Grand Avenue by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

children out with no trouble at all. Like a chicken laying eggs, Barbara was always tempted to say, but had never worked up the nerve. Yes, sir, super Sheila not only managed a house and four children under the age of eight, she ran a successful party-planning service out of her home and was already working on baby number five, while Barbara hadn’t managed to produce a single sister or brother for almost-seven-year-old Tracey, despite having nothing but time on her well-manicured hands. The least she could do was get a job, her mother-in-law occasionally hinted, but Barbara didn’t want to take any job that meant she wouldn’t be home for Tracey at the end of the schoolday. Besides, Ron had no objections to her being a stay-at-home mother, nor had he ever complained that Tracey was an only child. Not that they weren’t trying to have more children. It just hadn’t happened yet. But there was still time. She was still young. She was in good shape, despite the addition of a few extra pounds. Thirty-six certainly wasn’t too old to have another child.
    Again, Barbara checked the mirror, deciding she looked too pale. She immediately felt her forehead. Maybe she was coming down with whatever had felled Chris. Or more likely the shade of blush she’d recently purchased wasn’t quite right. Perhaps she needed something with a little more depth. Maybe that’s what she’d do now, she thought, returning the receiver to its carriage, smiling at the bartender without moving her lips, showing her the way it should be done, although the careless young woman failed to notice and was already busy chatting up another customer. Why was it that people were always hanging up on her before she was finished talking, or walking away from her while she was still standing there? She was still a strikingly beautiful woman; she presented herself well. What was it about her that failed to register?
    Maybe it was her hair. People had trouble taking big hair seriously. Probably she should cut it. Barbara had once overheard her mother-in-law sniggering on the phone to a friend—“She looks like she was frozen in the sixties,” she’d said, then pretended she’d been talking about an acquaintance from high school whom she’d run into that afternoon. “You see how stylish Sheila’s short hair is,” her mother-in-law had remarkedjust the other day. “There comes a time when a woman gets too old for long hair.”
    Maybe such a time would come, Barbara thought, returning to her seat, but that time was not now. She liked her long hair. Maybe she’d grow it as long as Crystal Gayle’s, past her knees, right down to the floor. How would her mother-in-law like it then? Barbara signaled the waiter for the bill, feeling like a petulant child. “My friends won’t be coming,” she told him, bracing herself for his unpleasant scowl, but his back was already to her.
    It was just as well the others hadn’t shown up. She could do without lunch, even if she did get headaches whenever she missed a meal. Besides, she’d eaten all those rolls. It wasn’t as if she would starve to death. And there were other things she needed to do. She’d promised Tracey she’d buy some fabric that matched a dress she’d recently purchased and have her dressmaker make the child one just like it. And there was that project Tracey’s first-grade teacher had assigned on spring flowers. Tracey wanted hers to be the best project in the class, so Barbara, who had quickly realized she knew nothing about spring flowers other than that daffodils were yellow and tulips top-heavy, had promised to get her daughter all the necessary information. She could stop at the library, maybe buy a bunch of fresh flowers for Tracey to give to Miss Atherton. Maybe she’d take a bunch over to Chris later on.
    “Eight dollars for two glasses of water!” Barbara sputtered when she saw the bill, unable to hide her shock and dismay. What would her mother-in-law say about that? Probably