Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six Read Online Free

not sure he’s Ms. Bolton’s type. I bet she’d go more for the pretty type, like the guys in the Ralph Lauren ads.”
    â€œThat type is very, very boring,” I said. “They never smile and you know why? Because they’re worried their tie is crooked or their socks don’t match. Or their hair isn’t on straight. They’re not interested in you, their interested in them.”
    â€œHow about if we suggest to Ms. Bolton she put one of those ads in the personals column in the paper?” Al suggested. “You know, ‘caring nonsmoker, into sunsets and red setters.’”
    â€œTalk about blind dates! That’s about as blind as you can get, I figure,” I said.
    â€œThey usually say ‘photo a must,’” Al went on. “That’s so you know what you’re getting into. But suppose you’re ugly as sin, your nose is all over your face, and you’re snaggletoothed. What then?”
    â€œYou send in a photo of your beautiful sister,” I said. “And the guy falls into instant love with her and writes back saying ‘How about Saturday night?’ What then?”
    â€œProblems, problems,” Al said airily. “Let’s cross here. I want to check out the puppies in the pet shop. If my mother would let me, I’d take the brown-and-white one with the curly tail.”
    But the pet shop was gone, along with the puppies. In its window a big sign said
    FREE OFFER! SEE INSIDE! TIGHTEN YOUR BOD!
    FURM, TONE, IMPROVE YOUR SHAPE!
    JOIN AL’S HEALTH CLUB.
    FREE OFFER! SEE INSIDE!
    A man with a big belly stood in the doorway, yelling at the moving men.
    â€œWatch it! Break that and it’ll cost ya!” he hollered.
    â€œThat must be Al,” Al said. “Not only is he an entrepreneur in the fitness game, he’s also a heck of a speller. Check ‘firm.’ Should we tell him?”
    â€œI like it that way,” I said. “Check the abs and the gluts,” I whispered. “How about the pecs?” Al whispered back. That cracked us up.
    The man with the big belly wandered over to us. “Let us in on the joke, girls.”
    â€œBegging your pardon, sir,” Al said.
    The fat man’s lips moved in a twitchy way. Was he smiling?
    Al has this theory that if you address people as ‘sir’ they immediately like you because they think you respect them.
    â€œBegging your pardon, sir,” she said again. She’d been reading The Return of the Native; that’s the way they talked in Thomas Hardy’s day.
    Sure enough, I noticed that every time she called him sir he looked a little less threatening. His was a face that only a mother could love. That was one of my mother’s expressions, some of which are quite good. Al gave them another shot of “Begging your pardon, sir,” which I figured was overdoing it. By the time she’d finished with him, he wore a big smile; probably a first for him.
    â€œWhat’s on your mind, girlie?” he asked Al.
    â€œWhat happened to the pet shop?” Al said. “It was here only last week. We came to see the puppies, sir.”
    That was it for the sirs. The guy was soft as a grape by now.
    â€œGonzo,” he said gruffly. “The guy can’t handle the rent raise. He’s gotta pack up his pooches and split. It’s no skin off my nose. I’m in for a bundle, all this high-class machinery. Borrowed from my mother-in-law. She gives me a break, charges ten percent interest instead of her usual twenty. What a sweetheart.
    â€œHey!” he hollered as the moving men carried a big machine across the sidewalk. “That’s a cross-country ski simulator,” he told us proudly. “All that and more is what you’re gonna find inside. You want a free tryout, you got it. You from around here?”
    We nodded, although it wasn’t really our neighborhood.
    â€œInside we got our tanning machine, you