No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (No Such Thing As...: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) by Shelly Fredman

goddess’ thing for a while if I were you. Franny’s under a lot of pressure right now.”
    “I was never serious about it anyway. So, who are you taking to the bar mitzvah?” Janine grabbed a pink lip gloss off the dresser and held it up to the light. “What do you think? Too Britney Spears?”
    “Whoa,” I said. “Back up.” I got off the bed and tossed a few peanuts to Ozzie. He cut me an accusatory look as I held back a few for myself. “What do you mean, ‘who am I taking to the bar mitzvah?’ I thought we agreed to go together.”
    Janine hesitated. “There’s gonna be dancing.”
    “So?”
    “So I wanna dance—and no offense, but I don’t wanna dance with you. Look, the invitation says ‘and guest’.”
    “Oh, fine,” I sulked. “So who are you bringing?”
    I don’t know. Maybe Tony Tan.” Tony Tan is Janine’s former boss and the Number One Sleazeball Realtor of the tri-state area.
    “Tony? But I thought you couldn’t stand him.”
    “I ran into him at “Ducky’s” the other night. He’s a good dancer.” She shrugged. “And kisser.”
    My eyes narrowed into slits. “You already asked him, didn’t you?”
    At least she had the good grace to blush. “Sort’ve. I can un-ask him if you want.”
    “No,” I sighed. “That’s all right.” Suddenly I panicked. “Is DiCarlo bringing a date?”
    “I don’t know. I saw him talking to Tina Delvechione outside the post office the other day. They looked pretty chummy.”
    “Get out!” Back in junior high, Tina Delvechione was the first girl to “develop” and by the looks of her, there’d been no sign of stopping. Oy. This was not good.
    “Hmm,” said Janine.
    “Hmm, what?”
    “I thought you said you just wanted to be friends with Bobby.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So then why should you care if he brings a date?”
    “I don’t care,” I said, a little too petulantly to be believable. I was really going to have to work on my delivery. “I just don’t want to be the only one there without a date, is all.”
    “Bran, we are independent women. We don’t need men to show us a good time.”
    “So does that mean you’re going to ditch Tony and come with me?”
    “Not a chance.”
    “But, what about all that stuff about being independent women?”
    “I lied. Let’s go eat.”
    Janine was right about the waiters. They were all drop dead gorgeous. Turns out, Demitri’s was a family owned restaurant, and all the guys who worked there were related. They kept coming over to our table to see us—okay, technically, they came over to see Janine, but I was there too—and filling our glasses with ouzo.
    I ended up getting really drunk and spent much of the evening making out with a nineteen-year-old busboy named Alex—a cousin who had just arrived from Greece and was looking for an American wife. I found this out from his uncle, the head chef and another Alex, who offered to broker the marriage for me. I think I agreed. I really can’t remember.
    At closing time, Alex the Younger asked to drive me home.
    “Go on,” Janine prodded me.
    “Janine, he’s a baby.”
    “Who cares? He’s legal. You’re entitled to have a little fun, and you may wind up with a date for the bar mitzvah after all.”
    In the end, I decided to let him drive me home. In my altered state of consciousness, Janine’s reasoning sounded pretty good. Plus, he’d promised me leftovers from the kitchen.
    I waited outside in the parking lot while Alex locked up the restaurant. The cold air sobered me up a bit, and I started to feel the first pangs of regret over my decision. I am not a “one-night-stand-with-a-stranger” kind of girl, no matter how much I’d like to be. It’s awkward, at best, and even though I was pretty sure Alex Junior wasn’t a serial killer, I didn’t think I’d feel too good about myself in the morning. I was just going to have to tell him that the wedding was off and, by the way, I wouldn’t be sleeping with him. I really