New Way to Fly Read Online Free PDF Page A

scarlet-tipped finger. “Don’t get lost.”
    â€œI won’t,” Amanda promised. “I’ll be out right away.”
    She stood watching with an automatic smile as Beverly took Jeff’s hand, paused to give him a quick kiss and headed for the patio, dragging the handsome young man laughing behind her.
    After they were gone, Amanda took a fresh drink from one of the serving girls, exchanged a few cheerful remarks with the youngster and then edged toward the woman by the archway, who was gripping her elbows in white-knuckled hands and staring at the swirling crowd with a blank unseeing stare.
    â€œHello,” Amanda said in her quiet musical voice.
    â€œMy name’s Amanda Walker.”
    The older woman turned to look at her with a dismal expression. Then she smiled and her face was transformed. Mary Gibson had a luminous, childlike smile that lit her weathered features and shone warmly in her hazel eyes. Amanda swallowed hard and smiled back.
    â€œI’m Mary Gibson,” the woman said, extending a slim brown hand. “And I know who you are.”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œI saw you on TV. I think you’re just beautiful.”
    â€œOh.” Amanda’s cheeks tinted a delicate pinkwhen she thought how trivial her show about correct accessorizing must seem to Mary Gibson.
    But Mary didn’t seem at all troubled by the superficial glamour of Amanda’s presence or position.
    â€œThat one outfit,” she said wistfully, “the one Beverly wore, you know, that was all white with a little trimming around the edges?”
    Amanda nodded, gripping the stem of her glass and smiling absently as a couple brushed past her, shouting loudly to someone across the room.
    â€œWell, I thought that was just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Mary said shyly. “And when you showed how the silver earrings highlighted it and brought out the turquoise tones, I could see exactly what you meant.”
    Amanda felt a quick rush of pleasure, and a surprising desire to hug the woman.
    â€œYou know, I’m so glad to hear you say that. I wasn’t convinced that the image would translate all that well onto the television screen,” she said.
    â€œWatching those commercials of yours, it always makes me wish I was thirty years younger,” Mary went on in the same wistful tone. “It must feel so wonderful to wear clothes like that, and look pretty in them.”
    â€œWhy would you have to be younger?” Amanda asked. “You’d look beautiful in clothes like that right now, Mary.”
    The other woman gave her a quick wary glance,as if fearful that she was being made fun of. But Amanda returned Mary Gibson’s gaze quietly, her lovely face calm, her eyes warm and sincere.
    At last Mary shrugged awkwardly and looked away into the crowd. “That’s just plain silly,” she said in a flat miserable voice. “I couldn’t wear clothes like that. I wouldn’t know the first thing about buying them, and even if I did, I couldn’t afford them.”
    â€œBuying clothes for people is my job, Mary,” Amanda said. “That’s what I do for a living. It’s what the television commercials are all about. And as for the prices, well, it just so happens…”
    She paused and set her wineglass on the tray of a passing server, then folded her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers childishly. Amanda always hated telling lies, even tiny little white ones, and she was about to come up with a real whopper.
    But she thought about Mary Gibson’s sad defeated look and the sudden childlike wonder of that glowing smile, and steeled herself to plunge on.
    â€œIt just so happens,” Amanda said, “that I’ve had a bit of bad luck this past month, Mary. I bought quite a lot of things on spec for a woman who…who got sick, and has to spend a few months in therapy, and she doesn’t feel like