Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel (12 page)

“The war games went really well,” said Nikki, plastering a smile on her still-camouflage-painted face. “We won!” She held up the small gold golf trophy as proof. There was a glitter in Dina’s brown eyes that was making Nikki nervous. “Mrs. Robinson gave us an A.”

Nikki didn’t mention that Val had winked as she had said, “A-plus for handling the situation correctly.”

“I made sure that the grade applied to you, too,” said Nikki,
still forcing her smile. “Because you trained with us the whole time, so it seemed only fair. So, uh, not to worry, you’ll be right on track when you get out of here. And I’ll just go now and let you rest.” Nikki reached out to pat Dina’s hand, but the other girl seized her by the wrist.

“I know what you did, Lanier. And when I get out of here I’m going to tell everyone that you poisoned me with breath spray from Specialty Items.”

Nikki yanked her hand back.

“You’re going to be kicked out of here so fast that you won’t even know what hit you. You and your little friends, Jenny and Ellen. I know you were all in on it and I’m going to make you pay.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nikki said coldly. “But if something like that were said, I’d have to tell everyone about the fifth of tequila you’ve got hidden under your bed.”

Dina’s eyes glittered angrily, but she didn’t say anything.

“You got your A in War Games, so I suggest you just shut up and stay the hell away from my friends.”

Dina looked as though she might say something, but then slumped back on the pillow as the nurse bustled in.

“Visiting hours are over, I’m afraid,” she said kindly.

“That’s all right, I was just leaving,” Nikki said, without taking her eyes off Dina. “I think we said everything that needed to be said. Didn’t we, Dina?”

Dina nodded reluctantly, and Nikki felt the cold thrill of triumph followed by a sharp twist of guilt.

CANADA

In the Boys’ Room

Taking a deep breath, Nikki was about to say no and walk away when the man in the navy suit entered briskly, smiling from ear to ear, his hand extended. He was a handsome man, somewhere in his forties, with a slender build, olive skin, black hair, and deep-set eyes.

“Jim, you look good.” His intonation was more British than American, but Nikki could tell that English was not his native tongue, although she couldn’t quite place his accent. “And this must be your wife. You never told me how pretty she was.” The compliment was accompanied by a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Mr. Sarkassian, this is my wife, Kim,” said her new husband, and gave Nikki a reckless look, daring her to deny him.

Nikki shook hands, noticing that besides the designer suit, Mr. Sarkassian also sported a watch that ran well into the thousands, and a pair of ostentatious ruby cufflinks that she estimated to cost more than a month’s rent on a very nice place. She also noticed
that despite the manicure, Sarkassian’s hands were callused and his knuckles were flattened from long years of punching something hard.

“Kim and Jim. Charming. You’re a matched set.” Mr. Sarkassian’s amusement carried an undertone of mocking that sparked a current of dislike in Nikki. “Come along, children,” he said, turning on his heel, assuming that they would follow, “my car’s double parked.”

“Where shall we go to lunch?” asked Mr. Sarkassian as they entered the lobby.

“Actually . . .” Nikki said, glancing significantly at her watch and preparing to make her graceful, if resentful, exit.

Then she saw her mother, Nell, emerge from the elevator. Nell was dressed in a pair of tight black slacks and her usual cleavage-baring top.

Nikki realized that she was unprepared to explain her sudden marriage to her mother, and there was no way she was ready to introduce her mother to her new husband, or his sardonic business acquaintance. And then there was the interview. Nikki shook at the idea of telling anyone about the interview, but telling her mother seemed the very definition of hell. Nikki was not nearly drunk enough for that kind of lunch.

“Kim can’t join us,” said “Jim,” filling in when her pause had gone on too long. “You’ve got plans, don’t you, honey?”

She glanced at her new husband; he seemed big enough to hide behind. There was a possibility that she was just drunk enough for
this
lunch. Maybe she hadn’t really seen that shoulder holster. Maybe it was just the strap on some strange set of suspenders. Yeah, that was it.

“Well, I do have theater tickets, but as long as you promise to get me back here by five, I think I’ve got plenty of time,” Nikki
said, crossing her fingers and thinking of her mother’s stupid Carrie Mae meeting. Missing lunch would be one thing, but missing the speech would send her mother absolutely bananas.

“I’d love to go,” she added, “as long as you don’t talk too much business,” she said coquettishly to Sarkassian, with a sidelong look at “Jim.” His face had frozen into position as if he’d been dipped in carbonite. Nikki stepped forward to take Mr. Sarkassians’s arm and smiled her best “charm the boss” smile.

Thirty minutes later Nikki was pushing a piece of lettuce around her plate and pondering the idea that she had lost her mind. What happened to Stranger Danger? Had she learned nothing from McGruff the Crime Dog? For all she knew, these two men could be serial killers who took innocent women to expensive restaurants and made small talk before brutally stabbing their victims to death with a salad fork.

Or possibly they just ignored them to death.

Sarkassian was on his third phone call. This time, at least, he had been courteous enough to excuse himself from the table. As far as Nikki could tell, Sarkassian had something to do with shipping, but just how “Jim” was involved Nikki couldn’t tell. He had his head turned in the direction that Mr. Sarkassian had gone.

Nikki looked around the restaurant. There was a clearly involved couple by the windows, and a few tables away a petite woman in an electric blue suit dined alone. Her face was mostly hidden behind a bouffant brown, vaguely Jackie O cut. The woman seemed comfortable dining alone, and Nikki wished she had half her composure and elegance. As she watched, the woman put down her fork and asked the waiter something. He pointed toward the lobby, and the woman rose gracefully and exited in that direction. Nikki watched her walk away and admired the clear definition on her calves and the way she maneuvered gracefully in such high heels.

Nikki looked back at her dinner companion, but he was still ignoring her. Unhappily, Nikki pulled the lettuce back across her plate. She knew she wasn’t exactly Tyra Banks, but getting a boy’s attention had never been a problem before.

“What’s our name again?” she asked, studying his profile. He just didn’t look like a Jim to her.

“Jim and Kim Webster,” he answered. Nikki chuckled.

“I’ve always liked dictionaries,” said Nikki. When he raised an eyebrow, she added, “Webster. Like the dictionary.”

“I was thinking of Emmanuel Lewis,” he said, leaning back in his chair and running his hand over his face and then up over his scalp.

“And what do you do again?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“You don’t look like a lawyer.”

“What does a lawyer look like?” he asked, and Nikki shrugged; even she wasn’t sure what she meant.

“Meaner?” she suggested, with a teasing smile.

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.

“What do you want with Mr. Sarkassian?” she asked.

“I specialize in international law; he’s in shipping, needs meeting, blah, blah, blah.” The topic of his career seemed to bore him, and he turned his head again, looking for Sarkassian.

“I’m going to the restroom,” Nikki announced. She stood up, draping her napkin over the back of her seat.

“I’m not sure . . .” he said, half rising. Nikki couldn’t quite tell if it was a movement of old-fashioned courtesy or a gesture of protest.

“Not sure that I can make it to the bathroom on my own? Pretty sure I can,” she said, tossing her head slightly, and strode
past him, before he could say anything else. She walked into the lobby following the signs pointing toward the restroom, considering that she might have just lied—especially in light of earlier events that day.

The restaurant was as expensive as Sarkassian’s clothes; the lobby was a marble-and-tile affair, flanked by long tanks of tropical fish floating like suspended flowers in an aquamarine sky. Nikki saw her reflection behind the fish and realized that the tank was not as deep as it looked, a mere six inches perhaps. Someone was speaking an odd Indo-European language, and she looked around, trying to spot the speaker. Sarkassian was standing near the door, his back to her, nearly hidden by a large potted palm. Occasionally, he tapped a few things into his SideKick, but otherwise, he seemed engrossed in the conversation being piped through the earpiece glued to his head. Nikki sidled closer, trying to identify the language. It had sounded like Greek for a moment, and then like Persian, but then neither. He started to turn, and Nikki quickly stopped eavesdropping and went toward the bathroom doors.

But she still paused to carefully examine her bathroom options and equally carefully chose the door marked
WOMEN
in a curling, ostentatious font. Some things she didn’t want to repeat in a day. Once inside, she paused. The restroom was lit with a curious wavering blue-green light and she realized that it came from fish tanks. The tanks in the lobby had been backed with a two-way mirror and from inside the restrooms, patrons could see into the lobby through the long window of glass and water.

She watched curiously as Sarkassian walked toward her and then sat down on the cushioned bench beneath the fish tank. If she leaned forward she could see the words he typed into his Sidekick.
His fingers obscured the tiny buttons, but she could see the letters appear on the screen, and Nikki realized suddenly that he was typing in his password. Suppressing a slight twinge of guilt for her nosiness, she cranked her head to the left, trying to see the words and wishing the water wouldn’t blur her view so much.

“H-i-c-e-t-n-u-n . . .” Nikki muttered each letter under her breath as it was typed in.

A toilet flushed, startling her. She jumped.

“These fish tanks are such an interesting feature,” said the woman in the blue suit coming out of a stall. “Don’t you think?”

There was something knowing in the way the woman smiled, and Nikki knew she’d been caught. The woman was older than Nikki had guessed—north of middle age, but by how much, Nikki couldn’t say. She had an oval face, perfect makeup, and twinkling blue eyes. Nikki noted that she had the round, even tones of a Californian; she certainly wasn’t Canadian, at any rate.

“Um, yes, fascinating,” said Nikki, and hurried into a stall, avoiding eye contact. When she came out again, the woman had gone and Sarkassian had wandered back to the embrace of the potted palm. Nikki stared at his back, pondering his password. The
HICE
letter combo wasn’t common in English, and starting a word with
tn
was equally unlikely. Mentally, she tried parsing the letters in different ways. “Here and now,” said Nikki triumphantly, as another woman came in. Nikki blushed and hurried out, trying not to make any noise with her heels on the marble floor before gaining the safety of the carpeted dining area.
Hic et nunc,
translated from Latin, meant “here and now.” Extremely pleased with her translation, she dropped into her seat, hoping that her face wasn’t carrying a revealing flush, and prepared to make small talk.

But “Jim” wasn’t focused on her. Instead, he sagged into his chair, his expression fading from intense to blank. To Nikki he looked very tired, and for a moment she had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around him and tell him it, whatever it was, would be OK.

“Jim?” she said quietly, meaning to ask about Sarkassian.

“It’s not really my name, you know,” he said. Nikki stared at him, uncertain of what to say or what to make of his change in tone. He slumped back in his chair as though very tired; his right hand extended past the arm of his chair and he dangled a steak knife from the table between his fingers. He twirled the knife in an idle manner, catching light from the large windows overlooking the bay and reflecting it in thin slices onto the walls, the table, Nikki. She found herself holding her breath, as if she had fallen into some sunlit aquarium.

“What
is
your name?” she asked softly, trying not to break the mood.

“Z’ev,” he answered, still fixated on the knife and the light.

“Z’ev,” she repeated, sifting the name around in her head for a moment. “That’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I guess. I was named after my granddad; he was Jewish.” He was staring at her now, the reflected light from the knife resting on her cheek. Nikki started to feel a little warm, but tried to return his gaze calmly.

“Mostly I’m a bit of a mutt. Mixed heritage—all that.”

“My father is Quebecois,” said Nikki, nodding.

He laughed. “Meaning what?”

“Mixed heritage.”

“Ah, yes, the mixing of different kinds of white people can be tricky.” It was Nikki’s turn to laugh.

“It
is
tricky,” she objected. “He had a whole different background from my mother. Different kind of family, different holiday traditions, different language. Just . . . different,” she concluded with a shrug.

“Mixed heritage,” he agreed,

“Why don’t you use your name?” asked Nikki.

He was hard to read, but Nikki found herself looking for the flitting shadows of emotion that crossed his face faster than clouds across the sun. He frowned slightly now, as if he regretted sharing that piece of information.

“Z’ev is a little too memorable for my taste,” he responded after a long moment. His gaze was fixed on her again, and Nikki felt a blush beginning to start somewhere below her collarbone and head upward.

“Huh,” she said. “You’re just a big old liar, aren’t you?” She made a quick head toss, flipping her hair over her shoulder while trying to look as flirty and teasing as possible. It was a move that had been working for her since junior high.