Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Claudia Carroll Read Free Book Online Page A

do with our lives, aren’t we? Change, just like butterflies . . .
    ‘So, eight p.m. it is,’ Barbara goes on. ‘You provide the tequila and I’ll bring the margarita mix. And I already know you’re free and dateless, because that’s what the whole point of tomorrow night is.’
    ‘Thanks so much, why don’t you just throw a toaster in my tub while you’re at it?’
    ‘Do you want to get sensitive or do you want to get a man, Miss Lonely Heart?’
    ‘Point taken. You’re right, I have to change my attitude a bit. OK, here goes. This is the start of the official countdown from Cape Harper to boyfriend-land. Right, there you go. Does that sound pathologically optimistic enough? Here I am, in the prime of life, ready for commitment.’
    ‘Great, I’ll sign the papers.’
    ‘Commitment to a man, you big eejit.’
    Barbara snorts down the phone. She never laughs in a girlie, tinkly, clinking-champagne-glass way like some women do, Paris and Nicole for instance; no, hers is a gutsy, bawdy, full-on belly laugh. When she laughs in bars or restaurants, people always stare over, and you can almost see the thought-balloons coming out of their heads: ‘God, look at that table, they’re having all the crack.’ And usually they’re right. Anyway, just the sound of Barbara’s laugh is always enough to get me into giddy form as well. It’s unladylike, as my mother would say, it’s infectious but most important of all . . . fellas go mad over it. One bloke even told her he’d fallen in love with her purely on account of her laugh, which made me try impersonating her for a while, but I just ended up sounding like Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries. Only worse.
    ‘That’s the girl,’ she says. ‘You just wait and see, this time next year, you’ll be living the life of a Danielle Steel heroine. I have great plans for you, baby. I’ve done homework on your behalf and everything.’
    I’m just thinking, bless her for taking all this so seriously, she’s so fab, when, out of nowhere, something strikes me.
    ‘Barbara, hope you don’t mind my asking but, how come you’re home tonight? Not like you, hon. Friday night and all that.’
    ‘I do have a date, I’m just running late, that’s all. With the casting director from the commercial last week, remember? Can’t even remember his name. It’s something . . . somebody Vale . . . I remember thinking whatever he’s called, it sounded like a housing estate out in the suburbs.’
    ‘Are you seriously telling me you’re going on a date with a guy whose name you don’t know?’
    ‘Honey, I’ve woken up with guys whose names I didn’t know. Besides, I don’t hold out much hope for him, he’s taking me to Bang Café, and we all know that place is just full of knickerless Ukrainian executive-stress consultants and record-pluggers. You know, one of those kips that’s like a rehearsal room for every lame pick-up line that doesn’t work on match.com.’
    Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to . . . my relationship coach. The woman I’m pinning all my hopes and dreams on, of ever meeting a DSM by this time next year.
    Oh God, even thinking about what I’m hoping to achieve in the space of twelve short months makes me break out in a flop sweat . . . right then. Only one thing for it. I reach over to my handbag and fish out
The Law of Attraction
, which, tonne weight and all as it is, I’ve been toting around with me all week, dipping in and out of it whenever the need arises. Like now.
    ‘Before you go,’ I say. ‘I just opened the book you gave me, at random, and here’s the perfect affirmation quote for me to leave you on. Are you ready for this?’
    ‘Shoot.’
    ‘“I choose today to give myself the best life ever.”’
    And she hangs up, pissing herself laughing.
    Then a text message from Laura, which is never a good sign. It usually means there’s a fresh crisis with one of the kids, such as the time her youngest threw the main house