The Mag Hags Read Online Free Page A

tornado.
    The girls pulled out the heavy wooden dining chairs, careful not to scrape the floorboards, which were so shiny you could actually see your knickers reflected in them. Belle served the girls lemon poppyseed cake and ginger ale that she poured from a crystal jug.
    Maggie noticed a rather beautiful painting of a radiant auburn-haired woman who had more than a passing resemblance to Belle, but even more surprising was the signature at the bottom: Corabelle . Maggie assumed it must have been somebody else; it was too professional to have been painted by a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.
    Just as they had finished their cake, a tall woman with long golden hair and wearing the tiniest pink frilly bikini poked her head around the door.
    â€˜Hello, Belle,’ she said, her pink lipstick dewy and shiny.
    â€˜Reanne.’ Belle’s mouth puckered as though she had just eaten something distasteful. ‘Been sitting around the pool all day again?’
    â€˜Aren’t you going to introduce me to your … friends?’ said Reanne, ignoring the question and walking in and plonking herself on the edge of the dining table.
    â€˜This is my magazine group – Wanda, Mand, Cat and Maggie,’ said Belle. ‘And this is my father’s, um, girlfriend Reanne.’
    â€˜Fiancée actually, soon to be Corabelle’s stepmother.’ Reanne stuck out her ring finger where a huge diamond glittered and sparkled. ‘I’ve been so stressed today. Your father’s taking me out to dinner tonight with some important clients and I’ve had to spend the entire day getting ready. I can’t tell you the hell I’ve been through. I had to buy a new dress, not to mention matching bag and shoes, get my nails and hair done, as well as my bikini line. Have you ever had your bikini line done? It kills –’
    â€˜Please, no, Reanne,’ said Belle, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re actually pretty busy ourselves – unlike some, we’ve got serious work to do.’
    â€˜Don’t have a cow,’ said Reanne, stomping off in a strop, the suntan oil from her thighs leaving a greasy stain on the mahogany table.
    Once Reanne had left the room, the girls started laughing.
    â€˜That’s going to be your stepmother?’ said Mand. ‘How old is she? She’s probably only just out of puberty!’
    â€˜She’s actually twenty-eight,’ replied Belle. ‘She’s only been seeing my dad for eleven months and begged him to marry her. She says that otherwise people will think she’s only after him for his money. It wouldn’t be so bad, but she’s as vacuous as an aeroplane sick bag.’
    Belle wanted her father to be happy, she really did, but she couldn’t help but question what he was doing with a woman half his age who never asked one question about anyone or anything. It was me, me, me, and me, oh yeah and me, and have I told you about me?
    Belle’s dad had met Reanne Rowles at a fashion show called ‘Bikini Jam’, put on as a fundraiser for the Baywood Surf Life Saving Club. Adrian had sponsored the event and Reanne was one of the bikini models. From their first date, they had been inseparable or, more accurately thought Belle, Reanne had dug her claws into Adrian like a tiger into a zebra after a kill. Now Belle hardly got to spend any time with her father. He always invited her along to their dinners but the thought of having to listen to Reanne blather for hours and hours about her favourite subject – herself – made Belle decline every invitation.
    â€˜She talks so much she makes my ears bleed,’ Belle told the girls. ‘When she moves in, it’s going to be a nightmare.It’s bad enough now, I never get to hang out with my dad by myself.’
    â€˜What’s she doing with your dad anyway,’ said Mand. ‘He’s old enough to be her –’
    â€˜It’s pretty obvious,