Second Time Around Read Online Free Page B

and always up for a laugh.
    ‘Aileen has two left feet and not a note in her head. Anyway, she’s coming to the book club with me.’
    ‘Mum, I’m delighted that you plan to live a fuller life but you don’t have to try everything at once. It’s only a little over two weeks since you left
hospital.’
    ‘I’m bored out of my mind at home all day, twiddling my feckin’ thumbs,’ Suzie complained.
    ‘Well, what did you do before you hit your head?’
    Her mother scowled. ‘Boring crap like weeding, shopping and I knitted a sweater for that ungrateful little bugger who, after a month’s work, said the colour was wrong and the wool
made him itchy.’
    Jess sighed. She wasn’t close to her nephew and she agreed that he could be a little terror, but it took some getting used to hearing Mum call him such terrible names. She’d always
adored her grandson and defended him whenever he was in trouble.
    ‘I suppose I could redecorate,’ Suzie mused, glancing around. ‘The place is looking a bit tired.’
    ‘Don’t even think about it!’ Just the thought of her mother up a ladder made Jess’s head ache. She sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll go to one dance class with you but, if
it’s full of desperate women and perverts, I’m out of there.’
    Her mother gave a triumphant grin. ‘Great. It’s on Friday nights at eight. I’ll check when it starts.’
    ‘Oh.’ Jess’s heart sank. That was the one evening of the week that Louis usually spent at her flat. After he’d signed off on the paper, he would pick up a takeaway and a
bottle of wine and come over.
    ‘Is there a problem?’ Suzie’s eyes narrowed.
    Jess shook her head. Louis would understand. ‘No. Friday’s fine.’
    There was a commotion in the hall and Sharon’s wheedling voice. ‘No, Bobby, I told you, it’s too late for sweets, it’s almost bedtime. Maybe Granny will give you a
breadstick.’
    Suzie rolled her eyes. ‘What on earth are they doing here at this hour?’
    The door opened and Sharon walked in, her son trailing behind her.
    ‘Hi, Shaz, hi, Bobby, it’s good to see you.’ Jess tousled the child’s hair but he jerked his head away. Okay. ‘Everything all right, Shaz?’ she asked. Sharon
was wearing that tense, pinched look that so often marred her pretty face these days.
    ‘Fine,’ she said, sounding stressed. ‘We were in town and just dropped in on the way home because we bought Granny a present, didn’t we, Bobby?’
    The child said nothing and Sharon set down a large bag from an expensive shop on Grafton Street.
    Suzie eyed it, frowning. ‘You shouldn’t be spending your money on me.’
    ‘Why not? You deserve a treat after all you’ve been through. Go on, open it!’ Sharon looked at her expectantly.
    Jess clamped a hand firmly over her mouth as her mother pulled out a heavy woollen dress and stared at it in horror.
    ‘What do you think?’ Sharon prompted, searching her mother’s face.
    ‘It looks . . . warm,’ Jess said, smiling, praying her mother would be nice. It was a dreadful dress. What had Sharon been thinking?
    ‘Try it on and let’s see how it looks,’ Sharon urged.
    ‘Aw, Shaz, are you kidding me?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘It’s like something my mother would have worn. No, actually, it’s more like something she’d have taken to the charity shop.’
    Jess winced. So much for prayers.
    ‘I told you she’d hate it,’ Bobby said.
    Suzie looked at him in surprise. ‘You were right.’
    ‘Mum, there’s no need to be rude,’ Jess protested, embarrassed by her mother’s candour.
    ‘It’s fine,’ Sharon said with a grim smile. ‘I’d offer to exchange it but obviously I have terrible taste. I’ll give you the receipt and you can change it
yourself.’
    ‘Sharon, she doesn’t mean it,’ Jess murmured.
    ‘I told her to get blue,’ Bobby said. ‘That colour is yuck.’
    ‘It is,’ Suzie agreed, examining the shapeless moss-green garment.
    ‘I need the loo.’ Sharon left the room,