Christmas at Tiffany's Read Online Free PDF Page A

in Manhattan, and she felt a cold chill of panic surf through her as reality bit.
    Cassie had left her husband and her home, her past and her future. Her life was in Kelly’s beautifully manicured hands now. She could only hope her friend had more idea of what to do with it than she had.
    The cab pulled away with a squeal, absorbed within seconds into the yellow stream travelling south down Lexington Avenue. Cassie looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in her hand, which she had been clutching more preciously than her passport. The pen had rubbed into her palms and she absent-mindedly wiped her puffy eyes with grubby hands. Apt 16, 119 East 63rd Street, between Lex and Park, 10022. It meant nothing to her. She could navigate her way over sixty-five thousand acres of grouse moor, but the Manhattan grid? Not a chance.
    She looked around at the crossroads and saw a sign saying East 53rd Street to her left. The buildings, all light stone and mid-height, were grimy to her eye, but Kelly had told her proudly that this – the Upper East Side – was Manhattan’s most prestigious district. Who was she to disagree? She’d spent the past ten years in bog.
    Ahead of her, awnings in bottle green, claret and navy were stretched taut like limbs towards the road, and doormen in caps and grey braided uniforms loitered upright near the revolving doors, occasionally stepping to the kerb to help elderly residents out of cabs and limos. She noticed that miniature dogs were carried around here like bags, no doubt to keep them from interfering with the eyes-dead-ahead pedestrian traffic which wove and swerved down the pavements in a perfectly synchronized dance.
    The buildings were all of rather stately bearing. She was pleased to see Kelly’s block had a new bright red awning – that would be easy to remember at least. The doorman – silver-haired and slim, probably in his fifties – greeted her as if he’d been waiting for her specifically, although she hadn’t missed the quick up-and-down he’d given her as she’d approached the building. She knew she looked a bedraggled mess. Her muck boots still had peat on them, and her ancient pink and grey Woolworths anorak which had always seemed so cheery in the Scottish rain now seemed garish and gauche.
    Taking her bags, the doorman held the doors open for her and she walked into a smart lobby with wood-panelled walls and a limestone floor. Everything was gleaming and polished, clean and new – all the things she wasn’t. The doorman handed her an envelope Kelly had left at the desk for her. There was a key inside and a note.
    ‘Be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do to assist you, ma’am,’ he said, smiling at her as he pressed the floor number for her in the lift. ‘Ask for Bill.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Cassie managed, hiccupping inelegantly and no doubt confirming his impression of her as down-at-heel.
    The highly polished doors eased shut on his polite smile and she unfolded the note:
    Welcome to New York! Make yourself at home.
    I’ll be back by seven. K xx.
     
    Great, she thought, folding up the note and putting it in her jeans pocket as the doors opened on to a small landing. It was six-thirty now. Hopefully she would have just enough time for a shower and freshen-up – cheer-up, sober-up – before Kelly got back.
    Finding number 116, she opened the door – and gasped. The building was so imposing and grand downstairs. But up here? Her understairs cupboard at home was bigger than the entire flat! She walked into the hallway, which was tiny and square and demarcated only by a token mat that read ‘ I am not a doormat ’.
    ‘You don’t say, Kelly,’ she mumbled to herself.
    To the right was a bathroom, very metropolitan, with white brick tiles, a plastic shower curtain and glass shelves groaning beneath the weight of toiletries. Adjacent to it was a bedroom. She peered in. There was just enough room to walk around the white leather button-pocketed princess