Windfall by Rachel Caine Page A

but damn, this is a seven point five on the fashion disaster scale. And what’s with her hair ?”
    â€œCherise,” I said. “I know it’s hard for you, but please. Sarah’s had a bad time. Be kind.”
    â€œI was being kind. That is way worse than a seven point five.”
    Sarah said, “Jo? Did she just say you have a boyfriend?”
    Trust Sarah, of course, to blow past Cherise’s fluff to get to the potentially disastrous part of the conversation.
    â€œNot just a boyfriend,” Cherise said. “Boyfriends are Ken dolls. Boyfriends are safe. Her guy is the kind of hottie who needs to keep a fire extinguisher around, just to hose down any passing women who spontaneously combust.”
    I stared at her, amazed. For Cherise, this was, well, poetic.
    Sarah was, meanwhile, frowning at me. “And you didn’t tell me about him?”
    I didn’t want to bring up David yet. That was going to be a strange and difficult conversation, with somebody as earthbound-normal as Sarah, and I couldn’t really mislead her too far. Trying to keep him secret would only lead to low comedy and farce. Not to mention put a serious cramp in my love life.
    â€œHe had to leave,” I said. Not a lie. “I’ll see him later.”
    â€œI should have known you’d have a boyfriend,” Sarah said. She sounded bitter. “What was I thinking? When do you not?”
    â€œKind of a ’ho, isn’t she?” Cherise asked. Sarah nodded wisely.
    â€œHey!” I said sharply. “Watch it!”
    â€œOh, come on, Jo. Your libido isn’t exactly on the low end of the curve. I’ve seen you checking out the boys at work,” Cherise said. “Even, you know, Kurt. The anchor.”
    â€œI would never ! That man is made of plastic!”
    â€œOh, the plastic ones are the best,” she said, and gave me a wicked look. “They come with D-cell batteries, off switches, and you never have to meet their folks.”
    Cherise worried me sometimes. “Please tell me you haven’t—not with Kurt —”
    â€œPlease. I have standards,” she said. “He may be an anchor, but he’s a morning anchor. Hardly worth the investment.”
    â€œNow who’s your boyfriend?” Sarah began again. I hustled her toward the car. Cherise broke ranks, rushed back, and flipped switches in her convertible. The canvas top whirred up and locked in place.
    â€œMarvin says it’s going to rain,” she said.
    â€œMarvin doesn’t know his—” I bit my tongue to keep from saying something that might get back to him. “His meteorology from a rain dance.”
    Cherise looked up at the cloudless blue sky, shrugged, and slid on her dark glasses. “Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You don’t have to wet-vac. And you know all about the Percentage.”
    Yes. They liked to use that in advertising: Trust the Percentage. Because Marvelous Marvin really did have the best percentage of forecast accuracy in our area. Not that it was anything but blind luck. I’d asked him to walk me through the calculations for his rainy-day forecast two days ago, and he’d happily brought out the charts, the National Weather Service models, the radar images, all the good stuff . . . and proceeded to come to exactly the wrong conclusion.
    But he was 91% percent accurate over the last two years.
    Hard to argue with that, but I lived in hopes that today, at least, would be the beginning of the end of Marvin’s reign of meteorological omniscience.
    We piled into the Viper and headed for Shopping Nirvana, otherwise known as the Galleria—150 shops, with everything from Sak’s to Neiman Marcus. I both loved and hated living so close to it. It was like a diabetic with a sweet tooth living next door to the fudge factory. We cruised along, drawing envious stares from teenagers in gleaming low-riders, faded Yuppies in