Everybody Loves Evie. Beth Ciotta

well, I’ve changed.”

      “Don’t go changing too much,” Nic said with a quirked brow. “We’re pretty fond of the old Evie.”

      “You’ll like the new and improved Evie even better,” I said. “No more moping over Michael. No more wasting my time trying to land casino gigs.”

      “I’m liking your attitude, girlfriend. But you do need a paycheck.”

      “As it happens, I have a new job.”

      Jayne bopped in carrying a bed tray loaded with a bowl of soup, a plate of saltines and a glass of ginger ale. She placed it over my lap. “What did I miss?”

      “Evie got a new job,” Nic told her while eyeing me with curiosity.

      “A day job?”

      As in a real job, aka a nine-to-five. Shudder. “No. A singing job.”

      “Sounds like your old job,” said Jayne. “What casino?”

      “Not a casino,” I said. “A club. The Chameleon Club.”

      Nic narrowed her eyes. “Never heard of it. Where is it?”

      I stated the address and got the anticipated groans. “I know it’s not in the best area and it’s not a casino lounge or an upscale dance club, but it’s a steady gig—Wednesdays through Sundays. And the pay is decent.” Although, come to think of it, I had no idea what the pay was. Maybe Beckett had mentioned it. I couldn’t be sure. Half of our conversation was a blur … like the ride home.

      “When do you start?” Nic asked

      “As soon as I get rid of this cold.”

      “Did Michael book this gig?” Jayne asked.

      “No. He won’t be handling me anymore.”

      Nic snorted. “You can say that again.”

      Maybe I should. Saying it out loud, stating that we were over personally and professionally, worked better than medicine. “Strange,” I said, hand over heart. “My chest feels lighter and I can breathe easier.”

      “That’s because you’re getting a nasty infection out of your system,” Nic said. “That man’s been plaguing you for months. Wait’ll he learns you’re finally and totally over him. His frickin’ ego will be crushed.”

      “Too bad you couldn’t rain on his parade before he left for Paris,” Jayne said.

      I cocked my head, unsure if I’d heard correctly. “Paris? As in France? As in the Eiffel Tower? The Louvre Museum? Champagne and decadent desserts?”

      Jayne flushed.

      Nic sighed. “I thought we agreed to wait until she was feeling better.”

      “It slipped out.”

      I sipped ginger ale to dissolve the lump in my throat. “Tell me.”

      “Michael and Sasha eloped,” Nic said.

      “They’re honeymooning in Paris,” Jayne added.

      The city I’d dreamed of visiting since I was a little girl and first saw Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing and singing in An American in Paris. The city of amour. The city Michael had promised he’d take me to someday. Instead he’d taken Sasha. “C’est la vie,” I said as blandly as possible, then spooned chicken soup and focused on not clenching my jaw.

      Jayne screwed up her face. “I thought you’d be upset. Don’t you care that he didn’t tell you about the baby or the marriage, that he just whisked off the other woman to the city of your dreams?”

      “Sasha’s no longer the other woman,” I said, careful not to choke on the words. “She’s his wife. And, no, I don’t care. I’ve moved on.”

      “The new and improved Evie,” Nic said with a skeptical gleam in her eye.

      “Oh,” Jayne said, looking befuddled.

      “Consider me enlightened,” I said, speaking to her New Age sensibilities.

      “But—”

      “This soup is delicious,” I said. “Aren’t you having any?”

      Jayne eyed Nic.

      Nic eyed me. “Only if you tell us about the Scottish hunk you boinked and dumped.”

      Jayne blinked. “You dumped Arch?”

      “Yeah, but first they had great sex,” Nic said.

      “Creative monkey sex,” I said, knowing that I had to tell them something about the last two weeks. Since I couldn’t talk about Chameleon, that left sex. Since I wouldn’t be having it anymore, at least not with Arch, the least I could do was relive the best romps with my best buds. Arch wouldn’t mind. In fact, I could envision his cocky smile.

      “Interesting,” Jayne said.

      “I’ll say.” Nic strode for the door. “I’m going to get my soup and—be warned—I’ll be eating slowly. I want details. Every position. Every location.”

      Jayne hovered in Nic’s wake. “I meant, interesting how you have this fascination with monkeys. Remember when you e-mailed me from the ship asking what my dream books said about gorillas?”

      I slurped some broth. “Uh-huh.” I’d been plagued by dreams of me in a gorilla suit hawking used cars. The hairy demise of my entertainment career.

      She crossed her arms over her gauzy peasant blouse. “Do you remember what I wrote back?”

      “Word for word.” I had this gift. Mostly, after reading something once, it was ingrained in my brain. Memorizing scripts had never been a problem. I’d retained a character profile Arch had given me after one reading. I remembered how impressed he’d been. That same night we’d shared our first atomic kiss.

      I squeezed my thighs together and cursed some inappropriate tingling. Beckett had asked me if Arch was out of my system. Normally I’m a damn good actress. That I hadn’t been able to disguise my infatuation was disconcerting. Either I was slipping or Beckett had a superior bullshit detector. I’m thinking the latter, which meant I needed to pull off a major deception to earn my Chameleon stripes … scales … whatever.

      I broke some crackers into my soup and glanced at Jayne, who was still waiting for me to reiterate her summation. “You said that if I dreamed about apes, then beware of a mischief maker in my business or social circle. Unless the gorilla was docile. Then the dream was a forecasting of a new and unusual friend.”

      “I’m guessing since you dumped Arch, he was a mischief maker. At least you got great sex out of it,” she said with a beaming smile. “And also proof that there is some stock in my metaphysical interests.” She flounced out of the room, glanced over her shoulder. “Just so you know, I’ll be eating as slowly as Nic.”

      In their absence, I thought about Jayne’s dream interpretation. Arch was a mischief maker, to be sure, but I’d considered him that new and unusual friend. No matter our differences, there’d been that indefinable connection. It bothered me that he’d been able to sever it so easily. A friend would have returned my call right away. A friend wouldn’t have left me a message with no invitation to call back.

      “Ouch.”

      So much for the new and improved Evie who dumped gorgeous flings without a second thought. No emotional ties. No promises. Just great sex.

      Right.

      CHAPTER NINE

      AMAZING WHAT SIXTEEN hours of sleep can do for a rundown body. By midday the next day I felt half human. Although I suffered the occasional sneeze and my voice was still ragged, I’d stopped coughing and I could breathe fairly well. Chicken soup and girl talk had worked miracles—and,