How Hard Can It Be (Handcuffs and Happily Ever Afters) Read online

  There’s just something inherently wrong with an eightyish-year-old woman sporting the triple-D bosom of a twenty-year-old centerfold model. Although to be fair, she was kind of cadaver-ish chic, similar to Cher.

  Her mouth was a train wreck. It was a cross between a fish and a duck, and it didn’t quite close. Between the mouth and the eyes, she appeared to be in a constant state of surprise. Her plastic surgeon should be shot. I idly wondered if food fell out when she ate, although it didn’t look like she ate much. I couldn’t look away. I pulled on my bangs, forcing my eyes to the floor, trying desperately not to make eye contact. There was no doubt she could suck out a soul.

  “Hello dahalllings,” she purred, and her voice was a mix of Harvey Fierstein and Marilyn Monroe. Her bodyguard, a big burly man in a black suit somewhere in his fifties, quickly put his arm out to steady her as she almost tumbled off her designer stilettos. “Shoshinka, my love, how are we doing today?”

  “Fine,” Shoshanna growled, “until about three minutes ago. And my name is Shoshanna.”

  “Of course,” Evangeline laughed. Her laugh reminded me of ice breaking off trees after a horrific winter storm. Deadly. “You have such an amusing sense of humor, Shoshushu.”

  Shoshanna’s body tensed like a coil about to spring. I gently put my hand on her back to calm her. Her small body shook beneath my touch. Why were these women so scared, and why were they taking this mean old biddy’s crap? I held my breath, watching in fascination as Evangeline’s bulging eyes scanned the crowd. Nancy pushed me down so the scary hag wouldn’t see me. Their protectiveness confused and touched me. Their fear was palpable, but my own terror began to ebb away . . . replaced by anger.

  Five minutes ago this room was filled with joyful, kind women who had passions for butt plugs and dishes made with cream of mushroom soup. They’d taken me in and hadn’t laughed at my book idea, and it certainly wasn’t much of an idea. Although with some work . . . Focus, I needed to focus. I needed to save these women. These gals were protecting me. They didn’t even know me and they’d thrown their bodies in front of mine so the viper bitch whore from hell (Nancy’s words, not mine) couldn’t eat me.

  My sense of justice had gotten me in trouble before, but that was baby stuff compared to what was about to go down . . .

  “So girls—” Evangeline took a seat with a lot of help from her bodyguard. I knew my eyes should be trained on the floor like the rest of the group, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking. I wish I had. Her silk sheath hiked up during her descent to the chair, exposing an ungodly amount of spray-tanned, pickled thigh. She crossed her toothpick legs, and I realized with sickening clarity that she was going commando. I bit my lip to tamp down my gag reflex, but I knew it would be weeks before I had an appetite again. “I’m curious if anyone has any new ideas.”

  She waited.

  And waited.

  “I bet you are,” Shoshanna muttered under her breath.

  “What was that, Shorunka darling?” she asked, grinning evilly. “I thought I heard something unpleasant.”

  “It must have been your conscience, dear.” Nancy smiled, speaking in a loving tone.

  “I don’t think she has one,” Rosebush Flower Petal burst out, her voice sounding fragile and shaky.

  “I don’t think she has one,” Evangeline mimicked Rosebush Gal with an evil hiss. “Well, she doesn’t. And all of you stupid, unattractive old women should know that by now, so cough up the ideas,” she shrieked.

  Eyebrow-less Joanne was hyperventilating behind me and Flower Power seemed seconds away from fainting. This would have been funny if it wasn’t real, but it was . . . very real, and these lovely, albeit strange, older gals were terrified. If these ladies couldn’t stand up for themselves, I’d do it for them . . .

  “I have an idea.” I shimmied my way out of the huddle and stood in front of her. Holy shit, up close she looked like a wax figure from Madame Tussaud’s Museum.

  “No, Rena, no,” Shoshanna moaned in agony. An icy blast of fear shot through me at Shoshanna’s tone, but I figured if I gave Evangeline my idea, maybe she would leave, and my cute little ladies could have fun again.

  “Ah, what have we here?” Evangeline eyed me from head to toe. She enviously fingered my long blond hair and winced at my snow boots. “Some new blood. How lovely of you ladies to bring me a gift. Especially one so breathtakingly beautiful.”

  Good God, are all these old women lesbians?

  “She’s not for you,” Shoshanna said through clenched teeth, stepping forward to stand next to me. “She’s not even a writer.”

  Ouch, that stung. Of course Shoshanna was correct, I’m not a writer. I knew she was trying to save me from the plastic surgery experiment gone awry seated in the chair, but I wish she had come up with a less hurtful defense. I put my arm around my little bondage-loving new buddy in solidarity and to let her know I was fine.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the viper spat, pushing Shoshanna away from me with the pointed toe of her shoe. I quickly averted my eyes to avoid the peep show she insisted on performing. “What’s your name, pretty girl?” Evangeline asked in a silky voice.

  “Rena,” I could hardly raise my voice above a whisper. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “Rena what?” she pried. The bodyguard took out a pad and pen from his breast pocket.

  “Rena Gunderschlict.” There was an audible groan of dismay from the pile of ladies behind me. I knew my last name was awful, but I didn’t think their reaction was to my name . . . it was the fact I’d given it to the idea-stealing hag.

  I experienced a surge of panic as the bodyguard wrote it down on his pad. He was formal and official, causing me a hellacious flashback to my recent arrest downtown at the news station after my pathetic attempt to become the new Sunshine Weather Girl.

  “So, Rena, my dear,” her strangely hypnotic voice urged me on, “what’s your idea?”

  There was no way in hell I was going to tell her about the teacher and the convict bus driver. I wasn’t sure if the girls were blowing smoke up my butt about my story or if it’s a best-seller in the making. Just in case, I wasn’t giving it to the walking Botox experiment. I’d simply have to yank another one out of my rear . . .

  “Well . . . um . . . there’s this pirate,” I started.

  “Yes?” In her excitement she leaned forward, giving me an unfortunate view of the perky round globes attached to her eighty-year-old bony chest.

  “Yep, a pirate,” I said, looking everywhere except at Evangeline’s bosom. I rocked back and forth in panic, having no idea what was going to come out of my mouth. “And he kidnaps these beautiful twins during an earthquake. It was about a four or so on the Richter scale. He’s never seen anything as gorgeous as these young women in his life.” I glanced over at Shoshanna, who discreetly moved her hands to her breasts. “They had ginormous breasts.”

  “Ahhh, yes,” Evangeline cooed. “Tell me more.”

  “Right, so . . . he steals them in the middle of the night from their mansion in Sydney, Australia. Once he gets them on the ship, he realizes they’re conjoined.” I stared at the ceiling, praying for divine intervention, or a power outage.

  “Holy shit,” Shoshanna choked.

  “Be quiet, Shoshoodoo,” the viper hissed. “Continue,” she demanded.

  “At this point he realizes he only loves one of them. The other one is a total bitch.”

  Evangeline clasped her hands greedily. “What’s her name?”

  “Whose name?” I asked.

  “The name of the one he loves.” She rolled her eyes at my stupidity.

  That was really alarming. Bulging eyeballs with permanently open lids should not be permitted to roll. Ever. “Oh, her name is, um . . . Shirley, but it just so happens that the pirate is a time-traveling vampire warlock.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.” Intense astonishment touched her waxy face.

  “Of course you haven’t,” I stammered. A wave of a
pprehension swept through me, and I started to sweat. “There’s only one in existence.”

  Her head whipped around to her bodyguard, “Are you getting all this, Cecil?” He nodded his huge head and kept writing.

  Cecil? His name was Cecil? That so didn’t work for me. He looked like a Butch or a Rocky. “So . . .” I had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth next. I needed to wrap this baby up or I was going to pass out from anxiety. “The pirate—”

  “What’s his name?” the pantiless meanie asked.

  “Um . . . Dave, his name is Pirate Dave. So Pirate Dave time-traveled to the future with the conjoined twins to John Hopkins Hospital.”

  “What year?” she asked, reaching out to touch me with her claw.

  I backed away, feigning deep thought. “1974.”

  “Why 1974?” She sounded bewildered.

  “Pardon my rudeness, but if you keep talking, I will never finish.” I made eye contact and held it. She narrowed her eyes. I narrowed mine . . . and waited.

  “Fine,” she snapped, “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Good. Anyway, Pirate Dave held his massive sword to the surgeon’s neck and demanded that he separate the twins. So the surgeon did and Dave gave him three bags of gold and some Elvis trading cards he found when he visited the 1950s. He magicked up some limbs for his love and her bitch of a sister because . . . um . . . it would be too hard to live a regular life, you know, missing half a torso and arms and legs and half of your butt and . . .” I stopped. The entire room watched me, mouths agape. I didn’t take that as a good sign . . . I skipped the rest of their physical description. “So they time-traveled back to the year they were from.”

  “What year?” Evangeline bounced up and down with excitement. Her boobs did not.

  I paused and gave her the evil eye. Her bouncing stopped and she looked passably contrite. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “The year was 1492. The very same year that Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But what most people don’t know is that Pirate Dave discovered America, not Columbus . . . not Leif Erickson.”

  The crowd gasped. I can’t believe they’re buying this shit. I wonder how far I can go . . . “If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Pirate Dave is a time-traveling vampire warlock. He’s already been to America in the future a bunch of times and he knows exactly where it is. He doesn’t want to take credit for the discovery because he likes being a pirate too much. He garners great enjoyment out of kidnapping beautiful women and having sex with them. He has a medical problem that causes a constant erection and he has to have sex four to six times a day.”

  “Is this based on a true story?” Evangeline inquired.

  “Yes, yes it is.” I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek so hard I drew blood.

  “I thought so,” she said, impressing herself with her vast knowledge of history.

  “So when they got back to the ship, Pirate Dave and Shirley started to have sex on the deck of the ship while everyone watched. They were so in love, they couldn’t wait to ravish each other and they were so into each other, they didn’t even realize anyone was watching.”

  “How romantic.” Evangeline was breathing hard; her left hand cupped her right breast.

  Ewwww, she was turned on. I was going to shower for a long time that night.

  “Then they lived happily ever after. The end.”

  “Wait,” Evangeline shouted. “What happened to the bitch sister?”

  I hesitated. What in the hell happened to the evil sister? Shit. “She . . . um, tried to kill Pirate Dave and Shirley while they were having intercourse on the deck, but the crew got so mad they threw her overboard. They were all voyeurs.”

  “Did she die?” a high squeaky voice asked. Who in the fuck said that? Cecil? Cecil sounded like a ten-year-old nerd before puberty. His voice did not match his body. He and Evangeline were quite the pair.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out in the sequel,” I said. As if.

  “What’s the sister’s name?” Cecil asked.

  What the hell was it with these people and names? “Laverne, her name is Laverne.”

  Cecil gave me a big shit-eating grin. “Laverne and Shirley? You named them Laverne and Shirley?”

  If he wasn’t connected to the viper bitch whore from hell, he might just be okay . . . but he was with her, and therefore he was the enemy. “Yes.” I couldn’t help but return his grin. I could hear the stifled giggles from behind me. Evangeline looked confused and pissed about being left out of something.

  “What are you idiots laughing at?” she snapped. “This is based in truth. I remember reading all about this in high school. Rena has no imagination! She just looked up facts and is trying to make you think she’s created a masterpiece.” Her voice was shrill.

  My God, she was stupid and evil, never a good combination.

  “Jeeves—” She unconsciously grabbed both of her breasts and her eyes got glassy. The images she was embedding in my brain would take years of therapy to remove . . . and I thought his name was Cecil. “We’ve not done a paranormal yet. They’re very popular right now,” she hissed with excitement. “This will be my crowning glory! I will be bigger than Jackie Collins!”

  Cecil-Jeeves nodded and continued to write. Wait . . . was it really a good idea? I basically just coughed up a hairball of idiocy and she planned to turn it into a New York Times best-seller? You know, maybe it was good. The whole time-traveling vampire warlock thing hadn’t been done yet. I’d just come up with the next big thing and this over-Juvédermed shrew was going to steal it. I’d never read a romance novel about conjoined twins. It was a huge market that had never been tapped. I had just come up with the new Twilight, and it was slipping through my fingers. This would make a riveting movie. What in the hell was I thinking, giving my entire future away like that? The whole separation of the twins and the murder plot was truly inspired. There was absolutely nothing like it out there. Thank God I hadn’t told her about the teacher and the convict bus driver—that would be a hit for sure. She was going to steal my story and make millions off it. My millions. Damn it, that was not going to happen.

  “There’s just one little problem,” I replied sharply, cutting into her Jackie Collins fantasy. “It’s my idea and I’m writing the book.”

  Evangeline’s nostrils flared with fury and she glared at me. The little ladies gasped and without even seeing them, I knew they had huddled closer together in abject terror. Cecil-Jeeves raised an eyebrow and Shoshanna swallowed a laugh that ended up sounding like the first gag of someone throwing up.

  “You’re right, Rhonda”—Evangeline’s voice was like honey—“but you’re a nobody. Never been published. Sholulu here says you’re not even a writer.”

  It was funny how she couldn’t remember anyone’s name, but she could recall every word they said. I had a bad feeling Shoshanna’s comment would come back to haunt me.

  “When I said that”—Shoshanna leapt to my defense—“I was simply referring to her unpublished status . . . at the moment.”

  “Of course you were, Shoshanka.” Evangeline had turned on a dime. She now sounded sane, rational, and sweet. WTF? “Reba, darling—” She smiled and extended her claws to me. I so did not want to touch her, but politeness dictated my decision. I gingerly took her hands. I’m a good Midwestern girl, after all. Her hands were ice cold, and I tried to block out the fact that they’d been cupping her bosom only moments ago. “You’re right,” she continued gently. “It is your idea and it’s brilliant. I’d like to offer you something. . . something rare and special. Something I offer to no one. Would you like that, Rona?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, half in anticipation, half in dread. The room had become so quiet, I thought everyone had left. Nope, they were still here, they’d just stopped breathing. So had I.

  “I’d like to mentor you on your book,” she purred.

  My ladies gasped. I don’t know if it was in envy or horror. Although, if I was a gambling
girl, I’d put my money on horror. I noticed Cecil’s jaw clench. He continued to write, but his body language suggested anger. What was that about? Was he jealous? Ew, did he have a thing going with her and didn’t want to share? I needed to stop this line of thought before my gag reflex kicked in.

  “I don’t know . . .” I started.

  “We will write together,” she quickly interjected. “You and I will share co-author credit. I already have an agent, a publishing house, publicity team, website, and a fan base of millions. You would be a shortsighted fool not to take me up on this . . . That is, unless you’re not really an author,” she challenged, watching me carefully.

  I was still freaked out that she liked the pirate idea. Was she brain damaged? Even though I loved the idea of being a rich and famous author, I wasn’t sure selling my soul to the devil was the best way to go about it. I knew deep down inside that the Pirate Dave–Laverne and Shirley conjoined twins concept sucked. And while I was being brutally honest with myself, the bus driver–teacher thing was pretty horrid, too. Shoshanna was right I’m not a writer. I’m an accountant. I just wished there was a little more excitement in my life . . .

  “Um . . . thanks for your interest, but no. I already have a job, and I am saving my vacation days for a trip to see the Tommy Bartlett Show at the Wisconsin Dells.” Oh my God, did I just say the Tommy Bartlett Show? The cheesy water show with the skiing squirrel? Yes, I did . . . I had just revealed my total inner dork. Why didn’t I lie and say Aruba or someplace sexy?

  I began biting my cuticles in panic. I didn’t belong there. All these women, eyebrows or not, were authors . . . real authors, who could actually write. Not young, bored-with-their-life girls who were desperately searching for something to feel passionate about. That being said, I wasn’t about to let the skanky witch have my idea. I’d give it to one of the girls there. Shoshanna would love it; there could definitely be some girl-on-girl action in this one. Although the conjoined twins thing made it a bit complicated. I noticed everyone in the room was breathing again and Cecil’s jaw had relaxed. Everyone seemed happy, except the viper bitch whore from hell.