The Ambassador's Wife Read Free Page A

the sprawling malls, it was nearly impossible to find a single dress, skirt, or even a pair of jeans not pasted with sequins and spangles. Arab women love glitter, the flashier and gaudier the better. They also favor synthetics, such as rayon and polyester, despite the unsuitability of these materials for sweltering climates. Perhaps they were simply cheaper. Still, Miranda had managed to find enough cotton clothing to keep herself covered until her next trip to London, when Finn had patiently spent an entire day with her choosing outfits.
    But she doesn’t need to dress up for breakfast with policemen. Her gym clothes will be fine, as long as she isn’t leaving the house. She slips on a camisole and shorts. These are British policemen; there is no danger of shocking them with the sight of female skin.
    When she arrives in the dining room, Alastair is already at the table, tucking into a bowl of porridge. As she slides into her seat, Negasi bustles in with baskets of toast, her rows of stubby black braids tucked under the Japanese poppies scarf Miranda had brought her from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Every morning she asks Miranda and Finn if they want toast and eggs, though they never have anything other than fruit and muesli on weekdays. Miranda gets the feeling she is almost relieved to have guests, so that she can
cook
something.) “Good morning, Madame,” says Negasi, smiling. Miranda has been trying to get her to stop calling her Madame ever since she moved in. “Miranda is fine,” she said. “Even Mira.” She doesn’t feel old enough to be a Madame, even at thirty-nine. But though Negasi always smiles and agrees, she can’t seem to get her lips to form Miranda’s name.
    â€œGood morning, Negasi! Good morning, Ali.” Negasi hurries to pour carrot juice into her glass.
    â€œMorning! Looking forward to getting rid of us?” Alastair smiles, bits of oat stuck to his upper lip.
    â€œOf course not. Whom will I be able to bore with my political rants?”
    â€œYou’ll miss us, then?”
    â€œWe’ll cry ourselves to sleep every night.” Miranda smiles andpulls her napkin into her lap. Finn appears a few moments later, showered and dressed in one of his gray pin-striped suits and a blue tie with tiny sheep on it. It is one of Cressida’s favorite ties. “She’s awake,” he says to Miranda, before greeting Alastair and pouring himself a cup of Negasi’s coffee.
    â€œI’ll go up.” Miranda is still breast-feeding two or three times a day, though Cressida is nearly fifteen months old. She never thought she would nurse for this long, but it had been such a struggle to make the breast-feeding work in the beginning that now that she has it figured out she wants to do it forever. The first few months had been torture. Her nipples had cracked, bled, and succumbed to thrush. Against her affronted flesh, Cressida’s lips had been razor-sharp blades. The brush of a soft cotton T-shirt had left her weeping. But she’d persisted, motivated by the health benefits and the threat of having to wash and sterilize bottles every day, until finally, miraculously, the two of them figured it out.
    Upstairs, Cressida is standing in her crib, a new trick. She still doesn’t have much hair, just a strip of wispy black curls down the middle of her scalp, a milquetoast of a Mohawk. Her eyes have turned from blue to a dark phthalo green, framed by eyelashes so long they brush the tiny bones of her eyebrows when she opens them wide. “Bob bob bobobobob BOB!” she cries as Miranda enters. “BOB BOB!”
    â€œMorning, sunshine!” she says, lifting the little girl into her arms. “And how many times have I told you not to call me Bob?”
    Just as Cressida is finishing nursing, Finn calls from downstairs. “Come say good-bye!” She slides the straps of her camisole back up over her shoulders and hefts