Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six by Constance C. Greene

the Hollywood moguls wanted to keep her a child star as long as they could, so they bound her bust,” Al told me.
    â€œNo kidding?” I said. “That’s a good idea. Why don’t we try that?”
    â€œI thought we already had,” Al said.
    We laughed until we both came down with the hiccups.
    â€œHey, look!” I grabbed Al’s arm. “I don’t believe it. Twice in one day. It’s Woody again.”
    Al squinted into the distance.
    â€œYou may be right,” she said. “Let’s say hello.”
    â€œHi, Woody,” we said. “Loved your last picture.”
    The little man in the big glasses looked startled, then alarmed. Then he pulled up his collar even further and scuttled off, incognito.

Sixteen
    Saturday my father and I tossed a coin. He got to do the vacuuming and the marketing and I wound up with the bathrooms. This is not uncommon when we flip a coin. Sometimes I wonder about that coin, about whether it’s on the level.
    Teddy was the designated duster.
    My grandfather called and said he’d like to take us out to dinner.
    My mother said she’d love to but how about next week.
    My mother’s sister, Tess, called from Connecticut. When she found out my mother had been sick, she offered to come and stay to help out.
    â€œI’ll send the kids to their father,” Tess said. “Serve him right.”
    â€œHow’s things up in Mafia land?” Teddy hollered over the wire to Craig, the know-it-all cousin. When Teddy talks to Connecticut, he acts as if he’s got a bad connection to Istanbul.
    â€œHad any good drug busts lately?” Teddy shouted across the miles. I didn’t hear what Craig reported.
    Al came over and I made cream-cheese-and-olive sandwiches. On whole-wheat bread. It’s important to use whole-wheat bread.
    â€œMy mother said to tell your mother that if there was anything she could do, let her know,” Al said.
    â€œKnow something?” I said. “We’ve got the perfect excuse. We call up Sparky’s mom and tell her we can’t come tonight on account of we have to stay home and take care of my mother.”
    â€œSaturday night is the loneliest night in the week,” Al said. “It’s also blind-date night. If I don’t do it now, I never will. It’s a challenge. It’s practice. I’ve got my outfit all planned. I’m playing it straight. This nephew strikes me as a straight guy. I’m wearing my lavender sweater, my plaid skirt, and on my feet—guess!” She let fly with a piercer.
    â€œYour orange hightops?” I guessed.
    â€œMy Sparky’s-revenge shoes,” she said. She said she wanted to see whether Sparky remembered those shoes, and that if he did and he repeated his barf-pee routine, she was planning on poisoning him and burying him in an unmarked grave.
    â€œI’m planning on wearing my taffeta party dress,” I said.
    Slowly, Al shook her head at me. “That’s being overdressed,” she told me. “We do not want to go to this fracas overdressed, thereby revealing that we expect great things of it. We want to be underdressed. My mother, who is in fashion, as you know, says it’s always better to underdress than over.”
    We thrashed through my limited wardrobe awhile.
    â€œMy taffeta dress is the only garment I have that does anything for me,” I said.
    â€œForget the taffeta dress,” Al commanded me. “It’s the light of intelligence shining from your eyes that’ll get him in the long run. Nothing else matters.” At last, we settled on my denim skirt and my Esprit shirt, which my mother bought from a street vendor on Sixth Avenue. It’s phony Esprit, but it’s sort of cute. In a trendy way.
    â€œWhere are you two bound for?” my father asked from behind his newspaper.
    â€œWe’re going to meet Sparky’s mom’s nephew,” I told him. He