Excerpt of Miss Fortune by Julia London

A full hour and a half after she’d entered the gym, and
after several hundred pounds of lifting and squatting in
various humiliating forms and fashions, still sweating and
her hair going in five thousand directions in spite of the
two tight coils she had wound it in to, Rachel made her
way out to the parking lot, Frankenstein style, one hand
on the stitch in her side while images of steaming baths
and candles danced in her mind’s eye.
As she staggered to her car (she would have to have parked
in the very last slot on the very last row), she noticed
that the coffee house next to the gym had filled to
capacity with people who had nothing better to do on such
a wet and dreary day. The place was so full, that as she
neared the end of the parking lot, she saw that someone
had parked behind her, blocking her in. Dammit!

She groaned, debated what to do, and inadvertently caught
sight of herself in the reflection of the back windshield.
Her face was the exact shade of a fireplug. The exact
shade. It wasn’t enough that she was soaked and probably
reeking-she had to herald her terribly out of shape body
to the world with a fireplug face. Even worse, small
corkscrews of hair around her face stuck out in every
conceivable direction. She looked like she had stuck her
finger into a light socket.

Time to call Dagne to come save her. Later, she could get
Dagne or Myron to bring her back for her car. Rachel
fished in her bag for her brand new T-mobile cell phone…
but it wasn’t in her bag, and she remembered leaving it on
the kitchen counter. Oooh, fabulous. A big fat splat of
something landed on top of her head, and she glanced up,
got hit in the eye by another fat raindrop. She looked
around, saw the coffee house, and made a mad sort of half-
hobbling, half-loping dash for it.

The place was jammed to the rafters with toned and
beautiful bodies, all drinking coffee and poring over
books and laptops and looking very stylish and hip. In a
sort of ironic contrast, she looked like a little like a
Holstein cow in her black yoga pants and white tank. And
what was up with always putting phones and toilets in the
back of establishments? Was that some sort of national
code?

Rachel sucked in her breath, lowered her eyes and with her
head down, marched through the crowd, hitting at least two
people in the head and shoulders with her gym bag.

At the phone bank, she dug in her bag for change, and
pulled out wads of money. Literally, wads of balled up
bills-a ten, a fiver, three ones. But no change. Not a
quarter, not a dime, not one lousy penny.

With a sigh of great irritation, Rachel glanced around.
This was really just too much-where were all the fabulous
things that were supposed to happen to her, according to
Dagne and several horoscopes? The prosperity and happiness
and all that crap? And man, it was so warm in there-
someone needed to crack a window or something. Well
anyway, one thing was certain-when she got hold of Dagne,
she was going to let her know that her stupid spells
weren’t working for shit-

“I beg your pardon, but might I be of assistance?”

Rachel froze in the maniacal search of her bag, wondered
if that question had been actually addressed to her, and
slowly looked up…and up…at a very handsome man with a sexy
British accent. He was smiling. His gorgeous blue-gray
eyes sort of shimmered in a pool of dark lashes, and a
strand of his thick chestnut hair actually fell over one
eye. He was wearing a well-cut dark pinstripe suit and a
long trench coat that looked very expensive, like he’d
just walked off the set of a James Bond movie. A horrible
swell of panic surged in Rachel-the guy was movie-star
gorgeous and standing so close that he could probably
smell her.

“You look as if you could use a hand, eh?” he asked,
grinning lopsidedly as he fished in his pocket.

Dear God, she was gaping at him like she’d never seen a
man before, and unthinkingly jerked backward, away from
him, and almost killed herself, thank you, by impaling
herself on the little box around the pay phone. But forget
that, because she suddenly remembered the little wisps of
hair sticking up all over her head and thought she might
actually die of embarrassment. Just expire cold, right
here.

“No, ah, no…” she managed to get out, smiling
sheepishly. “No, thank you, but I’ve definitely got it,”
she said, and whirled around, her hand still shoved in her
bag, frantically searching for a coin, any coin. JUST A
COIN, DAMMIT!

“I’ve got a bit of change if you’d like,” he continued,
and Rachel, her back to him, shook her head no, felt one
of the tight coils of her hair start to come
undone. “Thanks! I’ve got it!” she said to the wall.

He made a sound that sounded a little like a chuckle.
Which meant, of course, that now the movie-star guy was
laughing at her. How dare he laugh at her? She shot him a
glance over her shoulder, but…he wasn’t really laughing at
all. He was just smiling, and really very warmly, showing
some very white and very straight teeth for a Brit.

“I don’t think you’ve got it at all, really,” he said,
holding out his hand. “I’ve some coins here,” he said, and
opening the palm of his hand and studying the coins
there. “Ah, here we are,” he said cheerfully, and held up
two quarters.

Rachel looked at the quarters and wondered, madly, if her
face was still fireplug red, or please, God, had it calmed
down a little, too maybe just cherry red?

He mistook her silence as refusal and said
congenially, “The thing is, you obviously haven’t got the
proper change and I’m really quite happy to help.”

Okay, okay, now she got it-if a man who looked like him,
all buff and handsome and wearing a suit, was talking to
her, it was probably one of those reality TV things-

He cocked his head and dipped it a little bit to see her
better, and Rachel instantly swiped the back of her arm
across her forehead. “Right. Well, then, if you’d be so
kind as to take the quarters and perhaps ring whomever you
are ringing so the rest of us might have a go?” he asked,
gesturing toward the phone. “I don’t mean to impose, but I
really need to make a call.”

“Oh!” she said, and began frantically searching her bag
again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hold you up, but I
can’t possibly take your quarters because I have quarters,
if I could just get to the bottom of my bag,” she said,
glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you
go ahead?”

“I couldn’t possibly take your place in the queue,” he
said, looking at her bag. “You’ve quite a large bag
there.”

“Yes, it’s very big, because I have lots of…” Well, junk,
really. “Important stuff. Lots of it,” she muttered.

Bonny Prince Charlie just stood there, smiling down at
her, until it became apparent to even her that she was not
going to magically produce two quarters, she sighed.

"I rather thought you’d see it my way,” he said
congenially, and leaned forward, his arm extended, coming
right at her…then around her! To the phone, to be precise,
which put him in dangerously close proximity to her sweaty
self.

Rachel gasped with humiliation-there was no way he
couldn’t smell her now. “I wouldn’t do that if I were
you!” she cried, and tried to move, but managed to impale
herself once more on the phone box. “Ow,” she
whimpered. “Ow, ow, ow.”

“Mind the box,” James Bond said with a chuckle, and
blithely continued reaching around her, to the phone
itself. “Before you go all barmy on me,” he said, his
voice pleasantly soft as he his gaze flicked from her face
and her appallingly red bosom, “I promise you may have the
quarters. I won’t demand interest or the like,” he said,
his gaze still on her, his nose as yet unwrinkled, as he
deposited one quarter. “But I wouldn’t mind a bit if you
determined you were so indebted to me that you might buy
me a cup of tea with the fiver you dropped on the floor.”
He deposited the second quarter.

Rachel blinked; stole a glimpse at the floor without
actually moving. There it was, a crumpled five dollar bill
at her feet. “Oh, man,” she said, and slid down to her
haunches to pick it up, then stood so quickly that she
banged the top of her head into his arm, which was now
holding the receiver out to her. “Oops. Sorry,” she said,
wincing again.

He smilingly offered the phone. “Quite all right. So then,
I’ve only just arrived and it’s rather dreary out, isn’t
it? I could use a spot of tea, how about you? Here you are…
your call?”

All right, now she was mortified to the tips of her toes-
was he playing some sort of mind game, asking her to tea?
What in God’s name was he doing in Providence, anyway? He
should be in London, stepping off the tube with some dish,
walking to some posh and trendy pub!

Rachel snatched the phone from his hand, punched Dagne’s
numbers into the phone, and silently begged her to pick up
the goddam phone. On the fourth ring, when she had decided
that God was indeed smiting her and was not going to help
her in the least because she had played around with
witchcraft, Dagne picked up. “Hello?” she said sleepily.

“Dagne!” Rachel hissed, whirling around so that her back
was to Prince Charming. “Come and get me!”

“Why? Where are you?” she asked through a yawn.

“At the gym-”

“Hey! You didn’t waste any time-”

“Come and get me!” she said again. “If you’re not here in
five minutes-”

“Why? Where’s your car? Wait a minute-does Myron have it?
Because if Myron took your car-”

“No, no, it’s here! But I’m blocked in and I really,
really need to go.”

“Why? What’s the hurry?”

“Dagne!” Rachel hissed.

“All right,” Dagne said, obviously irritated. “I’ll be
there in a few. But this better be good!” She hung up.

Rachel put the receiver in the cradle, turned slowly
toward the Brit and pulled her gym bag around in front of
her stomach. She flashed a self-conscious smile. “Thanks,”
she said. “That was really very decent of you. I
appreciate the help.”

“You’re quite welcome. And now that you’ve successfully
completed your ringing operation, what do you say to that
cup of tea?”

If Dagne had put some sort of spell on her that made her
attract handsome men, she was going to kill her. “Oh gee,
I’m sorry, I really can’t,” she said quickly, stepping
around him. “I’ve got a…a really important appointment
I’ve got to get to. But, ah…thanks. Thanks so much.” She
flashed him another quick smile, clutched her bag closely
to her body, and mowed her way out of the coffee house.

She got one last look at the to-die-for Brit as she pushed
through the glass doors. He was standing at the phone,
staring after her, a sort of bemused look on his face.

Seriously, she was going to kill Dagne.