Page 2 of My Killer Blind Date

And now, eight years later, it’s been the worst year of my life. So basically, the perfect time to go on a blind date … if I ever make it out of here with the body I’m here to collect.

Jeff clears his throat, snapping my attention to him.

‘Could I see some ID?’

I fumble in my hobo-style crossbody purse for my wallet. ‘Absolutely.’

He squints at my ID. ‘Any relation to Phil McKee? The actor?’

I give him a blank look.

‘Clash of the Titans?’

‘No?’ I say with a wincing smile, feeling vaguely apologetic for not being more interesting. My parents are extremely vanilla. My dad took early retirement two years ago and they moved to Florida, where they enthusiastically do old-people things like shuffleboard and pickleball and regularly remind me that I, too, could simply choose to stop dealing with Chicago winters.

Jeff stands, and he’s even taller than I realized.

‘Well.’ He smiles without humor. ‘Let’s load up the body.’

I can’t help the head-to-toe shiver that moves through me.

I didn’t apply to Anderson & Pulaski Funeral Home and Crematory to move bodies; I applied for the receptionist position. But it had just been filled. They offered me body transport like it was my lucky day, and, well, beggars can’t be choosers.

‘Yeah. Great. Let’s do it.’ I clap my hands together, like it’s no big deal to handle corpses.

No big deal at all. Should I mention to Jeff this is just my third corpse pickup, and I still basically have no idea what I’m doing? Also, gurneys are impossible to drive. My last corpse would’ve come out of my transportation efforts with a concussion. If they were alive for the ride, that is.

As Jeff leads the way to the metal drawer where the body I’m to retrieve is resting, I’m also realizing there’s no way I have time to drop the body off at the funeral home, move it into the refrigerator, file the paperwork and make this blind date.

If I’m going to make the date, I’m going to have to go straight there. Hmm. Do I need to worry about the body getting a bit too warm as I flirt?

Nah. It’s a cool night. The body has been refrigerated for long enough that it’ll take a while to reach room temperature. And it’s not like a dead body is going to tell on me if we take a little detour, right?

*

My date, Brian, runs a hand through his shaggy blond hair.

‘So Cooper – my friend who works for Meta – goes, like, – man, what’s this? And then Buddy – you know, my friend who went to Harvard I mentioned earlier? – holds up the bottle of hot sauce and is like, you mean you’ve never met this bad boy?’ Brian guffaws, and I laugh politely as I try to mentally sort out all the friends and coworkers he’s name-dropped over the past three stories he’s told. At this point, a diagram would be helpful.

He was seated at the bar when I arrived, as promised, with a Cubs baseball cap to identify him, his blond hair feathering out from underneath. I even scored a parking spot right in front of the restaurant, which was more good fortune than I’d had in a long time – it seemed auspicious.

‘Hi, Brian. I’m Margot,’ I said when I saw him, proud of myself for (probably?) seeming like someone who does this kind of thing all the time and didn’t cut herself off from dating a long time ago after years of truly terrible judgment.

He gave me a bro hug and immediately remarked on how tall I was. I almost made a joke about how tall morticians are, then decided it would be in questionable taste to introduce my current line of work so quickly. Also, I wasn’t technically a mortician. Just a driver. And that for less than a week.

We both ordered beers and agreed on a shared appetizer of truffle parmesan fries, which I admit I have eaten the majority of, since he’s dominated the conversation. A fair trade, all said. If he wants more fries, obviously, he’d just have to talk less.

He’s cute, in an objective, he’d-look-good-on-a-movie-poster kind of a way. Then again, that kind of thing has never really turned me on.

Give me a smoldering intelligence. Disarming earnestness. Someone with a totally nerdy special interest. And, fine. Forearms. I have a thing for forearms. Biceps too. In fact, the whole scope of the man arm. A preference that has led me astray one too many times, due to assholes often having great arms.

This, among other reasons, is why I stopped dating. It gives me lizard brain – a term Zoe introduced me to that basically means those times when your brain reverts to its most primitive state. When it comes to men, rational thought seems to flee. I jump in too fast and fall recklessly – and disastrously – in love with the worst of the worst, sometimes over completely random things, like Paul’s smile, Sean’s singing voice, or the way Tom would scrawl haikus on napkins. Paul was a cheater, Sean had an anger problem and now that I think about it, Tom was a cheater too. Hence the moratorium.

But back to Brian.

As he talks, I let my mind wander. Mmmm. What kind of fish would I compare him to? It’s a weird game I play, but ocean documentaries are kind of my thing, and it’s fun to match people with their fish selves. Maybe a Corydoras catfish? Happiest when they’re being social? Might be too early to call.

I nibble at a French fry as he launches into his next anecdote about a recent product launch at his software company and the new girl in marketing automation who completely screwed up an email blast, which could have meant gigantic fines for the company. Brian, of course, was able to find a workaround.