A Perfect Match Read Online Free PDF Page A

Understanding the Assessment Process book.
    I looked at the clock. Sex and the City had just started. Sod the leaflets, I thought, I’d let James read them and give me a synopsis.

4
    The following Saturday was my sister Babs’ graduation dinner. None of us could believe she had actually graduated. All she had done for three years in college was swan around in teeny-weeny mini skirts, flicking her long blonde hair and batting her eyelids at everything in a pair of trousers. Babs was a real head turner, but she had a very large nose – from the Barry Manilow stable of noses – that prevented her from being completely in love with herself. Having spent three years studying Social Science she was now taking some time out to decide what to do with the rest of her life and trying to persuade Dad to buy her a nose job as a graduation present.
    My brother Sean flew home from London for the weekend to come to the family dinner. I went to the airport to pick him up. He bounded over and bear hugged me.
    ‘Hey, sis, good to see you. How’s things?’
    ‘OK, what’s going on?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You practically skipped off the plane, so I know something’s up. Come on, spill the beans.’
    ‘Well, I’ve met this girl …’
    Sean was ginger like me – but more of the carrot and big orange freckles variety – and hadn’t had much luck with women. Personally, I always felt he shot too high. I know it sounds awful, but he had a terrible habit of falling in love with stunning model-types who were never going to go for him. You have to know your limits and, unless you’re a ginger rock star like Mick Hucknall, models are just not going to fall at your feet. Sean was extremely successful. He was a partner in the highbrow law firm of Brown and Hodder and earned ridiculous amounts of money, working a mere nineteen hours a day. He was also the nicest person in the world and I adored him. There was only eighteen months between us and we were very close.
    ‘Oooooh, what’s she like?’ I said, silently praying that she was not a model or an actress like the last girl he had brought home, who turned out to be having an affair with her manager.
    ‘She’s lovely, Emma. She’s a teacher.’
    Great, I liked the sound of that. A teacher was perfect. A teacher wouldn’t be flighty or hard-nosed or selfish. A teacher would be nice and normal and down to earth and sweet-natured.
    ‘She’s very pretty. Her name’s Shadee.’
    ‘Cherie? Like Tony Blair’s wife?’
    ‘No, Shadee like Shadee,’ said Sean, just a little defensively.
    ‘Unusual name,’ I said, prying without prying.
    ‘She’s Persian.’
    Persian? What was Persian? I knew about Persian cats, they were the big furry ones, but I had no idea where Persia was. It sounded exotic and very far removed from Ireland.
    ‘Sorry, Sean, I’ve no idea where Persia is.’
    ‘It’s Iran.’
    Oh my God! Alarm bells started ringing in my head. Iran! Iran where all the women had to be covered from head to toe in black with only a slit for their eyes. Iran where all the men were total religious zealots. I had seen Sally Field in the movie Not Without My Daughter where she was held captive by her mad – but very attractive – Iranian husband. What on earth was Sean doing? Had his confidence dropped so low that he was now going out with a woman whose face he had never seen?
    As breezily as I could, I asked if she had been living in England long.
    Sean looked at me and smiled. ‘She is English, Emma. Her parents are Iranian but she was born and bred in the UK so she’s a mixture of both cultures.’
    ‘So she doesn’t wear the black sheet?’
    ‘You mean the yashmak? Of course she doesn’t, nor does her mother. One of the reasons they fled Iran was because of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the introduction of new laws that were all based on Islam. They were clever enough to get out before the fundamentalists took over.’
    Shadee was obviously a good teacher: Sean knew his stuff