Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,97

waiting up for Valerie.

Grandma jumped off the couch when I walked in. "Did you get him? Did you get DeChooch?"

I shook my head. "He got away." I didn't feel like going into a big explanation.

"He's a pip," Grandma said, sinking back into the couch.

I went into the kitchen to get a cupcake. I heard the front door open and close and Valerie drooped into the kitchen and slumped into a chair at the table. She had her hair slicked back behind her ears and sort of plumped up on top. Blond lesbian impersonator does Elvis.

I put the plate of cupcakes in front of her and took a seat. "Well? How was your date?"

"It was a disaster. She's not my type."

"What's your type?"

"Not women, apparently." She peeled the paper wrapper off a chocolate cupcake. "Janeane kissed me and nothing happened. Then she kissed me again and she was sort of . . . passionate."

"How passionate?"

Valerie turned scarlet. "She Frenched me!"

"And?"

"Weird. It was really weird."

"So you're not a lesbian?"

"That would be my guess."

"Hey, you gave it a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained," I said.

"I thought it could be an acquired taste. Like, you know how when we were kids and I hated asparagus? And now I love asparagus."

"Maybe you need to stick with it longer. Took you twenty years to get to like asparagus."

Valerie thought about that while she ate her cupcake.

Grandma came in. "What's going on here? Am I missing something?"

"We're eating cupcakes," I said.

Grandma took a cupcake and sat down. "Have you been on Stephanie's motorcycle yet?" she asked Valerie. "I rode on it tonight and it made my privates tingle."

Valerie almost choked on her cupcake.

"Maybe you want to give up on being a lesbian and get a Harley," I said to Valerie.

My mother came into the kitchen. She looked at the cupcake plate and sighed. "They were supposed to be for the girls."

"We're girls," Grandma said.

My mother sat down and took a cupcake. She chose the vanilla with the colorful spinkles. We all stared in shock at this. My mother almost never ate a perfect cupcake with sprinkles. My mother ate leftover halves and cupcakes with ruined icing. She ate the broken cookies and pancakes that got burned on one side.

"Wow," I said to her, "you're eating a whole cupcake."

"I deserve it," my mother said.

"I bet you've been watching Oprah again," Grandma said to my mother. "I always know when you've been watching Oprah."

My mother fiddled with the wrapper. "There's something else . . ."

We all stopped eating and stared at my mother.

"I'm going back to school," she said. "I applied to Trenton State, and I just got word I'm accepted. I'm going part-time. They have night courses."

I let out a whoosh of air in relief. I'd been afraid she was going to announce she was getting a tongue stud or maybe a tattoo. Or maybe that she was running away from home and joining the circus. "That's great," I said. "What kind of a program are you in?"

"It's just general right now," my mother said. "But someday I'd like to be a nurse. I always thought I'd make a good nurse."

IT WAS ALMOST twelve when I got back to my apartment. The adrenaline high was gone, replaced by exhaustion. I was full of cupcakes and milk and I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I took the elevator and when the doors opened on my floor I stepped out and stood statue still, barely believing my eyes. Down the hall, in front of my door, sat Eddie DeChooch.

DeChooch had a huge wad of towel held to his head with his belt, the buckle jauntily placed at his temple. He looked up when I walked toward him, but he didn't get to his feet and he didn't smile or shoot me or say hello. He just sat there staring.

"You must have a beaut of a headache," I said.

"I could use an aspirin."

"Why didn't you just let yourself in? Everyone else does."

"No tools. You need tools to do that."

I pulled him to his feet and helped him into my apartment. I sat him down in my comfy living room chair and hauled out the half-empty bottle of hooch Grandma had left hidden in my closet from an overnight stay.

DeChooch chugged three fingers and got some color back into his face.

"Christ, I thought you were gonna carve me up like a Sunday goose," he said.

"It was close. When did you come around?"

"When you were talking about