Roadside Sisters Read Free Page A

name ‘Sotheby’s’ was offered with some pride. Annie was suitably impressed, although she wasn’t sure Nina caught the reference.
    ‘Siggie’s getting married? No!’ exclaimed Nina. ‘I can remember her coming to rehearsals in fairy wings.’
    There was a brief silence in which they found themselves in a bare Scouts hall, warm breath visible on a freezing July afternoon. Seven grown women shrieked with alarm to see tiny blonde-headed Sigrid tear off her sparkly wings, and her clothes, and dance across the icy floorboards as her little brother, Jarvis, sitting in his stroller, chortled with delight. The moment came to them as a black-and-white scene from an old movie, cast with people they hardly recognised.
    ‘So she’d be . . . what? Twenty-four now?’ Annie was groping her way down the long corridor of the past, trying to make sense of it all.
    Nina’s congratulations were heartfelt. ‘Well, that’s wonderful! You must be so proud, Mother of the Bride. Who’s she marrying?’
    ‘I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that his name’s Charlie. Coffee! Where’s that damned waiter?’
    Annie and Nina exchanged a second’s glance that said it all. They’d better order more supplies and settle in for the duration.
    ‘I’d like a nightcap as well. Something sticky and hideously expensive,’ chirped Annie as she swivelled her diamond ring to catch a sparkle in the low light.
    ‘And chocolate-dipped apricots. It says on the menu they make them in-house.’ Nina clasped her hands and gave thanks for the imminent blessing of sugar.

    ‘Did you know Oprah Winfrey and her best friend Gayle have known each other for thirty years?’ Nina leaned across the table. ‘And they still call each other four times a day?’ She picked at crumbs of chocolate with pink-frosted fingernails. Nina wanted a friendship like that. Half the women in the English-speaking world did. Oprah had declared her unconditional love for her friend so often that her sentiments had mutated into a global epidemic of female inadequacy.
    ‘How hard could it be to get someone on the phone when you’re worth more than a billion dollars?’ Meredith scoffed.
    ‘They’re probably gay,’ Annie muttered under her breath as she sipped at her dessert wine.
    ‘And Oprah says,’ Nina continued, pausing to insert a nail into her mouth and suck, ‘that she feels like their friendship has been designed by some higher power.’
    Nina caught the flicker of disbelief telegraphed between her companions. ‘Have you ever had a friend like that?’ she persisted.
    ‘No, and I wouldn’t want to,’ Meredith stated. ‘I’ve got enough going on in my life. Who’s got the time for all that? It doesn’t sound like a friendship to me. It sounds more like some “co-dependent relationship”. Doesn’t Oprah bang on about that sort of stuff?’
    Nina wasn’t to be so easily dismissed. ‘What about you, Annie? Do you spend much time with your girlfriends?’
    Annie tipped her glass in Meredith’s direction. ‘Same as you. Actually, most of my friends are men. I can’t stand the way women judge each other all the time. You meet another woman and she runs her eyes up your whole body—from your toes to the top of your head—like she’s doing this inventory. Sizing up a piece of furniture or . . . an overripe avocado.’
    Nina guiltily ducked her head. She’d done it. Surveyed Annie’s trim figure, checked the size of her diamonds, taken note of the fabric and cut of her sleek black jacket, and her red lipstick, matching finger- and toenails. What had she deduced? That Annie must be looking at her and thinking she’d let herself go to hell. Nina caught her reflection in the mirror and saw that her hair looked like grated cheese piled on top of a baked potato.
    ‘And men don’t have this hideous insecurity about their looks and their lives,’ Annie went on. ‘Or if they do they’re better at keeping it to themselves. I couldn’t stand