Second Hand Jane Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d thought. Still, the woman had only stated the
obvious and so she’d blinked back the tears that were threatening
and confided, “I know. I look terrible and I have a job interview
this afternoon.”
    “I’m really
sorry but you did say you wanted quite a bit taken off and well,
your hair is curly and it all just bounced up a lot higher than I’d
expected,” Brianna interjected with her bottom lip wobbling
ominously.
    Jess almost
felt sorry for the pretty stylist with the big doe-like eyes.
    “Too late for
that, Brianna. They’ll think your woman here’s escaped from the
funny farm looking like that and, where on earth did you buy that
dress? My Gran had one just like it,” the blondie butted in
again.
    Jess ignored
the comment about her dress as she studied her fringe in the
mirror. Blondie was right, she concluded; it did give her face a
rather simplistic quality. She couldn’t help but omit a little
laugh at how ludicrous she looked and then that little laugh had
turned into a rip-roaring snort, which proved to be contagious and
soon all three women were falling about laughing.
    Thus, a decade
later, the Celtic Tiger may have rolled over and died a long and
painful death but the three women still just clicked and Jess had
long since grown her fringe out.
    Despite her butchered locks, though, she
had gone on to get the job at the Marriott and her big break had
come the day she’d organised a conference room for Nigel, the head
reporter from the Dublin Express .
    Nigel was going
to be interviewing Shane Moriarty from the latest boy band to dance
their way onto the Irish charts in it. Shane, who was milking his
new-found fame and fortune, had demanded all sorts of both legal
and illegal treats be placed in the room if the reporter wanted him
to dish the dirt. Jess, along with her contact (a fat man with crew
cut and gold chains around his non-existent neck who loitered
outside the Mary Street McDonald’s behind the Jervis Centre—she was
by no means a regular customer, just a good observer and lover of
the Big Mac), had managed to acquiesce to his every demand. This
was to Nigel’s surprise and relief because it meant he got a coup
in his candid interview with pop star Shane, who was extremely
relaxed by the time he arrived revealing that, yes, he did have an
illegitimate love-child being raised in the wilds of Connemara.
    To show his
appreciation for getting his scoop, Nigel agreed to return the
favour by sliding the sample piece Jess had written of her take on
life in Dublin under Niall Fitzpatrick’s—his editor—nose.
Considering how the Irish had for years been heading for pastures
greener, Niall had been tickled by the idea of the tables turning
and by condensing an Antipodean’s impressions of boom-time Ireland
into a weekly column. This was ideal because she was still free to
write the novel she planned to get around to writing one day but
now she had her bread-and-butter job.
    “My column is
called ‘Jessica Baré does Dublin,’ Mum,” she’d breathed excitedly
down the transatlantic connection the day Niall had sent through
her contract.
    “ It sounds like those old porno movies—you
remember? Debbie Does Dallas. But well done, dear, and be sure they accent the e ,” her mother had congratulated her down
the phone.
    Jess decided
not to ask how she happened to know the title of old pornos and why
on earth she would think her daughter would be familiar with
them.
    It had started
out as very much a Carrie Bradshaw/Sex and the City styled column
and had evolved from there. Just like her fictitious New York
counterpart, her column had been a hit, too, but even more
surprisingly, despite the boom times being a distant memory, it
still was a hit. She could only assume that her loyal following of
downtrodden Dubliners liked to read about the happenings in her
hapless life as surely it could only serve to make them feel better
about their own! Thinking about her hapless life brought her