Kathryn Lilley: Makeovers Can Be Murder

Something was definitely wrong.

When I returned to the studio that afternoon, I left not one, but two messages on Jonathan′s cell phone. I had to handle some assignment-desk chores for Beatty while he recovered from an emergency root canal; meanwhile, I kept compulsively checking the messages on my landline at home. By five p.m., Jonathan still hadn′t called me back. That would be ten p.m. in London -plenty late enough for his mother to be asleep.

Before leaving the second message for him, I sought out the privacy of a sound booth. I perched on a stool, then listened with mounting tension to his greeting message. In the past, I′d always felt soothed by the sound of his voice, even in a recording. Not this time.

″Jonathan here,″ came his message. ″Leave a word and I′ll ring you back.″

″But you′re not ringing me back,″ I blurted after the beep. ″It′s me. Is your mom okay? Are you ? Please call me as soon as you get this message. I love you.″

My tongue tripped over the ″I love you,″ three words that had always rolled off it so easily before. It was almost embarrassing how totally, completely consumed I was by Jonathan. Maybe that was why I′d always felt a little insecure about him. Maybe that was the real reason I′d never let him see me naked in the full light of day. If I didn′t love my own body, why should he?

After leaving the second frantic message, I was afraid I′d come off like a clinging vine.

Fuck that thought-the man hasn′t called you in a week. It′s his fault. My Inner Girlfriend, who′d been feeling emboldened ever since that morning′s shopping trip with the self-confident Evelyn, tried to prop me up.

But then Clinging Vine caterwauled, There must be some reason he hasn′t called you back. Maybe he′s hurt. Maybe he′s lying in a London ditch, dead.

Jonathan hadn′t given me his mother′s phone number, and I didn′t know a single friend of his in the UK whom I could call to check up on him. Not that I′d call them anyway-checking up on a guy with his friends is the quickest way to stamp your forehead with big neon letters that spelled dumped.

Workwise, the day had gone from bad to worse. As Beatty′s fill-in, I had to review and approve every news story for the six o′clock show, including Lainey′s. Just as I′d feared, she′d developed a piece-tipped off by Tipsy Floyd-about how the head of animal control had submitted his resignation over allegations of sexually harassing a city dogcatcher. The story was slugged, ″The dog poop flies.″ It was scheduled to run as the lead that night.

Inside the production booth, I ran her story through a machine and reviewed her intro copy; the results were dreadful. Dreadful for me, that is.

Her story was great.

I replayed Lainey′s story. In addition to having a well-written piece, she looked absolutely perfect on camera. While other reporters made do with pancake makeup, Lainey used an airbrush wand to spray foundation on her face, neck, and hands so that all her skin tones were perfectly matched on high-definition TV. She had staked out permanent squatter′s rights to the studio′s green room, where she′d spend an hour at a time, painstakingly contouring her features with little brushes and pots of bronzers. But the effort paid off. People had been whispering, ″network material,″ ever since Lainey had stepped into the newsroom.

Also network material was the little safari suit Lainey had donned for her stand-up. She looked ready to beam her next live shot from the Seren geti.

I shot a dispirited glance down at my own standard reporting gear-today I had on my expandable-waist black slacks, paired as usual from a rotating cast of V-necked tops in jewel colors. Today I was wearing cobalt blue to match my eyes. When assigned to cover a formal event, I′d throw on my good silk-and-rayon jacket from Nordstrom, which was roomy enough to cover my hips. Usually.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Fish, the private investigator.

″I owe you a round, Kate. Hell, I owe you a night on the fucking town.″ The ex-detective′s street-roughened voice boomed over a background thrum of clinking and bar chatter. ″Your friend Jana Miller just wrote me out a check for eight grand. Any more socialites where she comes from? I could buy that fishing boat and an island.″

I laughed and said, ″Take it easy on her, Fish, okay? Jana′s nice.″

″Sure she′s nice. It′s the nice ones who can whittle away a man′s balls until he′s got nothing left but a pair of olive pits.″

″I′ll have to take your word for it on that one, Fish.″

I heard a rattle of ice cubes as we signed off. I pictured Fish at the counter of the sports bar that had become his second home. Fish had the beetling brow of a Cape buffalo, plus a tendency to gore challengers when he got riled-or tanked.

Back when he was on bunco, Fish′s drinking habit had fueled one too many bouts of street rage. The final straw had come when he bashed in the head of a con man who′d stabbed a police dog during an arrest. Both dog and suspect made full recoveries, but Fish had been deemed a psychological risk and was forced into early retirement.

I thought the con guy had richly deserved his punishment. Which means it′s probably a good thing I didn′t follow my father′s example and become a cop. With my hair-trigger Irish temper, I might have actually blown off someone′s head by now.

When the six o′clock news show wrapped, I smiled off an invitation from a couple of my reporter friends to join the nightly migration to our favorite watering hole, a restaurant called Bug-tussles. At this point I was craving the solace of solitude, not shop talk.

My spirits rose when I reached the parking structure and saw my new car, a BMW Z4. I′d bought the silver sports coupe used, but its shark-like curves gleamed like it had just rolled off a showroom floor. My James Bond car, Evelyn called it. It was a wildly impractical machine to own, but fun as hell to drive.

When I pulled up in front of my house, I could just make out the edges of a furry, familiar profile. Elfie, my rag-doll cat, was posted at her usual spot in the bay window of the little foursquare house I′d rented a few months earlier in the Trinity Heights section of town.