Do You Want to Know a Secret? Read Online Free PDF Page A

the other thing. She always, always, refers to her ex by his full name. I think, by doing so, she’s imagining she’s in court and about to send him down for arson or, you know, some grade A crime that carries a mandatory life-sentence and that his trial will end up on the
Six O’Clock News
with close-up shots of him looking miserable in handcuffs, with a raincoat over his head.
    ‘Come on, then, Vicky, now that my heart-rate is back into double figures, please, for the love of God, can we have an adult conversation?’
    ‘I’ve ordered champagne. And if Barbara is very much later, then too bad, we’re drinking it without her.’
    Barbara, by the way, is
always
late. In fact there are times when I’d nearly swear she’s staged it just so she can swan in and make an entrance. Her being an actress might go some of the way towards explaining it, but unfortunately for her, I work in PR and know all the tricks. As it turns out, though, Barbara and the champagne arrive simultaneously.
    ‘Hello, darlings,’ she puffs, out of breath and air-kissing us both theatrically. ‘Sorry I’m late. Audition ran over.’
    ‘What was it for again?’ I ask her as we hug. She’d told me and all I could remember was that it was for something so bizarre you couldn’t possibly make it up if you tried.
    ‘A
tableau vivant
for a detergent commercial.’
    ‘Sounds pornographic,’ says Laura drily. ‘Is that what you wore?’
    ‘Yeah, what’s wrong with it?’
    ‘OK, if I may just take a moment to mock here, do tell, Barbara, the history of that particular dress. Did it start out as furniture fabric? You know how I hate to criticize, but honestly, I wouldn’t let you wear that on a desert island. Dearest, you’re dressed like a homeless person.’
    She isn’t really. Barbara just looks the way she always does, like she fell out of bed and pulled on the first clean thing she picked up off the floor. Sexy, in a rumpled, crumpled, couldn’t-be-arsed way that men just seem to lose their reason over. No make-up, and streaky fake tan like she put it on half of her body then got bored, gave up and found something more interesting to do. Unlike our Laura, who for some reason always manages to look neat. Scrubbed. Impeccable. All the Lennox-Coyninghams are the same: no matter how stressed their private lives are, like politicians, they’re always ‘on’. Always well-turned-out, always up for re-election.
    ‘Ooh, look,’ says Barbara in her ‘acting the eejit’ voice, as she and Laura pick up their menus together. ‘Today’s soup is crème de narky cow.’
    ‘Ooh, look,’ says Laura, well able for her. ‘The only dish on my menu is dog’s dinner.’
    OK, so it may not actually sound like it, but trust me, this pair do love each other dearly. This is just the way they spark off each other, with the kind of intimacy you really only get with old, old friends. You know, the ones who never fail to remind you that you had a fringe in the eighties or that you used to work out to Milli Vanilli. And at this stage in our friendship, honestly, the three of us know each other more intimately than jailbirds sharing a cell. Besides, I think the main reason Laura gives her such a hard time about the way she looks is that, on the rare occasions when Barbara does pull out the stops, she can look traffic-stoppingly stunning. This is just Laura’s way of exercising her mammy-gene. She’ll be whipping tissues out of her bag, licking them and then wiping dirty smudges off Barbara’s face next.
    ‘Pay absolutely no attention to her, Barbara,’ I say. ‘You look fab. Any hotter and you’d set off the sprinkler system. And here’s the proof . . . how many men have begged you for a date since you left your house today?’
    ‘The casting director, who’s a bit of a sleazeball so . . .’
    ‘Curse your fatal allure,’ I joke and they laugh. The champagne’s started to kick in now and it’s faaaab.
    God, even the snooty wine waiter