Dating Dead Men Read Online Free Page A

thousand dollars.
    â€œ. . . guy inside the sliding glass door?” Dave was saying, as he stabbed a pearl onion. “Big Eddie Minardi. Mafia don. East Coast, but when he's in town, does all the hot places.”
    I looked over, wondering how a research scientist from UCLA knew a mob boss on sight. Beyond the Mafia table I saw the rest room/telephone sign. I excused myself to call P.B. Not only was he a better conversationalist than Dave, I was desperate to stop worrying about him, and talking was the only way to do that.
    â€œHello, you have reached the after-hours switchboard at Rio Pescado . . .” the indefatigable message voice said. A woman behind me in the narrow hallway gave a lame cough, reminding me there were other people who hadn't brought their cell phone to dinner, or perhaps, like me, didn't have one.
    Excuse me, I wanted to say, I'm dealing with phantom corpses, so you just wait your turn. But I didn't. I hung up, stuck with the creepy feeling I'd had all day. Walking back to the veranda, I snuck a look at the alleged Mr. Mafia, a sixty-something man in a gorgeous suit, smoking a pipe. He returned my look openly. I know, his eyes seemed to say, murder is hell.
    Back at my table, Dave picked up where he'd left off on his travelogue with chaos, a mathematical theory explaining behavior that seems to be random but turns out not to be.
    This was my favorite part, hearing what the Dating Project guys did for a living. On previous dates I'd learned about: perchloroethylene, a cancer-causing chemical used by dry cleaners; the air-conditioning system at L.A. Community College; weightlifting; divorce settlements; zoning laws; the Talmud; how copper conducts heat; and how Pizarro conquered Peru. Now I learned that randomness and chaos are not the same thing: while random is random, chaos is not. If you can find the pattern in chaos you can change it. I loved that.
    I was mentally composing my journal entry on Dave—“not a people person”—when he reached across the table and stroked my wrist. His fingernails were buffed.
    â€œYou have really soft skin,” he said. “Goose bumps, though. Are you cold?”
    Seven minutes to go, I thought. Four hundred twenty seconds. “I'm fine.”
    â€œMy apartment is warm.” He smiled as if he were trying out a new set of teeth.
    This was the worst part of dating, maybe for everyone, but certainly for me. In addition to the two-hour minimum, Dr. Cookie had spelled out official standards of behavior: no crying jags or sitting in stony silence or running screaming into the night. No assault, no bringing a book. Mindful of all this, I mustered up a simple “No, thank you, Dave.”
    â€œCome on, Woollie. Your place is far away, it'll be so late by the time we get there.”
    â€œIt's ‘Wollie,'” I said. “And it'll be later if we go to your house first.” I began to calculate how much driving I had ahead of me, to Rio Pescado, then saw he was still smiling, waiting for an answer. But what was the question? Oh, yes.
    â€œI can't stay over,” I said. “I can't sleep with you.”
    His smile faded. “Why not?”
    â€œI don't want to.”
    Dave looked around impatiently and snapped his fingers. “Check.”
    â€œHe's not our waiter,” I said. “That's Christian. Ours is Jonathan.”
    â€œWho cares?”
    I ended up taking a cab home. Dave paid half.
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    M Y VWR ABBIT zoomed up the 101 north, past the Denny's, McDonald's, and International House of Pancakes of Woodland Hills, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks. I drove without the radio, a habit left over from the days when a trip to Rio Pescado made me nervous to the point of nausea. I thought about how it was now more fun to go to the mental hospital than it was to go on a date, and I wondered if that was progress.
    I'd dressed haphazardly, in the interest of speed and warmth: my long