Simmer Down

slammed my back door. If only it’d been cold enough earlier this week, I could have sent icicle spikes through his head.
    Suddenly exhausted, I flopped down on my bed and grabbed the cordless phone from the nightstand. Three messages: Doug, Adrianna, and Josh. I kicked off my shoes and listened to the first one, from my friend Doug, who confirmed that he would pick me up at six forty-five tomorrow night to go to Simmer. Doug was so much fun that I was embarrassed to realize that I’d completely forgotten he was coming with me tomorrow night. He was a doctoral student at my graduate school and a teaching assistant in a couple of my classes. I’d met him the previous September, on my first day of social work school, when he’d rescued me in the bookshop by tossing most of my so-called required reading back onto the shelves, thereby saving me hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours of boredom. Adrianna, who was extremely envious that I had a gay friend, had been bugging me for months to ask Doug to hook her up with one of his gay friends. Since she’d started working on her own and was out of the salon scene, she’d lost touch with “her boys,” as she phrased it.
    I dialed her number. “My gay friend is escorting me to Simmer tomorrow. Guess you’re stuck with a plain heterosexual to bring you, huh?”
    “Damn you!” she snapped back at me. “Where’s mine?”
    “Gay people are not like Halloween candy. He doesn’t have a stockpile that he just goes handing out to whoever asks!” I insisted. I couldn’t very well go to Doug to request that he fix up one of his homosexual friends with one of my straight friends as if he ran some backwards dating service. Still, having a good gay man in her life was every woman’s dream, so I felt a little selfish about not wanting to share Doug. At the same time, I felt possessive; Doug was mine. Ade would have to go find her own.
    Ade said, “Well, Owen will just have to do. Anyhow, I had a great time today, and Kayla set me up to go in and do some volunteer stuff with the women at Moving On. I’m so psyched to do this, so thank you for bringing me today.”
    “Ade, that’s great! I’m so glad this worked out.” I’d taken Adrianna with me to Moving On mainly because I’d gone into a panic when I’d been informed that we social work students were required to volunteer somewhere for the day. Other students were reviewing mental, and maybe even written, lists of their own talents and figuring out ways to put those gifts to good use. My friend Julie, for example, decided to help remodel the common room in a subsidized apartment building. I was barely able to hammer in a nail without fracturing my hand, and it took only one glance around my condo to know my painting skills had never advanced beyond the preschool level. Bursting with enthusiasm, I had no capacity to paint within the confines of pesky walls and floors. Having no discernable talents, I’d decided to volunteer Adrianna’s services.
    “So, Chloe, guess who called me today? Dora! Oliver’s wife?” she reminded me.
    “Why did she call you?”
    “Remember? I told you. I do her hair. She called to see if I could come over tomorrow to get her ready for New Year’s Eve. Typical. It’s just like Dora to call at the last minute. But can you believe that it’s been only a couple of days since her husband died, and she’s worried about her hair? God. As much as I like hair, if Owen were murdered, I’d have other things on my mind besides whether or not my roots were showing.” She paused. “Probably.”
    Dora, the happy widow, thrilled to be rid of her nasty husband, celebrates by glamming up for the night? Dora killed her husband and was now celebrating? Aren’t most murders committed by the family or friends of the victim? Maybe Oliver hadn’t been harassing Hannah but had just been hitting on her, and if that was the case, it probably hadn’t been the first time he’d gone after another woman. I could see it all: Dora, fed up with her husband’s philandering, or attempted philandering, had whacked him! Naomi was thus off the hook. Unfortunately, so was Hannah. Unless the two of them had conspired...?
    “Can I come with you?” I begged. “I’m kind of curious about her. We can say I’m your assistant.”
    “Didn’t she meet you the other night at the gallery?” Adrianna pointed out.
    “Oh. Good point. Well, she probably won’t remember me. And if she does, who says I can’t