Twist Read Online Free Page A

Approximately everyone will buy a Sticky Hand.”
    Joan and Foster Oaks were walking along the catwalk now, holding hands.
    “Where’s the shutter button on this thing?” Harold asked.
    “Goddamn it, Harold!”
    But Harold was smiling.
    He passed the digital camera to Sal, who went to SLIDESHOW and clicked on it.
    Harold had managed to get photographs of Joan Plunket and Foster Oaks that were almost pornographic.
    Harold for you.

5
    B onnie realized she was walking too fast in this heat. Perspiration had soaked into her clothes and lay as a sheen on her arms.
    I must not smell so good. Hope he doesn’t notice.
    She slowed down and relaxed somewhat, thinking about Rob Masters. She’d met him two weeks ago at Grounds for Everything, a neighborhood coffee shop. They’d fallen into easy conversation. He was a sales rep for a line of furniture. Bonnie was a sales clerk in a bridal shop. Gowns ’n’ Gifts. Small world, both of them being in sales.
    “I didn’t think that many people still went in for large traditional weddings,” he’d said, over his vanilla latte.
    “You’d be surprised. There’s a big demand for gowns and bridesmaid dresses.”
    “Not to mention gifts.” He smiled. That was one of the things she liked most about him, his smile. It held nothing back, and was like a glimpse of something beautiful inside him. He was just . . . normal in the looks department, but you could trust a man who smiled like that.
    Or did it mean he was a terrific con man?
    After all, he was a salesman.
    He’d made a sale with Bonnie, because she suddenly wanted to see him, to be with him. A whim. She followed whims a lot. They seemed to work out for her.
    She entered Grounds, pleased to find that the coffee shop was coolly air conditioned. Maybe her clothes, her arms, would dry in the cooler air that wafted like a blessing across the floor and eddied about her ankles.
    And there he was, sitting at a booth near the window. He didn’t see her right away, and she found herself reassessing him. His looks grew on you. Sure, he wasn’t classically handsome, but he was a pleasant-featured man, seemingly at ease with himself and the world. Not a head-turner, but worth a second look. He was leaning back in the padded booth, his legs extended and crossed at the ankles.
    “The bridal gown beauty,” he said, noticing her approach.
    She nodded to him, smiling, and ordered a chocolate latte.
    Don’t throw yourself at him .
    She didn’t look his way again until she’d gotten her latte and moved toward the booth.
    “You keep marrying them,” he said, “and I’ll sell them furniture.” He sipped his latte and moved his legs out of the way so she could sit opposite him. “I often wondered, once the wedding and all the hoopla is over, what do women do with those bridal gowns?”
    Bonnie shrugged. “Mostly they put them in a box with white tissue paper and seldom look at them again. Sometimes they give them to their daughters to wear at their weddings.”
    Rob smiled. “Kinda nice.”
    “I think so.”
    “None of my business, but were you ever . . .”
    She knew what he meant and was pleased. She’d wanted him to wonder. Wanted to get it out in the open.
    “Married?” she said.
    The smile.
    “Once,” she said. “When I was nineteen. It lasted four months. It was—”
    “You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to pry.”
    “No, no, it’s okay. It was a mistake, is all. For both of us. We knew it and parted before any more damage was done.”
    “Damage being?”
    “Kids. Neither one of us would have made a good parent.”
    “Really?” He was looking directly at her, into her. “I admire your honesty.”
    “I have a temper,” she said.
    Now he was interested. “No kidding?”
    “Yeah. But it passes quickly. Like a summer storm. Still, I know I hurt people. I’d especially hurt a sensitive kid.”
    “Hurt physically, you mean?”
    “No, I didn’t mean that. But, to be honest, I guess it might be