in your software that would guarantee me that kind of business?”

  “No guarantees, Casey-Woody Junior. But I bet I could find you some storefronts to look at in Manhattan. Downtown in a funky neighborhood where you might get a decent rent.”

  “How far downtown?” he asked. P. Diddy wouldn’t buy his pumpernickel in City Hall Plaza, would he?

  “I’m thinking Lower East Side, Alphabet City, down around there.”

  Susie’s neighborhood. Christ. He’d be selling pumpernickel to P. Diddy and Susie Bloom.

  Hell, he couldn’t let her determine where he would set up his store. She didn’t want to be in his life, so fine—she could buy her damn pumpernickel somewhere else. She could pick up bread at Bloom’s when she was doing her third-floor stints there. For all he cared, she could suck on stale pizza crusts at Nico’s.

  “So, where do you have this software?” he asked.

  She smiled seductively. “You want to come on up and see my laptop?”

  If he went on up, her laptop was all he’d want to see, especially after she snorted another equine laugh. He would have to play the scene carefully to keep her from being insulted over his refusal to see anything else. He would have to convince her he was a gentleman who wanted to become better acquainted with her before he shifted his attention from her laptop to her lap.

  He wouldn’t be lying if he said that, either. Who knew what might happen if he and Eva got better acquainted. He might give her some laughter coaching. She might lose the gold cross. They might catch a Jet Li flick and she might like it. Never say never.

  And in the meantime…“Yeah,” he said, “I’d love to see your laptop.”

  “I’m feeling really stupid,” Susie complained.

  Rick adjusted the tripod slightly higher, then checked the videocam’s screen. He wished he could be working with a real camera and film stock. But given the drecky budget Julia had provided for his project, that wasn’t going to happen.

  To save money, he and Susie were sharing a motel room. The motel they’d found had resembled an Infidelity Inn, each room opening directly onto the parking lot and none of the walkways particularly well lit. A private investigator would have to use a flash to catch any hanky-panky on film.

  Their room was walled in pink plastic vinyl textured to resemble paneling. The bathroom was smaller than what he had at home—he could easily piss into the toilet from the shower, but he couldn’t wash his hands afterward, because the sink was located in the bedroom, not the bathroom. The window overlooked a parking lot and the sill resembled a scene from a housefly version of The Killing Fields. Susie had screamed when she’d opened the blinds and discovered the carnage, at least a dozen dead flies lying feet up along the ledge. Rick had given them a quick burial in the toilet.

  They’d eaten dinner last night at a restaurant across the parking lot from the motel because they’d been given discount coupons for the place when they’d checked in. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting—lobster, maybe; they were in Maine, after all—but the cuisine had seemed more suited to Arkansas. Chicken-fried steak? Hush puppies? In Maine? The waitress had called all her customers “Hon” and the background music had included a lot of songs with lyrics about loyal dogs, dirty low-down cheats and what a great country America was.

  Okay, so he didn’t have a gazillion-dollar budget. He wasn’t doing this film the Steven Spielberg way. He couldn’t afford to give his star her own trailer and stylist. He couldn’t dawdle on this shot, because the only lighting he had to work with was what Mother Nature was kind enough to provide, which that morning was a lemon-white watered-down sun that made Susie look as though she was suffering from hepatitis.

  But damn it, he was going to make his movie. And she was going to make it with him, because she’d said she would. And everything would be great if she’d only stop whining.

  Even though she didn’t have a trailer and a stylist, Susie evidently intended to behave like a prima donna. As her director, he’d have to humor her. “What’s the matter?” he asked gently, when what he really wanted to ask was, Are you on the rag or what?

  “Well, I’m standing in the middle of a potato field,” she said.

  He hoped it was a potato field. This early in the summer, before the crops began ripening, every field looked like every other field to him. For all he knew, she could be standing in a cornfield or a pumpkin field or a zucchini field. The soil was loose and gray, powder dry and striped with rows of bushy green sprouts that on the camera’s monitor resembled large, dense sprigs of parsley.

  He was a New Yorker. What did he know about agriculture?

  “That’s a great opening line,” he remarked, hoping to encourage her. She’d scribbled, read to him and crossed out a lengthy list of opening lines last night, her voice arching from her bed to his. He’d tried to pretend he was interested as he’d channel-surfed in search of a classic movie or a baseball game. All her opening lines had sounded better to him than anything he could have come up with. He was a director, not a scriptwriter. Susie was the writer in the family, so he deferred to her.

  “I’m standing in the middle of a potato field in Maine,” Susie repeated, apparently unaware that Rick had hit the Record button. “And I’m holding a potato—” she lifted her hand to display the potato they’d purchased at a supermarket across the street from the motel “—and, I mean, what am I, Susie Bloom of Bloom’s in New York City, doing in the middle of a potato field in Maine?”

  “What are you doing?” Rick asked.

  “I’m thinking…” She stared at the rock-shaped spud in her hand. “I’m thinking I know more about latkes than I do about raw potatoes.”

  “Tell me about latkes,” Rick urged her.

  Her eyes sharpened on him. She must have realized that he was taping her and her complaint had become part of the movie. A sly smile caught her lips. “Latkes are what potatoes were born to become,” she said. “Latkes are high in calories, high in salt, high in fat—and a life without latkes is not worth living.”

  He didn’t know if she was ad-libbing, and he didn’t care. “What about knishes?” he called to her.

  “Knishes are fine. Knishes are delicious.” She shoved absently at the droopy sleeves of her black mesh sweater. She also had on slim black jeans. The black looked striking against the soft new green of the plants sprouting around her, even if it accentuated the yellow undertone of her skin in the faded morning light. “The thing about a knish is you can eat it on the move. It’s like a hot dog, only with less protein and a greater chance of causing heartburn—depending on the hot dog, of course. Latkes, though…You sit down and eat them off a plate, with a fork. They’re part of a meal. You need sour cream or applesauce to dip them in. You’re with family. Maybe it’s Hanukkah or some other holiday. Latkes represent a lot more than knishes.”

  “How about potato salad?” he cued her.

  “How about it? Bloom’s has the classic kind, with mayo and celery and hard-boiled eggs cut into it, and a red bliss potato herbed salad with a vinegary dressing. You like potato salad, you’ll like what Bloom’s has.” She sighed, tossed her potato into the air and glared at him. “Jesus. I sound like some over-the-hill actress doing commercial spots because I need the money.”

  “You’re not doing it for the money,” Rick said. “I’m not paying you.”

  Her glare intensified. “No kidding.”

  “If this comes out good,” he argued, “Julia will give us more money for another one—and you’ll get paid for that.”

  She tossed the potato up and caught it again. If only she could juggle, he’d film her tossing three potatoes in a figure-eight pattern, or maybe a potato, a turnip and a bowling pin. Instead, he had to rely on tricky camera angles for visual interest. “Remember that poem you wrote last night?”

  “The potato poem?”

  She’d penned it during the eleven o’clock news. She’d emerged from the minuscule bathroom clad in a baggy T-shirt and moaning over the lack of a hotel-supplied hair dryer, then plopped herself in the center of her bed, grabbed the legal pad and scribbled furiously. When he’d asked her what she was writing, she’d said, “A poem about potatoes.” He hadn’t been sure whether she’d been joking; her tone had been drenched in sarcasm.

  Apparently, she had written a poem about potatoes. “You want me to read the poem in the film?” she asked. “Now?”

  “Yeah. I’ll edit it into the right place later.” She shrugged, then dug into a pocket of her jeans and pulled out a sheet of yellow legal paper folded multiple times. She flattened it out, squinted at it and read:

  “‘Potato. Hard word, Ts and Ps, unyielding vowels.

  Hard food, hard skin, long buried, soil clinging.

  Who was the first person

  To cook a potato? Who thought

  To toss this rock, this gray rock into the fire,

  To break through that skin, to eat the molten heart?

  Heat releases the potato from its hardness,

  Smooths it, soothes it,