But, good God, she’s annoying. And mean. She’s like a city squirrel: all cute and fuzzy-seeming but will fuck you up if you touch her nuts. Why is she mad at me for seeing her when nobody else can? It’s not like I chose that. But as we speak it becomes clear that it was never about me. It’s about her getting to someone else and me getting in the way. The flicker in her eyes when I mention Zebulund’s name confirms it.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” My chin lifts.
I think she’s about to challenge me to fisticuffs but something else happens. Her eyes narrow and I can almost see a choice being made in them. “Yes.”
Well, I’ll be. “You’re trying to do a story on him?”
She sucks in her lips and chews on them. I wait her out. I can wait all day, lady.
Again she says, “Yes.”
“You thought by following me, you could get to him?”
“I still think that.”
I frown and spill the other worry that has bothered me all night long. “How much did you hear last night? At the theater? And before, at the hotel? Were you there listening to the call with my mom?”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on all that stuff.” She seems genuinely abashed but then adds, “Well, I mean, of course, I did but only because I thought it would relate to Zebulund. The stuff back in Wyoming I don’t care about.”
“Nebraska.”
“Whatever.”
“Not whatever. They’re two totally different states.”
She holds her arms wide apart. Her right hand wiggles. “New York.” She wiggles her left. “LA.” Then claps them together. “Everything else is cornfields and mountains as far as I’m concerned.”
I laugh with incredulity. “You really are a delight. Your friends must love you.”
Her little rosebud mouth purses. “Oh yeah, you’re the expert on friends when the only person you could take me to was your PA, and you didn’t even know she was engaged.”
“I knew she was engaged.” We’re inches apart, facing off.
“What’s her fiancé’s name?”
Fuck. “This isn’t about Rachel. This is about you stalking me. I can have you arrested.”
“You have no proof.” She pokes my chest, looks at her finger, and drops her balled fist to her side.
I probably don’t have any proof. “I have no connection to Marty Zebulund. I don’t even know him.”
“Not yet.” Her eyes light up in a particularly unnerving way. “But you did get a very special invite, if I recall.”
“I’m not going to that.”
“Rachel agrees that you should.”
I replay what I can from that time and wonder what else she heard. I think again of Paul and my family back home and the anger starts to return.
“What. Did. You. Hear?”
“Just from right before Zebulund got there. And calm your brows. I’m going somewhere with this. I have an idea.”
“Lucky me.”
“Yeah, you are lucky.”
I grind my molars. I’m so sick of being told I’m lucky and that’s the only reason I’m here. I won the genetic lottery, right?
