Read Online Femmes Fatal by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online Page B

but not good enough to know the ins and outs of your married life.”
    Couldn’t she have phrased it some other way?
    Realizing Mrs. Diamond was lapping up every word, Mrs. M lowered her voice a boom or two. “I’m not saying you haven’t hurt me feelings something cruel, but never let it be said I don’t know me place—in the back of the bus.”
    “Oh, don’t be such a ninny.” My hand on the doorknob of the inner sanctum, I turned to flash a smile at Mrs. Diamond, got a thumbs-up sign in return, and pushed Suffering Sarah in ahead of me. Not so fast. She backed up, treading on my feet.
    “When she asks for me married name, I’ll say Mrs. Alvin Vincent-Malloy. Me first husband was Albert and the second Vincent so it’s a bit of sentiment like.”
    “Got you,” I whispered back.
    The she who would do the asking was a bubble-haired blonde wearing a black leather mini-dress. Talk about posed for success! She was perched cross-legged on the edge of the enormous desk in a room that looked like a glass house transported there from Kew Gardens with tropical plants intact.
    “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hapskill.” Ms. Fully Female looked up from the date book she was examining. Her big eyes sparkling, her glossy mouth stretching into a wide smile, she threw out her arms, dropping the date book in the process.
    “Ellie!”
    “Bunty!” My delight was not unmixed with horror. I had been braced for a stranger. The anonymity of the impersonal. Bunty Wiseman—ex-chorus girl and wife of Chitterton Fells’s most prominent solicitor—and I had seen quite a bit of each other for a while. Illegal activities on the part of a white gloves ladies’ club had brought us together and we’d had some chummy times. But after said excitement died down, we lost touch. Bunty was busy at the health club and I was busy being pregnant. She and husband Lionel had sent a gift when the babieswere born; I’d sent a thank-you note and had really meant to have them over for dinner. But you know how it is.
    “That stupid secretary! She wrote down Ellen Hapskill and I never dreamed it was you! For starters I know your name isn’t Ellen and …” Bunty stopped hugging and held me at arm’s length by the shoulders. “To be straight with you, ducky, you are the last person I’d have expected to be in need of my services. My clients aren’t usually married to dreamboats like Ben!”
    I stared back at her, not knowing what to say.
    Bless Mrs. Malloy; she could always be counted on to get things back on an even keel.
    “Excuse me, am I expected to stand here like a doorstop, or can we get down to business?”
    I explained that we were taking advantage of the two-for-the-price-of-one offer.
    “Right you are, ducks, let’s all get comfy.” Long-legged in heels that were even higher than Mrs. M’s, Bunty dragged forward a couple of chairs, waved us into them, and perched back on the desk. “There, loves! I’ll take it from the top. You want to know how come I founded Fully Female? Well, here goes. You know how people always talked about Lionel and me—what with him being a good twenty years older and me not being up to scratch class-wise. We used to have some good laughs about it. I’d look at those women in their pearls and tweed skirts and think, you poor dopes, you don’t know the half of how to keep your men happy. Li didn’t give a bloody hoot when I’d flub at cocktail parties. You should have heard him laugh the time I told some bigwig I didn’t care for ballet because it wasn’t in English. Li said the old fart would trade places in a minute, to slip between the sheets with me. But after a while of living here in Chitterton Fells …”
    “Spit it out,” urged Mrs. Malloy.
    Bunty picked up a pencil and twirled it between her manicured fingernails. “After a while I got to know some of those tweedy dames … and there was you, Ellie …”
    “Thanks awfully.”
    “You get what I’m saying?” A flash of her pearl-pink