Death of an Orchid Lover Read Online Free Page A

kiosks at shopping malls, surrounded by stacks of biological controls, and have us tell the public all about them. Rather, Diane would tell them and I would act ignorant, the same role I played in the commercials.
    They’d scheduled a whole bunch of these appearances, which struck me as an easy, if inane, way to supplement my income. Plus, I got to go to exotic locales like pasadena, home of the Tournament of Roses, and Northridge, home of the Northridge Earthquake.
    My dog and pony show at Beverly Center began at one. I put on my fake wedding ring in the parking structure, then spent several hours listening to Diane spout interesting facts like “The descendants of a single female ladybird beetle can eat two hundred thousand aphids in one season” while we sold dozens of packs of them. And of lacewing larvae. And of parasitic wasps.
    Actually, I let Diane handle the parasitic wasps. Even though I knew they were minuscule and couldn’t possibly hurt me, I couldn’t get over the fact that they were wasps, atype of insect I have a completely irrational fear of. Diane, fortunately, had caught on to this back when we were shooting the commercials.
    We were off at five. Diane wanted a snack, so we went to the food court for frozen yogurts. She was thin, short, blond, in her late thirties. She’d been moderately successful in commercials and as a day player on TV, and did a lot of theater too. Regional, New York for a while. I’d met her long ago when she did a show at the Altair.
    A play she’d been rehearsing was opening the following weekend. I’d asked her several times to tell me about it, but she kept blowing me off. She seemed sheepish about it, making me think it was one of those shows you do for exposure but would just as soon your friends didn’t know about. I told her I wasn’t going to let her leave the table until she filled me in.
    She shook her head. “It’s experimental yet commercial.”
    “That usually means at the end everyone takes their clothes off.”
    She laughed. “It’s really not bad. And only one person takes her clothes off.”
    “You?”
    “No, not me. The playwright’s the producer of
Huff and Petty
, you know, the cop show? And he’s getting some important people down to see it, and I have a pretty meaty part. Exposure, you know?”
    “What’s it called?”
    “Go Down Moses.
It’s about a fictional conspiracy between Grandma Moses and Robert Moses.”
    “Who’s Robert Moses?”
    “Some New Yorker who was involved in transportation improvement and things like that. He was a boyhood hero of the playwright.”
    “When should I come see it?”
    “You don’t have to, you know.”
    “I want to.”
    “You’re sweet. Can you come next Saturday? Friday’s opening, we’ve papered the house to make it look good for the critics, but we’re trying to get some people in Saturday so we have an audience to work with. I can probably get you comps.” Theater talk for freebies. From the word
complimentary.
    “Comps are good.”
    “I can get you at least two. Do you want to bring someone? I don’t really know a whole lot about you, Joe. I know you’re not married, but do you have a girlfriend or anything? Wait, I shouldn’t assume. Not in this business. A boyfriend?”
    Gina would go with me. We’d spent years being each other’s dates when the occasion demanded.
    Then I thought of Jill. Even after four months, I was having trouble remembering that Gina wasn’t available for me every Saturday night. And with Jill in San Francisco this weekend, there was a good chance Gina’d be tied up with her all the next. Maybe I could wait until later in the run to—
    “Joe? Hello?”
    “Sorry. Two for this Saturday would be great. And I’m straight, by the way.”
    “Good,” Diane said. “I mean, good that you’re coming. It really doesn’t matter to me if you’re straight or not.”
    “I don’t know why I said that.”
    “You’ll meet Tom Saturday. My other