Read Online Open Invitation? by Karen Kendall - Free Book Online Page A

hands,” she whispered. She slid, inch by painful inch, off her bed until she was standing upright. She clung to a bedpost for support. “I’m going to knock her out with a single blow to the head from Emily Post!”
    Lil staggered into the bathroom and slumped to the floor near the toilet. So this is what everyone meant by worshipping the porcelain god .
    â€œI’ll never drink again,” she moaned.
    Yeah, all the girls at school had said that, too, looking green and shaky but secretly proud.
    What in the name of Heaven was there to be proud of?
    Lil laid her forehead against the cool lid and debated whether or not she had to relieve her bladder or her stomach first. She decided to let them argue about it while she went back to sleep sitting up.
    She jerked awake at an image of Nana Lisbeth, blinking her pale blue eyes at her in shock. Nana put one hand to her temple and the other to her heart as Lil moved a carrot in and out of her mouth.
    Oh, Lord. How much was truly seen by those who’d passed on? Did they look down as their relatives made wicked fools of themselves on earth? Horrid, horrid thought.
    Lil struggled to her feet and reflected that even ghosts must practice some sort of etiquette. Surely it wasn’t acceptable behavior for a ghost or an angel to peer into the privacy of someone’s bedroom or bathroom? For goodness’ sake!
    She hung onto a towel bar and slowly peeled off her blouse, bra, skirt and stockings. She stumbled over to the shower and turned it on full-blast.
    With shaking hands, she found some ibuprofen, took four of them, and noted with gloom that the circles under her eyes were much larger than her breasts.
    She vaguely recalled Shannon telling her to go get herself cowpoked. Oh, very nice, Shan. And out of the question.
    Blearily Lil climbed into the shower and let the water thunder down on her head in the hopes of achieving some clarity and sense. Instead it filled her ears and made her sneeze. It steamed her brain and only made it swell larger than its too-small cavity. Ugh.
    Lil shut off the water once she’d achieved the basics of soap and shampoo. She stood on the tile feeling like death until she remembered that one’s customary next step on ending a shower was to grab a towel.
    She’d much rather crawl back into bed—who cared if she was naked and wet. But instead, she had to get dressed, perk up and prepare to deal with Granger and his wicked mouth.
    Her breasts tingled at the thought. She told them to stop immediately. She went to her lingerie drawer and pulled out a beige bra and a new pair of stockings. She sat on Nana’s vanity stool and pulled them on, wondering why the good-quality department store ones cost so much. Hadn’t she heard something about the invention of a pair of panty hose that would never run? But big industry had firmly squashed the idea, since there was so much money to be made off of women….
    Soon her nudity was hooked, strapped and control-topped. She pulled another suit out of her closet, this one beige, and put it on with a white camisole and beige-and-white spectator pumps with a low, elegant heel. She fastened Nana’s pearl earrings at her lobes, swepther hair into a French twist and added just a touch of pink gloss to her mouth.
    Because her skin color was pale green this morning, she swept her cheeks with a faint dusting of blusher and blotted the perspiration on her lip and forehead with loose powder.
    Lil stopped on the way to work for two quarts of cold water. She should put something into her stomach to soak up the leftover alcohol, but nothing appealed to her.
    She pulled into the parking lot of Finesse in her Camry and noted with something akin to despair that the red Mustang was already there. Wonderful.
    She clicked in her kitten heels to the glass door between the elegant urns and juggled the cold water bottles and her purse as she reached for the handle. The door opened and