In Her Shoes Read Online Free PDF Page A

clothing in Rose's arms and emerged, seconds later, triumphantly clutching Jim's wallet. Rose grabbed for it, but Maggie jerked it away. So it begins, thought Rose. "Give that back," she whispered. Maggie flipped the wallet open. "James . Danvers," she recited loudly. "Society Hill Towers, Philadelphia, Pee-Aye. Very nice." "Shh!" Rose whispered, casting an alarmed glance at the wall behind which James . Danvers presumably slumbered. "Nineteen sixty-four," Maggie read in a stentorian voice. Rose could practically hear the gears turning as Maggie struggled to do the math. "He's thirty-five?" she finally asked. Rose grabbed the wallet from Maggie's hand. "Go to sleep," she hissed. Maggie selected a T-shirt from the clothes draped over Rose's treadmill and pulled her dress over her head. "Don't say it," she warned. "You're too thin," Rose blurted, shocked by the sight of the prominent sweep of Maggie's collarbone and the individual bumps of her vertebra, made all the more pathetic by her ridiculous store-bought breasts.
     
     
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"And you haven't been using the Ab Master I bought you," Maggie retorted, yanking the shirt over her head and snuggling into the couch. Rose opened her mouth, then shut it. Just get her to sleep, she told herself. "Your boyfriend looks cute, though," Maggie said, and yawned. "Could you bring me a glass of water and two Advils, please?" Rose ground her teeth, but fetched the medication and the water, and watched Maggie gulp the pills, chug the water, and close her eyes without so much as a "thank you." In her bedroom, Jim still lay on his side, snoring softly. She rested one hand lightly on his arm. "Jim?" she whispered. He didn't move. Rose contemplated crawling into bed with him, dragging the blankets up over her head and handling the morning in the morning. She glanced back at the door, looked down at Jim, and realized that she couldn't. She couldn't sleep with a naked man with her sister in the next room. Her job was, and had always been, to set an example for Maggie. Shacking up with a man who was sort of her boss didn't qualify. And what if he wanted sex again? Maggie would overhear, or worse, walk in, and stare. And laugh. Instead, Rose pulled an extra blanket from the foot of the bed, grabbed a pillow from the floor, tiptoed back into the living room, and arranged herself on the armchair, thinking that in the annals of romantic history, this was probably the worst way a night like hers could end. She shut her eyes and listened for Maggie's breathing, the way she always had through all the years they'd shared a bedroom. Then she rolled over, trying to stretch out as much as she could. Why didn't she at least get the couch? Why had she invited Maggie over at all? Just then, Maggie started talking. "Remember Honey Bun?" Rose closed her eyes in the darkness. "Yes," she said. "I remember." Honey Bun had come to them in the spring, when Rose was eight and Maggie was six. Their mother, Caroline, had Awoken them up early on a Thursday morning. "Shh, don't tell!" she'd
     
     
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whispered, hurrying them both into their best party dresses, then having them put on sweaters and coats on top. "It's a special surprise!" They'd called good-bye to their father, still lingering over coffee and the business section, hustled past the kitchen where the countertops were crammed with boxes of chocolate and the sink was filled with dirty dishes, and climbed into the station wagon. Instead of turning into the school entrance, the way she did most mornings, Caroline steered right past it, and kept going. "Mom, you missed the turn!" called Rose. "No school today, honey," their mother singsonged over her shoulder. "Today's a special day!" "Yay!" said Maggie, who'd gotten the coveted front seat. "Why?" asked Rose, who'd been looking forward to the day at school because it was Library Day and she'd get to pick out more books. "Because something very exciting has happened," their