Free Roll with the Punches by Amy Gettinger Page A

babysitting Dad." I hung up and shoved more fries in my mouth.
    I was just coming off the 55 freeway onto Newport Boulevard when Darya Delhi appeared on the right.
    Wait. It was lunchtime.
    Oh, my God. I had a date right here, right now, today. Wow. Even in my funk, the universe had led me here just ten minutes late for my date with James. He was inside waiting for me! I completely forgot the folks and turned into the lot, parked the car, and crumpled up fast food wrappings.
    "I'm coming, James!" I grabbed my purse off the floor, but it was under my sweater, whose sleeve was snagged on something. Crap. A damned pink sequin on a darling little pink purse. Perfect for any six-year-old Barbie fan. My generous mother would have said Yvette wasn't really mean. She was just the messenger of bad news. After all, her stupid little purse had saved my life. And she had offered to help me with my manuscript. Like it needed help. And she had taken an interest in James. Like he needed that. And she’d completely disdained my father. And almost let me choke to death. And accused me of plagiarism.
    I needed her purse out of my car.
    And James’s blue, blue eyes and yummy smile were calling me. My legs would not sit still, so I found myself outside the car before I could yank the stupid thing off my sweater. When I finally managed it, a small explosion of pink and white sequins rained down on the asphalt parking space and the car seat, leaving a long, knotted pink thread hanging off the bag, like a scraggly tail. And a newly exposed slice of faux pink leather. A little pink piglet butt.
    Now my own roomy, adult purse was made of soft, buttery, leather in rich ivory, gold, russet and deep brown. So I was standing there in the parking lot, trying to tuck the stupid pink piglet tail inside the stupid little butt purse before running into James’s arms and the rest of my sparkling future life, when my own lovely purse fell off my shoulder, making me catch it and drop the stupid pink thing. Swear to God. Which scattered its meager contents everywhere—half in the car and half out.
    Hey, it was an accident. Would I willingly have put off meeting James just to pick up the insect's stupid stuff? And her stupid coin purse? I scrambled around and gathered stuff up. There was no cell phone, no tampon, no Kleenex, no condom—Monica’s list of purse essentials. Just a little cash, a tiny key, and some cards. Which I couldn’t help peeking at. Blockbuster. Nail salon. Hair salon. City editor for a newspaper. Publisher. Sex toy store. (Bad image: insectoid sex. Erase, erase, erase.) Driver's license. Hey, she was thirty-seven! A geezer. Way too old for James. Weight: ninety-eight pounds. Reason in itself for insecticide. But didn't being almost double her weight surely double my value over hers as a human being?
    I considered jotting down her fancy MasterCard numbers, but mentally slapped myself. Besides, the numbers were all cool blues and greens and purples, and a perfect mirror of my mother's birthday plus my high school locker code plus the Dewey Decimal number for books on famous women. I guess I accidentally memorized them.
    No library card. An editor with no library card? Damned suspicious.
    I felt around under my front seat and found two more cards: Melinda Rawls, Agent. Reynard Jackson, Author.
    Oh. My. God. I sat back down in my driver’s seat, stunned. Jackson's business card in Yvette's purse? With his trademark jaunty, colorful letters dancing annoyingly across the top. Where had she gotten this? Was he British like her? Did she know him, or maybe even work for him? The sneak. Pretending she was just one of his readers. Before I got a look at the phone number on it, someone spoke at my open car door.
    James said, "Hey, Rhonda! How's your mother?"
    My eyes flew up. My hand went to my wind-swept hair. The little pink bag fell to the passenger side floor.
    "I was inside and saw you pull up." His gaze lowered to my chest.
    I looked down.