Pamela Browning - Life Is A Beach - Life Is A Beach / A Real-Thing Fling

“—swimsuit top in your pocket. I saw your expression when you pulled it out this morning. You looked surprised. That’s enough for me.”

At the moment, screening videos of her other Rent-a-Yenta clients didn’t appeal to him at all. “How about lunch tomorrow? Or dinner?”

“Or yoga? Remember, I said we’d have a class here tomorrow night.”

She must be testing him. He didn’t want to go to a yoga class. He hated anything New Age. But he did want to see Karma again, and desperately.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

She favored him with a decisive nod. “Good. Now I’d better walk you out of the building. Goldy doesn’t take kindly to unescorted men rambling around in here.”

They walked down four flights of stairs and found Goldy in the lobby, sitting behind her desk watching TV.

She looked up briefly, showing absolutely no surprise that the two of them had descended from on high rather than walking in the front door.

“Your aunt Sophie is here,” she said.

Karma’s eyebrows flew up. “My aunt Sophie is dead.”

“Well, she’s here anyway.” Goldy gestured in the direction of a cardboard bucket of the same ilk as the ones that fast-food fried chicken came in.

“What in the world are you talking about, Goldy?”

“Your aunt Sophie. They delivered her ashes. That’s them right there.”

THE NEXT DAY WHEN KARMA met her uncle Nate at the neighborhood ice-cream parlor, she informed him about the fried chicken barrel now reposing on top of her refrigerator.

“Okay,” he said, “so I should have ordered an urn. But what difference does it make? Sophie wanted her ashes scattered in the ocean. She loved the ocean.”

Karma took time out from licking her raspberry frozen yogurt on a stick. “And you’re going to scatter them, right?”

Nate looked uncomfortable. “No, not me. You, Karma.”

Karma stopped stock-still in the middle of Ocean Boulevard. “Why me?”

“I pretend like she’s buried. I go to the cemetery every day to see her grave, God rest her.” He pulled her out of the path of a speeding dune buggy. “You should watch where you’re going, Karma. I don’t want to be going to any more funerals for a while.”

They resumed their stroll. “With me out of the way, you could give Rent-a-Yenta to Paulette,” Karma said while thinking that scattering Aunt Sophie’s ashes was something Nate should do.

“I don’t want you out of the way, Karma. Your cousin Paulette was second choice. Anyway, she already has a job counting money for a big Wall Street firm.”

Lucky Paulette, Karma thought glumly. She probably had a boyfriend, too. But not someone as handsome and charming as Slade Braddock, she’d wager. Not that Slade was her boyfriend, but he had kissed her. He was a good kisser, too.

“Anyway, Karma, I like to go to the cemetery and look at Sophie’s grave. I sit there for a while and I talk to her.”

“Aunt Sophie doesn’t have a grave. She’s in that fried chicken barrel.”

“Barrel? Don’t call it a barrel. It’s a fried chicken bucket. Sophie wouldn’t need a barrel. She was as slim on the day she died as she was on the day I married her. And anyway, I picked out a grave that looks like it could be Sophie’s. Sometimes I drive Mrs. Rothstein to the cemetery, too, so she can visit her husband’s grave nearby. There’s a pretty bottle-brush tree, and we like to sit under it on a nice wrought-iron bench. Let me have my fantasy that Sophie is there, bubbeleh. Don’t spoil it for me.”

“But Uncle Nate—”

“Your aunt Sophie was my life. I miss her.” Nate wiped a tear from his eye.

Karma slid an arm around his shoulders. “She’d want you to make a new life, Uncle Nate.”

He sighed. “I know, I know. That’s true.” He cheered up slightly. “So when can you scatter the ashes?”

Karma finished the rest of her frozen yogurt and tossed the stick in a trash can painted with a purple palm tree. “I don’t know. I’ll have to figure out a way. I think I’ll need a boat, since you can’t really toss ashes from shore without the prevailing winds throwing them back at you.”

“You let me know what you’re going to do.”

“I will, Uncle Nate. Thanks for the frozen yogurt.” She bent and kissed him on his wrinkled cheek.

“You’ve got your yogurt class tonight, don’t you?”

“Yoga. I practice yoga. I eat yogurt.” Her uncle had never been able to tell the difference between yoga and yogurt, which had been endearing at first, but now it was beginning to wear on her.

“Okay, yoga. Didn’t I hear that the big cowboy was coming to class?”

“Where did you hear that?” Karma uttered in surprise.

“Goldy mentioned it. Is it true?”

“I invited him. Not sure if he’ll be there tonight,” she hedged.

Nate’s eyes twinkled. “He will be. I saw the way he looked at you the other morning.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Karma said, but Nate only laughed.

“That’s my line,” he said, and it was true. Her uncle was always saying that.

After she and Nate parted company at the corner, Karma walked slowly back to her office, wondering where would be the best place to hire a boat. She was still mulling this over as she climbed the stairs. The door swung open before she inserted her key.

“Hi, Karma.” Jennifer, the same Jennifer who was eager to find a date who was husband material, had parked her sexy self in front of the TV in the alcove where clients were welcome to browse through videos of possible matches. “Aunt Goldy sent me over to take delivery of the couch and chairs for you, and I figured it’s a chance to check out new prospects. I’ve just met one, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“He said his name was Slade Braddock. He was looking for a psychological profile form and took one off your desk. I hope that’s okay.”

Karma’s spirits fell. She wished she hadn’t missed him. “I guess it’s all right. Um, Jennifer, why aren’t you at work?”

“I switched to the night shift.”

“They have night shifts for ear piercers?”

“Uh-huh. That’s when all the teenagers come in, and we’re having a special—two for the price of one.”

“Two ears? You charge per ear?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “No, silly. Two people for the price of one. You should come get your ears pierced while the sale’s on. Your belly button too. I’m not supposed to do belly buttons, but I’d make an exception for you.”

Ouch! But, “I’ll think about it,” Karma said. To her dismay, the very video cassette that Jennifer now cradled in her eager little hands was labeled Slade Braddock, Client 1811.

“This guy was soooo cool. I think I’ll pop this cassette in the VCR and see what he has to say.”

“I haven’t edited it yet.”

“I don’t care. Want to watch it with me?”

Karma shook her head. “I’ve got things to do,” she said.

Jennifer leaned forward, her breasts surging out of her vee neckline. They were conical in shape and tanned all over, at least from what Karma could see, which was considerable. Furthermore, it looked as if Jennifer had succeeded in her quest for artificial nipples. They were standing up straight and proud. Did guys really like that look? It seemed that as a matchmaker she ought to know such things.

Jennifer noticed her scrutiny. “Yes, Karma, I did get them. Do you want to know where? I could—”

“No, thanks,” Karma said hastily.

Jennifer treated her to a knowing smile. “They’d help you in the guy department, believe me. By the way, I took a message for you.” She bounced over to the desk and ripped a pink message sheet off a pad. “The caller said she was your cousin Paulette. She said she was recently fired from her job in New York and wants you to call her back.”