Some Like It Hot by Zoey Dean Read Free Book Online

need to talk to the kitchen.”
    Great. She had them where she wanted them. Time to shift gears.
    “I was thinking about some other things that could make this prom special,” Sam mused.
    Both girls' faces lit up as if Orlando Bloom had just asked them to dance. “We'd love to hear them,” Fee exulted.
    “Here's my thought.” Sam tapped a forefinger against her lips. “I help
refine
your prom concept, all of my nearest and dearest friends come to prom, and … what say I film the transformation? Sort of a … prom makeover movie. What do you two think?”
    Fee and Jazz turned into happy bobble-head dolls.
    “Excellent.” Sam shook Fee's hand, then Jazz's. “It's settled, then. We have a lot of work to do while we eat. Someone make a list. By the way, once we've got a vegetarian option, the menu will be outstanding.”
    Fee beamed and instantly whipped a small notebook out of her purse.
    Sam smiled. In the end, it had been as easy as giving candy to Kirstie Alley.

So … Curvy
    A s Ben piloted his parents' yacht, the new
Nip 'n' Tuck,
out of the harbor—at forty feet, it was longer than its predecessor, with brass fixtures gleaming and the scent of new paint mixing with the glorious smell of the ocean—Anna stood at the bow and flashed back to a moment when she'd been in seventh grade.
    She and her best friend, Cynthia Baltres, had let themselves into Cyn's brownstone one afternoon after school. Cyn had gone to the kitchen to find some chips and Cokes, and Anna had wandered into her father's home office, a small room off the library that held a black steel desk and chair, a laptop, stacks of papers, and several shelves of books. Cyn's father, though a businessman, was at work on a novel. Right by the computer was a copy of a book that Anna had never heard of before, Kahlil Gibran's
The Prophet.
Anna idly flipped it open and began to read one of the short poems.
    “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love.”
    The words had struck her in their simple profundity. Not only had she memorized the verse, but she'd also hand-lettered the words on an index card and put the card inside the top desk drawer in her private study. (That year, her mother's designer had redone Anna's bedroom and adjoining study suite in Chinese antiques from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Anna's new desk had been made from priceless huanghuali hardwood whose hand-carved pieces fit together without glue or nails.)
    By the time Anna was in ninth grade, everyone at Trinity was jaded or at least pretending to be. Ragging on
The Prophet
was party blood sport. No one believed that love existed and everyone pointed to the off-the-charts divorce rates of their parents as empirical proof.
    Anna had tossed away the index card but had kept the words emblazoned in her memory. Yes, she'd temporarily jettisoned them when she'd been so certain in the autumn that she was in love with young writer Scott Spencer—a crush she hadn't mentioned to Cyn—and then Cyn had hooked up with Scott. Now that Cyn and Scott were history and Anna didn't want Scott at all, Gibran's words had come roaring back. Could those words apply to a guy who, the last time she'd been on a boat with him, had abandoned her in the middle of the night and then made up some absurd excuse about it?
    “Ah. My Selkie maiden longing to return to the sea,” Ben intoned, coming up behind Anna. She was in her ancient gray cashmere sweater and faded jeans—she'd worn her Ralph Lauren deck shoes because it sometimes got slippery. He was in khakis and a faded Princeton sweatshirt. He lifted her ponytail and kissed the back of her neck.
    She half-smiled. “The sea is not what I'm longing for. Who's steering the ship of state?”
    “It's on autopilot. Kind of like the government.” He put his hands on Anna's shoulders and turned her toward him. “Care to elaborate on what you're longing