08bis Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online Page A

me pregnant."
    "Didn't you take precautions?"
    "No, I didn't take precautions. Look at him! He looks like a loaf of yeast bread just before you bake it. He's soft and white and totally without substance. Who would have thought he'd have sperm? Do you know what this poor kid will look like?" Valerie wailed. "It'll look like a dinner roll."
    "Maybe this isn't so bad. I thought you were all anxious to get married."
    "I was anxious to get married, not to get pregnant. And I don't want to marry Kloughn. He lives with his mother, for God's sake. And he makes no money."
    "He's a lawyer."
    "He chases ambulances down the street. He might as well be a German shepherd."
    It was true. Kloughn was having a difficult time getting his practice established and had resorted to listening to the police band.
    "A woman has choices these days," I said.
    "Not in this family!" Valerie was pacing and waving her arms. "We're Catholic, for crissake."
    "Yeah, but you never go to church. It isn't like you have religion."
    "You know what's left when the religion goes away? Guilt! Guilt never goes away. I'm stuck with the goddamn guilt for the rest of my life. And what about Mom? I even mention abortion, and she'll be crossing herself until her arm falls off."
    "Don't tell her. Tell her the strip was negative."
    Valerie stopped pacing and looked at me. "Would you get an abortion?"
    Whoa. Me? I took a beat to think about it. "I don't know," I said. "I'm having a hard time relating. The closest I've come to childbirth is buying a hamster."
    "Fine," Valerie said. "Suppose Rex was never born. Suppose the mommy hamster had an abortion and Rex was bagged up along with the dirty kennel bedding in the breeder hamster cage."
    Sharp pain to the heart. "When you put it that way..."
    "It's all his fault," Valerie said. "I'm going to find him. I'm going to track him down, and I'm going to maim him."
    "Kloughn?"
    "No. My dog turd ex-husband. If he hadn't run off with the babysitter this never would have happened. We were so happy. I don't know what went wrong. One minute we were a family and then next thing I know he's in the coat closet with the babysitter."
    "Open up!" Grandma yelled from the other side of the door. "I gotta go. Lock yourself in some other room."
    "Just because you have the baby doesn't mean you have to marry Kloughn," I said. Although I actually thought Valerie could do a lot worse than Albert Kloughn. I liked Kloughn. He wasn't a big, handsome, super-cool guy, but he tried hard at everything, he was nice to Valerie and the girls, and there seemed to be genuine affection between them all. I wasn't sure anymore what made a good marriage. There had to be love, of course, but there were so many different kinds of love. And clearly, some love was more enduring than others. Valerie and I thought we'd found the loves of our lives, and look where that took us.
    "Shoes," I said to Valerie. "When in doubt, I find it always helps if I buy a new pair of shoes. You should go shopping."
    Valerie looked over at the door. "I could use a new pair of shoes, but I don't want to go out there."
    "Use the window."
    Valerie climbed out the window, got to the edge of the roof and hesitated. "This is scary."
    "It's not a big deal," Diesel said. "Just hang your ass over the edge, and I'll bring you down."
    Valerie looked back at me.
    "Trust him," I said. Trust Superman, Spider-man, E.T., the Ghost of Christmas Present... whoever the hell.
    "I don't know," Valerie said. "This feels kind of high. I don't like the way this feels. Maybe I need to go back into the house." Valerie turned toward the window, and her foot slipped on the shingle roof. "Eeeeee," she shrieked, flailing out with her arms, grabbing me by my jacket. "Help! Help!"
    She yanked me forward, and we both lost balance, slammed onto the roof, and rolled off the edge, clinging together. We crashed into Diesel, and the three of us went to the ground.
    Diesel was flat on his back, I was on top of him, and Val was on