Got Your Number

mouth—she'd found her cousin's weakness. Wonder of wonders...Roxann was human after all.

Chapter Twelve

    ROXANN TRIED TO KEEP the passage between her throat and nose closed to duplicate the speaker's pronunciation on the tape. "Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix."
    "You'll be fluent in no time," Angora offered through a mouthful of Fritos. She'd been on a junk food binge since this morning's McDonald's biscuit-and-gravy breakfast. With Frito-greasy fingers, she turned pages of a faded copy of How to Make Love to a Man that she'd fished out of Roxann's box of mementos.
    Roxann switched off the tape, then rolled her tight shoulders. She hadn't slept very well last night, even though Angora had spared no expense in securing a luxurious room. The fact that she was unaccustomed to a good mattress and down pillows probably contributed to her sleeplessness, and her conscience didn't seem to have an off switch. If she gave up her work with Rescue, wouldn't she be no better than people who murmured about social problems over crab puffs at dinner parties, but thought the solutions lay with politicians or organized religion, or something else that had nothing whatsoever to do with them? And worse, wouldn't she be admitting that her father was right?
    Good grief, she was tired of thinking. Maybe that's why Angora didn't mind letting other people make decisions for her—it was less stressful than knowing you had no one to blame but yourself if your life turned out dismally. Roxann bit into her lower lip. Or perhaps her expectations were simply too high. No one was entitled to happiness every waking moment, were they?
    "Did you say something?" Angora asked.
    Had she spoken aloud? "No."
    "I thought you said something. Where are we?"
    "A few miles outside Little Rock."
    "Arkansas?"
    "Right." She was taking a rather winding route toward South Bend under the guise of humoring Angora on her life-list quest. This morning they had stopped at a YMCA so she could give Angora a crash swimming lesson. Considering the fact that Angora was afraid of putting her head under, didn't want to get her hair wet, and refused to hold her breath, the session went well, meaning neither of them drowned. But because of her generous curves, Angora bobbed like a cork; when she finally mastered the dead man's float, Roxann declared her graduated.
    In truth, she was driving off the beaten path in the unlikely event that Frank Cape or Detective Capistrano had picked up her trail. From Jackson, Mississippi, she'd veered left, stopping every forty miles so Angora could pee and buy another Coke and candy bar. The scenery was stunning, though. The farther north they drove, the more dramatic the flaming fall foliage, stirring memories of cozy autumns in Indiana. Maintaining a leisurely pace, they would be in Springfield, Missouri, by nightfall, Bloomington, Illinois, by Tuesday night, and South Bend, Indiana, by Wednesday afternoon.
    At the moment, however, they were both weary of sitting, and she was light-headed from mimicking the tape. Ticking off some of the items on her life list gave her a tiny sense of accomplishment, but mostly was a diversion from the rearview mirror. Tucked inside a box on the backseat was a leather-bound copy of three Shakespearean plays—a splurge on her budget, but Angora's shopping spree had been contagious, as well as her frivolity, because the one purchase Roxann was most excited about was a long lime-green silk scarf that had spoken to her. Of course now she was feeling guilty—DNA that Angora seemed to have missed out on.
    She had to admit her cousin knew how to live large. That kind of spending used to revolt her, but for a few hours yesterday she conceded that while money didn't necessarily guarantee happiness, it certainly afforded a person more coping tools. She still didn't condone spending for the sake of spending, but she was beginning to realize that people who had money weren't necessarily evil.
    Dee notwithstanding.
    "Roxann, have you ever used a vibrator?"
    She blinked.
    Angora folded down a page of the naughty book and closed the cover. "You're the only person I can ask these things. Have you?"
    "Um, sure."
    "So if I were to use one, would that mean I wouldn't be a virgin anymore?"
    "I...perhaps medically, but...there's more to losing your virginity than...penetration." This conversation was not happening.
    Angora laid her head back on the seat. "My first orgasm was in the laundry room of