LITMIR.BIZ

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she wasn’t. She’d gotten as far away from her former career as she could in the two years since she’d shocked everyone—especially her mother—and quit modeling. She’d stopped coloring her reddish-brown hair blond, stopped starving herself to keep slim, stopped constantly traveling with no friends close by, no family.

      No family…well, you couldn’t really miss what you’d never had, could you? Her mother had been family in only the most technical sense and she had no idea who her father was. So, to her, family was a fairly loosely defined word.

      The three other women sitting around this table with her had been her real family—her chosen family—for a very long time. Rosemary, Tanya and Paige were the sisters she’d never had, the ones who’d supported her when she’d walked away from the job her mother had thrust on her as a baby.

      Her mother, on the other hand, had stuck around just long enough to make sure Melody wouldn’t change her mind. Once she’d accepted that—and realized the money that had supported them was going to stop rolling in—she’d married a foreign designer and moved to England.

      She’d sent a Crock-Pot for Mel’s upcoming wedding. It had a European plug. That pretty much summed up Mother.

      But it was okay. Melody had been dealing with her mother’s less-than-maternal instincts for years. Melody had her friends. She had a normal life. She was finally going to pursue the passion she’d never gotten to explore since she’d always been in front of a camera: she planned to work behind one.

      And tomorrow, to make things perfect, she’d have another new member of her chosen family. A husband. Her marriage to a nice, smart, nonglamorous dentist would be the dot on the exclamation point as she renounced the first two decades of her life.

      “Well, if you’re making a Men Most Wanted list, I want to make one, too,” said Paige. She bent under the table to dig into her purse, until all Mel could see of her were the puffy, light brown curls on the top of her head. When she came back up, she was holding a pen and a small notebook. “Now, Mel goes first since she’s the one getting married. Tonight’s her last night to do this…since it’d be tacky to make a list of men you want to have sex with after you’re married, right?” She glanced at her friends, looking for confirmation.

      At the table next to them, the pudgy old man began choking on a tortilla chip. Or his tongue.

      “Turn the volume down, girl,” Tanya said. “And let me do it, your writing’s awful.” Grabbing the notebook, Tanya looked at Mel. “Okay, let’s do your sex list. Tell us everything. After all, who can you share your deepest fantasies with if not us?”

      Melody glanced around the room. “Uh, half of Savannah?”

      Tanya leaned in. “We won’t tell. We’re your best friends.”

      “Yes, you are,” she murmured, silently thanking them for their support. For being here when they all thought she was making a mistake. For loving her as much as she loved them.

      The four of them were an unlikely group—Rosemary, an elegant blonde and a member of one of Savannah’s wealthiest families. Paige, the loud, giggly one who discarded jobs like some people discarded tissues. Tanya, the nearly six-feet-tall African-American who was such a perfect foil to Rosemary’s spoiled Southern belle act.

      Then there was Melody, whose face had been plastered on baby-food jars as an infant, whose famous diaper commercials had become a pop-culture reference. The one who’d hammed it up on a bunch of kiddie TV shows, and whose teenage butt had filled out the curves of designer jeans. The one who smiled to show sparkling teeth and cried to sell booboo medicine and who’d landed a spot in a swimsuit issue at seventeen.

      Most importantly, Mel realized, she was the one who’d kept her most valued friendships alive by winning one battle against her mother: she’d insisted they have a real home in Savannah. Which was why Paige, Tanya and Rosemary had been there for every major event in her life. Like the one tomorrow. Her wedding. To nice, handsome, considerate Dr. Bill Todd of Atlanta.

      The only man she’d ever have sex with again.

      Grabbing for her margarita, she drained the glass. Then she reached for the pitcher, suddenly wondering if twenty-one really was too young to give up sex with every man in the world but one. Almost without thinking about it, she mumbled, “Brad Pitt.”

      Tanya snorted. “Oh, please, be a little original. If that man had sex with every woman who wanted him, he’d have to be on an intravenous Viagra drip with Spanish fly on the side.”

      “I thought this was my fantasy list.”

      Paige agreed with Tanya. “Fantasy, but with a shot of reality. Still, I suppose if a man knew you were the Luscious Lingerie Peacock Feather Girl you could get—”

      “Ugh, don’t remind me!” Mel snapped. “People still ask me about that stupid one-of-a-kind bra-and-panty set. I would burn it, but I have a feeling it could fund my retirement.”

      She’d only done one photo shoot for Luscious Lingerie, yet it seemed that’s how most of male America was going to remember her. As the Peacock Feather Girl. Funny, that particular job—which she hadn’t wanted to do in the first place—was what had made her decide to quit her former profession. Her mother-manager had insisted the exposure would be wonderful. In Melody’s opinion, the exposure had been nearly X-rated. Only if she wanted to be a porn star would the Luscious Lingerie shoot have been a wise move. Tanya had compared it to Shirley Temple posing for Penthouse after she’d gotten off the Good Ship Lollipop.

      After the catalog had come out, she’d been stalked by so many men she’d had to hide out in her apartment for months. But hearing a fan say how proud he was that he’d walked in on his twelve-year-old son having his first yank-and-pull session while holding the photo of Mel in the peacock ensemble had been the last straw. Being a pinup girl for prepubescent boys to get off on was gross to the nth degree.

      That’d been the moment she’d decided to quit. And finally—thankfully—she’d begun feeling she could go out without people whispering about her. The hair-color change had been a big help. So had her co-ed wardrobe and normal-person lifestyle.

      “I think I’d rather be remembered for almost anything else,” she said, shaking her head. Maybe as the three-year-old running to the bathroom with her hands frantically clutching her training pants. Or, gads, as the scrub-faced teen who sang the praises of a certain brand of tampons. Like at age fifteen, she’d wanted the whole world thinking about her being on her period!

      Still, they’d be better than the Peacock Feather Girl.

      “I know,” Paige said. “But what I meant was, the lingerie model might have had a shot. Movie stars, however, are not in the future of Mrs. Bill the Dentist from Atlanta.”

      Melody sipped again, trying to laugh at Paige’s words. Deep inside, however, she wasn’t laughing. She was wincing.

      She loved Bill. She felt sure she did. He was the first man who hadn’t treated her like an object, who’d supported her decision to change her life. Marriage to him would be perfect.

      So will the sex.

      That was when she figured out what was really bothering her about this list thing. It was bizarre to think about having sex with a stranger—even jokingly—when she hadn’t had it with her fiancé. Bill was old-fashioned and wanted to wait.

      Oh, God, what if we just don’t click in bed?

      Forcing the traitorous thought away, she said, “So it’s my fantasy list, but I don’t get to say who’s on it?”

      “There just have to be some ground rules,” Tanya announced.

      “Why, Tanya, honey, I thought you never paid any attention to rules,” Rosemary said, sounding amused.

      “First of all,” Tanya said, ignoring Rosemary, “we each need to write down copies of all four lists and hold on to them so we can keep an eye out for each other’s men.”

      Paige

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