Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating Read Online Free

. . She always claimed to be busy, but was forever staring out of the window in a daze. And then there were her clothes. Underneath the cardigans and corduroy there was probably a perfectly decent figure; it was just drowning in wool. Where was the girl’s colour? Her vibrancy? And that hair! How old must Alice be? Twenties? Thirties? Audrey wasn’t sure. But she
was
sure that, whatever her age, Alice was too old for plaits. It was bad for business. The staff of a dating agency should be attractive, romantically successful individuals. Gentlemen clients should look at her girls and hope to be matched with a woman just like them.
    Audrey grimaced and returned to her emails. Today was a good day, she reminded herself. Not only were there fifteen more clients, but there was also the matter of this year’s Dating Practitioners’ Society annual ball . . . and only three weeks away! The ball was the highlight of Audrey’s year, and this one would be better than ever. Table For Two wasfinally catching up with Love Birds, its biggest rival, run by the dreadful Sheryl Toogood. The ball would give Audrey the chance to point out that Table For Two client numbers were up twenty-three per cent. She was sure Sheryl Toogood couldn’t come close to matching that, no matter how hard she bluffed it.
    And then there was John. She couldn’t wait to have him sitting at her side, attentive and urbane. She’d have to call Geraldine and make sure the date was in his diary. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t done so already. She’d attend to it tonight as a priority.
    There was a kerfuffle at the door and in came the rest of the Table For Two staff: Bianca and Cassandra, with Hilary, the website co-ordinator, puffing in their wake. Audrey frowned. Hilary was pregnant again, and getting larger by the day. She’d be disappearing on another stint of maternity leave soon, leaving Audrey with the double inconvenience of having to bankroll her baby-tending holiday
and
having to oversee Table For Two’s online dating service in her absence. She wasn’t sure which inconvenience irritated her the most.
    As the morning chit-chat swirled around the office, Audrey noticed Alice staring into the distance in a dream. She bristled. It was time to get her to pull her socks up. There was no room in the world of Audrey Cracknell, Audrey Cracknell told herself, for shirkers. And shirkers who looked like spinsters were even worse.



LOU

    ‘I’m going to do it,’ Kate declared defiantly on the other end of the phone. ‘And you should do it too.’
    ‘Wha . . . ?’ Lou groped for her watch by the side of her bed. ‘For fuck’s sake, Kate, what time is it? This had better be an emergency. Your mother had better have died.’
    ‘Five to nine,’ Kate replied matter-of-factly. Lou could hear the muted burble of the office in the background. Kate was an early riser and had probably already been at work for several hours. Lou was not what could be termed a morning person and had chosen a career in bar work specifically for the 11 a.m. starts.
    ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m going to do it.’
    Lou rubbed her eyes and fell heavily back onto her pillow.
    ‘Do what, you mad, sleep-wrecking cow?’ she yawned. She stretched out her hand to the other side of the bed. It was empty. With a wince she remembered last night.
    ‘Sign up to the Table For Two dating agency and meet the man of my dreams.’
    Lou made a strange noise, somewhere between a laugh, a yawn and a snort.
    ‘You
are
joking, right?’
    ‘Nope, I’m deadly serious. Their one-to-one personal service.’
    ‘Have you been drinking?’
    ‘Of course not; it’s five to nine!’
    Lou rubbed her eyes again. Some of last night’s make-up smeared across her face.
    ‘So let me get this straight. You took a bang to the head after leaving the bar last night, and you’ve woken up thinking that handing over God knows how many of your hard-earned pounds to that ginger-haired matron with knockers