Author's Note: Thank you everyone for the reviews. They're so nice to read. I forgot to mention earlier that this story is set in present times – it's been 20 years since the series began so I figured Stephanie deserved a bit of an upgrade from pagers and fax machines to current technology.

Ghostbusters was halfway over by the time I heard the garage door going up and Dickie's car driving in. I was on the couch with the leftover cake. I'd saved some for breakfast tomorrow morning though – I wasn't sure whether leftover pizza or leftover cake made for a better breakfast.

"Hey sweetheart, I'm so sorry about dinner," he said, kissing my head as he walked past. "Any leftovers?"

"Yes, and I'll share with you, but the cake is all mine," I warned him.

"I'm just going to shower, then you can tell me about dinner," he said, disappearing upstairs. He reappeared in 10 minutes, freshly showered, and headed into the kitchen to heat up his dinner.

Dickie worked for the District Attorney and often worked long hours. It was all part of his ten year plan, he told me. We'd been married for six years already, but I wasn't exactly sure on when that ten years had started from. Dickie had big ambitions. He wanted to someday move into politics and he said that working for the District Attorney was Step One. I wasn't ambitious but I guess he must have rubbed off on me a little since I was taking a chance on starting my own company.

"So, what exciting Plum madness did I miss?" he asked me.

"Well, let's see – Valerie and the girls called, but there's no madness there, they're perfect as always. It was just after school in California, so Super Steve was still at work – although I think he's a workaholic like someone else I could mention," I said, stopping to give Dickie a pointed look. "Mary Lou and I were going to go for a drink but Kenny started vomiting, so she had to go home, and ooh, Joe Morelli didn't show up for court so now Vinnie has to send his bounty hunter after him except Morty Byers has appendicitis, so Vinnie has to come up with Plan B and I think Joe's Grandma Bella might put The Eye on Vinnie if he tries to take their house away. She might make Vinnie's Mr Happy fall off."

Dickie and I both paused to shudder at the visual image. I was sorry that I'd brought it up. No one should be picturing Vinnie's Mr Happy. Dickie didn't know about my past with Morelli – either the garage or the bakery – since I didn't think that either experience was really worth talking about but knew about Joe from the Burg updates my mother would give at dinner. Little Joey Morelli, a Morelli made good and then maybe not so good, and now an FTA and causing trouble for Vinnie.

Dickie finished eating and put his arm around me and we finished watching Ghostbusters together. It wasn't the most exciting birthday celebration, but it could have been worse. I thought of Mary Lou, who went home to deal with vomit. And Joe, who was on the run, wanted for murder. At least my life was better than that.

Three days later I was over at Mary Lou's house. The four year old was at his grandparents, the toddler was emptying the drawers under the TV cabinet and we were drinking coffee. Mary Lou had not yet activated her Burg housewife genes, or maybe it was her destructo toddler who stopped her from achieving perfection. I love Mikey – he was my Godson – but he tired me out after 15 minutes and the only way to keep him quiet was to give him something to destroy. I wasn't sure how Mare did it.

Mary Lou worked part time as a bookkeeper, and we usually met up for lunch on her work days, but today we were discussing the launch of my new product range and needed a bit more time than a quick lunch break. Mary Lou had a good eye for numbers and was great at keeping me on track.

"Okay, so show me where you're up to," Mary Lou said, putting her hand out for my spreadsheets. I heard a crash from the living room and turned to look. "Don't worry, he's just tipped out a tub of Lego. It'll keep him occupied for a while spreading it around and it's easy enough to clean up," she told me.

I handed the spreadsheets over. The website was ready to be launched, and I was working on the final copy of our Facebook page. I'd gotten the final samples from the manufacturer in China, and now needed to approve the samples and work out how many to order. Back in the day I would have been able to get the lingerie made in Trenton, but there weren't any local manufacturers anymore, so I had to go overseas.

"These colours are amazing, Steph, they look even better in person," Mary Lou told me.

"Do you think they're okay? Are they too much?" I asked. My first instincts was to go for bright and colourful patterns. There was already a market full of flesh tone and muted maternity wear, I wanted to go for something different.

"No way. Being pregnant can be the most unglamorous time of your life. Prints like this will brighten up anyone's day," Mary Lou said, holding up a purple leopard print bra. I figured that one would be popular in Jersey. Valerie had flagged a muted sky blue one with a slight shimmer as her favourite. I was starting off with three different colours to begin with. The third was a bright pink with small black love hearts on it. They had a multitude of clips and straps and buckles to make them as customisable and comfortable as possible, and had survived the testing process of Mary Lou's mother's group.

The first samples I produced that been painstakingly sewn by me, after I borrowed my mother's sewing machine. I knew what ideas I wanted, but putting them together took longer than I'd thought. I was glad to hand them over to the manufacturer for sample production. Luckily I had contacts from my time working for E. E. Martin, and since E. E. Martin has been shut down, there were no issues with them working with me.

"Okay, Steph. Time to decide how many you need to order," Mary Lou said, looking at the spreadsheet. Eek, time to make the big decision!

There was another crash from the lounge room. Mare looked thoughtful. "Maybe you should go play with your Godson while I look over these numbers some more."

Done deal. I hated numbers. I barely scraped through the accounting subjects when I did my business degree.

When I got home my cleaner had visited. I loved Ella. She kept my house nice and she even left a plate of cookies out for me every week. She was also interested in my business ideas and kept asking me for updates – more than my parents did. She'd told me that she'd started cleaning as a way of keeping busy after her children had all left home, and was trying to build up her business. She'd baked me cakes when I found out about the redundancy from my job, and she even claimed to enjoy ironing. I enjoyed her Monday visits, both for the cleaning and for the company.

It was still early, so I headed upstairs to my office and to look over the numbers that Mary Lou and I had agreed on. It was daunting. This was the final step that I needed to take to get my business up and running – all my months of work had come down to this moment. I took a deep breath and emailed my manufacturer, confirming the quantities of the order. Then I went downstairs and poured myself a glass of wine to go along with my cookie from Ella. Two cookies. Three. I reluctantly put the cookies in the cupboard and went back upstairs to my office. I was putting the final touches on our website so we could do a pre-launch while we were waiting for our stock to arrive. Well, I say we, but I guess it was just me. It felt like a group effort though, with Mary Lou and Valerie involved. Val and I hadn't been that close since she left for college and then moved across the country with Super Steve, but she was really interested in my business and was always messaging me requesting updates and encouraging me.

While I was thinking of Val, I sent her a quick email telling her that I'd done the official order, and including some of the text for the website to see what she thought. I really wanted Plum Lingerie to be a success.

Dickie surprised me by coming home from work early (or was it on time for once which now feels like early?), and I told him that Mary Lou and I had decided on the first order and I'd sent it through.

"Congratulations, Steph! That's so exciting. Let's go out to dinner to celebrate," he said.

We went to a local Italian restaurant and after we'd ordered I updated him on where Plum Lingerie was up to.

"So look out for boxes in the garage in about a month," I warned him. "The cars might have to live on the drive for a while."

"Duly noted. And now I have an announcement too – it's time to move on to Step Two. I've been offered a position at Kreiner and Kreiner. What do you think?"

"Wow, Dickie. That's great. Are you sure you want to leave the DA Office?" I asked him.

"I think it's time. And it's more money. Lots more. I had a meeting with them today to discuss it – I get a big corner office, more money, a parking space and an assistant. It's an awesome offer. I made sure to look like this," he paused, to show me his "humble" look, "and then said that I'd have to talk it over with you."

Dickie liked to practise his looks in the mirror so he'd have the right facial expression to pull out at the right time. Humble. Surprised. Shocked! Saddened. I'd laughed my ass off the first time that I caught him doing it.

"You know that I'd support you in whatever you decide to do," I told him.

"Yeah, I know, but saying that I was going to ask your opinion makes me look better to them," he said. I rolled my eyes. You know, there was times when my husband really did live up to his name.

Two weeks later, on the same day that Mary Lou called to say that Joe Morelli had managed to clear his name and wasn't a murder suspect anymore, I hit the publish button to make the Plum Lingerie website and Facebook page go live. Then I waited and refreshed. Then I logged in and checked the stats. No new visits.

I called Mary Lou back to gossip about Morelli some more to distract myself. She didn't know much more but was going to walk down to the bakery for lunch in order to gather more gossip. I told her to call me back after lunch, hung up, and called my mother.

Grandma Mazur answered and said that she'd spent the morning at the beauty parlour and gotten all the details. Vinnie had given Morelli to another new bounty hunter to bring in, but he'd refused, saying that Morelli was a good cop and he wasn't interested in bringing a cop in (Connie, Vinnie's office manager, had heard the whole conversation). So Vinnie had gone after Morelli himself, but gotten scared away. Probably by Mrs Morelli.

Morty Byers had gone after him after getting out of hospital but had ruptured his recent surgical incision chasing after Joe when he'd spotted him on the street. Meanwhile Joe had found the evidence he needed to clear his name and bring the bad guys in, and had handed himself into Vinnie's new bounty hunter. Or maybe Vinnie's new bounty hunter that come across the evidence that cleared Morelli's name? It was quite a story and I wasn't sure how much of it was true.

I ate lunch and shared the Plum Lingerie Facebook page on my page. The first like was from Grandma.

Mary Lou called back and shared the gossip. Mostly it was about Vinnie's new mysterious bounty hunter. No one actually knew any details though. The charges had been officially dropped against Joe Morelli and he was back at work.

The second like on the Facebook page was from Valerie and she called me to say that she liked the website. I gave her the update on Joe Morelli – they'd gone to school together although Morelli was wild and Val was perfect, so their paths didn't really cross. We both agreed that we were glad Morelli wasn't in jail, and then hung up.

I checked the website stats again, sighed, and then got to work. It was time to start promoting Plum Lingerie.