Uptown Girl by Olivia Goldsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

decided on?’
    Bina turned her attention to the gift bottles from Kate, and the others arranged beautifully along the wall shelf at her elbow. ‘They don’t have most of these colors in Brooklyn,’ she admitted.
    â€˜Just one more reason why I live in Manhattan,’ Kate declared. ‘Step up to the plate. What’s it going to be?’
    Bina looked down at the Asian girl already working her left hand. ‘Do you do French manicures?’ she asked her.

5
    Kate’s Manhattan apartment was undeniably small, but a delightful haven. She had been lucky to find it: it was in a brownstone on West 19th Street, on a tree-lined block close to the seminary, a very desirable location. The apartment was on the first floor, above street level, and consisted of a large room that had once been a parlor, a small bathroom and smaller kitchen behind it, and then a cozy bedroom.
    Because it was on the first floor of the brownstone, Kate had all the advantages of beautiful moldings, mahogany pocket doors, a parquet floor and a marble fireplace which, though it had been bricked up years ago, still looked lovely even if it no longer served any functional purpose. Kate, with her neighbor Max’s help and Brice’s input, had painted the room a color that could almost be called yellow, but was just a little bit lighter than that. Benjamin Moore had called it ‘sunlight’ and the name on the paint chip may have affectedher selection as much as the color itself. But it was a happy choice, and even on overcast days like today, the room had a cheery brightness.
    The main room faced the back garden – which, unfortunately, belonged to the apartment below – so she had quiet and a green view in summer and a chance to watch the snow in winter. She hadn’t had much money to spend on furniture, but she had splurged on a blue-and-white Chinese rug. Elliot, always alert for bargains, had helped her find and carry home the sofa – a small one with down cushions that she had slip-covered in a blue-and-white awning stripe. Someday she would buy an armchair but in the meantime an old wicker rocker which she had bought in a thrift store and sprayed blue made a comfortable, if slightly rickety, seat. And the yellow cushion on it made a cheerful spot of color.
    Max, who lived upstairs, had also helped her put up bookshelves that filled in the recesses on either side of the fireplace. Max was a friend of Bina’s brother and, it turned out, a cousin of Jack’s from Brooklyn and worked on Wall Street. When Kate had heard about the apartment through him they hadn’t known each other well. Kate had rushed over on the day the old tenants moved out and had signed a lease the next afternoon. Max, to whom she would forever be grateful, had been interested in her, but Kate wasn’t that grateful. He was nice and good-looking but they had nothing to talk about, although Max didn’tseem to mind that. And though her father had given her precious little advice about life, he had expressed his philosophy to ‘never crap where you eat’. Kate had interpreted that to mean it was best not to sleep with anyone you worked with, but to paraphrase and extend her father’s concept, she also knew it was best not to crap where you slept, either. While Max was attractive, he didn’t attract her, and she couldn’t be less interested in his Wall Street work. She had managed to handle it all diplomatically, though, and they were good friends as well as good neighbors. Though Max would never need to stop by to borrow a cup of sugar, he might well ask for a cup of coffee, a shot of vodka or, less frequently, a fix-up with some girl Kate knew.
    Kate opened the curtains. It looked like rain. She threw her purse down on the sofa and hurried across to her bedroom. The beauty treatment with Bina had taken more time than she expected and she only had a half-hour before Michael came over. Although she had