Cheating at Solitaire Read Online Free PDF Page B

was crumbling. All the kid had to do was walk outside and stand next to her; how hard could that be?
    He watched her ask the doorman to hail a cab, and Richard felt his heart fall to the pit of his stomach. She was going to get away. Damn him, Richard thought, and fought the temptation to run through the lanes of traffic and plant a kiss on her himself. Then Lance Collins walked out of FAO Schwarz, his hands full of shopping bags and an enormous bear tucked under one arm.
    Lance grinned, and as Julia James took the big bear from his arms, Richard noted that he really was a good-looking kid.
    Instantly, snaps and flashes filled the air.
    Richard pranced along the sidewalk, speaking to pedestrians like a vendor at a fair. "The name is Collins, Lance Collins. And he and Julia James are very much in love!"

Chapter Four
    WAY #30: Don't believe everything you read.
    It's very difficult to be accepting of our own bodies. This topic deserves its own book, but since I'm not qualified to write it, Iift won't. Instead, I'l just say this: The pictures staring out at you from the supermarket checkout stands, the images we are al supposed to aspire to?
    They lie.
    # —from 107 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
    Whenever Caroline was in a hurry, there always seemed to be a line at the neighborhood market. Luckily, Nicholas was sleeping comfortably in his carrier, and Cassie was scanning the headlines that bordered the checkout aisle. Caroline sometimes worried what effect exposure to tabloid headlines might have on her daughter, a sponge who absorbed everything she saw.
    But instead of worrying, Caroline decided she should just be grateful that her five-year-old child was gifted enough to be reading at this age at all. Plus, it occupied Cassie while Caroline kept a sharp eye tuned to the register.

    "Excuse me," she said as the teenybopper in the blue smock whisked the cereal box over the scanner without a second glance at Caroline, who thrust a tiny slip of paper toward her. "I have a coupon for that," she said, forcing the coupon into the girl's hands.
    "Momma," Cassie said behind her.
    "Not now, sweetie. Momma's busy. Those are two for one." She gestured at the boxes of mac and cheese.
    "Momma, it's Aunt Julia—with a boy!"
    "Sweetie, don't say that. That might hurt Aunt Julia's . . . "
    Caroline turned to her daughter and came face-to-face with a newsstand full of variations of the same picture—Julia and a handsome stranger, smiling on a New York street, their arms full of toys. A dumbfounded Caroline stared, mouth gaping, as she found the word to finish her sentence: "reputation."
    Julia spent the first part of her morning on a Ritz treadmill. When she finally made it back to her suite, it was half past nine and the message light on her phone was blinking. Also, her cell phone showed eight new voicemails. Eight? She didn't think she'd ever in her life had eight messages at one time. Her first thought was for her family. What i f someone was sick or hurt?
    She reached to call her sister, but as soon as she gripped the phone it rang, and the caller ID
    showed Nina was checking in.
    "Weren't you even going to tell we?"
    The sentence was so abrupt, so unexpected, that Julia might have wondered who had called her by mistake if Nina Anders hadn't sounded like a chain smoker since the second grade. No one on earth could impersonate her well enough to fool Julia.
    "Hello to you, too," Julia said, a little put off with her best friend.
    "Don't you change the subject on me! Who is he?" -
    "Who is who?" Julia asked.
    "The hunk!" Nina yelled just as Julia flipped on the TV and saw her own smiling face staring back at her. First she saw her book's jacket photo, then some news footage of her making the media rounds, and finally, a scene from the day before as she left FAO Schwarz, Lance Collins trailing dutifully behind. Julia fumbled with the remote control and turned up the volume in time to hear the anchorwoman say, "The popular author and aspiring