Date Night
I know the Fimi Date Farm well enough. Marlo has already taken a few trips here, and I’ve generated my fair share of content by showing up in a cute outfit and chatting about their famous date shakes.
There’s a handful of these date ranches spread out across the greater Palm Springs area, and while the others have admittedly tastier produce, Fimi Farm is the most aesthetically pleasing of the bunch.
The grounds are meticulously maintained, not for the sake of the harvest, but to give tourists a hip, well-branded experience.
It’ll have them pulling off the freeway and enjoying an ice-cold shake for years to come.
I’ve never been here at night, though, and suddenly the familiar setting has transformed into something ominous.
The majority of the grounds are covered in towering date palms, their thick trunks aligned in perfectly even rows that stretch on and on for what seems like forever.
This pattern gives our surroundings a quality that’s both natural and surreal, the elements tamed into some vast mathematical grid for the sake of agriculture.
Strategically placed lighting shines up at the massive palm fronds from below, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
A long gravel road extends straight into the heart of the massive plot, culminating in a parking lot and a large ranch house that serves as a gift shop, a restaurant, and a launching point for their tractor-pulled farm tour.
It leaves every half hour from sunrise to sundown, and Marlo begs to go every time we’re here.
What I didn’t realize until now, however, is this structure also serves as the real-life home of Mary Fimi—current owner and operator of the decades-spanning date empire.
This place has been so thoroughly transformed into a tourist destination that I assumed everyone in the family had long since left, retiring to various sprawling mansions around Southern California.
According to Eddie Michaels, however, that’s not the case. Mary Fimi is somewhere inside, fast asleep.
Gravel crunches under our feet as we march through the darkness, then transitions into dirt as we make our way from the parking lot to the farm rows. We’re headed toward a flashlight that bobs and sways just a few yards ahead, a night watchman making his rounds.
Eddie is eerily silent as we move, his jovial personality now completely melted away to reveal something sharp and bitter underneath.
His physicality has even changed to match this inner turmoil, the once profoundly charismatic swagger now transformed into a haunting asymmetrical lurch on broken bones.
“Hey, guard! It’s your new best friend! Stop moving!” Eddie calls out, his voice a broken gurgle.
The flashlight halts immediately.
“Open up the building and turn off the alarm.”
All three of us head back toward the sprawling central ranch house, a truly bizarre trio cutting our way across the date orchard.
Unlike the last security guard we encountered, this one doesn’t appear to have a gun.
I should’ve expected this—private security carrying a firearm is actually pretty rare—but I still find myself disappointed.
At some point, I’ll have to make my move, and I’m doubtful the knife tucked away in my pocket will cut it.
I keep reaching down to feel the hidden blade, making sure it’s still there.
We arrive at the large, welcoming front entrance of the Fimi Date Farm visitor center. The security guard pulls out a small set of keys, opening the door and holding it for us as we cross the threshold.
Nearby, a wall panel starts to beep, warning everyone that the alarm is seconds away from triggering. Our new friend disables it.
Slowly, the overhead lights begin to flicker on, revealing a large, high-ceilinged room with wide-ranging food displays—specialty goods like spices, candy, hot sauce, and jerky.
Of course, dates are the centerpiece, thousands of the little brown morsels stuffed into translucent plastic boxes and stacked in a massive pyramid.
The walls are covered by an extensive painted mural that shows off a whimsical cartoon date farm on a sunny day.
A human-size animatronic date with arms and legs stands to our left, and the cartoon mascot moves one arm back and forth in an endless mechanical greeting, warmly welcoming every customer.
In the dead of night, the living date seems more eerie than friendly, his grin a little too wide and his bulbous eyes a little too excited.
“Where does Mary sleep?” Eddie snarls.
The security guard points to a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“Any more locks or alarms?” Eddie continues.
“One lock, but it’s part of the same alarm system,” the guard explains. “The whole thing is turned off now.” He removes a single silver key from his ring and hands it over.
“Thank you. Go turn off all the cameras and delete any security footage from this evening,” Eddie commands.
He reaches down and unplugs something from the back of the animatronic date, causing the robot’s arm to abruptly halt.
He holds up a long yellow cable. “When you get back, hang yourself with this extension cord.”
The security guard wanders off toward a different EMPLOYEES ONLY door, getting to work.
A surge of urgency pulses through me. There’s been so much death tonight that one more body might seem trivial, but as he strolls away I find myself noticing the little things about this man that will soon be gone forever.
I observe the particular gait to his walk, the slight goofiness in the way he smiled and nodded at Eddie’s last command.
This is someone’s son, maybe even someone’s father, and I have the power to save his life.
If I make a move right now, sneaking up behind Eddie and driving this knife right into his neck, then there might be a chance.
The bones are already broken, which doesn’t bode well for my attack doing much of anything, but it also means that I could sever some very important tendons with a quick sawing motion.
I just need to get a little closer and position mysel—
Eddie’s on the move again, cutting my inner monologue short. The lurching, sequin-covered musician pushes onward, forcing me to hurry behind as we make our way through the next door.
We’re now standing at the edge of a massive inner courtyard.
The rest of the ranch buildings stretch around us in a protective square, but this middle section is dedicated to a garden and a modest single-story bungalow.
The cottage is humble, much smaller than I’d expect from a date-fortune heiress.
I suddenly find myself curious about the woman Eddie’s about to murder. Witnessing the complexity of all these lives, the strange individual quirks of each victim, has changed me. I can feel the sentimentality creeping through my veins in a way I never expected.
A body is a body, but all this biological matter doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Whether I like it or not, there’s a story to every pile of flesh and blood and bone.
As we pass through the garden, Eddie notices something shiny near a potted plant. He kneels down and picks it up—a pruning knife with a long-hooked blade. This is a tool for harvesting dates, but I have a feeling Eddie’s got something else in mind.
Do it now. Stab deep into that broken neck and saw as hard as you can. Cut the tendons. Split the spine. Take his head clean off.
Eddie is still crouched next to me, his shiny new tool glinting in the moonlight as he inspects its jagged edge, and from this angle the cold flesh of his neck looks beautifully tender.
Again, I reach into my pocket, considering my own knife and charting its path in my mind.
My heart is slamming with unbridled ferocity, every beat a call to action.
Do it!
I make my decision, moving to pull out the blade … then I immediately reverse course as Eddie straightens up and continues onward.
“This should get the job done,” he announces.
I fall back in line, continuing after him down the garden walkway.
We use the key and slip into Mary’s house.
At first, the whole place is shrouded in darkness, then moments later it’s bathed in the soft, warm glow of an end table lamp that Eddie finds and switches on.
We’re standing in the middle of a well-furnished living room, small and cozy but designed with impeccable taste.
Plenty of homes out here shoot for a bohemian desert aesthetic, but it often comes off as a little too clean.
Whoever did this work, however, is the real deal.
There’s a coffee table atop a thick beige rug, and two large, low couches are positioned around it.
A lambskin blanket is thrown over one of them, and hanging behind the other is an intricate woven tapestry.
Straight ahead, the room connects to a kitchen, and to the left is a standing mirror leaning against the wall.
There are two doors near the mirror, and one of them is cracked open.
Someone stirs within. “Hello?” croaks a soft voice from the darkness.
Eddie clears his throat. “Stop moving.”
The rustling halts.
“What’s your name,” he continues.
“Mary Fimi.”
“You are calm and happy,” Eddie says, casually gazing at the hooked blade in his hand. “You feel no pain, and you can thank my companion for that. She’s a bleeding heart.”
“Thank you,” Mary yells from the other room, her upbeat tone contrasting with the tense mood of this late-night home invasion.
Eddie looks like a man who’s finally come to the end of a long journey, exhausted yet satisfied. He turns to me.
“Today’s been a disaster,” he says, chuckling to himself, “but you made it pretty fun. You’re a good kid.”
I remain silent.
“Best I’ve had in … four hundred years maybe?” Eddie opines, considering this and then finally shrugging it off. “Anyway, I’ll be right back. Don’t move, Poppy.”