Read Online Pasta Imperfect by Maddy Hunter - Free Book Online Page A

walls vibrated with the increasing noise from the hallway. Jeez, these women were louder than the New York delegation at the Democratic convention. “Iowa has…me,” I said in a breathy whisper. “With or without my corset dress.”
    A pause. Heavy breathing. “
Dio Santo,
Emily. I wish you wouldn’t say things like that when I’m standing out in public.”
    BOOM! The walls shook. The floor rocked. The sink wobbled.
What the —?
I shoved open the bathroom door and stopped dead in my tracks. Oh. My. God. No wonder the noise had grown so loud. The romance contestants weren’t gathered in the hall anymore. They were in my room! I looked left and right. My mouth fell open.
    THEY WERE GRABBING ALL MY CLOTHES!
    “I’ve got an emergency here,” I said to Etienne. “Gotta go.”
    “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I screamed as I rushed forward to enforce order. A silk cardigan sailed over my head. A pair of white capri pants flew in front of my nose. “Put that down. Give that back!” I snatched at the flashes of color that whizzed by. “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN HERE!”
    “This is better than Filene’s basement!” someone yelled above the fracas.
    “STOP IT!” I let out an earsplitting whistle that could stop traffic on a dime, but it didn’t stop these babes. They just kept squealing deliriously, overcome with the kind of frenzied adrenaline rush that happened to folks back home when Farm and Fleet announced their annual “Buy One, Get One Free” sale.
    “I saw it first!” Brandy Ann hissed, tearing something out of Amanda’s hands.
    “It’s not your color!” spat Amanda, grabbing it back.
    “Hey, I want that!” whined an ash blonde, entering the fray.
    Elbows flew. Hips bumped. Bodies tangled. “Give it up before I flatten you!” cried Brandy Ann, sounding not at all refined.
    “It has my name on it!” screamed Amanda.
    “It’s my ticket to fame!” snarled the blonde. “One look at me wearing this thing and Gabriel Fox will be eating out of my hand. Knock yourself out with your outlines, girls, but in this little number, I’ll have the inside track without having to write one word. And you’re not going to cheat me out of it! So…LET GO!”
    “You guys are taking all the good stuff!” hissed a strawberry blonde, lunging at the trio. “That’s just my size. Hands off!”
    Growls. Grunts. I got sandwiched between two women and spun around. When I looked back toward the wrestling match, I saw a crumpled wad of denim fly into the air and land in the hands of…
    Denim? “My corset dress!” I wailed, scrambling over backs and shoulders to reach it. “Don’t you DARE take my dress!”
    “You’re going to rip it!” cried the strawberry blonde.
    “Am not!” yelled the ash blonde. “It’s that new denim. It stretches!”
    “Get off me!” screamed Brandy Ann. “You…I…if you don’t let this dress go, I swear I’ll kill you!”
    “Out of the way!” a burly woman barked at me, propelling me toward the outer fringes of the mob with a solitary bump of her hip. I recovered my balance before I slammed into the wall and inhaled an angry breath. Okay, that
did
it! There was no use talking to these dames. They were way beyond reason. But I knew one thing. They were getting out of my room, and they were getting out now!
    I marched to the armchair where I’d dumped the contents of my shoulder bag and plucked my address book out of the clutter. I flipped to the back cover, spied the number I wanted, and punched it into my phone.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi, Duncan. This is Emily.”
    “What? Emily? Can you speak up? WHAT’S ALL THAT NOISE? WHERE ARE YOU? THE TRAIN STATION?”
    “I’m in my room!” I yelled. “But I’m having a slight problem with crowd control, so here’s what I need you to do!”
    After delivering my message and signing off, I dropped my address book back into the chair and waited. One minute. Two minutes.
    BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!