Operation Date Escape

CHAPTER ONE

    “Maybe you should consider getting a boob job.”
    Kelsie Collins paused mid-bite to look at her mother from across the dinner table which was, thankfully, tucked away in a far corner of the busy restaurant. “What?”
    Her mother reached for another roll and scooped up a pat of butter with her knife as if she had just made mention of the weather instead of her daughter’s virtually non-existent breasts. “Now don’t go looking at me like that,” she said as she tore open the roll and slathered the butter across it. “Fake boobs are all the rage right now.”
    Kelsie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn’t as if this was the first time they’d discussed this particular subject. “Maybe so,” she conceded. “But I ’m not about to risk my health just to fill my bra out better.”
    Her mother waved her concern away. “ They’re perfectly safe now if you get the ones filled with saline.”
    “ Oh, well, that being the case I’ll run right out and get myself a pair.”
    Her mother pursed her lips. “A ll I’m saying is that it certainly couldn’t hurt for you to look into them. According to my latest issue of Cosmopolitan , breast implants can actually boost a woman’s self-confidence level.”
    Not another piece of Cosmopolitan advice. Kelsie rolled her eyes again with a groan, returning the half-eaten extra crispy chicken breast to her plate. “Mom, my self-confidence is not an issue. I’m perfectly content with my lesser endowments. So I’m no Playboy Bunny. Big deal.”
    Her mother arched a slender brow.
    Okay, so maybe her lesser endowments did bother her a little bit , but she wasn’t about to openly admit that to her mother. “Can we just drop this?”
    “Now, honey, before you go and get all defensive, I’m not saying anything is wrong with your breasts as they are.” Her gaze dropped down. “You’re just naturally small.”
    Unlike her mother who was naturally a ‘D’ cup and had the curves to go with it. She, on the other hand, was what her mother lovingly referred to as a ‘petite little pixie’. That might have been cute when she was ten, but not now. She didn’t want to be reminded that she was a twenty-seven-year-old version of Tinker Bell, minus the blonde hair. Hers was a coppery red.
    “B isn’t that small,” Kelsie replied in defense of her push-up bra enhanced attributes.
    Her mother stabbed at her salad. “ It was just a suggestion. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what that article in last Sunday’s paper said about how single women far outnumber the eligible, financially stable, good looking men currently out there on the market.”
    If her mother expected her to go into a panic over that reminder, she had another thing coming. A committed relationship was the last thing Kelsie was looking for. Her divorce two years before had seen to that. She’d married the ‘perfect’ man who’d ended up being anything but perfect. He’d been a liar and a cheat, and she had no intention of making that same mistake ever again. She was perfectly happy with her life exactly the way it was.
    The only problem was getting her mother to accept that and stop pushing for more. Her mother, of all people, should understand how she felt. Kelsie’s father, or biological sperm donor as her mother preferred to refer to him by, had taken off in search of greener pastures the moment he found out his college ‘playmate’ was pregnant. Her mother never married after that. Instead, Melinda Collins had taken control of her somewhat derailed life, becoming a very successful real estate agent. Her free time was spent trying to push her daughter into relationships, determined that Kelsie have the happily-ever-after she’d never found for herself.
    “ Enlarging my breasts will make me a better catch for one of those few remaining ‘good catches’ how?” she asked, hoping to make her mother realize just how crazy her suggestion was.
    “As if I really need to answer that,” her mother snorted. “Think about it, honey. If two women are walking toward you on the sidewalk, one with large breasts, the other lesser endowed, which woman would you notice first?”
    “Neither,” Kelsie replied. “I’m not a lesbian.”
    “I know that,” her mother said with an exasperated sigh. “I’m talking hypothetically. As in if you were a man,” her mother explained as she reached for her glass of ice tea.
    “I suppose I would notice the one with the nicest