Whose Number Is Up, Anyway?. Stevi Mittman

my first client, got murdered, he didn’t know the camera had to be attached to anything. I could tell him that Rio and wires in the same vicinity can only lead to disaster, thereby lousing up his new business and any chance I might have to be free of his constant requests for financial assistance so that he can fulfill the ridiculous promises he makes to our children. And in the process come off like a bitchy, vindictive ex-wife—not unlike the one Steve is always complaining about.

      Not so good. And that’s not even considering what my mother’s old boyfriend, Carmine De’Guisseppe, would have his goons do to Rio if he couldn’t make his payments.

      Since I really don’t want to see my children’s father castrated…

      Oh, wait.

      Let me think.

      No. Despite some sort of poetic justice for his misdeeds, I can see clearly that my only viable option is to oversee his job myself and simply check on his work after hours when no one else is around. Maybe with a little help from Drew, even. He knows surveillance inside and out, so to speak. And the idea of testing it with ourselves—in a pool hall, no less—just might appeal to him, too.

      

      I GET MARK SET doing the steel squares, which I’ve tested to my satisfaction, and then attempt to convince Bobbie to spend a couple of hours helping me win Rita Kroll as a client before my appointment with the pool-table salesman.

      Rita no doubt remembers me as the dumpy little girl around the corner who had no sense of style. The girl who wore black for six years running and even went goth before it had its moment in the sun.

      Which is why it’s so important that Bobbie come with me. She exudes a certain air of confidence which, to be honest, I lack. It’s not that I don’t know I’m talented, professional and competent. It’s just that, from her perfectly-styled-and-colored hair (red with gold highlights this week) to her freshly-pedicured toes (with French tips, of course), Bobbie’s whole persona seems to shout that she knows what she’s doing. And if you have any desire to appear the same way, she’s who you’d hire.

      Not that Bobbie knows a thing about decorating or anything beyond the right person to hire to acquire “the look.”

      I’m the one with the degree.

      Bobbie’s the one with panache.

      We’re a good team.

      While it takes me a good half hour and the promise that we can stop at DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) to look for Jimmy Choos—which I can guarantee won’t be there—on the way back, she does agree to go with me. At which point I remember that there is a message from Rita waiting for me on my cell phone.

      Punching up the message, I listen to a tearful voice canceling our appointment. Great. I really can’t afford to lose clients, especially ones I don’t even have yet. Even if they are referrals from my mother and sure to be disasters.

      I reach Rita to tell her that I’ve gotten her message. Okay, I admit that I thought about pretending I didn’t receive it and just showing up because it would be really hard for her to send me from her doorstep. But I don’t.

      “It’s a bad time, Teddi dear,” she tells me.

      I offer to rearrange my schedule and see her later in the week, if that would help.

      It won’t. “It’s not that I’m avoiding you,” she says. “You know I’d do anything for your mother. It’s just…” She sniffs and I hear her blowing her nose before she continues. “I lost my brother last week. We just finished sitting shivah the day before yesterday. I really can’t think about decorating now.”

      I make all the requisite noises, tell her I’m so sorry for her loss, that of course I understand, that whenever she’s ready to reschedule, just let me know.

      “Call me next week,” she says, taking me by surprise. My mother must have really put the screws to her.

      As for me, I’m relieved to have the extra time to put in at the alley without losing a potential customer.

      And no, that does not mean I’m glad the woman’s brother died, for heaven’s sake. She’s a sweet old lady. Her brother was probably a hundred and two.

      “Good,” Bobbie says when I tell her. “Then I’m off to get gorgeous shoes while the sale is still on.”

      Mark clucks as Bobbie leaves. He’s up on a ladder and he asks me to hand him a few squares.

      “A man is dead,” I say as I hold up the pieces of steel and he leans down to take them. “Doesn’t anybody care?”

      “I don’t know, Teddi. Maybe they’re used to it. With you, there’s usually a body, beautiful.”

      His eyes stray down my cleavage and because I’m reaching up and my hands are full there isn’t much I can do about it.

      “Or maybe I should say, ‘With you, there’s usually a beautiful body.’”

      Before I can tell him that teasing an old lady isn’t nice, someone sidles up from behind and reaches around me. “Want me to help you hold those?” a deep voice asks and I realize it’s Rio.

      Ordinarily, Mark would think the remark was funny…it’s the kind he’d make. But he dislikes my ex-husband almost as much as I do, and almost as much as he dislikes Drew.

      I take a hard step back, right on Rio’s instep, and get him in the ribs with my elbow, apologizing profusely as I do, claiming I didn’t realize he was there.

      “Do give these to Mark,” I say, trying to hand him the steel sheets, but he’s busy looking for a chair or maybe a sympathetic witness.

      

      THIS AFTERNOON, my little one, Alyssa, is going home with Jill Roseman. My big ones are meeting me at L.I. Lanes. Dana will be thrilled to see her dad. Jesse will be morose.

      They will both be watching for signs that I might be softening toward their father—Dana hoping, Jesse dreading.

      Before I head for the alley, I stop by Bobbie’s to pick up some carpet samples I left there. Under the pretext of not knowing where she’s put them, she drags me up to her bedroom, where she’s got several outfits laid out on her bed.

      “Try this,” she says, holding her shortest skirt up in front of my jeans. “It’s stretch and it’ll go perfectly with my little strippy strappy Manolos.”

      Looking down, I notice that—ta da—I’m already dressed. And I point this out to Bobbie, who looks me over and simply says, “Not.”

      “Try the skirt,” she insists.

      I remind her that I am going to work, and not as a streetwalker.

      “Part of your work is attitude,” she tells me. I swear she and my mother have read and reread the same chapter of that Secret Handbook of Long Island Rules a hundred times. “And to exude attitude you’ve got to feel it—feel in charge. More than in charge. You’ve got to feel and project superiority. In this skirt and a pair of stilettos, you’re too good for the likes of your ex-husband and for decorating bowling alleys and for everything—except me, of course.”

      She isn’t kidding.

      “Try it on. See if it doesn’t make you feel like an authority.”

      “On what?” I ask, slipping out of my jeans and holding the skirt up in front of my ratty underwear—which I really ought to replace if Drew Scoones is back in my life.

      I can barely make myself put the skirt on, but I know that Bobbie won’t let me refuse it until I do. Meanwhile she roots around in the closet, no doubt looking for shoes I could break an ankle in.

      “Perfect!” she shouts when she reemerges from the closet and takes a look at me. I look in the mirror, trying to see what she sees, while she straightens my shoulders before taking a step back. “What do you think?”

      I