Running in Heels Read Free Page B

a living?” As he was never going to get anywhere with any woman ever with hopeless patter like that—surely even the pope has a sharper spiel—I didn’t have the heart to snub him.
    â€œI’m senior press officer for the Greater London Ballet Company,” I replied kindly. “And you?”
    â€œI’m an accountant,” he told me solemnly. “But I do have a nice car.”
    I wait in the green Lotus Elise while Saul hurries into Texaco to purchase a bunch of fiercely colored blooms, and bite my nails. Or rather, bite the skin on my fingertips, as I finished my nails last week. I am looking forward to dinner as I look forward to a cervical smear test. It’s nearly a fortnight since Babs’s wedding and I know my mother will want to dissect it and I don’t have the energy to fight her off.
    â€œI wonder what Sheila’s cooking for supper,” says Saul as he bounces into the driver’s seat. “I’m famished!”
    Barry Manilow singing “Copacabana” is audible from the driveway. In a powerful puff of Dune and fried onions, my mother appears, straightens my jumper, and crushes the air out of Saul in a pincer hug. “Don’t you look well. A crying shame you missed the wedding!” she exclaims—shaking her head so fiercely I’m surprised it doesn’t come loose. “But you managed to get all your work done?”
    Saul gratefully breathes in upon his release and says, “Yes, thank you, Sheila.” My mother scuttles off to fetch him a glass of milk. Yes, a glass of milk. Saul is a strapping twenty-nine-year-old, but he drinks more milk than a parched baby elephant. Call me lactose intolerant, but it’s a trait I can’t get along with. It’s almost as odd as his habit of sleeping with a black jumper sleeve over his eyes. Which is like The Mask of Zorro without Antonio.
    I follow my mother into the steamy kitchen while Saul collapses on the sofa and starts shelling pistachios. I can hear the crack-crack-cracking sound. I chew my fingers and look around. The shelf above the stove is jammed with books. On the left is the F Plan Diet, The Hollywood Pineapple Diet, Beverly Hills Diet, Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet, Dr. Tooshis High Fiber Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, Reader’s Digest Mind and Mood Foods, Rosemary Conley’s Complete Hip and Thigh Diet, Carbohydrate Addicts Diet: The Lifelong Solution to Yo-Yo Dieting, The Food Combining Diet, Dieting with the Duchess, A Flat Stomach in 15 Days, and (the altogether less efficient) 32 Days to a 32-Inch Waist.
    On the right is The House & Garden Cookbook, Step-by-Step Cooking with Chocolate, Delia Smith’s Winter Collection, Leith’s Book of Desserts, Good Housekeeping Cookery Club, Evelyn Rose—Complete International Jewish Cookery, At Home with the Roux Brothers, The Dairy Book of Family Cooking, Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book, The Crank’s Recipe Book, A Wok for All Seasons, A Table in Tuscany, A Little Book of Viennese Pastries, Amish Cooking, 365 Great Chocolate Desserts, The Naked Chef, and The Artful Chicken.
    â€œWhat can I get you? When did you last comb your hair?” demands my mother as she tips a brick of butter into a casserole dish. “Orange juice? You look like something out of Black Sabbath.”
    I reply, “Water’s fine. I’ll brush it in a sec.” I watch as she pours a slick of sunflower oil onto the spitting butter. She’s an expert on heavy metal but thinks cholesterol is a vitamin.
    â€œAre you sure you need all that, Mum?”
    My mother wipes her hands on her apron. “And what do you know about cooking herby orange poussin ?”
    Fair point. “Well, would you like me to make a salad?”
    My mother hands me a glass of water, flaps at me with a Beefeater dishcloth, and says, “You’d only chop your finger off. You be a good girl and