Chapter 27
27
“W hat would the non-emergency be this time?” I asked my mother as her security team escorted me inside her office at city hall.
She dismissed the man and woman who’d picked me up at my place less than ten minutes before and only talked once they had left the room.
“Elena, you look terrible. What happened to you?” Of course, she’d be the one to realize that I hadn’t seen shampoo, body wash, or a hair dryer in days. She never missed anything.
“Ah, you know, the life of the in-between-gigs screenwriter who gets interrogated by the police,” I said, trying to sound cool.
“I wouldn’t know, actually.” She was nothing if not proper. “And this wasn’t a summons .”
“Really? You don’t want to advise me on my attire for next week’s dinner thingy with the San Francisco people, or remind me not to smoke pot in public? I switched to edibles anyway.”
“I wish you stayed away from that stuff altogether.”
“Why? It’s fucking legal in California!”
“Elena, language. And I didn’t make you come here to talk about your questionable lifestyle choices.” I wanted to say she’d just admitted that she had indeed summoned me, but she continued, “But to talk about your questionable choices in men.”
My face must have said pretty transparently, What the actual fuck? because she explained herself.
“It’s come to my attention that Victor and you are no longer an item,” she said, choosing to use a euphemism as usual.
“You politicians are even faster at gossip than writers. Technically , we haven’t been an item for months. Today we just broke up.”
“And I can infer that means you resumed your entanglement with the reporter?”
“Again, if we get technical, the entanglement was resumed months ago. When he published an article exposing the man who had attempted to coerce me into sexual favors. And after we’d broken up because I was told not to tell him about that man so that I wouldn’t jeopardize your career.” I may have sounded a tad bitter.
My mother shook her head. “Elena, it’s unbecoming of you to talk about these things.”
“Oh my god! You’re the fucking worst!”
“Don’t be a silly child, and don’t blame me for your relationship failures. Are we done with the tantrum?”
“Tell me what you wanted when you summoned me here,” I said, as I was still standing in the middle of her office, my arms crossed in an almost defensive stance.
“I wanted to warn you that your reporter may be about to get arrested. You see, I do love and care about my daughter even if she feels like I’m the worst mother on earth.”
“Not the worst. Just not as great as you used to be.”
“Before I became a politician and had to put some of my needs before yours, you mean?” She was better at this game than I was. “Can we leave your mommy issues aside? I just told you the reporter is going to get arrested. Who’s being selfish now?”
Touché.
“Does Dad know about the arrest?” I pretended I hadn’t heard that last part.
“I’ll brief him on the subject when we finish our meeting.” The woman felt absolutely no embarrassment for using the verb brief when referring to a chat with her husband or the noun meeting while talking about seeing her older daughter. I wondered if she conferred with Marta.
“Why are the cops arresting David?” I finally managed to say. “He didn’t kill Henry.”
“They’re not charging him with murder at the moment,” my mother said. “But your whole dramatic gesture of coming clean about Henry’s attempt with you has them thinking David had even more motive than they initially thought to get rid of Henry. They’re now thinking it may have been a crime of passion to avenge your virtue.”
Rage caught in my throat. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous or not, that’s why you should have stayed quiet. Nothing good ever comes from stirring up trouble,” my mother said, and I hated when she was right. “They also have CCTV that seems to prove he broke into Henry’s car.”
“Seriously? If they have him on CCTV, they have me as well. And you don’t look even mildly surprised that I’m telling you this.”
“They’re only interested in him—at this point,” she said. “But Elena, stop doing silly things. There’s only so much I can do to keep you out of this.”
I wasn’t sure whether to thank her for putting pressure on the LAPD so that they would leave me alone, get mad because she hadn’t done the same for David, be grateful because at least she’d warned me about David being arrested and I could warn him...
“I’ll do my best not to disappoint you,” I said. When in doubt, I always opted for irreverence.
“Your efforts are always appreciated,” she said. She wasn’t being sarcastic. “And, Elena, perhaps you should talk to that reporter of yours.”
“His name is David, as you know perfectly well since you forced me to have him over at your house several times when we were together.”
“ Were together? Are you not together now then?”
“Never mind,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What should me and David talk about, according to you?”
“His job offer,” my mother said.
I blinked, clearly not knowing what she was talking about.
One good thing about Aurora Valls: She didn’t beat you when you were down—unless you were her political opponent—or when you were doubting whether your lover was hiding something from you. So she didn’t say anything else about the subject. But my mother was now the second person at city hall to warn me about a job offer that had apparently been extended to David that I knew nothing about.
“Will that be all?” I changed subjects.
“You can be dismissed, but your dad asked me to remind you that you promised to join us for brunch on Sunday.” I probably uttered my chagrin too vocally because she added, “We’re going to the Four Seasons.”
That changed things. Brunch at the five-star hotel features a buffet stuffed with unlimited heirloom tomato salad, avocado toast, squash blossom pizza, and—my favorite—matcha-based margaritas. And I wasn’t going to pick up the check.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said. There was nothing I liked more than being drunk on antioxidant green powder and tequila on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
…
I called David straight from city hall, right outside my mother’s office doors.
“I need you to get out of your apartment immediately,” I told him when he picked up the phone. “Grab your computer, maybe a change of clothes, and get in the car.”
“What are you talking about?” He didn’t sound happy.
“The police are going to arrest you, and it’s better if they don’t find you right away. That gives us some more time.”
“Some more time to solve the case?” he asked, still unconvinced.
“Exactly, and to get you that Pulitzer.” I then realized that my plan, which had been concocted on the spot, had a very big flaw. “Oh shit!”
“What else is wrong?”
“If the cops get a warrant, they’ll search your place and find?—”
“Don’t worry about that. That’s been handled.”
“Oh my god, you sounded exactly like Olivia Pope in Scandal . It gave me chills!”
He huffed out a laugh. “No clue what or who you’re talking about.”
“It’s impossible to pay you a compliment with your pop culture illiteracy,” I complained. “I compared you to someone very sexy.”
“I see. I like that,” he told me, and the way he said those words, I knew he liked being called sexy. “I should probably let you go as it looks like I’m on the run.”
“We were flirting and not focusing on the case again, right?”
“Yeah, we were—we are.”
“Okay, bye!” I said. “Wait! It’s better if you take my car instead of yours. There’s a spare key card at my place. It’s inside the bowl at the entrance where I put all the random crap.”
“I don’t like your car,” he protested.
“Liar. Also, I don’t care,” I said. “The police will probably be looking for yours. And David, can you pick me up at city hall? My mother didn’t see it necessary to provide me with a ride back home.”