In Her Shoes Read Online Free PDF

mother said. Rose could remember exactly how her mother looked that day, the way her brown eyes glowed, and the gauzy turquoise scarf she'd wrapped around her neck. Caroline started talking very quickly, her words tumbling over each other, looking over her shoulder to tell Rose the big news. "It's candy," she said. "Fudge, really. Well, different than fudge. Better than fudge. Like divinity. Have you girls ever had that?" Rose and Maggie shook their heads. "I was reading in Newsweek about this woman who made cheesecakes," Caroline rambled, speeding around a curve and lurching to a stop at a traffic light. "And all of her friends raved about the cheesecakes, and first she got one supermarket in her neighborhood to carry them, and then she got a distributor, and now her cheesecakes are carried in eleven states. Eleven!" A chorus of honks came from behind them. "Mom," said Rose. "Green light." "Oh, right, right," said Caroline, stepping on the gas. "So last night I was thinking, well, I can't make cheesecake, but I can make
     
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fudge. My mother made the best fudge in the world, with walnuts and marshmallows, so I called her for the recipe and I was up all night, making batches and batches, had to go to the supermarket twice for ingredients, but here!" And she jerked the wheel sideways, pulling into a gas station. Rose noticed that her mother's fingernails were broken and sooty brown, as if she'd been digging through dirt. "Here! Try1" She reached into her purse and came up with two wax-paper-wrapped squares. " and M Fudge," they read, in what looked to Rose like eyeliner. "I had to improvise, of course, the packaging will change, but taste it and tell me whether that's not the best fudge you've ever had in your life!" Rose and Maggie unwrapped the fudge. "Delicious!" said Maggie, with her mouth full. "Ooh, yum," said Rose, struggling to swallow the lump of fudge, which was sticking in her throat. " and M for Rose and Maggie!" said their mother, starting to drive again. "Why can't it be M and ?" asked Maggie. "Where are we going?" asked Rose. "To Lord and Taylor," their mother said gaily. "I thought about supermarkets, of course, but what I decided is that this is really a gourmet product, not a grocery item, and it should be sold in boutiques and department stores." "Does Dad know about this?" asked Rose. "We're going to surprise him," said Caroline. "Take off those sweaters and make sure your faces are clean. We're making a sales call, girls!" Rose turned on her side, remembering the rest of the day—the manager's polite smile when her mother had upended her handbag on the costume jewelry counter and dumped out two dozen squares of wax-paper-wrapped and M fudge (and two squares reading "M and ," which Maggie had changed in the car). How their mother had whisked them up to the girls' department and bought them
     
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matching rabbit-fur muffs. How they'd had lunch in the Lord and Taylor tearoom, cream-cheese-and-olive sandwiches with the crusts cut off, tiny pickles barely longer than Rose's baby finger, slices of angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream. How beautiful their mother looked, her cheeks flaring pink, her eyes sparkling, her hands fluttering like birds, ignoring her own lunch as she described her sales ideas, her marketing plans, how and M Fudge would be as popular as Keebler or Nabisco. "We're starting small, girls, but everyone has to start somewhere," she'd said. Maggie nodded and told Caroline how good the fudge was and asked for seconds on sandwiches and cake, and Rose sat there, trying to force down a few bites of her lunch and wondering whether she'd been the only one to notice the manager's raised eyebrows and overly polite smile when all that candy came cascading onto the countertop. After lunch they went walking through the mall. "Each of you can get one present," their mother said. "Anything you want. Anything at all!" Rose asked for a Nancy Drew book.