The Girl Next Door Read Online Free PDF Page B

well as every park and most Zagat rated restaurants worth eating at. Francine lived in Brooklyn with her boyfriend Anthony (pronounced with a soft ‘th’) and Anthony’s two sons ‘from a previous relationship with a complete bi‐atch’. She’d left her beloved Manhattan for Anthony, a firefighter. Eve reasoned Anthony could have had no greater declaration of love from Francine.
    They’d been lucky and struck gold late morning, after seeing five depressing places Eve wouldn’t have lived in at any price. The last had been above a nail salon, and the smell of acetone was still in her nostrils, making her feel faintly queasy. It was probably almost time for lunch. Eve wondered if Francine ate lunch, and whether, if she did, she could do that, too, without smudging her lip gloss. Francine had a call on her cell, about a place that had literally just come on the market. Eve never believed it when they said that on property shows on the telly, but this time it was true. Francine hailed a cab with frantic arm movements made far too far out into the path of oncoming traffic. On the way, she waxed lyrical about the location. Upper East Side. Mid 70s. Close to the Met and the Frick, and not too far from Bloomies. Between Park and Lexington, close to the subway at 77th and the park at Cedar Hill. Handy for the hospital, if you should be unlucky enough to need it, and close to a great gym. Ed could be at work in fifteen minutes, which seemed extraordinary. He would love that.
    By the time the car stopped outside the building, Eve had allowed herself to get a little excited. No nail salon in sight, for a start. Francine explained that the building was a co‐op. As a tenant, renting from a management company, she could vote on board matters, but never join the board. ‘And who in their right mind would want to, you may well ask,’ she raised her eyebrows cynically. Francine used shorthand, not all of which made complete sense to Eve. She didn’t entirely know what a co‐op board was, although Ed had explained that co‐ops were like businesses, and if you owned an apartment you owned shares in the building. She understood 24‐hour doorman (how cool was that?) but not why they would be called ‘white glove’ when they weren’t wearing any. She understood AC, but not HVAC. Should have something to do with hoovering. Didn’t. It must be good, though, since Francine was listing it gleefully in her flat accent. This was a ‘reno’ – a renovation, Eve realized – which received Francine’s most animated response, with all stainless‐steel appliances and a vast Viking range (at this point Francine’s cup runneth over, almost literally, since her ample chest heaved with pleasure and threatened to break free from its buttoned sweater). The Viking range looking exactly like you might use it to cook for real Vikings. Eve couldn’t imagine switching it on just to bake two potatoes for supper.
    The building had an awning. That was the first thing Eve noticed, apart from the absence of a nail bar. Awnings were so very New York. It was like being in an episode of Friends . This one was burgundy red, and quite new, and attached to shiny brass poles. You could easily imagine Charlotte York coming out in a Jackie O shift dress carrying a Hermès Birkin. There was a long, thin lobby, with a marble floor, and a large circular table, on which sat an elaborate arrangement of silk flowers. There were two elevators at one end, and a small room at the other where the ‘white glove’ gloveless doorman sat. It was full of dry cleaning, hung in plastic on racks, and parcels. He announced them and they took the elevator to the seventh floor. The lift had a seat in the corner, and Eve sat on it, trying to suppress a giggle at the grandeur of it all. House hunting was never like this in the Surrey Hills. She tried to remember everything for when she phoned Cath, later on. A woman who looked, sounded, and even smelt like Francine, just a