ACT 1: THE SONG
CHAPTER 1
*BATHSHEBA*
“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.”
ARISTOPHANES
~Late June~
Am I . . . drunk?
Returning my half-drained glass to the table without taking another sip, I removed my attention from the six-foot-four, two-sixty, brown-haired, brown-eyed white man at the bar (conceal carrying beneath his ill-cut black suit) and squinted at the bottle of wine sitting at my one o’clock.
The bottle drifted to the left without actually moving and the room gave a slight spin.
“Ugh.” Dropping my gaze and blinking rapidly, I tried again with the knife and spoon next to my empty dinner plate. They also drifted without moving. I winced. Light chatter and the delicate clinking of utensils connecting with dishes faded as I worked to correct my swimming vision.
No use. I’m drunk.
The bottle of wine was still two-thirds full. A waiter had uncorked it in front of me approximately twenty-five minutes ago while offering assurances that “my date” would be here within a half hour. The mystery man—known to me only as Mr. Black—had apparently called the restaurant and sent the bottle as an apology for his tardiness. I was told he hoped “his date” would consider staying until he arrived.
Just so y’all know, I wasn’t Mr. Black’s date. I was a decoy date, doing a favor for my good friend Ryaine O’Rourke and posing as her body double one last time. I didn’t mind. She’d wasted enough of her life and nursed too many broken hearts thanks to Hollywood stud duds. But given my sudden and surprising state of inebriation at present, completing this evening’s mission seemed doubtful.
I sighed, slurring to no one in particular, “Well, that’s just fine and dandy.” I’d washed and fixed my hair for this, and the dress had been steam pressed for the occasion. What a waste.
Originally, I hadn’t planned on drinking any of the apology wine, but sitting in this here restaurant, in this here booth, on this here numb backside of mine all by myself was just as exciting as a mashed potato sandwich with a saltine salad. Before I’d touched the wine, I’d spent ten minutes staring at the uncorked bottle. And that’s not to mention the hour I’d already waited for Ryaine’s blind date. After all that waiting, I could see no harm in having a glass.
To be clear, her date was not an hour and twenty-five minutes late. He was only twenty-five minutes late. I’d been an hour early. I’m that person who always arrives in advance everywhere and every time and for everything. The more anxious I felt about a situation, the earlier I arrived. I needed to scope out the exits, the layout of the furniture, the flow of foot traffic, proximity to hospitals and fire stations, how close to maximum occupancy the establishment operated, etc.
Consider it an occupational hazard, even though I wasn’t necessarily here tonight in a professional capacity. I no longer worked for Ryaine as of two weeks ago and she wasn’t paying me to do a background check or pull together a dossier on this guy. She’d asked—pleaded, actually—and I’d accepted. I loved and cared about her. Which, ultimately, was how I’d talked myself into drinking the free apology wine.
How was it possible to be more than tipsy but less than drunk on a mere one and a half glasses of wine? Maybe it’s the antihistamines?
Screwing up my face, I plucked my clutch from the booth at my side and dug around for the prescription paperwork provided by the pharmacist this afternoon. I unfolded it, trying to remember if I’d ever had alcohol and taken Benadryl before. Maybe that one time at that barbeque where I’d helped move that beehive? Yep. I’d had two beers, three stings, one oral tablet, and had felt perfectly fine.
Ignoring the man I’d been eavesdropping on sitting at the table to my right and his alarming overuse of the word groovy—chin-length gray hair, salt-and-pepper beard, white skin, five-foot-eight, one hundred fifteen pounds soaking wet, I reckoned—I used every ounce of my brainpower to focus on the printed information sheet.
“Possible serious, fatal interactions: MAO inhibitors . . .” Reading out loud but at a whisper, I went through the full list of interactions—potentially fatal to mildly problematic—squint-blinking at intervals. I ended up reading it six times before I found alcohol buried in there between opioid pain relievers and marijuana. “Well. There you go.”
Swallowing around the odd, heavy feel of my tongue, I took a deep breath, methodically refolded the info sheet, and tucked it back in my purse. Alcohol had been listed under what to avoid, so I didn’t think I needed to go to the hospital. Steadying myself, I reached for my water and drank half the glass. Maybe I could just go home and sleep it off.
“Mademoiselle, would you like the cocktail menu?” The waiter from before had suddenly reappeared and spoke from my left. This was a good thing since I’d need his help moving the table.
I’d had two options upon my arrival: claim the chair facing the booth, which would place my back to the room, or opt for the booth side, which necessitated that the table be pulled out before I could sit and then be pushed back in once I was settled. I’d chosen the booth, obviously. At five-foot-two, I had squeezed myself into and out of many tight spaces. But I wasn’t sitting with my back to a room. Ever.
“No, thank you.” Not trusting myself to roll a turnip let alone move a table covered in plates and glasses and an uncorked bottle of free wine, I gestured to myself and the booth. “Could you help me move the table, please? I’m afraid I must skedaddle—I mean, I must depart.”
“B—but mademoiselle.” The waiter seemed agitated, so I squinted at him. And what do you know, he looked just as agitated as he sounded. “You cannot leave. Your Mr. Black arrived a few minutes ago. He’s just there with Ana Ortega and Tom Low, as you see. But he finds himself entrenched, which I’m sure is understandable given . . .”
Tom Low? Ana Ortega? Those were some serious hard-hitters, the types of high-profile Hollywood A-listers I hoped the studio would assign to me as clients when I reported to my new job tomorrow. I’d already received a packet on my first assignment detailing my cover story, travel expectations, and so forth. But the only identifying details on the client had been the person’s height, weight, and age: six-foot-one, one hundred eighty-five pounds, twenty-nine.
Shifting my squint to the front of the restaurant—a chic yet bottlenecky design that didn’t allow for proper traffic flow and was a blatant fire hazard—I spotted a few bodies making a fuss at the entrance, giving each other air-kisses. Sure enough, Tom Low, Ana Ortega, and a cluster of fancy-looking folks plugged the walkway by the maître d' stand.
One man with his back to me seemed to be at the center of the fawning tsunami. Other than taking note of Tom Low and Ana Ortega, I skipped over the rest without categorizing them by physical attributes, as I always do. My drunken vision wouldn’t allow it and it didn’t matter. I needed to leave.
Plus, really! If this Mr. Black guy Ryaine’s agent set her up with had arrived a few minutes ago, why was he over there giving air-kisses and not over here meeting the date he’d left waiting for almost a half hour? And didn’t that just tell me everything I needed to know. Ryaine didn’t need another attention-hungry sycophant for a boyfriend, she’d dated enough of those already.