“How much have you had to drink?”
“Enough. And you'll be happy to learn I watched the movie three more times and practiced moaning.” Her eyes rolled back in her head. “Ohhhh,” she moaned. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.” She opened her eyes and looked at me. “How was that?”
A door opened two doors down, and an elderly man looked out at us. He shook his head and muttered something about lesbians and retreated back into his house.
“That was pretty good,” I said, “but you might want to adjust the volume.”
“Do you think the naked greeting is too much? I figured I'd get it over and done, so we could make our six o'clock dinner reservation. I was afraid if I waited until after dinner I'd get nervous and throw up.”
“Glad to see you've got it all figured out.”
Jeanine took a deep breath and cracked her knuckles. “Maybe I need another drinky poo.”
“Probably you've had enough drinky poos,” I told her. “You don't want to get horizontal until your date shows up.”
I jogged back to the Escape, slipped behind the wheel, and punched in Charlene Klinger's number.
“He called,” she yelled into the phone. “He wants to take me to dinner. What do I do?”
“You go to dinner with him.”
“It's not that simple. I don't know what to wear. And I need a babysitter. Where am I going to get a babysitter at this late notice?”
“I'm on my way” I told her, putting the car in gear. “Ill be there in a half hour.”
Junior opened the front door and let me in.
“Where's your mom?” I asked.
“Upstairs. She's going nuts because she can't find anything to wear, and she got her hair stuck in a torture device.”
I trooped upstairs and found Charlene in the bathroom with a curling iron in her hand.
“Stephanie Plum, full-service matchmaker, available for wardrobe consultation and babysitting,” I told Charlene.
“Are you sure you can handle the kids?” she asked me.
“Piece of cake.”
Truth is, I'd rather get run over by a truck than spend an hour with Charlene's kids, but I didn't know what else to do.
“I thought I'd wear this pants suit,” she said. “What do you think?”
“The pants suit is good, but the shirt isn't sexy.”
“Oh God, am I supposed to be sexy?”
I ran to her bedroom and sifted through the pile of clothes on her bed. I found a V-necked sweater that I thought had potential and brought it into the bathroom.
“Try this,” I told her.
“I can't wear that. It's too low. I bought it by mistake.”
I unbuttoned her out of the shirt and dropped the sweater over her head. I took a step back, and we both looked in the mirror.
Charlene had a lot of cleavage. “Perfect,” I said. “Now you're a domestic goddess and a sex goddess.”
Charlene looked down at her boobs. “I don't want to give him the wrong idea.”