Seven Up (Stephanie Plum, #7)

by Janet Evanovich

Thinking very often resembles napping, but the intent is different. I was in the middle of some very deep thinking when the phone rang.

I’m going to become a lesbian.” “How do you do that?” Grandma asked. “I always wanted to know. Do you have to wear a fake penis? I saw a TV show once and the women were wearing these things that were made out of black leather and were shaped like a great big—”

In school they used to teach us April showers bring May flowers. April showers also bring twelve-car pileups on the Jersey Turnpike and swollen, snot-clogged sinuses.

Not only was I a slut lusting after two men, I was a bad hamster mother.

I might be a stay-at-home mother someday, but I’ll always be trying to fly off the garage roof. That’s just who I am.

“I bet there are lots of good things to being a lesbian,” Grandma said, “If you marry a lesbian you never have to worry about someone leaving the toilet seat up.”

It’s hard to feel like a grown-up when nothing ever changes in your mother’s kitchen. It’s like time stands still. I come into the kitchen and I want my sandwiches cut into triangles.

He’s going to jail. He can’t see. He can’t hear. He can’t take a leak that lasts under fifteen minutes. But he has an erection and all the other problems are small change. Next time around I’m coming back as a man. Priorities are so clearly defined. Life is so simple.