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“Destiny? That’s an interesting name.”

“It’s better than Thor. Is it really your
birthday?”

“Thor? Never mind, forget I asked. And yes,
it’s really my birthday. Want to see my ID?”

That’s not what I’d like to see most, I
thought, feeling a little warm. “I’ll pass. What kind of cop are
you?”

“What are my choices?”

“You know, vice, homicide, traffic, truant
officer...”

“That’s it, I’m a truant officer.”

I sighed and swallowed the last bite of
muffin. “You’re a smartass, and I’m late for work. Thanks for the
muffin. Enjoy your stay in Long Beach.” I stood and methodically
gathered my things, giving myself an extra couple seconds to look
at him so I’d have a good mental image. You know, for later. Jake
watched with an amused expression.

“Six-one,” he said, gray eyes gleaming.

I’d guessed an even six feet. “Excuse me?” I
snapped, embarrassed that I was so obvious and annoyed that he was
so cocky. Mostly annoyed.

“You were thinking six feet. I’m actually
six-one.”

I gave him a bored expression. “That’s
fascinating, but I was thinking it looks like rain and I forgot my
umbrella.”

He grinned. “Liar.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to leave.

“You’re leaving?” Tobey wailed from behind
the counter. “What about fate?”

“I don’t believe in fate,” I said.

“Me, neither,” Jake added.

“See?” Tobey pleaded. “That’s, like,
something else you dudes have in common.”

I wanted to listen to Doctor Cavannaugh’s
whiny complaints about the IRS for the umpteenth time about as much
as I wanted to have a root canal or take up knitting. Maybe
slightly more than the root canal and slightly less than the
knitting, but it was really too close to call. Besides, she was
interrupting my somewhat pornographic Jake fantasy. Probably just
as well. If I kept it up, I’d have to go for a run to work off the
lust, and I hadn’t brought any exercise clothes to the office with
me today. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to take the call.

“Transfer her to Evangeline. She likes
sucking up,” I said to the intercom on my desk, and I went back to
doodling on my oversized desk blotter. I could’ve gone back to
calculating allowable profit sharing plan contributions for any
number of clients waiting for just that information, except that,
in her unending quest to suck up, Evangeline had managed to
overload the computer system, crashing it and bringing all
non-doodling-related capabilities to a screeching halt. The tech
wasn’t due until close to five.

When I got bored with doodling, I switched to
watching Mystic Mary on some weird cable channel. Mary wore lots of
long flowy gowns and new-agey crystal jewelry, and she was
explaining how the universe, in its infinite wisdom, could arrange
seemingly random situations – what those of us who had failed to
reach enlightenment ignorantly referred to as coincidences – so
that two people who were meant to be together would find each
other, no matter what the odds against that might be. Some of her
examples were bizarre. One couple, married for five years now, had
met when the woman ran a red light in her SUV and mowed the guy
down in the crosswalk. He nearly died, but when he came out of the
coma ten months later, he couldn’t get her face out of his mind. I
could understand that. I’d want to hunt her down, too, if she’d
flattened me with her damn Hummer. He got her name off the police
report, and the rest was history.

I decided Mystic Mary was a nutjob, so I
flipped off the little portable television I kept in my top desk
drawer and looked for a book to read instead. Nora Roberts would be
good. The pornographic Jake fantasy had left me feeling a little
frustrated, and I could use a good, steamy sex scene. I scrounged
around in my middle drawer for a couple minutes but couldn’t find a
single book. I did find my wedding ring, though. I sighed and put
it on, absently twisting it and thinking about Officer Biceps’
biceps.

Jeez, get a grip, I thought as the intercom
buzzed.

“Destiny, Avie’s here to see you,” the
intercom announced. Thank god. I collected my purse and my sweater
and went to greet my sister.

“Finally. I’m starving,” I snarked by way of
a greeting, as if it were somehow Avie’s fault I was bored and
frustrated. Avie rolled her eyes and held the door open with an
exaggerated flourish. As we approached the glass-fronted office of
the graphic design firm next door, the receptionist there nearly
broke her arm flagging us down.

“You have got to check this,” Jodie announced
when I poked my head into the lobby. Her bare and actually rather
unattractive feet were propped up on her desk, and she was rolling
a bottle of hot pink nail enamel between her palms.

I stepped inside and Avie followed. “Your
nail polish?” I’d never understood how Jodie kept her job. Besides
the fact that she rarely seemed to be at her desk, she was usually
shoeless, her low-rise jeans had a tendency to show at least an
inch of ass, and don’t even get me started on the tattoos.

“Hunh-uh. Sssshhh.”

I shushed, and we heard the unmistakable
sounds of a romantic liaison emanating from her desk. “What the
hell? They let you watch porn over here?” I’ve never actually seen
a porn video, but I was thinking it had to be more entertaining
than doodling and Mystic Mary, and I considered switching jobs.

“Nope. It’s the intercom.” Jodie stared at
the phone with obvious delight. “It’s Mignon, they must be on her
desk. I guess one of them hit the intercom button with their ass.”
She did a wrinkly-nosed grimace. “God, I hope it was their
ass.”

“Mignon?” I asked with a frown. “As in filet
mignon? That’s a name?”

“You’re going to criticize somebody’s name?
Really?” Avie mocked. Then to Jodie she whispered, “Can they hear
us?”

Jodie grinned. “I muted it. We can hear them,
but they can’t hear us hearing them. Pretty cool, hunh?”

The grunting and heavy breathing was
escalating. I made a valiant if unsuccessful attempt to resist
blushing. Avie and Jodie listened casually, Avie peeking at the
nail polish bottle.

“What does that mean, Summer Blush? Looks
like fuschia.”

“Fuschia has more blue in it,” Jodie said,
matter-of-fact, and began dabbing color on her toenails. They were
all normal-sized toes but they pointed every which way, and now I
understood why she opted to forego footwear. Coercing those feet
into shoes would be a major undertaking. I tried not to stare, but
I felt my lip curl and I couldn’t pull my eyes away. The grunting
had reached a fevered pitch, and Jodie giggled. “Man, that didn’t
take long.”

“Well, should we go to lunch?” I asked,
embarrassed and fidgety.

Now Avie giggled, ignoring me and unzipping
the black zip-front hoodie she had on over her pink, or possibly
fuschia, leotard. “Who’s the guy?” she asked Jodie.

“Don’t know. I didn’t see anybody, so he
must’ve come in while I was on my coffee break.” Or on the phone,
or in the bathroom, or down the hall talking to the cute guy at the
mortgage company, I thought. “It’s weird ’cause I didn’t even know
Mignon was seeing anybody.”

The cooing lovey-dovey sounds were even more
uncomfortable to listen to than the grunting they replaced, but we
all continued to stare at Jodie’s telephone. Personally, I was
relieved it wasn’t a video phone.

“Oh, pookie,” Mignon breathed. Pookie? Good
gravy, was she twelve? “I wish we could always be together.”

“We will, I promise,” the male voice
answered, and I groaned and gave thanks that I hadn’t already
eaten. Of course, now I never would again. “I’m going to get rid of
her. Permanently, so we can be together all the time.”

Avie stood motionless for a minute, then
looked at me, her green eyes huge. “Holy shit, is that - ”

I nodded abruptly. “Come on. Lunch.
Please?”

Jodie fixed her gaze on me. “You know him?
Who is he?”

“He’s, uh, the landlord,” I explained
truthfully, if evasively.

“It’s Destiny’s husband,” Avie offered.

“No, I won’t ask you to give up everything to
be with me. I love you too much,” Mignon was saying in martyred
tones.

“Your husband?” Jodie more or less shrieked.
“You just heard your husband doing the nasty with some skank, who
calls him pookie, by the way, and all you can say is, ‘Let’s do
lunch?’ What’s your damage, DeGraff?”

“No damage. It’s just not the first time, is
all,” I replied flatly.

“It’s okay. I figured out a way so I won’t
have to give up anything,” Dickhead told his floozy of the week.
“I’ll be free. And we’ll be together forever.” Yeah, I thought
cynically, or at least until the trapeze lady comes back to
town.

“First time you stood around listening to
it,” Avie filled in helpfully. “And I think it’s gotta be the first
time for pookie. Course, if there’s a poodle in there, it wouldn’t
be the first time for that.”

“You’re remedial,” Jodie announced over
slurping kissing sounds. “I’m not married, but I can tell you if I
ever caught my husband knocking boots, I so wouldn’t stand around
discussing nail polish colors.” She considered for a moment. “First
I’d Bobbitt him. Then I’d divorce his ass. And there sure as hell
wouldn’t be any second time, poodle or not.”

“It’s complicated,” I told Jodie before
turning to my sister. “Seriously, Av, I’m going to lunch. Now. You
can come with, or you can stay and listen to the freak show.”

“Ssshhh,” she hissed, and I glared and headed
for the door.

“How complicated could it be?” Jodie
asked.

“Soon?” the floozy whined. “Will you be free
soon?”

“Is tonight soon enough for you,
honeybear?”

“Oh, pookie!” Mignon gushed, and the heavy
breathing started up again in earnest.

“How complicated could it possibly be?” Jodie
demanded again. “He bangs the ho, you get the butter knife and a
lawyer. Voila.”

“Amen, sister,” Avie said, giving me a
look.

I rolled my eyes and forcibly took Avie’s
arm, steering her outside. It was unseasonably cool in the middle
of October in Long Beach, a brisk breeze blowing in off the
Pacific. The office was on Ocean Boulevard, a couple blocks from
the beach, and that’s where we were headed. I buttoned my sweater
and marched Avie towards the boardwalk.

I tossed the menu on the table without a
glance and looked out at the horizon. We had a partial view of the
marina, and I tried to pick out my dad’s boat, but from this
distance they all looked alike. Ominous clouds were rolling in, and
I was feeling a little chilly in the outdoor seating area of Sal’s,
the only decent pizza place in a twelve-mile radius. We ordered a
large veggie gourmet and two iced teas.

“I thought about it all the way here, and I
don’t think that sounded good, back there,” Avie said when the
waiter had dropped off our drinks and left.

I tried not to gag. “You had to mull it over
to come to that conclusion? I think you’re the one who’s
remedial.”

“Not that part, stupid. Although that part
was pretty pathetic. I meant the part about getting rid of you. And
all that talk about permanently and forever and tonight. Sounded, I
don’t know... threatening. I think we should call the cops.”

“I think you should watch something besides
Law & Order. Dickhead talks to his lawyer fourteen times a day,
trying to find a way out of the pre-nup. Obviously, they finally
came up with something.”

“Jeez, Thor, will you pull your head out of
your ass for just a second? If there was any way to divorce you
without paying you a bazillion dollars, his lawyer would’ve figured
it out long before now. And we both know he’d sooner part with his
dick than sell any of his precious property to come up with a
couple mil for the settlement. So if I’ve done the math right,
there are exactly two ways he can ‘get rid of you.’ One, make you
so miserable that you divorce him.” She gave me a pointed look.
“Sadly, your misery threshold seems to know no bounds.”

I ignored the editorial comment. “And the
other way?”

“Put you out of your misery.
Permanently.”

I sighed. I know it’s hard to imagine, but
once upon a time, I was actually in love with Dickhead. He was
funny and charming and, today’s display with the floozy
notwithstanding, not too shabby in bed. And he loved me, too, as
much as a narcissist with the attention span of a gnat could, I
suppose. I had no interest in the fortune in commercial real estate
his parents had left him, so when he sheepishly approached me with
a pre-nup, I wasn’t offended. His attorney wrote it to protect
Dickhead in the event I turned out to be a gold-digging whore. I
took it to my dad, a boat mechanic and retired Navy intelligence
officer, for his opinion. He thought there should be a clause to
protect me in the event Dickhead turned out to be a
trophy-hunting... well, dickhead. Dad revised the agreement,
leading to a barrage of name-calling that left the attorney’s ears
bleeding. Nobody can really swear like a sailor except a sailor.
The final agreement basically stated that if I divorced Dickhead
for any reason, I’d leave the union with exactly what I came into
it with: zilch. But if Dickhead filed, California’s community
property laws would apply. He’d keep his entire inheritance, of
course, but we’d split everything acquired during the marriage
fifty-fifty. Even though the real estate market in Southern
California had taken a beating in the economic downtown, Dickhead
had turned buying foreclosed properties and reselling them at a
profit into quite an artform, and my half of what we’d acquired
contained an awful lot of zeroes.

The waiter brought our pizza, and I took the
biggest slice, partly because it was my birthday and partly because
Avie was annoying the hell out of me. “Look, if you have enough
time and throw enough money at a problem, you can usually find a
way to solve it,” I said with a shrug. “Dickhead’s ‘job’ consists
of sitting at a desk and owning stuff, which doesn’t really take up
much time. So he has plenty left over to work on the pre-nup.”