They kept silent the rest of the way. Not delving into cherished old misunderstandings made conversation harder. Recriminations come easy, Molina mused, regretting she’d imploded when she discovered Mariah’s YouTube adventure.
She exited the car as soon as it was in Park and headed for the club’s entrance. Rafi and the jingle of his car keys being pocketed caught up with her just outside.
“Classy joint,” he commented.
“A contradiction in terms.” She stopped to take in the blue-and-magenta blossom of neon sign shining down on them and smiled. “But I’d forgotten. It is indeed a classy place.”
Rafi had reservations. Nancy, the sixtyish hostess, showed them to a fringe table with a good view of the band.
“I’ve never actually dined here,” Molina said after recovering from the shock of Rafi offhandedly holding her chair out. He was on seriously good behavior and by the time they were both seated it seemed natural.
“Then you can’t recommend anything on the menu.” He was studying it, not her.
“Nope.” She nodded and smiled at Rick, Dave, and Morris making cool jazz very hot on the small, one-step-up stage. “Eat at your own risk.” She skimmed the menu, recalling eyeing a very different bill of fare with Max Kinsella the other day. She reconsidered Rafi. Another dark-haired guy, swarthier though. She’d always been attracted to blonds, like Matt Devine, when she admitted to such impulses.
“We go dutch,” she said at the same time Rafi said, “I’ll get the check.”
The hovering waiter retreated discreetly.
“Let me play the guy, Carmen,” Rafi said.
She felt her cheeks flush, then reached for her water glass and toasted him. “You definitely are entitled.” Shock was a good negotiation tactic. “I was panicked and paranoid all those years ago and didn’t give you a fair trial. You know cops. We think we’ve seen it all, solved it all. That can foster jumping to wrong conclusions.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He nodded to the waiter, who swept back toward the table with genial efficiency.
“A white wine spritzer,” Molina said.
“A spritzer?” Rafi gave her a look. “Kahlúa on ice.” As the guy exited, he leaned in and asked, “Watered down wine? Isn’t that … girly for you? Don’t you trust yourself? Or me?”
“Actually, I upgraded. I’m usually a beer drinker.”
“Really. That’s changed. A lot’s changed.”
She let that one lie.
Rafi had taken out his smartphone and was fiddling with it. She heard the tinny buzz of a musical ring tone. Or something. Oh, no! Mariah’s silly YouTube upload. She recognized the voice. Rafi turned the phone’s bright, sharp image surface for her to view.
“Yes, I know my kid has made a fool of herself for all to see.…”
Oh. This wasn’t Mariah. This was an older girl with a not-too-bad contralto, like Lady Gaga before everyone went gaga. Molina was forced to sit on her expletives while the waiter delivered their drinks with a pleased flourish, hers pallid, his coffee dark.
She leaned across the table, hearing the accusing hiss in her voice only after she’d whispered, “That’s me!” She straightened up and swigged from her wineglass like a sailor. “Where’d you get that film?”
He smiled nostalgically at the sharp image on his smartphone. “I had old camcorder footage of when you and I were working on your act in L.A. I played around with some home computer sound and film programs and made it into an MP3 file.”
“And empty what—?”
“A music file. Mariah’s got your voice.”
“That’s a dirty trick you played on me.”
“Talent is not a ‘dirty trick,’ Carmen. It’s a gift. People with talent need to use it, grow it.”
“She’ll be ridiculed online. ‘The world is mean and man uncouth,’ Rafi, even more than in our day. Sure, she can put herself out there, but everyone with a user pseudonym and password is a critic and an insensitive critic these days. She could get bullied at school. Look at that cheesy glitter eye makeup, the stuffed toys and vampire boys posters in the background of her friend’s bedroom. She’s Miss Hello Kitty in the headlights, damn it!”
“You’re right.” He sat back. “It’s always a risk to be creative. Kids today can be Justin Bieber or Amy Winehouse, hit or sad, sad miss. That’s why you … we … need to manage this stage Mariah’s going through. It might fade away like morning dew in someplace a lot wetter than here. Or she might have shot at a career.”
“Is this why you asked me to dinner tonight? To lure me into your schemes, to get close to Mariah by turning her into a … an online product?”
“No. I wanted to convince you to let me into Mariah’s life, not as her father, just to get to know her, to see that she knows and maybe likes or needs me. That YouTube piece showed me that Mariah does need me, as an advocate, as I was for you. That’s right, Carmen Regina, I got you out of your buttoned-down older-bastard-sister, responsible-for-everything girl pursuing some of your dreams but quashing others, in your own stepfamily. You know you’d not be singing today if it hadn’t been for me.”
She sat still, fingers twined around the cool stem of her glass, slowing her breathing to a crawl. She’d always had killer breath control. “I’m not singing today.”
“Not good, Carmen. You needed that outlet. It’s been months.”
She looked up, burning. How dare he check into her off-hours?
“I asked the management, yeah. ‘When’s that great torch singer performing again?’ I asked. The answer? We. Don’t. Know. You had a dream gig here. You could come in when you felt like it, when you had to burn off the pressure of being responsible for a kid and a house and every last civilian on the mean streets of Las Vegas. And you shut it off and shut it down. Why?”
“Work got intense.”
“Your after-hours, under-the-table investigations got intense, you mean.”
She held her tongue.
“You always were by the book, Carmen. We fought about that even in L.A. I’m no saint, never was, but I come here and find out you’re playing two iffy guys against each other, having them investigate each other. And me. What’s the matter? You don’t trust men, right? Especially men you’re attracted to.”
She drew on her patented laser-paralyzing, icy-hot blue glare. Worked on the job. “You sure you want to rattle my cage this badly, Rafi? Isn’t there a little something you want from me?”
“A little support and humanity would be nice. I’m sure Mariah would second me on that at the moment.”
Her head snapped back, her rarely worn, thin hoop earrings striking her neck. She’d trained herself to be impassive or aggressive, as called for by her job. That wasn’t working here, with Rafi, and it was no longer working at home, with Mariah. Her fingers twined around the other hand, clenched in a fist. It was a prayerful gesture, she realized, maybe even pleading.
“Give me time.”
“Thirteen years out of my daughter’s life is way more than enough ‘time.’ I will post your ‘debut’ on YouTube if you don’t ease up on Mariah.”
“That’s despicable.”
“Maybe that’s what you need to drive us both to where we need to be, Mariah and me.”
“All right,” she said, drawing a deep breath.
“‘All right,’ what?”
Rafi’s wary suspicion had insulted her at first, and then it had made her very, very sorry. For the first time she could take out and turn over and touch her regret for abandoning him on such an emotional impulse. Maybe the hormonal earthquakes of being unexpectedly pregnant had something … a lot … to do with it.
“It’s not a bad idea,” she said, stunned to hear herself sound so calm. “Instead of reading Mariah the riot act on her American Idol dreams, I’ll let her pursue them. Within limits.” Fierce again. “She … met you at the reality TV teen competition. I’ll let you, will suggest, you’ll work with her on her … aspirations. Within limits.”