Life Is A Beach: Life Is A Beach / A Real-Thing Fling

Karma shook her head. “I’ve got things to do,” she said.

Jennifer leaned forward, her breasts surging out of her vee neckline. They were conical in shape and tanned all over, at least from what Karma could see, which was considerable. Furthermore, it looked as if Jennifer had succeeded in her quest for artificial nipples. They were standing up straight and proud. Did guys really like that look? It seemed that as a matchmaker she ought to know such things.

Jennifer noticed her scrutiny. “Yes, Karma, I did get them. Do you want to know where? I could—”

“No, thanks,” Karma said hastily.

Jennifer treated her to a knowing smile. “They’d help you in the guy department, believe me. By the way, I took a message for you.” She bounced over to the desk and ripped a pink message sheet off a pad. “The caller said she was your cousin Paulette. She said she was recently fired from her job in New York and wants you to call her back.”

“Paulette? Call her back?” Despite Karma’s immediate sympathy for anyone who’d lost a job, this wasn’t anything she wanted to do. Paulette had been the butt of jokes from Karma and her sisters during their childhood. Karma knew she had never been completely forgiven for dipping the sleeping Paulette’s hand in a pail of warm water on the first night of sleep-away camp when they were both eight; Paulette had wet her bed, which was what Karma had been assured would happen. After that, Paulette’s nickname around camp had been P. P., which ostensibly stood for her initials, since her full name was Paulette Parham. But all the campers had known what the nickname really stood for, and the counselors probably did, too.

“Come on, Karma, sit down and watch with me.” Jennifer tugged Karma into the alcove and pushed on her shoulders until she sat on the chair.

“Roll tape,” Jennifer sang out as she pushed the play button, and Slade’s face popped up on the screen. A good-humored face, an animated face—until Karma asked him the first question and he froze up.

As Slade hemmed and hawed his way down into the conversational skids, Karma slid a glance in Jennifer’s direction to gauge her reaction. “Not much of a talker,” was all she said.

“Mmm,” Karma said noncommittally.

“Still,” Jennifer mused as Slade started running on about birds, “he’s a hottie. I can’t see what’s the big whoop about roseate spoonbills and great blue herons, they sound boring to me, but I think I’ll give Mr. Slade Braddock a whirl.”

Karma’s heart sank.

Jennifer switched off the tape. “Set it up for Friday night, won’t you, Karma?”

“Well, I—”

“I mean, why not?” Jennifer skewered her with a look.

“I’ll have to check to see if he’s busy,” Karma hedged, getting up and shuffling through a pile of papers on her desk.

“Aunt Goldy says she’s met him. She says he’s nice. What do you think? Are we well suited, he and I?”

“Why don’t I study your personality profiles in relation to each other and get back to you on that? Of course, I won’t see his until he brings it back.”

Jennifer shrugged, which went a long way to show off her breast assets. “Oh, don’t bother with that psychology stuff. I want to go out with him. Friday night is good because my mother is trying to set me up with her best friend’s son, Sheldon. If I already have a date, Mom won’t insist.” She flipped her hair back off her shoulders, and Karma was nearly blinded by the shimmer of it in the slant of sunshine coming in the window. Slade, she thought sourly, would go crazy at the sight of Jennifer.

“So do you promise to set it up?”

“All right,” Karma said reluctantly. “I’ll do it.”

“Tell Slade to pick me up at seven,” Jennifer said airily on her way out the door.

When she had gone, Karma collapsed onto her desk chair and pillowed her head on her arms in dismay at the thought of setting Slade up with Jennifer.

“Well, he may be a client, but Jennifer won’t like him,” counseled the Aunt Sophie side of her. In fact, the voice in her head sounded so much like her aunt’s that Karma’s head jerked up in surprise.

Whereupon the Karma side of her cautioned, “Why wouldn’t Slade like Jennifer? She’s blond, sexy and eager.”

Unfortunately it was the Karma side of her that made the most sense.

Still and all, Friday was still four days away. Karma could only hope that Jennifer, who could usually be counted on to show her fickle side, would decide before then that Slade wasn’t a real possibility.

SLADE BRADDOCK SHOWED UP at the rooftop sundeck yoga class right on time that night. He strode in wearing those cowboy boots, jeans and a white T-shirt that made his tan look darker than ever. He nodded to Karma, balancing his hands on his hips and looking the group over.

“Who is that?” Mandi asked as she unfurled her purple yoga mat.

“Oh, just someone I invited to join us,” Karma answered.

“Mmm-mmm. I sure would like to hear him say, ‘You know you want it, baby. You know you do.”’ Mandi lowered her voice in imitation of a male consumed by lust, which might have been funny if Karma were in the mood for it.

“Don’t they all say that to you?” Karma asked innocently. Mandi let out a sort of halfhearted giggle as Karma unfolded herself from her mat, where she had been sitting in Half-Lotus position. She strolled over to where Slade stood.

He grinned at her, the light in his eyes rivaling the moonlight spilling down from a clear night sky, his grin revealing teeth that gleamed whiter than the promise of any toothpaste commercial on TV. “Didn’t think I’d show up, did you?” he asked.

What to reply? She had and she hadn’t, both at the same time. One thing for sure, she had developed a dry mouth from merely being in his line of sight, and at that moment, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to open it to speak.

“Uh, glad to see you,” she managed to say after what seemed like a couple of eons. Slade looked out of place, she thought, in those jeans. “Be better if you’d worn fewer clothes,” she said, not realizing until the words were out of her mouth how they sounded.

His delighted laughter boomed out over the assembled regulars, most of whom were gawking at him with their jaws hanging down to their knees. Which was not an approved yoga pose as far as Karma knew.

“Most things,” Slade said wickedly but in such a low tone that the others couldn’t hear, “are better without so many clothes. You mind telling me which items you’d like me to discard first?”

She blushed. She couldn’t help it. “Your boots for a start,” she said crisply.

The instructor, a powerful bare-chested yogi from The Om Place whose previous address was listed as an ashram in India, sauntered over. “A new student?” he asked in precise tones as he inspected Slade from head to toe.

“Prashant, this is Slade. Slade, Prashant.” Karma made her introductions as quickly as she could and scurried back to her mat.

“How do you happen to know that big hunky guy?” Mandi wanted to know. Her favorable assessment of Slade and his muscles and his tan and his white, white teeth was undisguised and avid.

“Oh,” Karma said with a vague wave of her hand, “we met on the street.”

Jennifer arrived, running late as usual. She stopped to talk to Karma. “Isn’t that Slade Braddock talking with Prashant?” she asked, aiming a come-hither look and up-standing nipples in his direction.

“Yes,” muttered Karma. “I’m afraid so.”

“Should I introduce myself? Or do you want to do it?”

“After class,” Karma told her.

“Mmm,” said Jennifer, her gaze still on Slade. “Boxers for sure.”

“Briefs,” Mandi corrected. “He’s a briefs kind of guy.” Having made that pronouncement, Mandi leaped up, her melon-sized breasts jostling each other for room under her Om Is Where The Heart Is T-shirt. She undulated over to the corner where Slade was approaching the stack of spare mats.

“Need some help?” Mandi asked.

Karma wondered, Help? Help with what? Deciding whether he wanted a blue mat or a purple one? Putting one foot in front of the other until he reached the rest of the group? Oh, pu-leeze!