Game Over. Fern Michaels

Annie whispered.

      “I remember Charles saying he was up on the latest on cable cars and that he worked on them in the Swiss Alps and this sort of thing happens all the time over there,” Isabelle whispered in return.

      “Why are we whispering?” Alexis whispered.

      “Because we’re afraid, and talking loud might…might…Oh, I don’t know,” Yoko said in a hushed voice.

      “Trigger an avalanche of snow?” Nikki said, her voice short of hysterical.

      “Anything is possible. However, I think it unlikely,” Annie snapped in a normal tone of voice.

      And then the cable car slid into its nest, and everyone heaved a huge sigh of relief.

      The Sisters rushed to embrace the newlyweds and chastise them at the same time for their early return. Everyone started talking at once as the girls struggled to carry Myra’s and Charles’s luggage back to the main building through the snow.

      Inside, the babble continued as Annie made her way to the kitchen to remove two long trays of brownies she’d set the timer to bake while she and the others worked the pole. She turned on the burner on the stove to heat the hot chocolate she’d prepared ahead of time.

      The Sisters did their best to ignore their aches and pains, their bruises and abrasions, by bombarding the newlyweds with questions about their honeymoon.

      “It was pleasant,” Charles said.

      “No, it wasn’t. It was boring,” Myra said.

      “We ate a lot and walked on the beach,” Charles said.

      “Charles ate a lot, whereas I ate healthfully and sparingly, and we trudged on the beach,” Myra said, correcting her new husband.

      “We read a lot,” Charles said.

      “That’s not quite true, dear. I read a lot. Somehow Charles found someone who allowed him to use his fax machine, and he read reports that came in to him at the speed of light.”

      “You look tired, Charles,” Annie said pointedly.

      Charles looked around. Well, he didn’t just fall off the watermelon truck. He knew when he wasn’t wanted. He pretended to huff and puff as he pulled on his jacket and made his way to the door. He was halfway there when he turned and came back. He kissed his wife soundly on the cheek and said, “Now, don’t be giving away what we really did on our honeymoon. Some things should remain sacred, old girl.”

      Myra blushed a rosy hue as she waved her husband toward the door. The minute the door closed, she said, “It was a water bed! Do you believe that? We couldn’t…what I mean is…We got seasick. We slept on the floor after…well, after we found out it was a water bed. Charles was so…inept.”

      Annie poured the hot chocolate. She sniffed. “That’s probably more than we really need to know, dear.”

      “Hogwash. That’s all you really wanted to know, dear, and you know it,” Myra retorted. “Let me sum it up for you, Annie. The sex end of the honeymoon was a disaster. Charles has a bad back. He had most of the blankets and covers. One night I slept on the beach, because the sand was soft. But, I got sand in every orifice of my body, and I will never do that again.”

      “My-raaa!” Annie screeched.

      “Oh, hush, Annie. You are reveling in the details of my honeymoon. But I am now willing to make a wager with you. I will wager my pearls against your pearls that I can master that…that stripper pole with all the lights in it. I’m ready and willing to take on all comers. Do we have a date for the recital yet?”

      The Sisters’ eyes popped, their jaws dropped, and Annie sat down with a thump and immediately regretted it.

      “Your…heirloom pearls! Your one-of-a-kind, priceless pearls? The pearls you feel naked without? Those pearls?” Annie managed to gasp.

      “Yes, Countess de Silva, those pearls,” said Myra.

      “Are you telling us you…you practiced on a stripper pole while you were on your honeymoon?” Nikki managed to squeak out as she recalled her own dismal performance and the aches and pains that had followed her efforts.

      “I am saying no such thing. Charles was glued to me the entire time, except for the night I slept on the beach. I wouldn’t have even known where to look to find a pole to…practice on.”

      “Then how…?” Yoko managed to weigh in.

      “Just you never mind, honey. So are you going to take my bet or not, Annie?”

      Annie eyed her old friend warily. She tried to read something in Myra’s expression but saw nothing to ease her fear that Myra had some kind of secret power that would make fools out of all of them. She had no choice but to take her old friend up on the wager. She tried to work some excitement and jubilation into her voice when she said, “You’re on, Myra!”

      Myra laughed, to Annie’s discomfort. “Maybe we’ll be able to take our show on the road. After the recital, of course.”

      “Drink your hot chocolate and shut up, Myra, while I try to figure out if you are snookering me somehow to get my great-grandmother’s pearls, which are just as lovely as yours. You just want a matched set,” Annie sniped.

      Myra smiled.

      The Sisters shivered.

      “Let’s talk about something else, ladies,” Nikki, ever the diplomat, said. “Has anyone heard from Lizzie? I wonder how her first four days at the White House are going. We should have heard something by now.”

      The others said they hadn’t heard a word from the Silver Fox.

      “Maybe Lizzie can’t make personal calls from the White House, or maybe she’s afraid the walls have ears,” Yoko said.

      “She’s nine to five. Her nights are her own. She could have called us last night or the night before. But there is Cosmo, so maybe she wants her free time to be with him. The last time I spoke to her, she said he would be here for a week, while, as he put it, she got her feet wet at Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue,” Alexis said.

      “The New Year started off with a bang in D.C. There is all kinds of stuff going on that the president has to deal with. I guess that means Lizzie has to deal with it, too. Like, for instance, yesterday I saw in the paper online that one of the Supreme Court justices is going to retire when the court goes into recess. Then today the paper said that rumor was false. That’s a whole big megillah for the president. I hope they pick another woman this time if it turns out to be true in the end,” Isabelle said.

      “Yesterday I read that President Connor is cleaning house. She’s giving staffers a chance to resign and waiting to see how that offer flies. Wonder what that’s all about,” Nikki said.

      “Maggie said when President Connor took office, she listened to the wrong people, and staffers and positions were hired under pressure. She’s going to correct that situation, and Maggie thinks Connor waited until Lizzie was installed as chief White House counsel to do anything. Makes sense to me,” Annie said.

      “Well, I’m off to the hot tub,” Nikki said as she got painfully to her feet.

      The others quickly rose and, at the last minute, looked at Annie and asked whose turn it was to clean up.

      “Myra and I will do it,” said Annie. “Run along, girls, so I can pick Myra’s brain about that wonderful honeymoon she just returned from five days early.”

      Myra watched as the Sisters stumbled their way to the door. “What’s wrong with them, Annie?”

      Annie sighed. “I might as well tell you, Myra, so you can laugh your head off. We have all been practicing on that…on that damn pole, and none of us have actually mastered it, so you are probably going to win my great-grandmother’s pearls. All of us, me included, are black and blue, and muscles we didn’t even know we had are