Raspberry Crush (35 page)

"Really? So then you
were
married once?" Seth asked—probed, really, but he was so damn charming while he was doing it.

"Yeah, but that was a long, long time ago. The bastard left me—no note, nothing. Just dropped off the face of the earth; strangest thing." She took a swig from her beer chaser, then set the glass down hard on the table. "Come on; let's dance."

A mix of surprise and apprehension crossed Seth's face, and Billy could tell he was hoping Georgette hadn't been talking to him. Of course, when she tugged on his arm, all pretense was lost. "Uh—I'm really not a very good dancer," he protested as Georgette urged him out of the booth.

"Don't worry; I'll lead," she said, pulling him with her toward the dance floor. On the way Seth looked back at Billy searchingly—desperately—and Billy couldn't help grinning.

"I don't know where our waitress went," she said to Des now, who was hunched in the booth looking sulky. "I'm just gonna go to the bar and get another Diet Coke."

After ordering another soda, Billy leaned her elbows on the bar and glanced over at the dance floor. Even though tonight's business was serious, she just had to laugh. Georgette jiggled her hips and raised the roof, while Seth moved tentatively, obviously trying to keep out of the fray. She must've lost her glasses somewhere, because they weren't on her face... or maybe that would be her convenient excuse to grope Seth on the dance floor.

As Billy turned back to the bar, she felt a hand on her waist and almost jumped at the contact. "Oh, Des!" she said, finding him at her side. "You startled me." Just then she realized his hand was still lingering on her waist; subtly she shifted over until it fell back to his side. "What's up?" she asked brightly. "You don't seem like you're having fun tonight."

"Yeah, well vapid dens of cultural bankruptcy aren't exactly my scene," he said with acid sarcasm. Gee, he didn't
have
to come.

Yesterday, when Billy had invited him, he'd seemed thrilled with the idea, but tonight he had inexplicable attitude.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No. By the way, what's up with you and that guy Seth?" he asked, flicking his chin in the direction of the dance floor.

"Oh... he's, you know, a good friend of mine."

Squinting, Des asked, "What about that guy Mark Warner? Our old distribution rep—you still dating him?"

"Um, yeah. Well, we had some problems, but we're working things out."

"What problems?" he pressed, which put Billy's back up a little, because this felt more like an interrogation than a casual conversation.

"It's sort of complicated," she replied, ready to change the subject to much more mundane issues, like Des's band and their possible name change from the Sophists to the Nouveau Beatniks.

"You know, it's funny," Des said with a humorless laugh. "I never thought you'd be that type of person."

"What type of person?" she said, confused.

"A total sellout."

"What?"
Excuse me?

"Forget it."

"No, really, what are you talking about?"

"I just can't believe the guys you date," he said, sounding annoyed. "They're totally part of the corporate-industrial complex. Don't you even care?"

"Wait, I don't think that's fair," Billy said, keeping her voice calm and even. After all, Des was normally a decent guy, but maybe he'd had too much to drink tonight.

"Whatever," he sneered, and self-righteously flipped his hair.

"Seth and Mark are both really nice guys," Billy insisted, not sure why she was bothering to convince Des of this.

"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that."

"Huh?"

"Nice guys? Please, they're corporate sellouts! They blindly condone a system of economic opulence and capitalistic soullessness!" Whoa, this was getting insane now. "I thought you were different," Des went on angrily. "I thought you had, like, an artistic essence or whatever. But you're just like everyone else—just a perpetrator of psychosocial inequity."

"Des,
stop
,
"
Billy said, cutting him off. "You're really out of line. What, are you drunk?"

"No, I'm
hurt
, okay?" he said, doing a fist pump to the chest on "hurt." "Yesterday I left my latest manifesto for you to read, and today I find it crumpled up and thrown in the men's-room toilet!"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Billy said, shaking her head, totally confused. "Des, I didn't know you left anything for me—I never even saw it."

"Right! I put it next to your paycheck in your employee mail slot. Then at the end of my shift today, I find it in the toilet!"

"Oh, my God, Des, I'm so sorry. I swear it wasn't me. I never even saw it," she said again. He pouted, scowled, and shuffled his feet; then Billy tapped his arm. "Really, I swear it wasn't me. C'mon, you know I'd never do something like that."

Finally Des lifted his head, blew his hair back, and said, "Okay, all right. I mean, if you say it wasn't you, it's cool. I believe you."

She sighed, glad that she'd calmed him down. Jeez, she'd never seen Des so angry! Of course, the question remained: Who
had
trashed Des's manifesto? The men's room was an odd choice, too, because Des was the only guy who worked at Bella Donna. It was as if someone deliberately intended for him to find it.

"Look, I'm sorry I went off on you," Des said.

"No, it's okay," Billy said, even though it wasn't, and she felt a little overwhelmed and creeped out by Des right now. "So... how's Melissa?" she asked, desperate to change the subject. Besides, there was nothing like venturing into the bizarre Aggerdeen family saga to deflect a conversation.

Des shrugged. "Same as always, totally blind to commercialized brainwashing and the emptiness of her own existence."

"Hmm..." Billy said, only half listening as she glanced back to check on Seth. He looked wholly uncomfortable, while Georgette housed him from behind with her white hair in wild disarray a la Albert Einstein. Suddenly she jumped in front of him. With arms spread wide, she shimmied and threw her head back with abandon.

Billy's mouth dropped open just as Georgette tried to hump Seth's pelvis.

"And now Melissa just spends all her time on the Internet," Des was saying. "Whenever I come around, she covers the screen real quick, so I can't see what she's doing. I figured it was all part of her obsession with finding her real father, but the other day she told me that she'd already found him a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh, really?" Billy said, tuning in to the conversation.

"Whatever. It's not like I can believe anything she says anyway," Des remarked with a shrug. "Like at the Dessert Jubilee—she left two hours early, said she was going home because she had a migraine. But when I got home, I found the car in the garage—still wet."

"I don't get it," Billy said, confused.

"It wasn't raining when she left," Des explained. "It only started raining on my way home. I remember, because I was sitting in the cab worrying that I might've left my guitar out on the deck." Now that he mentioned it, Billy remembered staring out a taxi window that night when rain suddenly began to pummel the glass. Des shrugged again. "Melissa's full of shit. She was out cruising with the car while we were all stuck working."

Billy reserved comment, because she didn't want to say anything against Melissa, even though she was thinking that if what Des said was true, it was a really bitchy move on her part.

"So, Billy... what do you say?" Des said, ducking his head down almost shyly and looking up at her with hooded eyes.

"About what?" she asked.

"You and me," he replied.

Gulp—where did that come from?

"I dig you, Billy," he said (punching his heart on the word "dig"), "and I don't wanna dance around it anymore, you know?"

Oh, Lord, what the hell was Des saying? And why did he have to pick the least convenient time to say it? Georgette and Seth were heading back this way.

"So what about it?" Des said, and ran his finger along the back of Billy's hand. She involuntarily jerked at the contact, and then felt guilty when a hurt look crossed Des's face.

"Um, well... Des, I like you a lot; you know that. But as I mentioned, Mark and I still have something going, and..." She looked off to the side for the words. "You know, we're friends."

She regretted the words, though they were necessary, because the "friends" routine never made anyone feel better. Ryan had called her his friend right before he'd dumped her.

Now Des slammed his beer down on the bar. "Whatever," he said.

"Wait, Des... I'm sorry, I—"

"Just forget it," he snapped, turning from her. "I thought you were different, but you're just like all the rest." He walked away, disappearing out of Atlas, leaving Billy in a vague state of shock. As she headed back to the booth, she met up with Georgette and Seth by the table.

"I'm goin' to the can!" Georgette shouted over the music.

Seth dropped into the booth next to Billy. Letting out a sigh, he ran his hand through his hair. "Okay, so I take it Georgette just got out of prison?"

Billy laughed and buried her head in her hands. So far this night bordered on the absurd. "How are you holding up?" she asked, grinning, and touching his arm.

"Jesus, she was all
over
me," he said, and not as though he was bragging about it, but as if he were disoriented and mildly concerned. "Anyway, I didn't find out too much—the music was too loud. I kept trying to ask her about the jubilee, and she kept having to lean in closer to hear me. At one point my lips almost touched her ear—a little too intimate for me."

"I'm sorry," Billy said, "but let's give it a little longer. Try again when she comes back." She ignored Seth's grimace. "Also, I was thinking about the tomatoes smeared on my window. It makes sense. Georgette must've heard me telling Melissa about my feud with my neighbor, and that's how she got that idea."

Just then Georgette came bounding back. "Move over, hot stuff," she said, winking at Seth. When she slid into the booth, she blatantly hip-checked him. He winced with slight annoyance, but she didn't seem to notice. Then Georgette drunkenly took out her wallet and dumped its contents on the table. As she was sorting through dollar bills, presumably to pay for her three tequilas, Billy noticed some wallet-size photos strewn across the table. She nudged Seth, who picked them up.

"Oh, who's this?" he asked, sounding interested—solicitous.

"That's Gary, the asshole," Georgette replied, grimacing like she was just barely holding down the puke.

"And what about this guy?" Seth asked, now holding up a photo of a black man, around thirty.

"That was Leroy," Georgette said, her mouth drooping into a lopsided frown. "My ex-husband."

What?

"This is your ex-husband?" Billy asked, shocked. Just then she spotted a worn-looking social security card on the table. Almost savagely Billy snatched it up and read the name printed across it:
Georgette Walters.

Grabbing Leroy's photo out of Seth's hand, Georgette tried to spit on it, but her spittle missed its target. "Damn bastard, I loved you," she said, and then she started bawling. And Billy sat there, absorbing the fact that her whole brilliant airtight theory had just deflated.

* * *

"Now what?" Seth asked as he and Billy sat in his car with the heat running. "Does that scrap the whole Bella Donna theory?"

Billy had been mulling exactly that since they'd dismissed Georgette as a suspect, and then she suddenly remembered something Des had said. A thought occurred to her; it was a crazy thought. Turning to Seth, she pushed her scarf down to uncover her mouth and said, "What about Melissa?"

"You don't think...
Melissa?
But you know her; you went to school with her. She's your friend."

"Well, I went to school with her, but to be honest, I don't think I'd really call her my friend." It was the truth. Melissa was good to chat with at work, and for some occasional laughs, but they really didn't spend time together outside of work. Billy supposed it was because, at the heart of it, besides a degree from Boston College, they had very little in common. Melissa was stylish, a little snobby, and sometimes passive-aggressive—while Billy wore a battered old coat and wasn't particularly passive
or
aggressive. Unless she really wanted something, she supposed. Like now.

"Let's go," she said, suddenly realizing what they had to do.

"Where are we going?" Seth asked, revving up the engine, poising his hand on the gearshift.

"Law school," she replied. He shot her a skeptical look but she urged him on, and he pulled out of the parking lot and headed back onto Lansdowne Street. "I want to talk to Melissa. I just remembered she has a seminar tonight." Billy glanced at the clock in Seth's car. "Oh, my God, it gets out at ten, and it's already nine forty-five!"

They sped down Comm. Ave., and Seth asked, "So you really think Melissa killed Ted?"

"I don't know, but I'd forgotten that Melissa had left the jubilee early. Said she had a headache. But what if she didn't leave Churchill at all?"

"Where are you getting that?" he asked curiously. She explained about Melissa's car being wet from the rain, and the possibility that Melissa had only pretended to leave the jubilee early so she would have an alibi in case anyone suspected foul play in Ted Schneider's death. "But what was her motive?" Seth said.

Billy related what Des had said about Melissa's finally locating her long-lost father. "Her real dad was a drifter—just like Ted Schneider was. If Ted
was
Melissa's father, maybe she killed him to get back at him for abandoning her and never being a part of her life."

She looked at the clock again.
Damn it!
Nine fifty-five.

"Seth, can't you go any faster?" Billy asked frantically.

"Yeah, I could go a lot faster if there weren't cars on the road," he said.

"Okay, okay," she said, anxiously twisting her hands in her lap as she watched the city lights blitz past her window, feeling that they were on the verge of a major confrontation. If only they could make it to Melissa on time.