LOVE'S GHOST (a romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her office.
    Oh, dear. I didn’t want to do it. But if it had to be done, it was better to do the deed quickly, without thinking too much about it. But I still felt sick to the stomach.
    I picked up my mobile phone and called Anna. We arranged to meet at Carluccio’s in Covent Garden. It’s not as if Carluccio’s is expensive, but I’m sure Polly would have preferred McDonald’s.
    I was playing with the salt cellar as Anna came in. She’s taller than me, towers over most women and more than a few men.
    “Hi,” I said. I didn’t want my tone to be either too pleased to see her or too laden with doom and gloom. Somewhere in-between. What came out sounded strangled. I’d never done this before, never fired a model from the agency. Polly usually performed the hiring and firing. But I guessed that she was placing Anna’s failure to capture the hearts of fashion’s great and good squarely on my shoulders. And, to make amends, I had to be the one to break the news to Anna.
    “Fay, good to see you. How are you? Are you still with that lovely Russell?”
    “Yes,” I said. She remembered my boyfriend’s name, even though we hardly ever saw each other. “What about you?” I asked.
    “Oh, you know, they come they go.” She paused, stared at me for a moment, as if she’d noticed something. Then the colour drained from her face. “Oh God,” she said. “I’ve just realised. This is to tell me Ulterior Models don’t want me anymore. That’s what this is for, isn’t it?” I must have failed in trying to hide a look of concern on my face.
    I felt my mouth dry up. I managed to get some words out, but they were the first ones I could find, and not entirely appropriate. “No, not at all. No, no, no.” Oh, why did I say that?
    “It is though. I can tell by your face.”
    “No,” I repeated. “No, no, no.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”  
    “That’s a relief. I know I’m not pulling my weight. I try to impress when I get a casting. I don’t want to let you down, Fay.”
    I waved at the waiter like the witness to a traffic accident who needed help. “Can we have a bottle of wine, please?”
    We settled down and ordered our meal. I kept trying to turn the subject of the conversation to Anna, but she just wanted to talk about me. I wasn’t used to this in a model. It took some getting used to. Later on, she turned the conversation to a subject we both had an interest in.
    “Tell me about men,” she said. “Because I really don’t understand them.”  
    I think she saw me as the older sister she didn’t have. But it was a subject I didn’t want to address. Not at the moment. She’d caught me on a bad day. I thought back to my meeting with the mysterious stranger on the train. How dare he say that I looked single.
    “I’m the last person to tell you about men,” I said. I thought I’d be able to hold back the emotions, but my voice cracked a little.
    “Are you okay,” she asked.
    “I’m fine.” I waved away her concern with my hand.
    “If you want to talk, I’m a good listener.” It was the sort of concern you’d expect from somebody twice Anna’s age. But that was Anna all over, very mature for her age, always considerate of others.
    I tried to turn the conversation to other things. Music was   a more comfortable topic. She’d discovered a Canadian singer-songwriter called Feist that she was enthusing about. She took out her iPod and we listened with one headphone each. I liked the song.
    But then she asked me again how I was feeling, saying that she detected a sadness in my eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
    I did my best not to cry. But a tear did escape. I quickly wiped it away with my napkin. Some people, when they see you’re upset, think it’s better to encourage you to wallow in it. I’ve never subscribed to that thought. If I want to wallow in any sadness I’m suffering, I prefer to do it with a bottle of wine, hunched up in the corner of the living room. And