The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel Page A

down my upper thighs.
    “You’ve
got
to me kidding me,” I said. This was beyond humiliating.
    “Nope,” Emmie chirped. “Afraid not.”
    Growling at her, I took the horrible outfit into her bedroom to change and came out ten minutes later—after summoning Emmie to help pour me into the girdle—looking like a completely different person. Gone was the buttoned-down attorney who had entered Emmie’s apartment; instead, standing in her living room, was a full-on stereotypical nightclub princess in a man-hunting dress. Well, an expensive, designer, man-hunting dress.
    “This is horrible,” I said, looking down at my body and wincing. However, I was secretly pleased that the dress fit me and actually didn’t look as bad as I thought it would clinging to my curves. I never wore tight clothes, so sometimes I forgot that I
had
curves, albeit unimpressive ones. Once the girdle was in place—and I had donned Emmie’s water bra that made me look like I had generous C cups instead of my own less-than-impressive small B’s—the dress didn’t look half bad on me. Not that I would
ever
wear it voluntarily.
    “Actually, you look pretty hot,” Emmie protested, looking at me admiringly. “Who knew that inside that lawyer facade there was a hottie itching to get out?”
    “Don’t jump the gun,” I mumbled, wondering vaguely why it had never occurred to me to dress a little more sexily in the past.
    M EG AND J ill arrived at six forty-five with amused grins that only grew wider when they saw the ridiculous outfit I’d been stuffed into by the very talented Emmie.
    I waited with the girls in Emmie’s living room, not sure why I felt so nervous. But my heart was doing that pitter-patter, pitter-patter it sometimes did before I walked into the courtroom to face a tough judge or before I had to argue a thorny case in front of the patent board.
    Was it possible I actually liked Scott Jacoby? I mean, at face value, the pairing made sense: Smart young lawyer meets smart young ophthalmologist and they hit it off. The only thing wrong with this scenario was that the smart young ophthalmologist in question thought that I was a dumb, slightly over-the-hill NBA dancer. So unless I intended to come clean—which of course I didn’t (I had been
dared,
and I took that very seriously)—I was stuck pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
    Well, it was worth a try, I had to admit. Acting like the person I actually was hadn’t been working out so well lately. And tonight, I figured it was better to
be
the one pretending rather than being out with an actor pretending to like me.
    “So how are you going to convince him you’re dumb?” Jill asked as she and Meg settled into Emmie’s raggedy-looking beige couch.
    “I don’t know,” I shrugged. I felt embarrassed as I added, “I practiced some blonde-isms in my office today with the door closed.”
    “Blonde-isms?” Meg asked.
    I shrugged. “You know, just speaking like a dumb blonde.” I could feel my cheeks heat up a bit. “Saying
like
every few words. Giggling. Acting vacant.”
    “Sounds like a good start,” Meg mused, nodding thoughtfully. “I think you have to have a better plan than that for tonight, though.”
    Jill nodded. “Since it’s your first blonde date and all,” she added wisely.
    I looked back and forth between the two of them, then glanced down at my watch. “He’ll be here in ten minutes,” I said. “Do you really think I’ll have time to prepare more?”
    “I think you’d better,” Meg said with a solemn nod.
    Emmie came back into the room and squeezed onto the sofa with Meg and Jill. For the next ten minutes, they sat and stared me down like a harsh tribunal while drilling me on blonde responses, making suggestions about how I should fawn over Scott because he was a doctor and quizzing me on all things blonde.
    “But do I really need to act so over-the-top?” I asked hesitantly. I hadn’t thought this was what I’d signed up for. Jill and