The Next Best Thing by Sarah Long Read Free Book Online Page B

Marry a millionaire.
    The bus drew up outside PJ2 in Draycott Avenue and the passengers got off, politely thanking the driver as though he were the family chauffeur. Lydia cut back to Sloane Avenue, past Bibendum and
left into the Fulham Road, when she heard the sound of low-flying aircraft so loud she feared an attack by the axis of evil. But it was just a red Virgin helicopter coming down to land in the
private gardens of Onslow Square. Richard Branson coming home for his tea, perhaps. How fabulous.
    And wasn’t that Nigella and Charles going into Theo Fennell’s posh jewellery shop, the tall facade prettily illuminated by a mesh of white fairy lights? It was here that the Duchess
of York’s poor ex-dresser had been working before she clubbed her boyfriend to death with his own cricket bat for failing to marry her and referring to her as a pair of old slippers. Lydia
would not have gone that far, but Rupert’s proposal had certainly brought things to a very satisfactory conclusion. She pushed open the door to Kelly Hoppen and greeted the lofty assistant
with a smile. ‘I’d like to open a wedding list, please,’ she said. Was it her imagination or did she see a flicker of envy cross the girl’s face?
    Jane wished she had gone to the memorial service now. She always did that — said she was too busy to do things, then wasted time dithering around. Lydia’s call had
knocked her off her stride, and she might as well have gone for all the work she’d achieved this morning.
    Maybe she really should go to that school reunion next week. Last time she’d checked on Friends Reunited, she’d been cheered by the all-round lack of achievement. The cleverest girl
in the class was now working part-time as a receptionist at the local opticians which fitted in nicely round school hours. Former prefect Janet Bowles volunteered the information (with three
exclamation marks) that she could usually be found browsing the aisles of her second home, aka Waitrose. It must be lovely to feel so little pressure to succeed.
    She switched off the computer and thought about lunch. She could make herself a macrobiotic salad using the salad leaves and seeds she so conscientiously hunted out at farmers’ markets.
Will swore by them, hoping their virtuous influence would stamp out the after-effects of his decadent youth. He was always telling Jane what she should and shouldn’t be eating.
    She decided that what she really needed was a Chicken McNugget Meal with large fries and large non-diet Coke. It offered the double satisfaction of being nutritionally void and creating an
unseemly amount of non-recyclable waste. That polystyrene box alone, she thought, as she slipped her coat on and pulled the door behind her, could push Will over the edge.
    Walking back home with her McDonald’s, Jane disposed of the evil packaging in an anonymous bin, and wondered what thoughtful present she should buy to take tonight. They were invited to
supper with an art-dealer friend of Will’s. Jane knew better than to say they were going to a dinner party. Will had told her early on in their relationship that he didn’t do dinner
parties. All that fuss about the seating plan, boy, girl, boy, girl, it was so damned couply. Instead, he did supper with friends, which was far more bohemian. Ossian was quite nice, but the wife
was a worry, a glamorous actress who knew everybody. You couldn’t very well hand over a box of Celebrations. I know, Jane thought, I’ll go to that pretentious shop on Westbourne Grove
and get them a glass boot of cassis balsamic vinegar. Wildly original.
    Hunched over her computer with her Chocolate Chip Flurry, she pulled out her Christmas list to see what else she should look for while she was out. Not many shopping days left now, and she had
Will’s family to think of as well as her own. His mother was the most difficult, since she only approved of useful gifts, and had a withering contempt for anything that suggested