“Hey, Mom, you want to watch with us? They already showed the murder, but Columbo hasn’t figured out yet how he did it.”
“Can’t. Too busy.” Beth dragged a rag across the table, wiping away little bits of aloe and moss.
“It wouldn’t kill you to take a break.” Lana took a single kernel of popcorn from the bowl and turned to Jack. “When your mom was a kid, Columbo was her favorite. She even dressed up as him one year for Halloween.”
“Did you give her a cigar?”
“I made a fake one out of a toilet paper roll.” Beth plopped down on the end of the couch and wiped her hands on her jeans.
“I didn’t know you were into detective shows.”
“It was a long time ago.” Beth reached across Jack and pulled the bowl of popcorn toward her. “It started after Dad left, before Ma became a big shot. We’d melt cheese on bialys and watch in her bed. Mother-daughter murder night, we used to call it. It was our little ritual.”
Lana remembered the stress of that time, barely covering the rent on their tiny apartment, pushing herself day and night to build a career out of nothing. Trying to be strong, willing herself strong, for Beth. For both of them.
“Columbo’s kind of a dope,” Jack said.
“That was his genius,” Beth said. “Everyone underestimated him. They didn’t see what he knew, what he was capable of, until it was too late.”
Lana looked over at her daughter. Beth’s nails were bare and half-bitten, her hair sticking out from under a hand-crocheted beanie. She had one hand in the popcorn bowl, the other arm around Jack.
“No more talking,” Lana said. “We’re just about to get to the good part.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beth had just enough time after work on Tuesday to race home, swipe on deodorant, and head back out to meet up with Martin. She’d agreed to get a beer and an arepa with him at the food truck in the marina parking lot. For a minute, she debated whether she should dress up. She didn’t want to give Martin the impression this was a date. On the other hand, she could hear her mother’s voice in her head telling her it was always worth making men want more than they could get. She grabbed her bomber jacket and a pair of ankle boots from the closet, inspected the shoes for spiders, and slid her feet in. She looked at herself in the mirror, combed her fingers through her short, wavy hair, and shrugged. This was as good as it was gonna get.
Beth drove down to the marina and parked behind the Kayak Shack. She gave a half wave to Paul Hanley and Scotty O’Dell, who were hauling Styrofoam coolers of something—sand dabs, maybe—into the yacht club.
A silver Maserati pulled into the marina in a long arc, avoiding the fisherman spraying mud off the eighteen-footer by the boat launch. Martin swept out of the convertible in the winter uniform of Silicon Valley males: a shiny blue puffy vest, crisp button-down, gray chinos, and complicated sneakers.
“Beth,” he called, a bit too jovial for the grimy parking lot.
She was still staring at his car. Even in the cold air, he had the top down.
“I know it’s ridiculous,” he said, following her gaze, “but my life is all work, all hustle. And I just . . . I love it.”
His honesty surprised her. It blunted the obscene ostentation of the convertible, turning it into a simple pleasure. The car was ridiculous, and it was beautiful. Beth found herself smiling back at him.
The two of them walked over to the arepa truck, arriving just in time to see the owner, Flora, flip the sign in the window from “Open” to “Closed.”
“Sorry, Beth,” Flora said. “We got cleaned out by a corporate retreat group. Those guys.” She pointed at a pack of men in matching fleece jackets headed into the yacht club. “They even bought all the vegetarian ones.”
She really did look sorry. Flora was one of the first friends Beth had made in Elkhorn, another single mom with two sons of her own, and they’d babysat and looked out for each other for years. But that didn’t change the fact that she was out of arepas.
“What about the yacht club?” Martin asked.
Beth shook her head. She wasn’t ready for a deep-fried sit-down dinner among a crowd of drunken tech workers.
“Let me think.” Nothing else in the marina was open at this hour, and most of the nearby restaurants were overpriced tourist traps. Then she had an idea.
“I’ll take us to a real local’s place,” Beth said, looking back at the Maserati. “On one condition.”