Harley Kozak - Dating Is Murder

I thought of Annika, who never tired of watching the show, her show as much as anyone’s, even though she never turned up onscreen, in the credits, or on the payroll. She was so often on the set, Biological Clock ’s biggest fan. I could picture her here, one eye on the television as she called Munich for Bing and negotiated on his behalf in German.

It was on the set that I’d last seen her. Four nights ago, at a bad Chinese restaurant in North Hollywood. Long past midnight Bing had yelled, “That’s a wrap!” and Annika had followed me to the bathroom.

“I have a problem, Wollie,” she’d said. “I am in some trouble and I do not know who to tell who will not think badly of me. Could we talk for ten minutes? No more.”

I’d said yes, of course, knowing it would be far more than ten minutes, knowing Annika and I had never talked on any subject for less than an hour. But then Paul needed me to sign for a paycheck and Fredreeq needed to pull off the false eyelashes she’d been trying out on me, and Bing needed to discuss with us the bags under my eyes, and by the time I was alone and ready to go, Annika wasn’t around. I didn’t really look for her. I didn’t check the bathroom. I didn’t ask if anyone noticed where she’d gone. I was tired. I went home.

I hadn’t seen her since.

She was my friend, and I hadn’t even given her ten minutes.

I woke up Tuesday thinking about Carlito. We’d stopped filming a mere five hours earlier, after an on-camera discussion about Carlito’s desire to have children. His was a patriotic view of procreation, a commitment to keep America’s gene pool strong in the face of unattractive, evil, and just plain stupid people out there multiplying like rabbits. This, for me, was not Carlito’s finest hour.

Biological Clock taped six nights a week, with a different couple combination each night, and a new expert and restaurant every three days. Bing handed off this footage to a stressed-out editor, who turned it into a week’s worth of episodes, each episode featuring all the contestants. This gave viewers the impression that the six of us partied together Monday through Friday, when in fact each contestant worked two long nights per week, never encountering their same-sex competition. We did get to know our dates. After nine or ten hours together, bonds form-the kind, I suspect, that are experienced by victims of natural disasters.

How, I wondered, had Annika stayed on the set with us all those times and got up the next morning to take care of a toddler, her real job, her job job? After four hours of sleep, I felt like mice had been chewing on my esophagus.

I made my way to the navy blue kitchen, considered coffee, opted for apple juice, and headed for the shower before the kitchen walls made me nauseous. The apartment belonged to Hubie, a friend who needed someone to water his plants while he followed the rock group Supertramp around Europe. Hubie’s offer came just as my former fiancé, Doc, left for Taiwan. The house I’d shared with Doc was expensive, the thought of acquiring a roommate depressing, so I’d moved my stuff into storage and myself into Hubie’s until I could figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I hadn’t figured it out yet, but I still had five weeks. Hubie would be home by Christmas, and it was now a week before Thanksgiving.

I left another message on the phone machine of Annika’s host family, the Quinns. Then I got dressed and hit the road.

The weather was gorgeous, the air clear and smogless in a Disney-blue sky. Halfway to the 405, the every-hour-is-rush-hour freeway, I decided instead to take Beverly Glen Boulevard to the San Fernando Valley. I was passing De Neve Square, a tiny park above Sunset, when I remembered to turn on my cell phone. There was one message, from the friend whose frog mural I was painting. His Texas twang precluded the need to identify himself. “Darlin’, take the day off. My floor guy called to say he varnished them and they’re still wet. Check in tomorrow.”

Darn. I missed my frogs. And now I was halfway to Ventura Boulevard. Disinclined to make a U-turn, I checked my mental lists to see if I had any Valley errands.

Uh-oh. The Quinns-Annika’s host family-lived in the Valley. Encino.

Forget it. I could turn around. I was smack in the middle of the low-rent section of Beverly Glen, just past Fernbush, with old, yardless houses practically falling onto the street. I could take a right on a little road called Crater and turn around, no problem.

Yes, problem, said a voice in my head. Ruta. My childhood babysitter, dead for years, still talking to me. They don’t answer their phone, these people, you should go visit them.

“In L.A. you don’t just drop in on people,” I said. “It’s not done. I don’t know how they do things in Germany, but I don’t think Mrs. Glück expects me to run all over the San Fernando Valley, bothering everyone.”

Of course she expects it, Ruta said. She is a mother. This is her little girl.

“Plus, they have a dog. A guard dog, probably. A pit bull. Mr. Snuggles.”

Not to mention the fact that I didn’t know where in Encino they lived. I could go home, get Mrs. Glück’s number, call her in Germany, get the address, and visit the Quinns some other time. Immediately I felt better.

Until I remembered directory assistance. To my annoyance, 411 gave me an address on a street called Moon Canyon Road. What kind of people, I wondered, are listed in directory assistance? I tried to recall what Annika had said about them. A mom with some home-based business, a doctor or lawyer dad, a child Annika adored. I did not want to barge in on them.

None of this would’ve happened if you had taken more math in high school, Ruta said. Or finished college when you were supposed to, instead of futzing around, in and out, in and out all these years. Then you wouldn’t have need for a math tutor. Then you wouldn’t care so much about this girl. But you didn’t, so you did, and you do, so now you must.

I wished I were someone else: the kind of person who can be rude to telemarketers, who doesn’t recycle, someone who’d simply get herself another math tutor and to heck with somebody’s mother in Germany. I wished I’d given Annika ten minutes last week.

I was nearing Mulholland now, the summit of Beverly Glen, where the road was wider, the real estate costlier, and the view spectacular. I pulled over and searched my trunk for the Thomas Guide, a book of maps as common to Southern California cars as Gideon Bibles are to hotel-room drawers.

Fifteen minutes later I was in the wilds of Encino. I hadn’t even known Encino had wilds. I thought of Encino, when I thought about it at all, as suburbia, inhabited by women with standing appointments to “get their hair done” and men who maintained the lawn. Or hired immigrant workers to maintain the lawn. This Encino, however, was enchantingly rural, marred only by distinctive white trucks at the end of the street indicating a film shoot. Film shoots, around L.A., are as common as surfboards.

I drove slowly down Moon Canyon Road, enjoying the multicultural architecture: a Spanish hacienda next to an Italian villa opposite a Tudor manor. I came to the number I was looking for, which was painted on a rock, and parked on the street. An electronic gate stood wide open-a sign from the universe, if you believe in such things. The gate was wood and managed to look quaint rather than high security. I walked through it and followed a flagstone path through a yard that was half garden, half forest, complete with a pond inhabited by koi. The house was traditional American, butter-yellow clapboard with white trim on the shuttered windows. I looked up. A balcony extended from a second-story room. Wind chimes tinkled on a porch, and when I rang the doorbell harmonizing chimes sounded somewhere in the house.