More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2)
More Muffia By Ann Royal Nicholas
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination; historical names and information, should either appear, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations or events is strictly coincidental.
Copyright 2015 by Ann Royal Nicholas
Published by Bournos 2015
Los Angeles, CA
Printed in the United States of America
Cover Design by Fred Baxter
Interior format by coversbykaren.com
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without this condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser.
ISBN No. 978-0-9907080-3-2
www.Bournos.com
If you’re new to
The Muffia
series, then you might not know there’s a real group of book-loving, Los Angeles women who call themselves
The Muffia
, which I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of for thirteen years. These women, whose names have been changed for their own protection, generously share endless amounts of wit, insight, kindness, laughs and food. Most of them can mix a damned fine cocktail, too.
If it were not for the Muffs who are, each of them, overflowing vessels of inspiration to me, this series could not have been written. Many of the incidents in the Muffia books have actually occurred; or they could have happened had events gone slightly differently.
Thanks must, therefore, go first to the ladies of the real-life Muffia: Michelle Joyner, Lisa Mohan, Carolyn Calvert, Sonya Walger, Lysa Hayland Heslov, Denise Gruska, Susan Hoffman Hyman, Betsy Salkind, Clare Foster, Janine Eser and Jann Turner. Without these women, my life would be so much less than it is.
So many others contributed to the book you hold in your hand—either through their inspiration and encouragement, or by virtue of their superior beta reading skills. I’m grateful to Agatha Dominik, Fred Baxter, Arbel Ben Peretz, Cedering Fox, Claire Carmichael, Hannah Dennison and Joyce Mochrie.
Thank you, Liz Trupin-Pulli, agent extraordinaire, for continuing to believe in me and the Muffs. Thanks also to Alex Hyde White, all the people at Punch Audio, and Marc Solomon for their skill and expertise in the recording of
The Muffia
audio book.
Lastly, thank
you
. Your purchase of this book makes a contribution from the real Muffia possible. Ten percent of profits from the sale of this and all
Muffia
books will be donated to charitable organizations benefiting girls and women in the United States. The Muffs will decide, on an annual basis, which organizations will be the recipients of Muffia funds. We are particularly interested in organizations that provide women of all ages with access to education and the means to start their own businesses. Should you have ideas of where we might send our donations, please contact us.
Make suggestions and keep track at
www.themuffia.us
.
Happy reading,
Ann Royal
More Muffia is dedicated to my son who’s been very patient.
If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that if
my
dear friend and fellow longstanding member of the Muffia Book Club had called
me
from halfway around the world to tell me that my stupendous Israeli ex-lover—who, by the way,
died
while we were having unbelievable sex—was walking around Narita Airport very much
alive
, I would have jumped on the next plane to Tokyo.
If it had been me who’d been awakened with this news in the middle of the night, I would have been apoplectic and immediately gone online and booked a ticket. How dare Maddie react with her typically unique combination of disbelief and ennui? She should reserve all that composure for her freakin’ mediations. What’s wrong with people? And on top of that, now I was going to miss my plane! No good deed goes unpunished, right?
“Excuse me,
sumimasen
, pardonez moi…MOVE,” I assert with as much conviction as I can muster—though probably coherent only to myself—as I race toward the gate and my plane back to Los Angeles where I live and work and sometimes love. At that moment, though, I don’t think it really matters what I say. I just have to say it with enough volume and with the obvious authority I’ve developed over my career as a talent agent (read: glorified babysitter to celebrities—
not
what I signed up for), so that I can get all these people out of my way.
But they aren’t moving. Aggghhhh!
There’s a cluster of schoolgirls in front of me—possibly a
Hello Kitty
convention—wearing impossibly hot pink and taking up the entire corridor. I see an opening and lurch toward it, but as I do, “Oh—uh—oh no—!” And down I go: shoes, bag, phone, and the rest of my carry-on belongings scattering hither and yon.
“Shit
,
” I utter with more volume than I intend.
That
, after all, is a word people in every culture understand. I groan in pain, happy I’d given up short skirts, and attempt to pull myself upright, while the
Hello Kitty
contingent stares at my entire
koplotznick
like I’m Lindsay Lohan trying to walk a straight line after failing a Breathalyzer test.
Come to think of it, quite a lot of people, guys anyway—actually it’s only been a couple of guys who’ve hit on me, something that occurs less and less these days—tell me I sort of look like Lindsay Lohan. Only older, taller, heavier, and my hair is auburn and naturally curly, whereas Lindsay’s is blonde and straight, last I checked. But yeah, other than all that, I look
exactly
like Lindsay Lohan
.
“Here, let me help you,” says a bespectacled man with a smattering of freckles spread out over his nose. He has an accent—Australian or possibly South African—I can’t tell the difference, and a sorry shortage of hair. He looks familiar in the way guys like Freckles always look familiar. He takes hold of my arm with one hand and helps me to stand and steady myself. In the opposite hand, he’s holding one of my shoes, which had flown off when I tripped. He’s examining it curiously.
This particular pair of Natacha Marros are not what one would call “traditional” in appearance: Lucite platforms and red metallic detailing over a slipper of gold. People who bother to look down and examine strangers’ footwear see them and are instantly put on notice that the wearer is no traditionalist, either. But now, as I follow his gaze, I see the heel of this shoe has completely busted off—something that is
not
supposed to happen with Marros.
Goddammit!
No wonder I’d fallen like a three-legged cow.
Well, one thing’s for sure: Yours truly would be making a return trip to the Barney’s shoe department in the near future. I had spent far too much of my hard-earned paycheck on these puppies not to make a stink if they refuse to give me a new pair. It hardly seems relevant that I’d been traveling at a speed exceeding the limit recommended for such shoes—some twenty miles per hour, across heavy-duty, multi-colored acrylic carpeting, when I fell. For the price one pays, shoes should withstand a modicum of exertion on the part of the wearer beyond a little pole dancing, the purpose for which they were intended.
I was also going to have a talking-to with that pole-dancing teacher of mine. Great teacher, though she is, it was K-Love who’d convinced me to buy the damned shoes in the first place, saying men preferred Marros above all other brands on the feet of girls twirling on poles. Not that I’d had the opportunity or desire yet to dance for a man, though I was optimistic about one day being ready and able to, once I found the man I wanted to dance for. Success equals opportunity meets preparedness, and I was destined for great things. I just had to keep on believing.
Clearly, K-Love’s shoe recommendations were a tad suspect. So, come to think of it, were her promises of increased flexibility and agility—neither of which had been on display in the immediately preceding five minutes. I had fallen on my ass like an uncoordinated giraffe stepping onto dry land after two months at sea. But I was willing to concede that I didn’t go to class enough to see any real benefit.
“Thank you,” I say to Freckles at last, relieving him of the broken shoe.
“Alright now?”
I nod. He sounds like he’s from New Zealand, not that I could tell the difference if he were from Australia.
“Just a minute,” he says, whereupon he darts toward a collection of pink
Hello Kitty
lunch boxes, emerging with my errant heel, smiling and shaking his head as he hands it to me. “It’s a wonder you can stand in these things. They certainly can’t be very good for your feet.”
What—he’s a podiatrist now? So I twist my ankle in my too-chic-for-shit platforms; that gives him the right to criticize? Granted, maybe I shouldn’t have been wearing them for commercial jet travel. But I didn’t expect to be
running
for my plane, which was not going to wait just because I went out of my way to call one of my closest
friends to tell her some
amazing
news, which she, incredibly, barely reacted to. It’s not like I had a choice. And now Freckles is giving me a reprimand? Where does he get off? Literally, where?
Come to think of it, I bet I can guess where. He looks like the type of guy who regularly enjoys sexing it up in Bangkok.
I smile at him innocently. “It’s not the shoes’ fault. They’re designed for slightly less rigorous activities—like sex with a pole.”
His freckles seem to grow into each other, resulting in his face going entirely red. Must have struck a nerve there. And as I watch him slink away, I’m thinking to myself,
Quinn, you can be such a bitch.
I know I’m supposed to be practicing gratitude.