Operation Date Escape

smile.” She was a dental hygienist after all. Nice teeth were important to her.
    “What if neither of them is smiling?”
    “I am not getting fake boobs!” Kelsie blurted out in complete frustration. “I’m happy just the way I am. And if, that’s a huge if , I ever get involved with a man again he’s going to have to like me as I am. I’m not about to let the next man I marry try to change me the way Kyle tried to!”
    Had she really just s houted her reply while seated in a very crowded restaurant? A glance around her told Kelsie she had indeed done just that. Heat flooded her cheeks.
    Her mother’s eyes lit up like a stray cat in a fish market. “The next man you marry?”
    She wished she could take the words back. Not so much the boob part, she still held firm on that decision, but the husband part. The last thing she wanted to do was to give her mother any reason to hope that the ‘marriage again’ thing would ever happen. She didn’t want another husband. She’d gone that route once before and had no intention of ever traveling it again. A non-committal fling would be all right she supposed. That is, if she ever found a guy she was interested in enough to get involved with - non-committally .
    The calculating smile that slid across her matchmaking mother’s face told Kelsie she was in big trouble. She had done the one thing she’d tried her damnedest never to do when it came to discussing her relationships, or lack thereof, with her mother. She’d just given her hope.
    * * *
    Kelsie checked her watch again then returned to tapping her nails on the polished wood surface of the bar top. Her mother had managed to stress her out more than P.M.S. ever had. Most of it was the gleam of ‘I can’t wait for you to give me grandbabies’ she’d seen in her mother’s eyes when they’d hugged goodbye at the restaurant earlier that evening.
    “You know, if ditching bad dates was an Olympic sport, you’d take the gold.”
    Smiling, Kelsie spun around on her bar stool to greet her best friend, Nanci. “And if being over-sexed was an Olympic sport...”
    “Guaranteed gold,” her friend replied proudly. “You should try it sometime.”
    “I think I’ll pass.”
    “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
    “Yeah, well you haven’t been on any of the dates I’ve been on lately,” Kelsie told her with a frown. “There hasn’t been a guy yet who even so much as tempted me to consider competing in Olympic bedroom games.”
    “Maybe you just need to take the time to get to know the guys you go out with instead of ditching them halfway through the date.
    Taking more time to get to know the guys she’d been set up on dates with wouldn’t have made one iota of a difference. “Speaking of time,” Kelsie muttered, determined to redirect their conversation to something other than her pathetic love life, “you’re late.”
    “I know. I know. I’m running behind.” Her friend plopped her purse atop the bar and settled onto the stool next to the one Kelsie was seated on. “My last patient cancelled, so I got out of work early. But made the mistake of stopping by the mall on my way here. They’re having their annual sidewalk sale.”
    Well, that explained it. T here was no such thing as a quick mall run for Nanci when sidewalk sales were involved. “So did you buy anything? Or do I even have to ask?”
    “ Heels,” she answered with a smile.
    Kelsie laughed , not the least bit surprised. “I’m beginning to think you need to consider seeking some sort of therapy for this shoe obsession you have.” She reached for the wild berry wine cooler she’d been sipping on while she waited for Nanci to get there, bringing it to her lips.
    “ My shoe fetish aside, how’s the man-hater book coming along?”
    She was referring to the how-to book Kelsie had been working on for women who found themselves out on a date from hell. It was filled with escape plans to get out of those bad dates. Escapes Kelsie had tested out firsthand in the two years since her divorce.
    She returned her drink to the bar coaster and reached for a handful of popcorn in the napkin-lined basket beside it. “It’s not a man-hater book,” she said in defense of her brainchild.
    Nanci shrugged. “Could have fooled me.”
    “It’s a bad date survival guide.”
    Her friend shook her head. “ Come on, Kelsie, when are you going to realize not every guy out there is like Kyle?”
    “You mean a complete and utter