Unplugged by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online

ricocheting around in my cranium, I would forget this whole Solberg fiasco. It wasn’t as if Laney couldn’t find herself a new and better man . . . one with hair that hadn’t been harvested from south of his belt line. So why was I knocking myself out trying to find the little twit?
    The truth was painfully obvious and came hard on the heels of the first wave of my glycogen high. I wanted to know there was hope . . . for me . . . for happily ever after . . . for Mars and Venus in the same orbit. And I knew, I was certain, that if someone like Solberg couldn’t be faithful to someone like Laney, girls like me—everyday kind of girls, girls with fat cells and hair disasters—were dead out of luck.
    I mean, she was Zany Elainy, voted girl most likely to . . . do whatever the hell she wanted . . . with whomsoever she damned well pleased.
    Why she chose to hang out with a freakazoid like Solberg was beyond my comprehension. I’d met him more than ten years ago at the Warthog in Schaumburg, Illinois, where I used to serve drinks. His come-on line had had something to do with his hard drive getting it on with my motherboard. Not the kind of suggestion that makes a girl go weak in the knees.
    I mean, I know good men are hard to come by. In fact, judging by my own rather checkered past, the species might have become extinct shortly following the demise of the Tyrannosaurus rex. Still, no woman with all her ducks in a row should settle for a Solberg. In fact, no woman who had any fowl of any sort should associate with a guy like Solberg.
    Then again, his neighbor had seemed strangely interested. And she looked like she had some poultry. What was that all about? One hip cocked against my cracked vinyl counter, I finished off the slice of cheesecake, returned to my frozen Mecca, and rummaged for something toward the ground level of the food pyramid. But the nutrition fairy had yet to arrive, so I settled for another cream cheese treat and was immediately rewarded with an insight: Why had Solberg’s classy neighbor been gardening in the dark?
    I’m not sure why I hadn’t come around to that question earlier. Maybe my own misplaced guilt regarding the confiscated mail had retarded my suspicions, but now the entire episode seemed ultimately surreal to me. Most people don’t go rummaging around in their backyards in the middle of the night.
    Well, all right, technically ten o’clock isn’t the middle of the night. But it was well after dark. What had Tiffany Georges been doing out there in her Barbie doll capris and gardening gloves?
    Curious enough to abandon dessert, I wandered into the adjoining room. Its size suggested that it might once have served as a closet for an adolescent midget. I used it for my office. I squeezed inside. Turns out my cheesecake had accompanied me. Huh. Loyalty. I like that in a dessert.
    Sitting down at my desk, I pulled the greater L.A. phone book from the bottom drawer and dragged it open.
    Georges isn’t an uncommon name. But it just so happened I knew Tiffany’s address—or at least her next-door neighbor’s.
    Her number was listed under “Jacob Georges.” Which probably meant that either little Tiffany was still living with her parents or she was married. Remembering her deplorable lack of fat molecules, I was betting on the latter.
    So where was her husband, and how did he feel about his wife inviting the Geekster over for supper? Not that he’d have anything to worry about. After all, Solberg wasn’t exactly Pierce Brosnan . . . or human. But still, he might be considered competition if . . . Nope, I thought. He was an irritating little worm from every possible angle. Surely there wasn’t a husband alive who would approve of his presence. So where was the husband?
    Firing up my PC, I did a Google search, but it soon became apparent that if Tiffany had buried her spouse in the backyard, it hadn’t hit the Times yet.
    And what the hell was I doing? I dropped my forehead onto my desk