Read Online Being Shirley by Michelle Vernal - Free Book Online

with hot toddies and goodness knows what else in front of a roaring fire. It did sound pretty tempting! But then her face fell as she remembered there was no snow on the slopes of the nearby Southern Alps at the moment. That puts the kibosh on that one. She crossed her fingers for number five. As she clicked on the arrow to the side of the picture, yet another laughing, deeply in love couple appeared but this time they bobbed about at sea in a kayak. Perfect!
    Annie had not known until that moment that kayaking was something she’d always wanted to try but try it she would. Feeling more energised than she had in days, she picked up the phone to ring Tony.
     
    ***
     
    Annie chewed her sandwich as she sat hunched over down by the banks of the Avon and wished she had brought her jacket to work because Pervy Justin was right: it was a bit on the brisk side today. She mulled over the conversation she had with Tony before she left the office for lunch. He hadn’t been impressed to hear her voice because he’d had his free hand down a toilet when she rang. In a thoroughly pissed-off voice, he informed her that his mother had drummed it into him and his brothers when they were growing up that the golden rule was always none for a wee and two for a poo. So why was it then that some kids felt the need to use a whole bloody roll, he’d demanded as though she held the answer to this great mystery of life. She hadn’t thought that telling him it was just one of the many perils of the world of plumbing would be deemed a helpful answer and instead she’d tried to move the conversation along and around to what she was in fact ringing him for. “Tony, let’s go kayaking this weekend.”
    Her blurted announcement had been met by silence except for a background sloshing noise and she hadn’t gotten a chance to hear his thoughts on her proposal because at that moment Attila had flew towards her and waved the contract she had edited that morning like a whirling dervish. “Annie, what’s this?”
    “I’ve got to go. Talk to you tonight.” She’d hung up just as the paper hit her desk. Highlighted in yellow was the sentence “ no but she’s not a stick insect, just a complete cow .”
    It hadn’t been the finest moment in her working career, Annie mused. She took another bite of her sandwich and eyeballed a duck as it waddled past her. She had a deep mistrust of ducks ever since one had nicked off with her Friday lunch treat, a souvlaki. She still cringed as she thought about the show she’d put on for her fellow alfresco riverside diners as she chased the greedy thing. She hadn’t a chance of catching it, though, because it had made a break for the water and dragged her double chicken with extra chili along behind it. Snaffling the rest of her sarnie before any ducks could launch an attack, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket and contemplated ringing Tony again. No, on second thoughts, perhaps their impending kayaking expedition was a conversation best covered face to face. She popped her phone back in her bag. She swiped the crumbs off her lap before she got to her feet, slung her handbag over her shoulder and dragged her feet back to work.

 
     
Chapter Five
     
     
    Carl nudged her leg with his knee under the table. “You didn’t answer me.” They were sitting opposite each other by the window inside the Lemongrass Diner. The popular Thai restaurant wasn’t difficult to find, with its oversized gold Buddha perched on the roof outside that grinned away at the passing trade. Annie had arrived with ten minutes to spare; Carl hadn’t been far behind her. At this hour of the day, there were only a handful of other patrons dotted about its dimly lit interior. The walls, she noticed as she glanced around, were decorated with a smattering of posters. There was one of elephants being ridden by local village men through the jungle, another of the Grand Palace, and a disturbing poster of tribal women with strange gold