Woman to Woman by Cathy Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

and give marks out of ten.”
    Rhona’s fingers flew about as she spoke, a habit which would make the casual observer think she was using sign language. In fact, she was just trying to keep her hands occupied until they got hold of her next cigarette.
    “I think that’s a great idea,” Jo answered. Obviously, she couldn’t say that she didn’t give a damn who tested the bloody make-up when she was faced with this momentous, no huge event in her life. When a pregnancy testing kit was burning a hole in her handbag just aching to be used.
    “It’s a fresh way of looking at products and, since we’re all so blase about lotions and potions, it would be marvelous to get readers to give their opinion about things,” Rhona said in a voice which required some sort of reaction.
    “Er … I’ll include an advert for guinea pigs on the beauty page,
    although I’ll have to drop something to fit it in.” Jostarted rooting through the piles of paper on her desk for the dummy or advance pages of the beauty section.
    With only two days to go before printing, the July edition of Style was nearly totally finished and any changes had to be agreed and inserted within the next twenty-four hours.
    Jo still had an entire piece to write about packing for your summer holidays and had managed to leave the ideas she’d jotted down for the article at home.
    “D’you know, I haven’t been talking to you all week,” Rhona commented, picking up the tanning article and scanning it for mistakes.
    “You look a little bit pale, Jo. Are you feeling all right?”
    “Fine,” answered Jo as brightly as she could. She raked her dark curls with her fingers and wished she’d bothered with proper make-up on this of all mornings.
    “I’ve had a lot of late nights recently,” she lied, ‘and I’m a little tired. Maybe that Elizabeth Arden magic stuff you keep in your desk could give my complexion a bit of a boost?”
    Rhona looked at her shrewdly for a moment, taking in her deputy editor’s pale, freckled skin, tired brown eyes and un-lips ticked mouth.
    Jo took her job as fashion editor very seriously and was nearly always dressed to kill in on-the-knee skirts which showed off her long legs and fitted jewel-coloured jackets which were just perfect for her Monroe-esque curves. She was usually better made-up than Ivana Trump.
    Today, she was wearing a fawn-coloured linen ensemble which would have cost an arm and a leg if Jo didn’t have a fashion editor’s discount at every top shop in Dublin. Chic in the extreme, the effect of the outfit was ruined by the fact that she wasn’t wearing more make-up or jewellery and her normally wavy hair had flopped in the June heat. It was very unlike Jo, thought Rhona.
    “Come on into my office and we’ll have a bitch.” She smiled at Jo, slid off the desk and walked into her tiny office.
    It was compact and untidy, with clothes hangers dangling off every nail
    and magazines, press releases and sticky layout pages covering every available surface. There wasn’t enough room to swing a cat in its ten-by-twelve confines.
    Rhona’s office was, however, blissfully private and a haven for the nicotine-addicted who weren’t allowed to smoke anywhere else in the Georgian three-storey house which was home to both Style and a tiny secretarial agency.
    Jo followed the editor into the untidy room and pushed a clump of plastic-covered dresses to one side of the dusty cream settee which took up at least half of one wall. She plonked herself down tiredly and leaned back into the soft cushions. She levered off her shoes and wondered if this sudden exhaustion was pregnancy or shock. “Is lover boy wearing you out at home?” Rhona teased,!
    immediately lighting up a cigarette. I Despite herself, Jo blushed. She could feel her face redden!
    and she could also see Rhona looking at her in amazement,!
    cigarette suspended in mid-air as she stared at her deputy!!
    with a dumbfounded expression.
    How was she going to get