Cloche and Dagger Read Online Free

I’d been at the peak of my girly-girl stage back then and the pink, if I remembered right, was a sort of retina-searing pink found only on Vegas showgirls and candy.
    Harrison reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. “My number is on here if you need anything.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    I realized that while I was uncertain about him, and he really wasn’t the friendliest person I’d ever met, the alternative was that I was going to be completely alone. Surprisingly, that had even less appeal.
    “Are you hungry?” I asked.
    He looked surprised. “You want to go to lunch? I thought you’d be knackered from all of the traveling.”
    “Well, a girl has to eat,” I said.
    “I suppose we could do that,” he said.
    His enthusiasm for spending time with me really bowled me over, I have to say. Fortunately, my self-esteem was swirling in the bowl already so I wasn’t put off by his less-than-enthusiastic response. Besides, I really felt like I needed to know more about Viv’s absence and he was my best source.
    “Excellent,” I said. “Let me just go freshen up and we can go.”
    He opened his mouth as if about to announce an abrupt change of mind, but I dashed through the doorway that led upstairs, not giving him the opportunity to rethink the plan.
    I pushed open the door at the top of the steps and stepped into Mim’s sitting room. This had been my grandmother’s favorite room in the house. Squashy furniture done in blue suede—yes, she was very partial to blue—bookcases that were full to bursting along one wall; an oval rag rug over the wooden floor and a large flat-screen television on the wall opposite the largest couch. This was the room where Mim spent most of her evenings.
    Lace curtains covered the windows where houseplants sat on narrow shelves built onto the windowsill. It even smelled just like it used to, of lemon furniture polish and gingersnaps. I was hit with a longing for my grandmother so sharp and so deep that I gasped. I missed her no-nonsense ways and her ability to always move forward no matter what challenge life handed her. I know she would have scolded me severely for getting duped by a married man, but she also would have been able to lessen my shame with a few words of perspective and lessons learned. She was good like that.
    I pushed my sadness down and strode through the room, through the kitchen and the dining room to the hallway. Here there were two doors, one that went into Mim’s bedroom and the other that led to the uppermost floor where the two bedrooms Viv and I used were located. I knew Viv had moved into Mim’s old bedroom a few years ago. It made sense since she lived and worked here. I wondered if she had done anything to her old room or if she kept it as a guest bedroom.
    I opened the door and hurried upstairs. A small foyer split the two bedrooms, and I glanced into the one that used to be Viv’s to see that it was neatly made up as if awaiting a guest. I turned and went into my old room. Wow!
    How had I forgotten how pink my room was? In fifteen years, the paint hadn’t faded at all. Not only that, but my Spice Girls poster—Viv and I had both been fans back in the day—was still on the closet door as if waiting for me to break into my dance moves and belt out “Wannabe
.”
    When Viv and I worked out our routines, I was always Ginger Spice because of my red hair and even though she’s a blonde, Viv was always Scary Spice, well, because she is.
    I saw my bags sitting in the middle of my room and felt a shot of horror that Harrison had seen my room, still trapped in adolescence. Somehow this was worse than having him walk in on me in my underwear.
    I quickly grabbed a change of clothes and my bag of makeup and went into the bathroom that separated the two bedrooms. A glance at the mirror told me that I looked as if I’d carried every one of the five thousand miles I’d just traveled on my face. Ugh! Small wonder Harrison had seemed