AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m way too trusting. Am I going to come home one night and find you taking a bath in my tub and wearing my clothes?” She arched her eyebrow, looking from her own stylishly cut silk blouse and slacks to my suit—which had been purchased by my mother. “Never mind.”
“I’m not going to go all single white female on you. But I do love this place. I still have a hard time believing you own a home with a name.”
“Well, for all of this, my sister is willing to sue me, steal from me, and have me audited. So, you might want to reconsider your whole romantic image of gentility.”
Andrea sighed heavily. “Why must you destroy my illusions? How was your networking?” she asked as I tried to beckon my dog. Fitz sniffed and rested his head on his paws.
“I’m not trying to say anything about sisterhood or women in power, but what a bunch of bitches.”
Andrea laughed and pulled a pitcher of daiquiris from behind the porch swing. She poured herself another drink, grinning as she said, “I thought you might feel that way. My boss at the gift shop used to complain about the meetings.”
“You knew?” I cried, chucking a cushion at her. “You knew, and you let me walk into that den of iniquity unprepared?”
“Hey, hey! If you can’t respect the daiquiri, at least respect the shirt,” she griped, swiping at the liquor I’d made her spill on her celery-colored blouse. “I know better than to ask you to respect me.”
I blew her a kiss and poured more daiquiri as Andrea began her tale in an ominous tone. “Margie said it happened slowly. One cold October night, a Courtney attended her first meeting, then another and another. It was as if the chamber was a hive being invaded by really perky Africanized bees. And pretty soon, they were proposing extra events and creating committees to run those events, and they built a power base. They elected themselves as officers, moved the headquarters, rewrote the bylaws, and made life miserable for the old-school members. One by one, the charter members all left. Margie quit after they gave her a demerit for wearing brown shoes with a black suit. To Margie, that translated to: You’re over forty, get out.”
“What happened to all the men?”
Andrea shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they just quit, or they got too many demerits …”
“I think the Courtneys ate them,” I countered.
“Your guess is there’s some supernatural reason for the pink chamber seal?”
I nodded. “My guess: coven of succubi.”
“Well, you should fit in well, being a vampire and all.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You did tell them that you’re a vampire, right?”
I sipped my drink to avoid answering.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to live in the coffin anymore!” Andrea cried.
“I’m not living in the coffin. I’m just not volunteering any information that wouldn’t come up in an introductory conversation. Do you walk up to people and say, ‘Hi, I’m Andrea. I’m a natural redhead.”
“I’m not a natural redhead.”
“I knew it!”
“Don’t deflect the question. So, I guess you’re not going back, huh?”
“I have to,” I mumbled. “I’m in charge of the prizes for the charity carnival.”
Andrea hooted. “They’ve pulled you in!”
“They did not!”
“They made you their prize bitch! And not in the dog-show way. You might as well have given them all your milk money and then done their homework for them.”
“I told you, they’re scary. And blond. We’ve established that I don’t do well with scary blond people. And you’re starting to talk like me the more time we spend together. I think we can both agree that having one person in the world who talks like me is too many.”
“Jane, maybe you could see this as an opportunity to grow as a person, to face your fears, to be a little less wracked by insecurity.”
“I am not wracked by fear and insecurity. I have completely normal fears: failure, clowns, spiders. What’s weird about that?” I groaned. “Oh, who am I kidding? It’s all gone pear-shaped.”
Andrea patted my head. “No more Kitchen Nightmares for you.”
“It’s Gordon Ramsay. I can’t help myself. All the yelling and the cursing … it’s so forceful. And he takes off his shirt at least once every episode to change into his chef’s uniform.”
