Read Online Spin Cycle by Sue Margolis - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sue Margolis
Tags: Fiction
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doesn’t invite her parents?” Faye sobbed. “Ever since the moment she came into the world, I have longed to organize her wedding, yearned for the day I would take her to choose her wedding dress. Now she’s denied me all that. How could she be so cruel, Jack? How could she?”
When Jack made the tentative suggestion that Faye’s broken heart wasn’t entirely due to them being excluded, and that perhaps it had more to do with her realizing she would never get the chance now to organize a wedding reception seating plan that ensured that her first cousin Irene, who had supposedly snubbed her at Faye’s mother’s funeral in 1973, sat as close to the kitchen as possible, she bashed him over the head with a pillow and sobbed all the louder.
It took months of begging and pleading on Rachel’s part before her mother finally forgave her. Jack’s hurt was noticeably more muted. Rachel suspected he was secretly grateful to have been let off the hook, billwise.
A decade or so on, Rachel’s opinion of huge lavish weddings hadn’t changed. On the other hand, she knew how much pain she had caused her mother by marrying in secret and she longed to make it up to her.
The moment Rachel heard Faye coming downstairs she slammed the catalog shut. If her mother got the slightest hint that she was up for discussing wedding plans, the woman would be on the phone to Hylda Klompus, making unilateral catering arrangements before anybody could say
ice sculpture
.
Faye walked into the room looking positively stunning. She was wearing a cream woolen suit with a knee-length pencil skirt and short boxy jacket with a tiny collar and large pearl buttons. Her face was fully made up and her blond streaked hair looked like it had been newly cut and blow-dried. The effect was only slightly marred by the vacuum cleaner she was carrying and the faint trace of white powder above her top lip. Rachel also couldn’t help noticing her mother’s nose was running.
“Hi sweetie,” Faye said, putting the vacuum cleaner down. Then she went over to Rachel, cupped her daughter’s face in her hands and kissed her. “So how’s my gorgeous grandson? Still doing the Barbra Streisand impressions? I tell you—you have to say something to that ex of yours.”
Rachel got a whiff of Miss Dior. She also noticed a tiny plastic bag sticking out of her mother’s jacket pocket. It appeared to contain the same white powder Faye had round her mouth.
“Mum, I’ve told you before,” Rachel said, her eyes shooting to her mother’s top lip and runny nose and back to the bag of powder again, “it’s a phase he’s going through. Please stop nagging me about it.”
Faye shrugged, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed. Rachel noticed her mother’s eyes were watering. As her gaze returned to the plastic bag, her mind started to race. Christ, she thought, the evidence was truly overwhelming. On the other hand it was absurd to think that a sixty-something Jewish grandmother from Chingford had developed a cocaine habit. Unless, of course, her mother was going through some kind of acute psychological crisis. That could explain the bikini waxing. Perhaps she’d developed a morbid fear of growing old. Yes, that was definitely it. Faye was going in search of her lost youth and she thought waxing and doing the occasional line or two would help her find it.
“So . . . Mum, you look amazing,” Rachel said uneasily, deciding not to mention the cocaine until she’d phoned one of the drug help lines and gotten advice about the most tactful way to bring it up. “That suit must have cost a fortune.”
“It did,” she said, flicking more specks off the skirt. “God, this bloody stuff,” she went on. “It’s everywhere.”
Rachel could hardly believe how open her mother was being about having spilt cocaine down her skirt.
“God, do you know, I’ve breathed in so much of this stuff, I can feel it going to my head. Plus my nose has started running
When Jack made the tentative suggestion that Faye’s broken heart wasn’t entirely due to them being excluded, and that perhaps it had more to do with her realizing she would never get the chance now to organize a wedding reception seating plan that ensured that her first cousin Irene, who had supposedly snubbed her at Faye’s mother’s funeral in 1973, sat as close to the kitchen as possible, she bashed him over the head with a pillow and sobbed all the louder.
It took months of begging and pleading on Rachel’s part before her mother finally forgave her. Jack’s hurt was noticeably more muted. Rachel suspected he was secretly grateful to have been let off the hook, billwise.
A decade or so on, Rachel’s opinion of huge lavish weddings hadn’t changed. On the other hand, she knew how much pain she had caused her mother by marrying in secret and she longed to make it up to her.
The moment Rachel heard Faye coming downstairs she slammed the catalog shut. If her mother got the slightest hint that she was up for discussing wedding plans, the woman would be on the phone to Hylda Klompus, making unilateral catering arrangements before anybody could say
ice sculpture
.
Faye walked into the room looking positively stunning. She was wearing a cream woolen suit with a knee-length pencil skirt and short boxy jacket with a tiny collar and large pearl buttons. Her face was fully made up and her blond streaked hair looked like it had been newly cut and blow-dried. The effect was only slightly marred by the vacuum cleaner she was carrying and the faint trace of white powder above her top lip. Rachel also couldn’t help noticing her mother’s nose was running.
“Hi sweetie,” Faye said, putting the vacuum cleaner down. Then she went over to Rachel, cupped her daughter’s face in her hands and kissed her. “So how’s my gorgeous grandson? Still doing the Barbra Streisand impressions? I tell you—you have to say something to that ex of yours.”
Rachel got a whiff of Miss Dior. She also noticed a tiny plastic bag sticking out of her mother’s jacket pocket. It appeared to contain the same white powder Faye had round her mouth.
“Mum, I’ve told you before,” Rachel said, her eyes shooting to her mother’s top lip and runny nose and back to the bag of powder again, “it’s a phase he’s going through. Please stop nagging me about it.”
Faye shrugged, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed. Rachel noticed her mother’s eyes were watering. As her gaze returned to the plastic bag, her mind started to race. Christ, she thought, the evidence was truly overwhelming. On the other hand it was absurd to think that a sixty-something Jewish grandmother from Chingford had developed a cocaine habit. Unless, of course, her mother was going through some kind of acute psychological crisis. That could explain the bikini waxing. Perhaps she’d developed a morbid fear of growing old. Yes, that was definitely it. Faye was going in search of her lost youth and she thought waxing and doing the occasional line or two would help her find it.
“So . . . Mum, you look amazing,” Rachel said uneasily, deciding not to mention the cocaine until she’d phoned one of the drug help lines and gotten advice about the most tactful way to bring it up. “That suit must have cost a fortune.”
“It did,” she said, flicking more specks off the skirt. “God, this bloody stuff,” she went on. “It’s everywhere.”
Rachel could hardly believe how open her mother was being about having spilt cocaine down her skirt.
“God, do you know, I’ve breathed in so much of this stuff, I can feel it going to my head. Plus my nose has started running
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