Eating With the Angels Read Online Free PDF

was wearing a beautiful pearl necklace with matching over-sized pearl earrings and a tailored coat like something Audrey Hepburn might have stepped out in. Her dog chose that moment to cough up something disgusting onto the sidewalk and in the absence of knowing what to do next, I sidestepped the two of them and went on my way.
    I guess we were dysfunctional before dysfunctional was even invented. That’s only on my mom’s side of the family though. My father’s parents, the Conlans, were pretty normal even though Grandma had more than the usual number of cats. Actually she kind of put me off cats but she baked her own bread and it was something else.
    Anyway, as you would imagine of someone who changed her faith just to annoy her mother and moved right next door never to speak to her again, Mom had issues with maternity and these manifested themselves in her giving me the impression that below average was about as high as I should aim. Anything more would be showing off. When I turned 13, though, my face kind of settled into itself and my bosom caught up with my puppy fat and gave me an undeniably girlish shape. Almost overnight every acne-riddled testosterone-fuelled goofball in school started hitting on me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Cindy Crawford, I’m generally 10 pounds (okay, more like 15) heavier than I should be but I have been blessed with good skin (thanks for that, at least, Mom) and a passable face with turquoise blue eyes (even if, as my half-witted brother Emmet is so fond of saying, I look like I store nuts in my cheeks for the winter). My hair is kind of a boring brown but it’s thick and if I torture it withenough electrical equipment it can straighten and look positively Sandra Bullock-ish. Of course, back when I was a goofy teen, I hadn’t mastered the art of the blow-dryer and I wasn’t quite such a dab hand with the make-up brush either but frankly no boys my own age looked anywhere other than my boobs anyway and the horny little toads liked what they saw. At the time, this new-found attention came as something of a surprise to me. I was used to being a too tall, too heavy, too brunette bit of below-average background scenery so when I ended up being bumped out of that category, it kind of freaked me out. In the circumstances, I was more than happy to start going steady with Tom. He made me feel safe.
    I hiccupped into my champagne at this thought, and allowed a tear to slide down my cheek and onto my cocktail napkin. The emptiness in 6B where my husband should have been left me feeling exposed and, I suppose, scared. But that wasn’t why I was crying. I no longer felt safe, that was for sure, but even worse, the feeling wasn’t new.

Two
    Between New York and Venice I had at least four hangovers, all doozies. The flicker of a headache that had started on the tarmac at Kennedy Airport, obviously fuelled by one too many a glass of Moët, grew with a vengeance during the Atlantic crossing, stayed with me when I transferred at Rome, and lightened up only on approach to Marco Polo Airport where the effervescent blue and indigo of Venice opening up beneath me managed to quell if not quash the pain.
    Not even having been so recently abandoned by my childhood sweetheart could wipe the smile off my face as the plane circled the city, a tiny glittering jewel set in the shimmering sprawl of vast lagoon. My heart skipped a beat, not with anxiety but with something approaching delight — and a little bit of gas thrown in for good measure. That airline chicken or fish will do it to you every time. Now I know some food writers make a big deal out of taking their own food on an airplane — a sourdough sandwich with prosciutto and arugula from some particular Second Ave deli, maybe, or a fresh goat-cheese salad with blanched asparagus made by a woman in a poncho who comes to town on a donkey every 15th Thursday — but I liked food to be brought to me. Even if it was desiccated fowl or unidentifiable sea