The Ups and Downs of Being Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the moment. He hid his
fear behind a slight smile.
    “How did you ever come up with a name like Audrey’s anyway?”
She staggered off her bar stool. “Seems like Robert’s Discount Mart would have
been more appropriate.”
    She careened across the aisle and tumbled into a booth. Ever
the gentleman, he blocked the view of her voluptuous bottom as she struggled to
right herself.
    “My mother adored Audrey Hepburn,” Robert said once he slid
into the booth across from her. “Unfortunately, the stores in our small town
didn’t offer the kind of fashions my mother wanted. Neither did the Sears
catalog.”
    Amanda sneered. “Maybe the pages with the good stuff were in
the outhouse.”
    Robert leaned back and relaxed. The woman was a viper, no
doubt about it, but he realized her insults were meant to hide her own insecurities.
He took a moment to drink in the gold lame camisole with the cowl neckline that
displayed her magnificent breasts; the flecks of purple in her cloisonné
bracelet that complimented her fuchsia mini-skirt; her blond hair pulled into a
tangled twist like she’d just been wrangling in the back seat of a car.
    “So, tell me,” Robert said. “When you headed out this
evening in that divine creation, were you intent on castrating the first man
you saw, or is this a spur-of-the-moment thing just for me?”
    “Are you always this sleazy?”
    Robert laughed. “Why am I sleazy? Because I think you’re
gorgeous?”
    “No, because you’re trying so hard to pick me up. You sound
like every other barfly.”
    “Actually, I’m too busy, and too tired, to spend time
hanging out in bars.” He turned to the bartender who was gaping at them as he
rubbed circles on the bar with a rag. “Coffee?”
    The guy nodded and gave Robert a lurid wink. Thank God
Amanda missed it.
    “Then what are you doing here?” she asked.
    Robert leaned forward and folded his hands on the table.
“The truth? I was on my way to my hotel when I saw you. And I couldn’t believe
my good fortune at running across you again. I guess I’m a glutton for
punishment.”
    The bartender set two cups of coffee down, then pulled his
bar rag out of his apron and took a swipe at the table, hoping to catch some of
the conversation. Amanda did not oblige. She sat staring into her mug until he
left. Then she raised her head and Robert saw big tears pooling in her eyes.
    “You remembered me from a year ago?” she whispered.
    “Are you kidding? How could any man forget you?”
    A renegade tear broke free and she quickly sopped it up with
the corner of her cocktail napkin. Then she clenched her jaw. “Stop being nice
to me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I just got treated like a piece of shit, and I’m
not in the mood for some twerp like you trying to put the moves on me.”
    Robert blew the steam off his coffee before he took a sip.
“What happened?”
    Her lips clamped tight to keep from trembling as she
searched Robert’s face. What could she possibly be afraid of? That he might
mock her?
    She inhaled deeply and blew out the breath. “I couldn’t get
into Studio 54.”
    “What’s that? A talent agency?”
    The laugh she blurted out turned into a sob. “Where have you
been? It’s like the hottest disco in Manhattan. In the world .”
    “Ah.” He nodded as if he understood. “And you didn’t have a
reservation.”
    Again with the look of horror, the bitter attempt at a
laugh. “You are such a moron. There’s no such thing as reservations. You wait
in line for hours, and if the cretin at the door thinks he can hook up with you
later in the bathrooms, he’ll let you in.”
    “But you weren’t sending those kind of vibes…”
    “He let my friends Christy and Angela in. Then he clipped
that fucking velvet rope shut right in front of me. Excluded me but not my
friends!”
    Robert wished he had the nerve to slip into her side of the
booth and pull her into his arms, but Amanda had already turned her humiliation
into anger. She dug