For a minute, I just lay there, blowing my breath into my cupped hands and smelling the pickles and onions from my Whopper. I considered getting up and gargling, but decided to conserve my energy for something more important. Like reaching for the remote.

Minutes later, I was watching Lucy stuck in a meat locker, icicles dripping from her eyelashes, when the phone rang. I reached for it groggily, and Kandi’s voice came booming on the line.

“So? Are you excited?”

“About what?” I yawned.

“Don’t tell me you forgot!”

“Forgot what?”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “You did forget.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your date. With Ted Lawson.”

I bolted up in bed.

Damn. Tommy The Termite. I’d forgotten all about him. What time did he say he’d pick me up? Seven-thirty. And it was now—aaack!—seven twenty-four.

“Kandi, honey, gotta run. He’s gonna be here in six minutes, and I’m not dressed.”

“Jaine, Jaine, Jaine,” Kandi said, sighing deeply. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Okay, so I forgot. I’ve got other things on my mind.”

Like a dead body floating in a bathtub, for one.

I hung up, after promising Kandi I’d meet her for brunch the next day to discuss the details of my date.

Then I tore out of bed and practically flew into my bra and panties. I threw on a pair of jeans and a black cashmere turtleneck, which I saw to my dismay was covered in cat hair.

“Prozac!” I shrieked. “How many times have I told you: No napping on my sweaters!”

Darn cat didn’t even bother to look up from where she was licking her privates. Oh, well. There was no time to change. I’d have to stick with my cat/cashmere blend.

I pulled on my boots and hurried to the bathroom to throw on some blush. And then disaster struck: I saw myself in the mirror. Aaack! My hair! I hadn’t blown it straight, and now I looked like Elsa Lancaster in The Bride of Frankenstein. At which point, the doorbell rang. I grabbed a rubber band and yanked my ball of frizz into a ponytail.

I only hoped Tommy the Termite didn’t mind being seen in public with a woman with pickle-and-onion breath who looked like she’d just stuck her finger in an electric socket.

As I hurried to the door, I cursed myself for saying yes to this date in the first place. I wasn’t ready for romance. Not now. Not yet. Not while the memory of The Blob still lingered in my brain.

And then I opened the door.

Standing there before me was a tall guy with dark curly hair and the kind of classically sculpted face you find on a Michelangelo statue or a daytime soap.

“You must be Jaine.”

He smiled, revealing perfect white teeth.

“These are for you,” he said, handing me a darling bouquet of daisies.

Hmmm. Maybe this dating thing wasn’t so bad, after all.

Chapter Eleven

You know how it is when you’re dreading something and you’re dragging your heels and you finally force yourself to go, and it turns out to be a wonderful surprise and you’re glad you made yourself do it?