Glory Girls

An Excerpt From: GLORY GIRLS

The next morning Chelsea woke up complaining of a sore neck. “I don’t know why you let me sleep on the couch last night.”

“The decision was made when you passed out in a grape-induced coma,” Beth countered. “Just be grateful I covered you up, otherwise you’d have pneumonia too.”

Chelsea rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck from side to side, then ran her fingers through her golden curls, which bounced back to springy perkiness. She didn’t even have bedhead. Beth could almost hate her for that.

“Hey,” Chelsea said. “What are you doing today?”

Laundry. Groceries. Maybe if she got really bored she’d turn on Jerry Springer and thank God and all that was holy that at least she hadn’t sunk to that level.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Well, it’s Wednesday, which means I have my Circle of Friends meeting this afternoon…I was thinking maybe you’d like to come.”

The Circle of Friends Women’s Group was Chelsea’s latest passion-of-the-moment. As far as Beth could figure, they embraced everything from meditation to yoga to candle parties. Candles were nice, but Beth could do without the rest of the touchy-feely metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on! I went to that neighborhood garage sale with you last month.”

Oh geez, now Chelsea was dragging out the “you owe me” tote board. This could go all the way back to preschool if necessary.

“Besides,” Chelsea pressed the advantage while she had it, “we have a special guest coming today. Dr. K. C. Lanigan. He’s the hottest thing right now, a real dynamic speaker.”

“Hot, huh?” Beth hadn’t missed the emphasis Chelsea placed on the word, or the sparkle in her eye. She wondered if her sister had more than a passing interest in Dr. K. C. Lanigan.

“He’s a triple threat,” Chelsea purred. “Tall, dark and hung like a horse.”

Beth choked back a laugh. Her sister was incorrigible. “How do you know?” she asked.

“Can’t miss it,” Chelsea replied, not even bothering to blush. “He wears really tight jeans.”

“Jeans? I thought all those New Age gurus wore robes or caftans?”

“This one doesn’t. He wears body-hugging jeans, and I do mean hugging…in all the right places.”

Beth stopped folding the quilt she’d thrown over her sister the night before. “Maybe he has a sock stuffed down his pants.”

“Nope. Socks don’t, um…shift direction.”

Beth raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you were keeping a really good eye on it. I thought you were supposed to be meditating?”

“I was! I just needed something to focus on while I visualized.”

Beth couldn’t help teasing her sister. It was too much fun. “So what were you visualizing?”

Chelsea’s lips curled in a slow, secretive smile. “I was visualizing what the doctor looked like with his socks off.”

Beth shook her head. She knew her sister well. Chelsea could have a spontaneous orgasm at the drop of a hat. But she didn’t lust after men. She preferred to be the lustee. This guy must really be something for Chelsea to gush the way she was. Beth wondered if maybe she should check out this Dr. K. C. Lanigan after all. They already had one interloper at the family gate and couldn’t afford another.

“What time is the meeting?”

Chelsea’s jaw dropped. “You’ll go? Really?” She jumped up and hugged Beth before she could change her mind. “I’ll pick you up at two o’clock. Wear something comfortable. We usually sit on the floor.”

Oh great. Beth wondered if Dr. Triple-Threat planned it that way—a roomful of adoring women at his feet, all gazing raptly at the fruit of his loom.

“Oh, I’ll be ready all right,” Beth assured her sister. And if the doctor tried waving his sock puppet in her face, she just might bite it off. That would teach him.

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