by Maria Geraci
a cognizant original v5 release october 08 2010
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
How to Play Bunco
Refreshments
Teaser chapter
“Bunco Babes Tell All is a story that will keep you laughing until your sides ache and your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Ms. Geraci has written a novel that has an air of Sex in the City meets Calamity Jane. The book was spectacularly written with one hilarious moment after another, leaving me with a very satisfied feeling . . . I loved this story from the first page until the last and hope to read many more works by this stellar author who seems to write funny business like nobody else!”
—Coffee Time Romance
Mr. Right or Mr. Thong?
“Just cut to the nitty-gritty,” Pilar said.
“I asked him to hand over the thong, and he looked at me like I was Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction. Can you blame him? I mean, it was a pretty far-fetched idea,” Kitty said, raising a brow at Shea.
“It was the most logical conclusion based on the facts I was given,” Shea said. “Besides, I only suggested he took it. You’re the one who ran with it and had to confront him. We told you it was a bad idea.”
Pilar cradled her chin in the palm of her hand. “Let’s get this straight. Your thong was folded on top of the dryer along with the towels?”
“I guess somehow it ended up on the floor in the bathroom. He must have scooped it up with the wet towels.”
Shea readjusted her sunglasses. “Why would he do your laundry?”
“Maybe because he didn’t want me to wake up and not have a clean towel?” Kitty suggested.
“Did he use fabric softener?” Shea asked.
“He doesn’t wake you up to say good-bye and he doesn’t leave a note, but he leaves you an apple and does your laundry,” Pilar mused. “What does it mean?”
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
Copyright © 2009 by Maria Geraci.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / May 2009
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Geraci, Maria.
Bunco babes tell all / Maria Geraci.—Berkley trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-05055-2
1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Dice games—Fiction. 3. Florida—Fiction. I Title.
PS3607.E7256B86 2009
813’6—dc22 2008054336
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Mike. Thanks for letting me be me.
Acknowledgments
I wanted to write a story that celebrated the way women need other women in their lives. So it’s only fitting that I thank the women in my life who’ve helped make my dream of publication come true.
First, thank you to my mother, Carmen Palacios, one of the smartest, most down-to-earth women you’ll ever meet; and to my sisters; and ultimately to my first friends, Carmen and Aileen.
A huge hug of thanks goes out to Rhoda, who first put the writing bug in me, and to the best nursing crew in the world—Pari and the rest of the Labor and Delivery nurses at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Your encouragement has meant more to me than I can ever express.
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Wendy McCurdy, and her assistant, Allison Brandau. To my friend and agent, the ever supportive Deidre Knight. Without your belief in me, none of this would have been possible.
A special shout-out goes to my own Bunco group—the ever fabulous, never-aging Bunco Broads of Tallahassee. You all make me laugh more than should be legally allowed. If a couple of our antics show up in my books, well, I know I’ll be forgiven.
And last but not least, to my critique partners and super friends extraordinaire, Melissa Francis and Louisa Edwards. Louisa, you’re the whipped cream on my latte. And Mel, well, I think you know no one rocks my world the way you do.
1
It was all Kevin Costner’s fault. If he hadn’t been so sexy in Bull Durham, Kitty Burke wouldn’t still be single on the eve of her thirty-fifth birthday.
For her grandmother, it had been Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. For her mother, it had been both Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid. At some point, almost every woman fell in love, or at least in lust, with a character from the big screen. But most other women got over it and went on to marry normal men.
Not Kitty.
Eighteen years ago, she fell in love with Crash Davis, the character Kevin had played so brilliantly in the film. Which wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Except that no flesh-and-blood, real, live man had ever come close to giving her the spine-tingling, mind-melting, heart-stopping sensation she got from watching Crash.
It’s not that she hadn’t tried to find a guy who made her feel all that. But after half a lifetime of dating the Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLooshes of the world, it was time to face facts. As her best friend Pilar had said, time and time again, “Crash Davis is a fahottie. He doesn’t exist.” Despite Pilar’s irritating habit of making up words you couldn’t find in Webster’s Dictionary, Kitty had come to the depressing conclusion that, as usual, Pilar was right. Crash Davis was nothing more than a fantasy hottie.
But that was okay. Because as of today, Kitty was officially over it.
So what if she was the only one of her friends not married? The rest of her life was perfect. She had a great job selling real estate, a fantastic income (well, maybe not so fantastic in the last couple of years, but things had to start picking up soon), and she had recently moved into her grandmother’s old place just two blocks from the beach. In north Florida, life didn’t get much better than that.
But what made Kitty’s life really special was her Bunco group. The Bunco Babes of Whispering Bay had been established ten years ago by what Pilar referred to as “the nucleus.” The nucleus consisted of the three founding members: Kitty Burke, Pilar Diaz-Rothman, and their other best friend, Shea Masterson. Exactly who the protons or the neutrons were, Kitty wasn’t sure, although she was fairly certain Pilar did. But whoever was what, one thing was indisputable. Admission into the Bunco Babes was exclusive. No one got in without the unanimous consent of the nucleus. There were nine other members (the electrons, so to speak), for a total of twelve Babes. For the past ten years they had been there for each other through boyfriends, marriages, babies, spreading hips, and sagging boobs.
With friends like the Babes, who needed a man?
If Susan Sarandon could worship at the Church of Baseball, then Kitty could worship at the Church of Bunco. It was every Thursday night while rolling the dice and chugging frozen margaritas that Kitty found her true salvation. It was the friendship of those eleven other women that provided the balance in her life. The yin to her yang. The cherry on top of her hot fudge sundae.
Tonight, however, a perfectly nasty imbalance was taking shape in the form of an overflowing toilet.
“Damn it!” Kitty reached behind the porcelain base to find the rusty water valve. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey,” she chanted, shutting off the water.
But it was too late. Her bathroom floor was flooded.
Great.
In exactly twenty minutes her house was going to be overrun by the Babes. Not that she wasn’t thrilled to be hosting Bunco tonight. But twelve women, lots of alcohol, and no toilet was a recipe for sure disaster.
She slipped out of her leather flip-flops and tiptoed through the water to her hall closet to grab a handful of towels. This was a job for Henry.
Henry was a super-duper industrial-strength plunger that was fast becoming Kitty’s new best friend. When you lived in a house that was nearly seventy years old, friends like Henry came in handy.
And so did chocolate. But Kitty refused to feel guilty about the two Snickers bars she had gobbled down after last night’s rain uncovered yet another leak in the roof.
She tossed the towels onto the floor to mop up the water, ignoring her ringing doorbell. It was probably Shea and Pilar. They had promised to come over early to set up for tonight’s Bunco party. They were also used to walking into Kitty’s house if Kitty didn’t answer the doorbell right away.
“Hey!” Shea cried. “Where are you?”
“In the bathroom,” Kitty yelled. She wrapped her hands around Henry and plunged downward, but instead of unclogging the toilet, more water spilled onto the floor. After several attempts, she took a second to catch her breath. You’d think three days a week with a personal trainer would have her biceps in primo shape, but this clog wasn’t a-budging.
Shea appeared in the bathroom doorway, her hands on her hips, Jolly Green Giant style. Shea was tall, with glorious red hair that cost her three figures at a Panama City hairdresser she visited religiously the first week of each month. She also had the longest legs and best boobs of anyone Kitty knew. The legs were all hers, but the boobs had been a gift from her husband, Moose, after she had given birth to their second daughter three years ago. Kitty was tall too. But not model-thin tall like Shea. Kitty was more like slump-your-shoulders-so-you-won’t-be-taller-than-your-date tall.
Shea’s forehead scrunched in disgust, which meant she must be really grossed out because Shea avoided any facial movements that might lead to premature wrinkling. “Please tell me there’s another toilet in the house.”
“The other toilet was falling apart, so I had it ripped out. Remember?”
“Moose said your mom was going to sell this place. Why isn’t there a For Sale sign out front?” Shea demanded.
Moose was a stockbroker, and Kitty’s self-proclaimed financial advisor. His real name was Andrew Harville Masterson Jr., but only his mother called him Andrew. Back when they were all in fifth grade at Whispering Bay Elementary, he had chased Shea through the playground and spit in her hair on picture day. Shea had vowed to one day get even. Their senior year in high school, Shea gave Moose her virginity after he scored the winning touchdown in the state double-A football playoffs. Moose had gone on to play football for Florida State, but he hadn’t been good enough for the pros. He was, however, damn good at making money. Which was excellent, because Shea was damn good at spending it. Kitty sometimes wondered if that wasn’t Shea’s passive-aggressive way of getting even with Moose after all these years.
“I’ll get around to putting out the sign . . . eventually. But not until the house looks perfect.” Kitty blotted the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. “Are you going to stand there and watch, or are you going to help?”
Between the two of them they scooped up the wet towels and tossed them into the bathtub.
“It’s like an oven in here,” Shea said.
“That’s because I’m making you work.” Although Kitty had to secretly agree. It felt like ninety degrees in the house. Could the air conditioner be on the fritz too?
No. She refused to go there. She was sweating because of her exertion with the toilet. And the fact that tomorrow was July 1 didn’t help either. The meteorologists were predicting one of the hottest summers in history.
Damn that global warming.
Pilar popped her head in the bathroom doorway. “Does this mean we have to play Girl Scout and pee in the backyard?”
“Sorry, no peeing allowed on my hibiscus,” Kitty replied.
Pilar still wore her work clothes—Ann Taylor suit, size nothing (petite size nothing, that is), flesh-colored hose, and brown pumps. Her chin-length dark hair was straight and neatly flipped under. She wore her standard pearl earrings and silver watch. Pilar worked as a contract attorney at Hillaman, Soloman, and Kaufman, a fancy law firm in Panama City. It was no coincidence Pilar’s last name also ended in “man.” According to her, it was a sure sign she was on the partner track. Pilar was Cuban-American, worked too much, and was married to Nick, the most understanding man on the planet.
Kitty frowned. “You haven’t been home yet?”
“I had to help Shea get the food, remember?”
Kitty washed her hands in the antique marble sink and pinned up her rapidly frizzing hair. Her bathroom reeked of wet towel, but the rest of the house smelled like warm cheese and hot pepperoni. She followed the trail into the kitchen. “This is your idea of food? Pizza?”
&nbs
p; “It’s not just pizza. It’s Tiny’s pizza,” Shea said. She opened a box and pulled off a slice. Shea not only had the longest legs and the best boobs, she also had the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old boy. And other than the nine months Pilar had carried her son, Anthony, she never wavered from her perfect 110 pounds.
It was so unfair. Kitty had the metabolism of a snail. She could gain a pound just smelling Tiny’s. “You know at least half the Babes are on a diet.”
“Tough,” said Pilar. “Besides, no one sticks to their diet on Bunco night.”
“That’s right,” said Shea. “It’s pizza and my secret frozen margaritas for your birthday.”
Each week the Babes did a different signature drink. Last week it had been mojitos and the week before that, cosmo politans. But there was nothing better than Shea’s secret margaritas. Shea refused to disclose the recipe, even to Kitty and Pilar.
“Tomorrow’s your birthday,” Pilar said. “Live a little.” She eyed Kitty up and down. “Besides, you have nothing to worry about. You look great. I’d kill for boobs that still point north. Only you could get away without wearing a bra in that sundress.”
“I guess that’s one advantage to being flat-chested.” Kitty flipped through the Whispering Bay yellow pages till she found the P’s. Why hadn’t she kept Gus’s card next to the phone?
“No woman likes her own boobs,” Shea said, her mouth full of pizza. “Except me. And that’s because I picked them out of a lineup.”
“You’re not flat-chested,” Pilar said to Kitty. “Not really. And you’re not fat. You’re athletic.”
“Staying athletic means not eating pizza.”
“I could call Moose,” Shea offered. “He’s great with household disasters.”
It was tempting. But if Moose came over to unclog her toilet, Kitty would have to listen to another lecture on how moving into Gram’s place was driving her into the poorhouse. For a man nicknamed after a big, hairy animal with horns, Moose could be a real drama queen.