Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

attached dangly gold earrings from New Orleans to my lobes, traced red around my mouth and pursed. I was ready to smile, flirt, dance and get kissed.

I just hoped the guys were ready for me.

I was watching for them when they came. I didn’t want them honking and alerting the neighborhood or my mother. The suits looked a bit startled when I climbed into Drum’s beat-up pick-up truck. Since it wasn’t a stretch cab, I sat on Tommy’s lap and shifted for Drum. With each passing minute I got younger. By the time we arrived at the Radical, I was eighteen.

I swept into the club surrounded by boys. It was the kind of place you could. Surprisingly upscale with lots of neon. And lots of boys and girls. The dance floor had the obligatory glitter ball hanging over it. On all four walls, giant screens were angled for viewing music videos, though this evening they featured scenes from the movie, Dirty Dancing. At any other time it might have been unnerving to have Patrick Swayze’s hips coming at me from four different directions, but not tonight.

Tonight, I had no nerves.

In a dark corner was the bar. Against the back wall, surrounded by brilliant, white lights was the final service provided by the club: a small stage on which patrons can make the unnatural progression from spectator to drunk to lip-synch performer. The whole room was bathed in a pinkish glow with tracks of red neon lighting cutting through a smoky haze that must have been artificially induced since smoking was prohibited. My suits looked as much at home as Jesse Jackson would at a Klan meeting.

I felt young, but did my hips know it? The music swept over me and my hips twitched, then went for it.

I still had it.

The flickering lights, swaying bodies and sensual sound weren’t “oldies” to me but a magic carpet of sound sweeping me back to a time when I didn’t just feel brand new, I was brand new. Only this time I wasn’t adorning the wall. I was with three, count ’em, three totally rad, totally virile young men. It wasn’t as fun as locking lips with Kel, but not much would be. Though their obvious delight in my company as I adapted my body to the sexy, swaying “dirty dancing” came very close. In between dances they plied me with Cokes and “hip” talk. When all that liquid moved lower and signaled a need to exit, I heeded that signal, excused myself and went hunting the ladies room.

That’s when I got the first chink in my armor. The girls were children playing dress up and talking about actors and singers I’d never heard of. No mention of the war. They probably hadn’t noticed it. Not even scud studs penetrated their self absorption. Their wondering eyes did pierce my calm like the Desert Storm smart bombs were piercing concrete. I kept my chin up, but felt weary trying to come back. Feeling young wasn’t the same as being young.

It was time to go home and collect my kiss.

I caught a wave of young things heading out the door and let them sweep me back down the narrow hall to the main room. A counter surge peeled me off that group. I swam up stream, tripped on some steps, climbed them to break free of the current. Someone grabbed me from behind and dragged me backwards up the rest of the stairs. For a moment, I hoped it was Kel. A very short moment.

“Don’t be shy now, darling!” A brash voice assaulted my ears. It was the lip-synching MC and he’d mistaken me for a drunk in search of time in the spotlight.

“No.” I protested and started to struggle. This was not a spot I wished to inhabit.

“We got ourselves a live one, people!” he shouted into the mike, while somehow managing to keep a death grip on me. Someone turned the lights up to a white hot brilliance that turned the areas around the stage black. I blinked in the glare and tried to shake my head. I wasn’t a live one. I was an almost dead one.

“Let’s give a Rad Welcome to the gal with Hungry Eyes!”

The crowd cheered gustily. He looked at me.

“You know the drill, honey?”

“I don’t—”

“All you gotta do is read, sweet thing. If you can’t sing, they won’t remember it tomorrow. Give a big smile and show some skin if you got it. If you don’t, show some anyway.”

Before I could object, he gave me a pat on the butt and trotted off the stage, leaving me alone in a circle of light. Over cheers and catcalls I heard the intro for my impromptu and involuntary performance beginning somewhere outside the lights. The only way off this stage now was to sing. I squinted at the TelePrompter, coming in as smooth as chocolate on cue. It was easy. I’d had hungry eyes since laying them on Kel. My voice responded with nary a quiver and I relaxed a little. It wasn't that much different from singing in church, only with whistles and cat calls.

With more confidence, I gave a wiggle of my hips. That launched a round of cheers. Cool. Their approval and the music wrapped around my heart like silk ribbon and soft velvet, trimmed with hearts and flowers. It seemed right to sing a love song when I was falling in lust with Kel, so I gave it all my lungs got and then some.

“That was great!” the MC interrupted my bows and shoved me towards the edge of the stage. He already had his next victim.

Hands reached up to help me down.

“Thank you!” I jumped, staggered. The hands gripped hard. I looked up to protest and found myself nose to nose with the round-headed man.

I opened my mouth to scream, but he covered my mouth with a meaty fist and shoved my face into a beefy, polyester shoulder. It smelled so strongly of cheap cologne and