Read Online The Party Girl's Invitation by Karen Elaine Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

usually dressed in jodhpurs or last year’s cords, she’d never had much of an eye for style. She’d been a placid and peaceful child, if a little on the slow side. She’d taken the blame many a time for Crystal or Jeremy and their childhood capers.
    Looking at her now though, as they sat in the ‘Dog and Duck’ with a glass of chilled champagne each and lunch for Crystal, she had polished up well, Crystal decided. Several pounds lighter, with her teeth fixed and her hair coloured she had got herself a new man and a new life. She’d looked with horror at the selection of crisps, sandwiches and pickles that Crystal had ordered and insisted that Reginald liked her slim, so she’d pass on lunch, for now.
    Her Reginald worked in London, most of the time, she said. They had only been dating for a few weeks, he was a very busy man. He was taking her to a posh corporate ‘do’ in London tonight and then the opera at the weekend, he was a man of culture. She’d invited him to meet her family at the Hunt Ball, since she’d not had chance to show him off yet, everyone was so busy these days. At the mention of the ball, Crystal took a deep breath. That was what they were here for, really, to discuss the arrangements and see what could be done to salvage the mess.
    “So, how many tickets have we sold then, what kind of numbers am I up against?” she started as an opening gambit.
    Lolly wriggled awkwardly in her seat and began to make pleats out of the folds of material in her skirt. “We sent out a hundred and fifty invitations, but mummy has been collating the responses, so I’m not quite sure how many people have taken us up on the offer. We raised the ticket price this year because we wanted some of the money raised to go to other charities too. I hope it hasn’t put people off,” she worried.“Mummy put the replies in a shoe box along with the egg money, but I’m afraid it has all got a bit mixed up. She was trying to sort it out for you last night.”She grimaced, “I’m not at all sure how far she got, to be honest, there was a whole stack of cash as well as cheques, so it was difficult to know which money was for which, if you know what I mean?”She looked hopefully at Crystal, as if she thought she might have the answer. “There must be a couple of thousand pounds there, we really should have banked it all by now, shouldn’t we?”
    Crystal took a deep breath. “Hmm, yes, really we should. Right, so we don’t really know what our budget is, or how many numbers we are catering for then yet?”Crystal got out her notepad and began to write, in between nibbling crisps and picking at olives and tiny silverskin pickled onions in equal measures. She shoved the plate over towards Lolly, “Go on, help yourself, a few onions and some olives won’t do your diet any harm, you look half starved to me.”
    Lolly recoiled in horror, “That’s the last thing I need. Reginald won’t find me in the least bit attractive if I turn up stinking of onions and picking bits of olive out from between my teeth, very fastidious, he is. No, I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.”She smoothed down her pure silk skirt, admiring the way that the material pearled in the soft glow from the overhead light, it had cost a small fortune, but had been well worth the expense. She had a real ‘boyfriend’ for the first time in years, and he was loaded too, she wasn’t going to risk losing him now.
    Crystal watched the agitated gestures with cool detachment and wondered what her cousin was thinking. They had never been particularly close, but she’d learned to pick up on signs of nervousness or uncertainty whilst working in LA. There, she’d learned to be wary of neurotic people. Cities seemed to attract the paranoid, nervous and fretful souls, their behaviour often tragic, but you learned to cope and life was certainly diverse.
    In comparison, Lolly had lived her entire life on the outskirts of Bath and had never left the sheltered