Uptown Girl Read Online Free PDF

caught getting drunk,’ Bina said, then stopped in embarrassment. Kate just smiled. Her father, a retired Irish cop, had died three years ago from cirrhosis of the liver and she couldn’t help but consider it a release for both of them. It was the Horowitzes who couldn’t get over it.
    â€˜No harm, no foul,’ Kate told her. ‘We’re almost there, and we’re only four minutes late. You’re going to like this place. They have great nail colors, but just in case I bought a few alternatives for you.’ Kate scrabbled around in her Prada bag – the only purse she owned, and she carried it everywhere. It had cost her an entire paycheck but every time she opened it, it gave her pleasure. Now she pulled out a little bag. It contained three nail polishes, each one a wildly different seductive shade.
    Bina took the bag and peeked into it. ‘Ooooh! They look like the magic beans from Jack and the Beanstalk ,’ she said. Then she started to giggle. ‘Get it? Jack and his Beanstalk?’ she asked, suggestively raising her eyebrows.
    Kate gave Bina her ‘I’m-not-in-the-mood’ look. Clearly her moment of nervousness had passed. ‘Hey, spare me the details of Jack’s beanstalk or any other part of his anatomy,’ she begged. ‘Consider that your bridesmaid’s gift to me.’ Kate took Bina’s arm to get her around the guy selling used magazines on the sidewalk and across to their destination.
    Just then, as they crossed the street, Bina stopped – as if the Manhattan traffic would wait for her – and pointed to the corner. ‘Ohmigod! That’s Bunny’s ex.’ Kate looked in the right direction as she simultaneously pulled Bina’s arm down. She was about to tell her not to point when she caught sight of one of the best-looking men she had ever seen. He was tall and slim, and his jeans and jackethad the perfect casual slouch. The sun reflected off his hair as if he had a halo around his head. He had stopped for the light, and before he began to cross the street he fished in his inside pocket.
    â€˜He went out with Bunny?’ Kate asked. Of her posse, Bunny was probably the most garish and certainly the dimmest bulb.
    Bina nodded. Kate could only see the movement in her peripheral vision because she couldn’t tear her eyes off the man just twenty feet away.
    â€˜Are you sure that’s him?’
    Just then a taxi honked, the driver deciding he would warn them before he ran them over. With a shriek from Bina the two of them scampered across the street. By the time they had walked single file between parked cars and got to the sidewalk, the Adonis had put on sunglasses and strode away.
    â€˜What color do you think I should do for bridesmaids?’ Bina asked.
    Kate repressed a groan. Bev had them all in silver and Barbie had picked a pistachio green that not even a blonde could wear without looking sallow. ‘How about basic black?’ Kate asked, but she knew there wasn’t a hope in hell. She sighed. She and Bunny would be the last of their high school crowd not to be married – at least there was still Bunny. Kate would try not to mind, but everyone else would. No one at Bina’s wedding would leave the naked state of her left finger unnoted. ‘Please, Bina! Don’t make me walk down that aisle again.Why not just make me wear a sign that says “unmarriageable”?’
    â€˜Kate, you have to be my maid of honor. Barbie was always closer to Bunny and Bev … well, Bev never really liked me.’
    â€˜Bev has never liked anyone,’ Kate informed Bina, not for the first time, and took her arm. ‘Hey, I’m really touched.’
    The pair came up to the door of the salon. Kate held the door open for Bina, who nervously stepped inside.

4
    Kate knew the spa was unlike any place Bina had ever seen in her life – a sort of post-industrial French boudoir with Moorish