The Personal Shopper Read Online Free Page B

the call came, she’d be able to play for time. But Annie happily scribbled the number down knowing perfectly well that on the phone, she would win.
    ‘C’mon.’ Becca dived for a change of subject. ‘I want to get Eric’s teacher out of the way first. Shall we go up to   Godzilla’s room together?’
    ‘Don’t,’ Annie warned her. ‘I’ll probably shake her by the hand and call her that.’
    Lana’s, and therefore Eric’s, current form teacher was the school battleaxe: the kind of dragon who roared just for the sake of roaring and enjoyed sending children scurrying away in fear.
    ‘Eric!’ Becca called to her husband, Eric senior, a red-faced man stuffed into a pinstriped suit. ‘This way. Let’s get started.’
    Upstairs in the corridors and in the classrooms, parents were milling, looking at the artwork on the walls (‘ Gosh, Jessamy’s showing so much talent, look at the brush strokes. We should take her to Florence for the summer holidays. She should be inspired by the masters ’); leafing through jotters and textbooks (‘ Isaac’s just brilliant at maths . . . look at this, he hasn’t set a foot wrong. The Kumon classes after school were worth every penny ’); waiting for their turn to speak to the form teachers (‘ George already thinks she’s Oxbridge material . . . that’s right, she’s ten in April . . . but she already reads Dickens. Oh? Henry’s on to James Joyce? ’)
    At St Vincent’s, parents were very, very interested in how their children were doing and never missed the opportunity for a progress report.
    ‘Jill!’ Annie tapped the shoulder of one of the mothers, who had recently become a client of hers. ‘Look at you! Lovely.’ She smiled, appreciating Jill from head to toe, taking in the caramel mac they’d bought together, the gorgeous velvet scarf tied just so, and the confident Bobbi Brown glow on Jill’s face.
    Smiling back, Jill said: ‘Thank you,’ just as Annie had taught her: ‘ Thank you is enough, no more “oh this old thing?” or “I just threw this on” or “I ran backwards through a bush on my way over here” . . . or whatever else you used to say in response to compliments .’
    After several minutes of chat, Jill pointed surreptitiously and whispered to Annie: ‘There’s Tor! Tor Flemin g. She’s been completely stuffed in the divorce: Richard’s keeping the house, he gets joint custody of Angela with all the plum holiday weeks and Tor doesn’t even g et an allowance. Totally stuffed . I think she’s going to fall apart. Look at her. No-one needs you more than her, Annie.’
    Annie followed the discreetly pointed finger to the mother of one of Lana’s classmates. Poor Tor. Her bare, exhausted face hovered above a shapeless pale blue anorak and beneath a scruffy mid-brown bob with a tragic grey parting. Worst of all, Richard – tall, handsome and commanding, expensive navy blue overcoat, smart golfing umbrella to hand – was several steps ahead of her, scrutinizing a painting on the wall with too much interest. They’d obviously decided to put Angela first and come to this evening together.
    Annie bustled forward, straight past Richard with an effusive ‘Tor! How are you? I haven’t seen you for ages, you’ve got to come round . . .’
    Soon enough, it was Annie’s turn to pull up the chair   opposite Lana’s form teacher, the feared fifty-something, super-strict Miss Gordanza.
    After a curt hello, Miss Gordanza turned to the three pages of typed notes she had on her desk about Lana – and term was only in its first half.
    ‘Well, Mrs Valentine, there were certainly some difficulties with Lana in the run-up to Christmas,’ Miss Gordanza began, adjusting purple cat’s-eye spectacles on her over-powdered, pointed nose.
    ‘Difficulties’ was putting it mildly. Lana and her gang of friends had egged each other on to play a series of   increasingly daring and dodgy pranks throughout the   Christmas term: raw fish hidden in