Spying in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

  After a couple swipes of mascara and a touch of Raspberry Perfection on my lips I was out the door.

  * * *

  Fernando’s salon was located on the ultra chic corner of Brighton and Beverly Boulevard, one block north of Rodeo, smack in the middle of the Beverly Hills Golden Triangle. When my stepfather, or Faux Dad as I’d affectionately nicknamed him, arrived on the west coast from Minnesota he was just plain Ralph, a slightly paunchy, pale, middle-aged hairdresser. Knowing no one in L.A. would get their hair done at a salon called ‘Ralph’s’, he reinvented himself with a fictitious Spanish ancestry, spray on tans twice a week, a salon in a prime Beverly Hills location and voila - Fernando was born, stylist to the very rich and semi-famous.

  In addition to his cut and color talents, Faux Dad also had a passion for interior decorating. (Mom swears he’s not gay, though I still have my doubts.) Currently Faux Dad was going through a Tuscan phase, painting the walls with a rusty orange glaze and hanging bunches of plastic red grapes and leafy vines from the rafters. Gilt frames held oil paintings of vineyards along the walls and soft classical music mixed with the sounds of blow-dryers, sprayers, and juicy Beverly gossip. All in all, it was an atmosphere that screamed for a glass of pricey merlot.

  “Maddie!” Marco, the receptionist, skipped out from behind his slick looking computer as I entered the salon, attacking me with air kisses. Marco was slim enough, pretty enough, and wore enough eye make-up to compete on America’s Next Top Model. And probably win. “How are you, dahling?” he asked in an accent that was pure San Francisco.

  “Suffering from a Ben and Jerry’s hangover.”

  Marco clucked his tongue. “Awe, poor baby.”

  “Are Mom and Ralph in yet?”

  “Fernando,” Marco emphasized, chastising me with his heavily lined eyes, “is doing a body wave for Mrs. Simpson.” He leaned in, gesturing to the back of the salon. “Jessica’s Mom.”

  “Ah.” I looked past the ‘crumbling’ palazzo walls of the reception area and spotted Ralph talking to a blonde under a beehive dryer. “What about Mom?”

  “Your mother’s in the back, doing a waxing for that psychic lady.”

  That ‘psychic lady’ was Mom’s best friend, Mrs. Rosenblatt. Mrs. Rosenblatt was a 300 plus pounds 5 time divorcee who favored mumus in neon colors and talked to the dead through her spirit guide, Albert. Eccentric didn’t even begin to describe Mrs. Rosenblatt.

  She and my mother met years ago when Mom went to Mrs. Rosenblatt for a psychic reading and claimed Mrs. R’s predictions came true the very next day. Okay, so the dark, handsome, stranger she was supposed to meet turned out to be Barney, a chocolate lab, but that was close enough for Mom. They’ve been firm friends ever since and Mom never goes more than five days without an aura cleanse from Mrs. R.

  I thanked Marco and made my way through the humming dryers and chemical smells of the salon to the back room, reserved for waxes and facials. When Mom and Faux Dad got married in July, Mom gave up her job as a high school math teacher and learned the fine art of the facial waxing. At least, I hoped to God she was doing a facial. I’d only had one cup of coffee and a Mrs. Rosenblatt bikini wax called for at least two cups. With a couple shots of whiskey.

  I gave a tentative knock on the door.

  “Uh, Mom? Got a sec?” I asked, slipping into the room painted with a fresco of the Italian hillside along the walls.

  I was relieved to find Mom hovering over Mrs. Rosenblatt’s mustache, though I cringed just a little at her outfit. I love my mother. I really do. I just wish she didn’t insist on getting dressed in the dark. She was wearing electric blue stretch pants, pink legwarmers and a pink sweatshirt with the neck hole cut out over a pair of black high-topped L.A. Gear sneakers, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since 1986. I think she was going for Jane Fonda chic but fell somewhere closer to Sweatin’ to the Oldies.

  “Hi, hon,” she greeted me, waving a wax strip in my direction. “What brings you here?”

  “You need a waxing?” Mrs. Rosenblatt asked, squinting at my upper lip. “Your mom’s a whiz with the wax.”

  “Uh, no, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “You sure?” Mrs. R squinted again. “Cause I could swear I see a little dust up there.”

  I self-consciously felt my upper lip.

  “Course, you know Albert says there are some cultures that prize hairy women,” she continued.

  Albert would know. In his earthly existence, Mrs. R claimed her spirit guide was a New York Times fact checker.

  “Of course, here in Lalaland hairy just means you ain’t been to the salon in awhile. If I wanna get a date with that fox on the senior bowling league, I gotta loose the mustache.” Mrs. R winked at me. “The Fox is Italian. They got them big hands and big noses and big…”

  “Okay, hold still for the wax.”

  I’ll say this for my mother, she has excellent timing.

  Mom pressed a strip onto Mrs. R’s upper lip, thankfully ceasing the flow of too-much-information before she could describe The Fox’s other attributes.

  “So, what does bring you down here today?” Mom asked, smoothing the strip down in all directions.

  “Well, I, I, uh…” I paused, not sure how best to drop the bombshell that my paternal half had not only contacted me, but might be dead in a ditch somewhere. “See I got this phone call, and…”

  Mom looked up, waiting for me to finish, a small frown settling between her thickly penciled eyebrows. “What is it Mads?”

  I decided the least cruel way to do it was quick and painless, like ripping off a band aid. Or a waxy bit of upper lip hair.

  “Larry called me.”

  Mom froze, her face going a shade of pale Nicole Kidman would be jealous of. Her mouth did an empty open and shut thing like a cod fish, then clamped into a thin tight line. “I see.”

  She grabbed a corner of the wax strip and yanked with a force that made me cringe.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt howled like a coyote in heat.

  So much for painless.

  “Mom, are you okay?” I asked as she attacked the left side of Mrs. R’s lip.

  “Fine.” Mom’s lips were starting to turn white from being clamped together so tightly.

  I rushed on, afraid she might attack my ‘dust’ next. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you, but he called last night and left a message on my machine. Only he didn’t say where he was calling from or leave a number or anything. He said he saw my name in the papers and… he needed my help.”

  Mom’s lips remained clamped as she ripped the second strip. Tears welled in Mrs. Rosenblatt’s eyes.

  “Oy, I hope that Fox is worth this,” Mrs. R wailed, rubbing her lip.

  Mom took a deep breath, closing her eyes in a little mini meditation. “What kind of help?” she finally asked.

  “I don’t know. He… the machine cut him off before he could say.” No sense in mentioning the gun shot until I knew for sure that it was one. Besides, Mom was proving to be dangerous with a wax kit in her hands and despite the reasonable person in me, I was beginning to fear her.

  “I see,” she said, clamping her lips together again.

  I cleared my throat, wishing I didn’t have to do this. “Look, I know you two…” I trailed off, her eyes boring into me beneath her 1984 powder blue eye-shadow. “I know he ditched us for a showgirl, which makes him maybe not your favorite person.”

  Mom made a sound like a snort.

  “…but despite all that, he is still my dad. And, well, I need to know. Do you know where he might be-”

  But Mom cut me off, advancing on me with a fresh wax strip. “I refuse to discuss the man, Madison.”

  I took one giant step back. When she used my full name, I knew she was serious. Generally my very Irish, very Catholic grandmother was the only person who called me Madison. Mom had only used my full name twice that I can remember. Once after the braces and Benny episode when she’d gone on to explain the birds, bees, and why I should wait until I was thirty
to have any contact with the opposite sex again. And the second time was when I’d accidentally maxed out her credit card in a bout of post-breakup shopping when I was eighteen. That had earned me an entire summer working at Hot Dog on a Stick to pay her back. (I still have nightmares about those hats.)

  “He left,” Mom said. “End of story.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but was stopped by Mrs. Rosenblatt laying a thick palm on my forehead.

  “Hold on, bubbee, I’m getting a vision.” Mrs. Rosenblatt rolled her eyes back in her head until she looked like an extra from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. “I see feathers and lipstick. Lots of red lipstick.” She paused. “Did your father ever work in cosmetics testing?”

  Mom and I did a simultaneous eye roll and Mom threw her hands up in the air in surrender. “Maddie, I honestly don’t know where he is,” she said.

  I watched her for a second, trying to decide if I believed her. “But even if you did, you won’t tell me, would you?”

  She set her mouth in that thin line again and shook her head.

  Part of me understood her anger. I mean, the man had left her alone with a young child to raise on her own. And I could only imagine the sting of being left for a five foot gazillion inch showgirl. That had to hurt. I tried to picture how I’d feel if I found out Ramirez had been shacked up with some topless dancer. Not too happy. And we were only dating! (Sort of. If you called one half naked encounter six weeks ago dating. Which, for lack of any other action, I did.) But I honestly couldn’t imagine what he might have done that was so bad she didn’t want me to even meet him. Just once.

  Unfortunately it was clear by the grim set of her mouth that I’d gotten all I was going to get out of Mom.

  “Fine,” I said, doing a mirror image of Mom’s thin lip routine. The two of us did a little stare down thing, which I’m pretty sure neither of us won, and I left.

  Luckily, being raised in L.A. had not only made me tough, but also resourceful. If Mom wouldn’t help me find my Dad, I’d find someone else who would.

  Marco was showing a woman with enormous Lucille ball red hair a new moisturizing mist product as I made my way back through the salon. I waited for him to finish then approached his desk.

  “Can you get online with that thing?” I asked, gesturing to his sleek, black computer.

  Marco shot me a look. “What do you think this is, the stone age? This is an eight-hundred mega-hertz Pentium processor with a four giga byte memory. With this baby I can download naked pictures of Brad Pitt before you could even say yummilicious.”

  Tempting…

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could google someone for me?”

  “But of course.” Marco sat down behind the computer, and pulled up the screen. “What’s the name?”

  I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the wax room, expecting Mom to appear any minute. “Larry Springer.”

  Marco typed the name in. “Twelve thousand hits.”

  Gee, that narrowed it down.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” he asked, clicking on the first couple of links on the screen. A web page for a Washington state senator and a link to a memorial page for a clergyman who died in 1842. Neither one particularly helpful.

  “I’m not sure,” I sighed. “An address or a phone number maybe? Any way to contact him.”

  “Ah!” Marco danced his fingers over the keyboard with practiced speed, pulling up a white pages directory. He keyed in the name. “Do you know what city?”

  I bit my lip, glancing over my shoulder again. “Try Las Vegas.”

  “Oooo, Sin City. My favorite town, honey.” Marco did an eyebrow waggle, adding the city to the search. A page of names and numbers came up. “Okay, we’ve got phone numbers for three Larry Springers, twelve L. Springers and a couple of Lawrences. No addresses. Who is this guy anyway?” Marco asked. “New boyfriend?”

  I heard the door to the wax room open and Mrs. R emerged, rubbing at an upper lip that looked like she’d been French kissing sandpaper.

  “Uh, no. He’s… someone I’m looking for,” I hedged. Marco was a sweetheart, but he lived for gossip. Telling Marco a secret is like taking out an ad in Cosmo. Every fashionable woman and gay man in the country would know about it.

  “Ooo, is this one of Ramir-” he paused, slapping a palm over his mouth as he remembered The Oath. “Uh, I mean, um, that hottie cop’s cases? Oh baby, would I like to work with him.” Marco began fanning himself.

  “No, it’s… personal.” I watched as Mom handed Mrs. R a bottle of lotion, motioning to her red upper lip.

  “Hey, can you print this page out for me?” I asked, positioning myself behind the monitor, hoping Mom didn’t see me.

  “Sure, thing honey,” Marco said, as the printer hummed to life.

  “Great. Thanks.” My attention was still absorbed by Mom and Mrs. R. They were walking toward the reception area, Mrs. R still rubbing at her lip, Mom making apologetic motions.

  “Here you go, dahling,” Marco handed me a sheet of paper, fresh out of the printer.

  “Thanks! Gotta go,” I said as I made a mad crouching dash for the front doors. “I owe you, Marco!”

  “Ciao, bella! Tell Mr. Hottie Pants I said ‘hi!’” I heard him yell as I passed through the glass front doors, doing the fastest run in two inch heels that I could to my Jeep parked a block and a half away.

  Once inside I scanned down the list trying to get up the nerve to whip out my cell phone and begin dialing. I tried not to think about the fact that at the other end of one of these numbers was my Dad. What would I say to him? Got your message, hope you’re not shot, why the hell did you leave before I could make any cool memories of us at the beach together? I didn’t know. All I knew was that until I actually talked to him, visions of that dead in a ditch thing were going to haunt me. I took a deep breath and punched in the first number.

  At this time of day I mostly got a lot of answering machines, some of which I weeded out immediately. The first Larry Springer sounded about eighty and the next two machines featured a college kid and a man with a heavy Spanish accent.

  I was halfway through the L. Springers when my stomach grumbled loudly enough to make me jump in my seat. Reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything since my B&J’s binge last night. I revved up the Jeep and hit the Mc Donald’s drive thru on Beverly and Wilshire, ordering a quarter pounder, large fries and a strawberry milkshake. Then threw in an apple pie for dessert. Hey, I figured this was my breakfast and lunch.

  By the time I’d finished off the last of the greasy fries and my milkshake had melted into dribbles of watery ice milk at the bottom of my cup, I’d narrowed the list down to three possible Larry’s. Two of the numbers rang and rang and the other was answered by the mechanical voice that came with the answering machine. Anyone of which could belong to my dad.

  What I needed now was some way to match the numbers with addresses. If I had an address, I could call the Vegas police and let them do a casual drive by to see if any of the houses had conspicuous dead bodies with gunshot wounds.

  I looked down at my digital clock. 4:15. Dana’s Prenatal Pilates class should be ending soon and if I hit the 405 now, I might be able to catch her before she started her Pole Dancing for Seniors session.

  After slogging through the pre- pre-rush hour traffic (Okay, fine, in L.A. the freeways always look like rush hour. But I for one chose to believe there’s a small window of time where I might actually be able to get from the Citadel to the Beverly Center in under an hour. Never mind that it’s between 3 and 5 am.) I pulled my jeep into the parking lot of the Sunset Gym, a huge concrete and glass structure that housed an Olympic sized swimming pool, seven racquetball courts, and it’s very own Starbucks. I declined the valet parking, figuring the thirty second walk from my car to the gym could count as my exercise for the day.

  The front counter today was manned by none other than Dana’s latest ex-boyfriend, No Neck Guy. No Neck had been one of Dana’s many roommates
at the Studio City duplex she shared with a handful of other actor slash personal trainers. They’d been hot and heavy for about two weeks before Dana caught No Neck hitting on one of the gym patrons. He claimed he was just measuring the size of her pecs, but even Dana didn’t buy that one. She gave him the dreaded don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you and put an ad in the Penny Saver for a new roomie. Currently residing in No Neck’s old bedroom at the Actor’s Duplex was Stick Figure Girl, who, rumor had it, had just landed a gig as Lindsay Lohan’s body double body double.

  I fished my gym ID out from the deep recesses of my purse (shoved beneath a Snickers bar and an empty M&M’s wrapper) and gave No Neck a little wave before scanning the main floor for Dana. I finally found her in one of the group class rooms, leading a handful of pregnant women in warm-down stretches. I did a quick check to make sure I didn’t still have strawberry milkshake breath, as the women waddled out and Dana jogged toward me, bottle of vitamin water in tow.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asked, taking a long sip. “You here for my pole dancing class?”

  “Oh gee, I left my stripper clothes at home.”

  Dana ignored my sarcasm. “Come on, it’s awesome on your glutes.”

  “Maybe next time. I just ate.” Two hours ago.

  Dana narrowed her eyes at me. “Are those French fry crumbs on your shirt?”

  Self-consciously, I wiped at my top.

  “Maddie, I thought we agreed you were going to take better care of your body. Do you know how bad French fries are for you? They’re like injecting fat right in your veins.”

  I did a deep sigh. “I’ll come in tomorrow and do sit-up penance.”

  “Promise?”

  Reluctantly I nodded. Feeling my stomach muscles clench around my quarter pounder in protest.

  “So,” Dana said, sipping her water, “if you’re not here for pole dancing, what’s up?”

  “I was wondering if you still have the number of that guy you dated at the phone company?”