Janet Evanovich - Wicked Appetite

Diesel thunked his forehead on the steering wheel. “I thought there was someone dead on the side of the road. Don’t yell out like that.”

“It felt like an emergency.”

Diesel eased back into traffic. “Raisin Bran is not an emergency.”

“Easy for you to say.”

The Spook Patrol was gone when we parked in front of my house. Probably off getting their gizmo fixed after Diesel pitched it into the road. I checked my mailbox and took out three bills and a letter from a publisher. I read the publisher letter immediately.

“Well?” Diesel asked.

“Another rejection,” I said, returning the letter to its envelope.

“Persistence,” Diesel said.

“Persistence,” I repeated.

Cat 7143 gave Carl the evil eye when we walked through the door, but he didn’t hiss or slash Carl’s chest open, so I figured that was a good sign. Carl played it safe and wrapped himself around Diesel’s leg until we made it to the kitchen, where he could scamper up a cabinet and sit on the top of the refrigerator.

I got my notebook out and turned to the tabbed section that held recipes in progress.

“As long as I have this opportunity at home, I’m going to work on my cookbook,” I told Diesel.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, being that you’re under the influence of Shirley’s glutton charm?”

“I don’t have a choice. My house is sagging.”

I thumbed through a couple pages and settled on biscuits. I wanted a savory biscuit, and I was working at selecting cheese and herbs. I went to the fridge and got milk, plus a pound of butter, a chunk of Vermont cheddar, a chunk of Emmentaler, and a chunk of Gruyère. I hauled a sack of flour out of the pantry and looked at the butter. There was only half a pound.

“What happened to the butter?” I asked Diesel.

“You took it to the pantry with you.”

“Yes, but now there’s only half a pound.”

Diesel’s eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. “Your face is greasy. Looks to me like you scarfed down the butter.”

“You said you wouldn’t let me eat everything!”

“You were sneaky. You ate in the pantry.”

I went back to the refrigerator for more butter, but there wasn’t any more.

“I’m out of butter,” I said to Diesel. “Now I can’t make biscuits.”

“Make half a batch,” Diesel said. “Or make something else.”

“We should have stopped at the store.”

“Put the cheese down,” Diesel said.

“Excuse me?”

“You were eating the cheese.”

I looked at the wedge of cheese in my hand. Sure enough, someone had eaten some of it.

“It has my cooties,” I said. “I might as well finish it.”

Diesel snatched the cheese from me. “No.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s mine.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t.”

I kicked at him, but he moved away.

“Behave yourself,” Diesel said.

“And if I don’t?” I asked him. “What then? Would you have to punish me? Would you put me over your knee?”

“Uh-oh,” Diesel said. “You’re sounding like Lenny.”

“Lizzy’s been a bad girl,” I said to him. “Lizzy needs a good spanking.”

“Lizzy needs to think about something else,” Diesel said.

“Like what? Handcuffs? Do you have handcuffs? How about this? How about you spank me while I eat an entire jar of peanut butter with my tongue while I’m handcuffed.” Even as I said this, I was feeling ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop the trash from coming out of my mouth. “I’m possessed,” I said to Diesel. “Lenny’s charm’s got me.”

“Yeah,” Diesel said. “This is so pathetic. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Fantasy number seven and number eight on my bucket list. I’ve got a woman asking me to handcuff her and spank her… and I can’t bring myself to do it.”

“Maybe you should just lock me in a closet.”

Diesel wrapped an arm around me and kissed me on the top of my head. “I’d be afraid you’d eat your socks. I’m going to take you to the bakery so Clara and Glo can keep an eye on you while I find a safe place to stash the two charms.”

“I thought you didn’t want to do that.”

“I prefer keeping them on me, but obviously, that’s not working for us.”

Clara had me sitting on a stool in the middle of the bakery kitchen. There was food all around but nothing I could reach. If I got off the stool, Clara and Glo yelled at me to get back. Clara was washing down work spaces, and Glo was tending the shop. Without warning, several of the machines turned themselves on. Excess frosting in the big mixer spewed across the room, the top popped off the blender Clara was using and rasberry puree exploded out at her, and the food processor danced across the counter.

Glo rushed into the kitchen. “Omigosh, did I do this? I was trying to memorize a translation spell, but I might have accidentally read something from the mechanical transportation spell on the next page.”

Personally, I was going with power surge. I didn’t want to think Glo could turn appliances on by mumbling a few words.

Clara pulled the plugs on the blender and the food processor, and the mixer shut itself off. Puree dripped off Clara’s nose, and her hair was dotted with butter cream frosting.

Clara put two hands flat on the island and did a ten-count. She took a deep, cleansing breath and looked at Glo. “Isn’t it time for you to go home?”

“Officially, I have ten minutes left on the time clock,” Glo said.

“I’m excusing you early. If you don’t leave in the next two minutes, I might strangle you.”

“That’s excellent,” Glo said, “because I thought I’d visit Shirley as soon as I got off work. I’m pretty sure I found a translation spell. It won’t reverse the spell I put on Shirley, but it will translate gobbledegook.”

“You should leave bad enough alone,” Clara said to Glo. “If the spell doesn’t work, it could make things worse.”

Glo tucked her book under her arm and hung her tote bag on her shoulder. “Yes, but if it does work, it’ll get Shirley talking again.”

“Take Lizzy with you,” Clara said. “I can’t watch her and clean up this mess at the same time.”

Glo drove a slightly used Mini Cooper that had been painted to look like a yellow cab. We squeezed ourselves into the car, and Glo drove the short distance to Shirley’s apartment.

“I hope she’s home,” Glo said, parking at the curb, looking over at Shirley’s building. “I really think I’ve got it this time.”

We took the stairs, and Glo led the way down the hall to Shirley’s door. I knocked, and Shirley answered immediately.

“Beetle ears,” Shirley said, all cheerful.

I looked past her and saw she was at work packing food into cardboard boxes and grocery bags. There were boxes loaded with Pop-Tarts, jars of jam, bags of cookies, canned corn, tomato sauce, and mayonnaise. It was a glutton dream come true, and I felt my heart quicken and my eyes glaze over.

“What are you doing with all this stuff?” Glo asked Shirley.

“Shoe horn for poor poopers.”

“That’s nice,” Glo said. “They’ll be happy to get all this.”

“Anyone would be happy to get this,” I said. “Poor poopers, rich poopers, and in-between poopers.” I ran my hand lovingly over the grocery bag filled with candy bars. “I could help you deliver this,” I said to Shirley. “I’d be happy to take it off your hands.”

“Don’t give it to her,” Glo said. “She’ll eat it. She caught your gluttony.”

“Blek?” Shirley asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But it wears off if I stay away from the ladybug.”

“Booger bug,” Shirley said.