Free Pampered to Death by Laura Levine Page A

it?” she asked. “Ready to do business?”
    She gestured to the bottom shelf of her cart, where all her groceries were stashed.
    “No, thank you. I’d rather go hungry than submit to your kind of extortion.”
    Okay, so I didn’t really say that.
    The lily-livered words that actually came out of my mouth were:
    “Do you take credit cards?”
     
    Delphine didn’t take credit cards, but she did take checks. And just my rotten luck I had enough in my account to cover her exorbitant prices.
    I would have loved nothing better than to write that freckle-faced thief a rubber check.
    “So what’ll be?” she asked, wheeling her cart into my room.
    Prozac leaped off her treadmill from where she’d been napping, and came charging over to Delphine.
    I don’t know about her, but I’ll take one of everything.
    “I’ll have a pastrami sandwich,” I said, remembering the menu from earlier that day. “And a couple of Fancy Feasts. And an Almond Joy if you’ve got one.”
    “Sorry,” Delphine shrugged. “I’m out of pastrami. All I’ve got left is American cheese.”
    She held out a plain American cheese sandwich. And I do mean plain. No lettuce, no tomato, no nothing.
    “How much?” I asked.
    “Thirty-five bucks.”
    “But just this morning the pastrami was only thirty.”
    “You snooze, you lose. I’ve raised my prices since then.”
    Indeed she had. The cat food, which had been twenty bucks earlier that day, was now twenty-five. And she didn’t have any Almond Joy, only a dubious looking packet of candy imported from China called M&N’s. For which she was charging a staggering seventeen dollars.
    I seethed as I wrote out the check.
    “Sure you don’t want to get a six pack of cat food?” Delphine offered, holding out some more cans. “I’ll give you a price break. Just one hundred bucks.”
    “No, thank you.”
    And this time I meant it. I fully intended to go back to town the next day. Only I wouldn’t be foolish enough to come trotting home toting grocery bags. Somehow I’d manage to smuggle my loot into the room, even if I had to sew the stuff into my panties.
    “Nighty nite,” Delphine chirped, “and bon appetit! ”
    Then she wheeled her cart into the hallway, ponytail swishing.
    It was all I could do not to run after her and yank the darn thing from her scalp.
    I left Prozac inhaling her Fancy Feast and headed out to dine al fresco on the patio. Plopping down on the chaise, I unwrapped my sorry excuse for a sandwich. It was even worse than it looked in the wrapping—the bread stale and the cheese brittle around the edges.
    The Earl of Sandwich was probably rolling over in his grave.
    Still starving after only nine hundred calories and a Hershey’s kiss, I ate it anyway, washing it down with a piquant vintage of bathroom tap water.
    I was sitting there, gnawing on my emery board bread and rubber cheese, wishing I’d forked over the extra two bucks Delphine had demanded for a mustard packet, when suddenly I heard giggling.
    I looked up and saw Mallory running up the path from the pool, her fabulous body parts jiggling in a micro bikini.
    And she was not alone.
    Seconds later, Sven came chasing after her in a Speedo that left little to the imagination.
    Mallory smiled slyly and let herself be caught.
    Sven spun her around in his arms and the next thing I knew they were locked in what can only be described as a For Mature Audiences Only embrace.
    Oh, dear. So Sven hadn’t been able to resist temptation, after all.
    As they both ran toward The Haven, I saw someone step out from the bushes into the light from the footpath.
    Good heavens. It was Shawna.
    The fear I’d seen on her face in the gym, the serene smile in the spa cubicle—all gone. Now the only thing shining in her eyes was fury.
    “Damn that bitch,” I heard her mutter as she stormed off into the night.
     
    YOU’VE GOT MAIL
     
     
    To: Jausten
    From: Shoptillyoudrop
    Subject: The Death of Me Yet
     
    Your father will be the