Thursday, June 17, 2010

Hello, Gorgeous! by MaryJanice Davidson

What's on the back of the book:
Here's the story: one minute I'm out with my sorority sisters; the next, there's a terrible accident (beyond my friend Stacy's outfit), and I'm waking up in some weird clinic with the Eggheads Du Jour telling me I'm now officially a human cyborg, and I'm supposed to work for them from now on. You know, super spy style . . . stop people from doing evil things and stuff. Uh, hello - did I ask for this? I've got a beauty salon to run. If those bad guys need highlights and a pedicure, call me. Otherwise, I'll be at the bar.

Okay. So it is cool to move faster than a Ford Mustang when I need to, even if it's totally hard on my shoes. But I just want to get back to my old, normal life. Except The Boss - that's his name, I swear - wants me to bring in another human cyborg on the run. And here's the thing: He's totally gorgeous. Smart. Funny. And, um, his "enhancements"? Let's just say he's not faster than a speeding bullet, if you know what I mean. So what's a former party girl-turned-spy-cyborg supposed to do? Arrest the hunk? Turn him in? Neutralize him? As if . . .

A piece from the book:
Nine days after she died, Caitlyn James woke up in a private hospital in Minnesota.
This was problematic, because her last memory was of passing out in the backseat of a Miami limo.
It was a private hospital room, in itself a miracle in these days of HMOs and accountants making medical decisions. One such accountant was in the room with her. He was leaning over her bed and moving his lips. He had thinning blond hair, rimless glasses, and was wearing an utterly spotless lab coat. No name tag. No hospital name stitched over his pocket. She dubbed him Egghead #1.
She squinted at #1, and as if someone were turning up the volume in her head, he slowly became audible.
". . . everything's all right. You're in a branch of the O.S.F. in Minneapolis, Minnesota."
"Minnesota?" she rasped. No hangover, that was something. A miraculous something. She was reasonably certain she and her girlfriends had been mixing Kahlua and tequila. Or had it been tequila and Baileys? They'd been mixing something with chocolate milk. . . .
She sure felt like she could spit cotton though. Her mouth was as dry as the desert. She reached for the shiny cup beside her bed, but it crumpled in her hand. Dammit! She'd do anything, lay anything, for a glass of water.
"Minnesota?" she tried again, clearing her throat.
"Yes. There were special circumstances and we had to airlift you here."
I. Am. So. Thirsty. "Sorry, I wasn't listening. What?"
"We had to airlift you here and - and there are some things I need to go over with you."
"What day is it?" Rent was due on Monday, and she'd be damned if Old Lady Shea was going to nail her with another fifty-dollar late fee. Like the woman needed more money to bury in her chive patch. "The day . . . what - what time is it?"
"It's October thirty-first. Halloween," Egghead #1 added brightly, as if looking forward to a brisk round of trick-or-treating after work. "Just after lunchtime, in fact. If you're hungry, I could - "
"Hallo - " She cut herself off, shocked. The party had been on the twentieth. Her twenty-fourth birthday. She and a bunch of her sorority sisters had rented a limo and driven from Minneapolis to Miami. Things got a little blurry after her sixth pina colada. They got even blurrier after the Kahlua-Baileys-chocolate-milk mixture.
Where were her friends? Why was she still here? Had there been an accident?
Oh, God . . . had there?

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