Almost Home. Debbie Macomber

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СКАЧАТЬ give up, ladies!” Christie ordered as she pulled a black-knit hat over her blond hair and down her face, her green eyes twinkling through the eyeholes. “Never surrender! Never accept defeat!”

      “Women unite!” I said as we high-fived each other.

      Brenda fiddled with her night-vision goggles then grabbed the gutter and shimmied her way up the roof. Her agility was impressive, as she’d had a number of strawberry daiquiris.

      I yanked my black-knit hat over my face, pulled the eye and mouth holes into the appropriate places, tucked in my black curls, and followed her, trying hard not to laugh. If I laughed while I was climbing I might wet my pants.

      “I’m a spy!” Brenda whispered as she climbed. She hummed the James Bond theme song. She has a full head of curling reddish hair, now hidden by her full-face black-knit hat, a huge mouth, huge eyes, and a biggish nose. Men went wild for her. “A sexy spy!”

      My laughter broke free, and I had to cross my legs. Don’t wet your pants! Brenda was wearing black leather pants and a black motorcycle jacket, like me. My sister was wearing a black cowboy hat over the face-hiding knit hat, which was so hilarious, and a black coat that wouldn’t close over her stomach because she is gigantically pregnant with twins. Normally she is the size of Tinkerbell. Now she is the size of a small bull.

      “Chalese is not a sexy spy,” I said about my sorry self as I grabbed the gutter to hoist myself up. “Chalese has been dumped. Damn that snaky Stephen.” I hadn’t even liked Stephen. But I didn’t appreciate being dumped. Nothing is worse than being dumped by someone you dated because he was there, a breathing male, and you desperately hoped he was more than he was but you had to quit lying to yourself in the face of overwhelming evidence of his jerkhood.

      A voice inside my blurry head said, Since you believe him to be a jerk, why are you on his roof in the middle of the night dressed like a burglar?

      Why? Because the three of us, me, Brenda, and Christie, together, are lethal. Daring. Truly ridiculous. And a little drunk. Although Christie is stone-cold sober. She never drinks when she’s pregnant.

      But, really, there was no harm in seeing whom Stephen was dating, even if I had to do it via a skylight. I didn’t care, not at all, but knowledge is power. “Knowledge is a daiquiri,” I intoned as I scrambled up, my black gloves offering a little traction. “Strawberry daiquiri, lemon daiquiri, peach daiquiri …”

      Stephen’s roof was flattish, so our climb to the skylight was not too perilous, even in my fuzzy state. I hummed the Rocky fight song, stopping to pump the cool night with my fists, like Rocky did in the movies.

      “What’s going on, Chalese?” my sister hissed from the ground below, her voice coming in from the walkie-talkie on my hip.

      I giggled and held my walkie-talkie to my mouth. “I’m not Chalese! I’m a spy! A secret agent! I am on a serious mission!”

      Why are you talking about a mission? Why aren’t you home reading a romance novel?

      Brenda burped. She says it’s her best quality. That is patently not true. Her best quality is writing screenplays for major motion pictures that make women alternately laugh and cry like banshees. She’s living with me until she smashes through her writing block.

      Christie said, “Copy that, Ms. Bond. All right, 007, carry on.”

      I carefully—as carefully as I could with two strawberry daiquiris under my belt, well, three, actually, but who’s counting—scuttled over to Brenda, who was peering through Stephen’s giant skylight, quiet as a tiny drunken mouse dressed all in black with night-vision goggles.

      I could see the butcher-block island in the middle of the kitchen. “Mission fuzzy,” I whispered.

      Brenda put her black-gloved hands over the skylight to angle a better view. “Command center, I report zero activity.”

      I leaned on the skylight a smidgen, balancing most of my weight on the roof. I could smell Brenda’s perfume, sultry and earthy.

      I gasped.

      Brenda said, “Holy Tomoly.”

      It was Alanna. Alanna Post.

      I had known Alanna the Man-eater for years. I avoided her at all costs. She was perfect. Blondish hair, highlighted just so, curling under right at her shoulders. Heavy, but annoyingly perfect, makeup. Thin. Oh, I hated how thin she was! Probably a size six. Designer clothes. And always, always, a condescending sneer or raised eyebrow to make it clear that she thought I was a chubby spider beneath her feet. An awkward orangutan with a poofy butt.

      And there she was in Snaky Stephen’s house, the doctor that I was going to dump anyhow! I leaned over the skylight, scooching toward the center, then hissed, “It’s the female praying mantis.”

      Why are you spying on Stephen on his roof? What about that romance novel? How about getting down?

      I gurgled as Alanna the Man-eater slipped off her dress. Underneath, she was wearing a red negligee, black fishnet tights, and black heels.

      This I could not have! Stephen had dumped me a month ago. I hadn’t even slept with him, and already he was getting in the flesh with Alanna the Man-eater?

      “She has deplorable taste!” Brenda whispered. “If I had an outfit like that on, I would have added a halo and tail.”

      “That patronizing witch,” I muttered. “Did I ever tell you Stephen has a flabby bottom?”

      We leaned over for better viewing angles.

      “Those boobs!” Brenda said, dismayed. “They have to be fake. No one has boobs that upright, do they?”

      “No one should have boobs that bouncy-ball perfect, even if they’re fake. It isn’t fair. It’s against the sisterhood of women, the Society of Decent Females.”

      Brenda and I scooched a bit more onto the skylight. Alanna had stretched out in front of the fire on the fake thick white fur. If I was wearing that red getup my stomach would be slouching over like a bag of red flour, with the wrinkles etched through my thighs doing little for my sex appeal.

      “I wanna be up there, I wanna be up there,” my sister whined from the ground. “Why don’t I ever get to do any of the fun stuff with you two?”

      “That’s easy,” I snapped. “It’s because you’re always pregnant, Fertile Myrtle!” Christie had three kids at home with her husband, Cary, the nicest man on the planet.

      “Well … well … well!” she sputtered. “Poop!”

      I sucked in my breath as Stephen with the flabby bottom stepped into view. He paused when he saw Alanna the Man-eater. I could see his shock. I pushed my feet hard into the roof so I wouldn’t fall off of it.

      I’m thirty-five, and I’m climbing on roofs to spy on my ex-boyfriend. What’s wrong with this picture?

      “I have got to use this in my next movie. Do you mind, Chalese?” Brenda asked, pushing her night-vision goggles on top of her head.

      “If I said I did, would you not use it?”

      “Silly СКАЧАТЬ