Chapter 10 #2
“So, you like the place?” Theo asked.
Jamie looked around, cataloging the dozens of carcasses that had been stuffed, shellacked, and mounted on the walls.
A bronzed turtle rested on the coffee table next to a stuffed squirrel who was holding a candy dish.
She tore her eyes away from the menagerie of dead critters and drew her attention back to Theo, who handed her a drink.
Brown liquor, little cherry, huge ice cube that hadn’t even started to melt yet.
“It’s really…” she wanted to say creepy but decided that might be too rude, so she went with “interesting.” She motioned to the walls.
“Ah, it’s an incredible collection, if I do say so myself.” Theo grinned as he regarded the walls.
Jamie sensed something. “Wait a minute. Are these yours?”
Theo bowed like a prince. “I am the artist responsible for all the work you see before you.”
“The art?”
“Yes, I do all my own work. I have a deep and abiding love for taxidermy.” He led her by the arm toward the back of the bar. “Let me show you my favorite.”
She warily allowed herself to be steered to the darker recesses of the bar, her head on a swivel trying to locate the nearest exit just in case. “So, I presume you hunt these animals and stuff them?” she asked.
“Everyone has a hobby, right?” he said brightly. He stopped and pointed to yet another poor animal head. But this time it was a chihuahua. The little gold plate next to the poor glass-eyed dog read Lola.
“You shot and stuffed your dog?” Jamie’s mouth hung agape until she had to use her hand to close it.
He chuckled. “I didn’t shoot her. Are you crazy?”
Jamie muttered under her breath, “I am definitely not this crazy,” as the hair rose on the back of her neck.
Theo raised his hand to pet the tiny dog head. Jamie shuddered. Theo continued, “I had her euthanized at the end, then I took her home, removed all her internal organs, and—”
“Please don’t say you had fava beans and a nice chianti,” Jamie interrupted.
“Ha! You’re funny—then I had her freeze-dried over a series of months, painstakingly added every hair back on to her head, and voilà! Lola is back with us.”
“She sure is.” Jamie gave a wan smile and started sweating as she worked out how she was going to get the fuck out of here without making it weird, or alerting Theo the Chihuahua Slayer to her flee response.
Lord knows what kind of dungeon existed under this bar.
At the moment, Theo seemed unaware of how appalling she found all this.
In fact, he might have mistaken her reaction as curiosity.
“The art of preserving animals, including pets, dates back to ancient times,” Theo began.
“Cleopatra had several of her lions preserved. In the Victorian era, it was in vogue for affluent families to have their hunting dogs preserved. In fact, Lewis Carroll was rumored to have had the Cheshire Cat—real name Wallace—from Alice in Wonderland stuffed and placed on the piano for inspiration.” Theo led her back to their barstools and Jamie followed, thrilled to be closer to the door.
“Fascinating,” Jamie said as her eyes continued to take in his expansive macabre collection.
She spotted a stuffed manatee, the gentle sea cow of the ocean, propped up, arms holding a serving tray, smiling in the corner.
Weren’t they endangered? She couldn’t help herself.
“But, aren’t manatees federally protected because they’re endangered? ”
Theo smiled at her and she saw the smallest twitch on his upper lip, his eyes fixed and slightly glassy, as if caught with an ax in his hand. “No, no, no, no, they’re merely considered vulnerable. I had a permit.”
Dear God, man.
An awkward silence stretched out before them for what seemed like a year before he turned on his heel and wandered deeper into the back of the room. Jamie slowly moved forward, keeping her eyes on the door.
“Have you ever thought about it?” Theo asked.
“What? Stuffing my dog?”
“No, I mean the larger scope of taxidermy.” Theo gazed at the walls again, marveling at his morbid creations.
Jamie followed his eye and caught an iguana, prairie dog, honey badger.
“I wish it was socially acceptable to taxidermy humans. My mother just passed away. What I wouldn’t give to see her head—”
“I’m going to have to stop you right there, Doc McStuffins.
” Jamie drained her drink, slammed the glass down, and wiped her mouth.
“The suggestion of wanting to mount your mother’s head on the wall is just a bridge too far.
I know I haven’t been on a date in a while, but is it too much to ask to have a normal conversation about what your first concert was or if you’ve been to Italy?
You had to go full-weirdo in the first fifteen minutes?
I’ve known serial killers who were less creepy! ”
Theo raised his eyebrows at her outburst but, she noticed, did not rush to gag her or secure her with zip ties, so at least there was that.
“You know, Jamie, you’re really something.
I saw your profile,” Theo sneered. He shook his head as if he was exhausted by the whole affair.
“You’re not thin. You’re not young. You’re not stylish.
So, I thought, why not, maybe she’ll have something else to offer, like an open mind.
Serves me right for giving a woman like you a chance.
” He shrugged as if he had been the fool.
Her faced burned as if she’d been slapped.
But losing her emotions in front of this freak would only make her hate herself.
So, she sniffed and said, “I’m so glad I didn’t shave my legs for you.
” She turned on her wedge heel and fled, leaving Theo confused by her comment and surrounded by his ghastly zoo of dead fauna.
She rushed outside the portico, took off her wedges, and jogged the four blocks back to Pier Avenue where there were lights, restaurants, and witnesses.
When she finally stopped to catch her breath, she reminded herself to pay attention to her intuition.
Something in her had sensed Theo’s bizarre proclivities.
All she had to do was pay attention. She vowed not to ignore herself again.
As she removed her makeup, Jamie mulled over her disaster of a first online date.
She thought of her hairy legs, her gray hairs that kept sprouting up, the cellulite she couldn’t exfoliate away on her backside, and the forty-one candles on her digital birthday cake.
And even though Theo turned out to be the Jeffrey Dahmer of animals, his words still echoed.
You’re not thin. You’re not young. You’re not stylish.
Jamie was running out of time. Not only to find a date for her mother’s wedding, but running out of time for all the things life seemed to promise.
She had convinced herself that she was fine alone.
And she was. Fine. But suddenly, her old version of fine wasn’t fine enough.
What weird wormhole had her mother’s threat opened up in her brain?
Dare she dream about finding her soulmate?
Ugh, that seemed impossible. But what about finding a soulmate adjacent?
Surely, she could find someone who loved watching Jeopardy!
and rescued dogs and hated eggbites as much as she did.
She didn’t expect to live in a Hallmark Christmas movie, but she thought she deserved a shot at finding love, or at least something like it.
Right?
Right?
She was running out of time. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
Well, almost nothing.
Jamie texted her best friend with four little words:
“I need your help.”
In a charming Hermosa Beach bungalow with a patio that had a sunset view, Derick Hampton finished making his dirty martini, read the text, and said to himself, “Well, it’s about damn time.”
While reading up on how one might address the president of the United States at a White House dinner should that chance ever come her way, Elaine Cromwell Frisco was alerted to a new appointment added to Jamie’s calendar.
She squinted at it, smiled, and sent a text off to Lorna Gray, assured now that the first brick in her yellow brick road had been laid.