Spying in High Heels

ascertained that I was supposed to pee for five full seconds on the little cottony strip. Five seconds? This was going to take some preparation.

I went back to the kitchen and grabbed a liter of Diet Coke from the fridge. I downed half of it, only getting slightly fizzy nosed from the bubbles. I waited ten minutes, then took the Coke back into the bathroom with me. It was now or never.

I clipped my hair back, took a deep breath and did the whole peeing thing. Which ended up being way more complicated than it sounded. When I finished, I set the test down on my bathroom counter to wait. One line negative. Two lines… I’d be asking my mother to pick up another basinet full of booties and binkies. I took a fortifying swig of Diet Coke as I watched the hands on my watch crawl by. Three minutes.

Okay, I could do this. I was a tough chick. Whatever those pink lines threw at me, I could handle this, right? Okay, so maybe I’d have to take little Ritchie Junior to visit his father behind bars, and maybe I’d never again fit into that cute Dolce crop top again, but I could do this. Of course, I’d have to get a second job. Tot Trots barely kept me in Top Ramen and pumps, there was no way I could raise a baby on that salary. I looked around my dinky studio. And I’d probably have to move back in with Mom and Faux Dad. And the Jeep would have to go. No way was a convertible Jeep safe for a baby to ride in. Oh God, would I have to get a mini van? I had a vision of myself in Mom clothes from Target, driving a beige Odyssey and living in the room above my parents’ garage.

Not surprisingly, I started to hyperventilate again. I sat down hard on the tiled floor and put my head between my knees. Unfortunately, as I flipped my head down, my hair clip came undone, flying across the tiny room and knocking into the bottle of Diet Coke. Which swayed precariously on its plastic bottom, then, as I watched in slow motion horror, fell over and spilled bubbly liquid all over the EPT.

“Shit!” I jumped up and grabbed a bath towel, dabbing at the test. I looked down. It was soaked, the cottony swap at the end quickly swelling up like a sponge as the little windows turned a murky caramel color. I squinted, trying to make out any faint lines. Preferably just one of them.

Nothing.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

I sank back down to the floor. Great. Now what?

I stared at the ruined EPT. The way I saw it, I had two options. One, go back to the drug store, pick up a new test, and go through his whole thing again. Or, two, hop back on the denial train (Because it was probably just stress anyway. I mean, sometimes stress messed up your hormone, right? And I had been under a tad bit of stress lately.) and go back to ticking off blonde murder suspects to earn my boyfriend that get out of jail free card.

Which was scarier, murderers or pregnancy test? After my mini van vision, that was a no-brainer.

I tossed the Coke stained test in the trash and threw on a pair of butt hugging jeans with my favorite red mules, mentally picking up my suspects list again. The only one I had left was Carol Carter. And the only thing the L.A. Informer had mentioned about her was that she was an aspiring actress. If she was anything like Dana, she probably spent her Sundays at the gym, toning and shaping for the coming week of auditions. It was a long shot, but I hopped in my Jeep and pointed it in the direction of the Sunset Gym.

Twenty minutes later I was showing my membership card to the steroid gatekeeper and trying hard not to inhale the stale eau d’ perspiration as I scanned the crowded workout room for Dana’s perky blonde ponytail. The place was packed with film execs trying to sweat off their weekly diet of doughnuts and wanna-be starlets shaking every silicon body part imaginable in hopes of being discovered as the next Baywatch babe. I finally spotted Dana coaching a dark haired man covered in veiny muscles on the leg lift machine in the corner.

Feeling conspicuously out of place in my heels, I picked my way over the medicine balls and stretch mats to the leg lifter.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… and rest. Okay, check your pulse, Sasha. You shouldn’t let it get over one- sixty.”

Sasha nodded, sweat trickling off his forehead as he applied two fingers to his neck.

“Dana?” I made a little one finger, come here sign.

She saw me and waved. “Hey, what’s up?” Dana looked down at my heels and frowned. “You can’t work out in those.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Shoot.”

I glanced at Sasha.

“Oh, sorry,” Dana said. “Maddie, this is Sasha. I told you about him, he’s the pyramid bottom for the Cirque Fantastique. Sasha, my best friend, Maddie.”

“I have been pleased to met you,” Sasha said in a heavy accent.

“Me too. Uh, Dana, can I talk to you?”

“Sure. Sasha, do two more sets and we’ll move on to something else.”

Sasha nodded and went back to his leg lifts as Dana followed me out of earshot.

“What’s with the Russian?” I asked.

“Isn’t he hot?”

I glanced over at him, veins popping out on his neck as he lifted a stack of metal weights. “I guess, in a steroid-happy kind of way. But what about your roommate?”

“Who, Mr. Asshole the Stripper?”

Uh oh. Trouble in the Actor’s Duplex.

“What happened? You two were all over each other last night.”

Dana snorted. “That’s what I thought too. Only when we got back home I put the bridal bouquet in the freezer and he freaked out. He said he couldn’t understand why I’d want to keep it. And I said, ‘Well duh, I caught the bouquet.’ And he said, ‘Well, what’s so special about that?’ And I said, ‘Well duh! It means I’m the next to get married.’ And he totally freaked out. I mean, I didn’t say I wanted to get married to him, right now. But he flipped. He said that he was suffocating. That he wasn’t ready for a ball and chain. Do I look like a ball and chain?”

“Typical man.” I really was beginning to hate the whole gender.

“No shit. Anyway, I was like totally crying and Sasha called and he took me out for a cocktail, and, well, we ended up back at his place.”

Dana has got to be the only woman I know who can start a story out getting dumped by one guy and end it in some other guy’s bed.

“Anyway, what’s up with you?” she asked. “How goes the Charlie’s Angels search?”

Apparently Dana hadn’t seen the news yet, her attention being consumed by a limber Russian all night. I quickly filled her in on last night’s disaster as she gestured Sasha through two more rounds of cybex torture. It took longer than I thought because the sight of Sasha’s muscles straining proved to be a little distracting for Dana, but as we moved on to the rowing machine, I produced the printout from the library, showing her Carol Carter’s picture.

“Do you recognize her?” I asked. “She’s an actress and I thought maybe she worked out here.”

Dana and Sasha both leaned in to look.

Sasha let out a low whistle. “She is having the boob that are big like cantaloupe.”

“They’re fake,” I pointed out.

Dana squinted at the photo. “What did you say her name was?”

“Carol Carter.”

“I never see boob like this. Boob back home, flat. Like pancake food. Like biting of bug.” Sasha looked up at me. “Like you.”

Yep. I hated all men.

“The name sounds familiar,” Dana said, still staring at the photo. “Oh! You know, what? We were both up for the role of Bikini Girl in that teen movie last month.”

“You be very good Bikini Girl.” Sasha looked Dana up and down. “Very good.”

“Thank you! I thought so too. But I never got a call back.”

“Those director blind. You are very good body. You have the curvy boob.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet!” Dana leaned down and kissed Sasha. I looked away before I got a glimpse of Russian