Page 47 of Lush Curves

“Mom. Mom, listen. Are you happy with him?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I really am. He’s kind and funny and sweet. He’s a great cook, and we talk about everything.” She glanced around the crowded bar, saw a gorgeous young woman staring fixedly at her from a few tables away. Idly, Annie wondered if she was a diner customer, decided that with those clothes and jewelry, she probably wasn’t. “It’s just –it’seasywith him, you understand? No secrets, no playing games, no wondering if he’ll call, no worrying how he feels about me because he tells me that I’m amazing. And when I’m with him, Ifeelamazing. I – I believe him when he tells me that.”

“Then that’s all I care about, you know?” Sarah said, then she gave a wicked grin. “That, and the fact that you’re finally having sex with someone, and bonus, it’s a smoking-hot younger doctor!”

“Argh,” Annie muttered, suddenly embarrassed and struggling to her feet. “If you’ll all excuse me for a minute?”

“We’ll talk about you while you’re gone!” Gabi told her. “Youtotallyknow that, right?”

“I do totally know that.” Annie gave them a saucy wink, prepared to sashay to the bathroom like the hot cougar that she was. “Talk away, ladies.”

**

Annie washed her hands, gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror. Wow. She looked pretty hammered, but that was only because she was.

A woman appeared at the next sink and Annie sensed her staring at her before she actually looked up to confirm it. It was the woman from the table outside of the VIP area, the one who’d been giving her this exact same look – and neither version of the look was particularly nice.

“Hello,” Annie said. “Do I know you?”

The woman raised a perfectly-plucked dark eyebrow, curled her perfect lip. “Ummm… no. Where on earth wouldwehave crossed paths, do you think?”

Hmmm. Her tone was as un-nice as her look, and Annie had the strong urge to roll her eyes at the snotty little bitch. But years of remaining polite in the face of rudeness – painfullygleaned through encounters with thousands of surly diners – kept her eyeballs in check. For now.

“I just noticed you looking at me, out in the bar. I wondered if maybe we’d met somewhere.”

“Oh, no.” The woman tossed her long, dark hair, and it fell in a shimmering waterfall down her back; it looked like a sultry midnight river, complete with shiny-star highlights. “I was just so…impressedto see someone likeyouhere.”

God, Annieknewthat she shouldn’t rise to the bait, that she should just turn and leave. But she found her back was up, and she was irritated, and she wanted to know just what the hell Little Miss Snotface was talking about.

“Someone like me?” Annie asked in her sweetest voice, and with an earnest, wide-eyed, slightly vacant expression that she was sure the alcohol helped her achieve. “What does that mean, someone like me?”

“Oh. You know.”

The woman’s dusky purple eyes moved up and down Annie’s body with open disdain now, and suddenly, she was painfully aware of the differences between the two of them. The bitch in the bathroom was much taller, much slimmer, definitely had bigger breasts, and was flaunting all of those assets in a short black skirt and a white blouse that was tied, casually, to reveal several inches of muscled midriff.

Annie, on the other hand, had put on a long, slightly-too-snug wrap-dress, one that she’d skimped and saved for years ago and which had seen better days. It was the best thing that she owned, though, and she’d wanted to look nice for Sarah’s party to celebrate her wedding in less than two months. Besides, Annie didn’t care if she was older than almost everyone else in the club by more than twenty years, and twenty thousand times less hot and stylish –it’s not like she’d been hoping to pick up.

But now? Now she was suddenly self-conscious about the bulge of her stomach, the faded material of the dress, the tangled ponytail that kept her hair off her shoulders.

“You know,” the woman repeated, her eyes lingering on Annie’s face as if clocking every wrinkle. “It’s sogreatwhen an older woman isn’t intimidated by places like this, of clubs and bars full of sexy young things half her age, all walking round half-naked. It’s really just a meat market out there, right, and I know there’s no way thatmyMom would be caught dead in a pick-up place where everyone’s just looking for the hottest person to have sex with.” She gave a gentle laugh. “Iadmireyou for going where you’re so clearly a fish out of water. I hope to have your courage when I’m your age.”

“Oh.” Annie felt all the fight drain out of her. “Right.”

“Anyway.” The woman picked up her purse, turned her back on Annie, effectively dismissing her. “Have a lovely night! I hope that you and your friends – are you a book club? – enjoy yourselves.”

And she swept off and out, and was gone, leaving Annie to stare at the almost-fifty-year-old woman in the mirror; even as she did, she could swear that she couldseeher hair turning grayer, her face getting more wrinkled, her teeth loosening, all ready to fall out. She wondered if she’d ever felt less youthful, vibrant, sexy.

Just then, her cell rang and she dug in her purse to retrieve it. When she saw Sam’s number flashing up, she automatically broke into a huge smile, despite her sudden insecurity and annoyance.

“Hello.”

“Hey, princess. How’s it going?”

“Good.” She grabbed her lipstick –might as well make some effort to salvage my face, even if it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic– and applied it. “Are you finished work?”

“Yep, just walking out to my car. When will you be over, honey? I’ve got something for you.”

“Ooooh.” Right away, her stomach jumped. “Is it a present?”

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