Windfall Read Free

I took inventory, lifted her arms, and did a perfect runway twirl. “Well? What’s my fashion score of the day?”
    I considered. “Nine,” I said.
    Cherise whipped back around, offended. “ Nine? You’re kidding!”
    â€œI deducted for nonmatching nail polish.” I pointed at her toes. Sure enough, she was wearing yesterday’s Lime Glitter Surprise.
    â€œDamn.” She frowned down at her shapely toes, one of which had a little silver ring. “But I got points for the new tat, right?”
    I’d missed it during the twirl. “Let me see.”
    She turned around and pointed at the small of her back. Just at the point where the hiphuggers met the curve, there was an indigo-fresh . . .
    I blinked, because it was a big-eyed alien head. Space aliens.
    â€œNice,” I said, tilting my head to study it. The skin was still flushed. “Hurt much?”
    She shrugged, eyeing a woman in a conservative black pantsuit who’d come in and given her one of those blankly disapproving looks, the kind reserved for girls in hiphuggers, tattoos, and belly button piercings. I saw the demon spark in Cherise’s eyes. She pitched her voice to carry. “Well, you know, those tattoos kind of sting. So I did a little coke to take the edge off.”
    The woman, who was reaching for a coffee mug, froze. I watched her rigid, French-manicured hand slowly resume its forward motion.
    â€œSmoked or snorted?” I asked. Still the straight woman. Apparently, it was my new karmic path.
    â€œSmoked,” Cherise said blandly. “Best way to get my high on, but then I got all, you know, nervous. So I smoked a couple of spliffs to calm down.”
    The woman left, coffee mug clenched in white knuckles.
    â€œHR?” I guessed.
    â€œYeah, drug testing. I’ll be peeing in a cup within the hour. So.” Cherise dropped into the chair next to me as I applied the towel to my feet. “I hear you have an interview for the weekend forecast position.”
    â€œYeah.” I wiggled my damp toes and felt the drag of clinging hose. “Not that I have a chance in hell, but . . .” But it was more money, and would get me out of the humiliation business, and I wouldn’t miss being Joanne Baldwin, Weather Warden quite so fiercely if I had something else I could be proud of doing.
    â€œOh, bullshit, of course you have a chance. A good one, too. You’re credible on camera, honest, and the guys just love you. You’ve seen the website, right?”
    I gave her a blank look.
    â€œYour page is going through the roof. Hits out the ass, Jo. Seriously. Not only that, but you should read the emails. Those guys out there think you’re damn hot.”
    â€œReally?” Because I didn’t think there was anything hot about getting hit in the face with buckets of water. Or standing around in walking shorts, an I Love Florida! T-shirt, and oversized sunglasses with zinc oxide all over my nose. Too much to ask that I appear in a decently sexy bikini or anything. I had to look like a total dork, and do it on cheesy, cheap sets standing in rubber ducky pools or piles of play sand.
    So not hot, I was.
    â€œNo, see, you don’t get it. It’s the theory of the magic glasses,” she explained. Cherise had a lot of theories, most of them having to do with secret cabals and aliens among us, which made her both cute and kind of scary. I picked up a brush from the makeup table and started working on my hair; Genevieve, a burly Minnesota woman with a perpetual scowl, bowl-cut hair, and no makeup, took the brush away and began working on me with the tender care of a prison-camp-trained beautician. I winced and bit the inside of my lip to keep from complaining.
    Cherise continued. “See, you know in the movies how the really hot girl can slip on a pair of horn-rims, and all of a sudden there’s this entire silent agreement between all the