LITMIR.BIZ

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she retrieved everything that she had dropped, except, of course, the cookies that had spilled and fed a half dozen gulls.

      She could hear Nick apologizing to the man on her behalf. “I don’t know what’s with her this morning. Ash is usually the most courteous young woman you’d ever want to meet.”

      Sorry, Nick, she thought. She hoped the guy wasn’t a really good friend of his.

      She was about fifteen minutes late picking up Karen, which made her about twenty-five minutes late picking up Jan. Yet once they were all in the car, it didn’t seem to matter so much, and the tension and anger she had been feeling ebbed quickly. They were still a good fifteen to twenty minutes ahead of the real start of rush hour. Both Karen and Jan were in terrific moods, delighted that they were heading off on their few days’ vacation together. There had been one container of cookies left, and Jan had happily dived right into them.

      “Hey, pass the cookies up here,” Karen said to Jan.

      “Excuse me, you got shotgun, I got the cookies,” Jan responded, grinning, then passed the tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies up to Karen in the front seat. Karen offered them first to Ashley, who was driving.

      Ashley shook her head. “No, thanks.” Her eyes were on the road. So far they were clipping nicely along I-95. It didn’t seem to matter that they had started out later than intended. Not that much later, she told herself.

      “That’s how Ashley stays thin,” Jan noted. “She has the ‘just say no’ thing down pat.”

      “It’s because she’s going to be a cop,” Karen said.

      Ashley laughed. “It’s because she gorged on them before leaving the house,” she told the two of them. That was true. Before the one container had gone to the birds, she’d eaten a number of them.

      “Think they might be dietetic cookies?” Karen asked hopefully.

      “No way. Nothing that tastes this good is dietetic,” Jan said with a sigh. “We’ll make it up, though. We’ll check into the hotel, go to the pool, swim like the dickens and walk it all off at the parks.”

      “We’ll just eat more junk at the parks,” Jan said woefully. “Boy, Ashley, you just had to bring these cookies, huh?”

      “If I hadn’t brought the cookies, we just would have stopped and ordered something really greasy at one of the rest stops,” Ashley assured her. “There should have been more cookies, actually. Enough to last the trip.”

      “What happened?”

      “I dropped them. Actually, I banged into some guy looking for Nick and they went flying. His fault, not mine.”

      “We’re going to have to stop anyway—coffee to go with the cookies,” Karen reminded her. “In fact, I’m stopping here and now. Not one more bite until we get the coffee to go with the cookies.”

      “Milk would be good,” Jan said.

      “Milk goes with Oreos,” Karen said. “Coffee goes with chocolate chips.”

      “I actually had coffee, but then…oh, well,” Ashley murmured.

      “You dropped it, too?”

      “Yeah, I dropped it.” She grinned at Jan via the mirror. “Actually, I spilled it all over him. And myself. I had to change. That’s why I was so late.”

      “Was it a good friend of Nick’s?” Jan asked. “Was he ticked?”

      “Hey, was he cute, or one of the old salts?” Karen asked.

      “I don’t think he’s a good friend, but I’ve seen him around before. I guess he was ticked. But it was his fault.”

      “That you spilled coffee on him?” Jan said.

      “Well, he was just there—practically in the doorway. Who expects to open their door to a hulking stranger before six in the morning?”

      “Well, actually, you should,” Karen pointed out. “All those aging old tars living in the houseboats at the marina know Nick is up early, and they’d rather have your coffee than make their own.”

      “So, Ash, you started the morning off by burning an old geezer?” Jan said. “That isn’t like you. Most of the people who frequent that place think you’re the most wonderful little darling in the entire world and that Nick is lucky to have you.”

      “I hope you didn’t cause an old guy’s pacemaker to stop,” Karen told her.

      “I don’t think this guy has a pacemaker.”

      “He wasn’t an old geezer?” Jan said, perking up.

      “He was a young asshole,” Ashley told her.

      “Hey, you never answered me, if he was cute or not,” Karen said.

      Ashley hesitated, frowning slightly. She didn’t pay a ton of attention to everyone who came into Nick’s—she didn’t help out now anywhere near as much as she had done in years past. But she was usually observant. She noticed faces, because she loved to draw. And she usually remembered features very clearly. It seemed strange to her now that she had seen the man before and really not taken that much notice of him.

      “I would never describe him as ‘cute,’” she assured Karen.

      “Too bad. I was thinking there might be someone hot and new at Nick’s to observe,” Jan said sadly.

      Ashley was silent for a minute.

      “Hey, she didn’t say that he wasn’t hot,” Karen observed.

      “I don’t think he’s the type I’d want to take an interest in,” Ashley said.

      “Because he was rude?” Jan asked. “It didn’t sound to me as if you were in the mood to be Miss Manners yourself.”

      Ashley shook her head. “I wasn’t rude. All right, yes, I was rude. Maybe I should even have apologized. But I was just in a hurry, and he startled me—even scared me there for a few seconds. He’s just…dark.”

      “Dark? Hispanic, Latin, Afro-American?” Karen said, confused.

      “No, dark, as in…intense.”

      “Ah, intense,” Karen said.

      “Well, I mean, he’s dark, too. Dark-haired, dark-eyed. Tanned. Apparently likes boats, or water, or the sun.”

      “Um. Sounds sexy. The dark type.”

      “Did he have a bod?” Karen demanded.

      “Yeah, I guess.”

      “Maybe I’ll start hanging around Nick’s more,” Karen said.

      “Oh, right, like you need to go looking for men,” Jan said.

      “Yeah, I do. Who do I meet at a grade school? You’ve got it made, because you stand up in front of hordes of people in great outfits and sing. You’re the one who doesn’t need to go looking for men.”

      “Looking is easy. They’re all over. Finding good ones is tough,” Jan said.

      “Well, forget Nick’s, then. Don’t all the psychologists say never to look for a date in a bar? You’re supposed to meet them by bowling or something,” Ashley said.

      “I hate bowling,” Karen commented.

      “Then bowling probably wouldn’t be a great way for you to meet a guy,” Jan observed. “There you have it, how not to date in a nutshell. Put the three of us together, and we can really solve the major problems in the world,” she said ruefully.

      “Hey, I solve the problems of six-to ten-year-olds on a daily basis,” Karen reminded her. “I’m responsible for molding the minds and morals of the future voters of a country in need of the best next

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