Milo said, “Beth and Yoli told us she’d talked about meeting a producer.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tori. “Like…a few weeks ago. Said he was straight up with her, admitted it wouldn’t be big-budget or union-scale but he might be able to use her.”
Milo said, “What kind of movie?”
“She didn’t say.”
Bethany drew the photo nearer and studied it. “Maybe he slipped something into her Sea Breeze. She looks kind of out of it.”
Tori studied the image. “Definitely.Bastard.”
Milo said, “What else did Marissa say about this producer?”
“Just that she’d met him and that they were going to talk again.”
“Where’d she meet him?”
“No idea.”
“When?”
“Maybe a few weeks ago?”
Bethany said, “Like three? Four? We didn’t take it seriously.”
Tori said, “We asked her, ‘Don’t you think it could be bogus?’ She said she had a good feeling about it so we didn’t bug her. We didn’t want to make her feel bad.”
“Wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway,” said Bethany. “She’d just be mad at us and still do her thing.”
“Strong-willed,” said Milo.
“That sounds too—like she was pushy but she wasn’t.”
Tori said, “She just had her own ideas.”
She took another glance at the photo. “Gross. Got to be the Sea Breeze because that’s all she drank unless they didn’t have cranberry juice and then she’d just do the grapefruit part. And only one per, that was her rule.”
I said, “One drink per party.”
“They weren’t parties,” said Tori. “They were openings.”
“Of…”
“Boutiques, clubs, restaurants, whatever. Marissa was on a list. She got us on it, too, but we never went without her.”
I said, “What kind of list?”
“You get an email from a company called BeThere.com,” said Tori.
Bethany said, “Marissa called it the hot girls list. People wanting faces at their events.”
Milo said, “For atmosphere.”
“Exactly,” said Bethany. “We didn’t like it much. Felt like props.”
Tori said, “We didn’t feel it, you know? It got boring real fast so we stopped and put it on spam.”
I said, “Marissa kept going.”
