Read Online Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva by Sarah May - Free Book Online Page B

bicycle, ‘I’ve been trying you all morningwhere’ve you been? Did you get my message?’
    Kate nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and wondered how it was that, despite the rain, Ros didn’t look bedraggled. Her skin was tanned and the white T-shirt advertising her company, Carpe Diem Life Classes , was still white. Ros was somebody other women wanted not only to emulate, but to become, and here she was walking towards Kate, her eyes glistening with an obscene wellbeing she just couldn’t keep to herself. The overall effect was pathologically upbeat. She looked as if there wasn’t a thing in existence she wouldn’t be able take succour fromnot even mobile-phone adverts that used Holocaust survivors to imply that global communications had the ability to wash away all tears.
    Ros was the postcode prototype of a young, successfulmother. Within their groupthe PRCshe’d gained herself a reputation for originality that was, if you looked closely, nothing more than a highly evolved form of plagiarism. When Ros dropped her wheat intolerance for lactose intolerance, everybody followed suit becauseas Ros pointed outif you were still wheat intolerant it was because you weren’t buying sourdough bread. So then everybody had to buy sourdough bread from the deli andafter the lactose intolerance phasemake sure their fridge was full of soya milk.
    ‘So -.’
    ‘Sowhat?’ Kate managed to say cheerfully back, pretending not to understand while knowing exactly what was coming next, exactly what question she was going to be asked.
    Here it wasin Ros’s clear, ecstatic diction: ‘DidFindlaygetin?’
    The letter was crackling in the pocket of Kate’s suit jacket just above her heart -, as if it was about to start talking. With an effort, she managed a slow up and down nod and the sort of smile somebody recovering from a minor stroke might produce.
    Ros couldn’t quite work out what was going on.
    Kate, who had never seen Ros’s eyes darken with doubt before, saw them darken now, and had a sudden apocalyptic vision of just how lonely her future in the postcode would be if she were ever excommunicated from the PRC. She would become Jessicaand nobody wanted to become Jessica. Suddenly terrified, she threw the arm that wasn’t holding Flo up into the air and screamed an evangelical, ‘YESSSS!’, walking for no reason whatsoever into Ros’s arms.
    The next minute the two women were hugging and Ros was the first to pull away. This unexpected physical contact with a woman she didn’t even particularly like provoked anunexpected, almost uncontrollable urge in Kate to cry, and to counteract this she started mumbling, ‘I can’t tell you how…how…’
    ‘…relieved,’ Ros put in, letting out one of her light-hearted laughs.
    ‘Relievedthat’s itI am about the whole St Anthony’s thing.’
    ‘And now you’ve got Findlay in, getting Flo in won’t be such a hassle.’
    ‘Exactly,’ Kate said heavily, while thinking, who the fuck’s Flo? Then remembering, and patting her on the back, hoping this wouldn’t make her posit anymore.
    ‘Soeverybody’s in,’ Ros said.
    Apart from me, Kate thought, staring at her. ‘Everybody?’
    ‘Evie, Harriet, me, you…everybody in the PRC.’
    ‘What about Jessica?’ Kate asked.
    Ros’s pause suggested that this question wasn’t strictly necessary given that Jessica wasn’t a fully acknowledged member of the PRC, but she showed magnanimity by shrugging and responding with, ‘I can’t get hold of her.’
    ‘Me neither,’ Kate lied.
    A strobe-like frown flickered over Ros’s face, then she was smiling again because life really was unbelievably goodapart from when you had to run past people in mobility aids. Although, in her darker moments, she had to admit that the thought of the cripple’s eyes on her honed body as she streaked past, fully functioning legs pounding, did thrill her.
    ‘You wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on the bike for a minute, would you? Just while I