The Spinster Sisters Read Online Free Page A

boys home to meet Ruth and Shirley was not a good plan. My aunts are the kind of older women whose laughter is so infectious, stories so entertaining, cooking so delicious, that they seduce everyone who meets them, and that makes giving a guy the boot that much more difficult. Guys always tried to win over the aunts in order to more firmly ensconce themselves in my life, and that makes things messy when you tire of their attentions. I hate messy.
    I made the rule hard and fast after I came home one afternoon to find a recently exed boy sitting in my aunts’ parlor, playing three-handed gin and scarfing down vanilla tea cakes with Ruth smirking and Shirley beaming. I think, though they would never tell me so, that they are split on their hopes for my romantic future. Ruth, I believe, is thrilled that I am following in her stilletoed footsteps, never without a decent bit of male companionship but not attempting to secure a permanent future for anyone but myself. Shirley was sadder to see my marriage end and would like to have me find someone the way Jill has, someone she can cook for. I think deep down she may be somewhat regretful that after breaking off her engagement to Mr. Not Right Enough, that the one she was saving herself for never showed.
    “Fine, fine,” Abbot says, resigned. “You make the rules.” He smirks at me, as if he knows that someday he will break me down.
    “Yep, I do.” I smirk back at him, knowing that he won’t ever succeed. “C’mon lover, I’ll walk you out.”
    I escort him to the back door off my kitchen. He shakes his head.
    “Really, darling, this back door business bothers me. Why on earth can’t I leave from the front like a normal human being? It makes the whole thing feel so illicit.”
    “First, because the last thing I need is Jill bumping into you when she gets home from work or the aunts catching you on your way out. And for your information, sex at three o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday is reasonably illicit for those of us running businesses. Walk it off.” I kiss him and open the door. Then I put my tough-girl persona aside for a moment. “Thanks for a lovely afternoon, Abbot, really. You are the best abductor ever.” I turn my face up to him.
    He leans over and kisses my lips softly. “Thank you back. I rely heavily on the Stockholm syndrome for your complicity. Dinner Saturday?”
    I mentally look at my BlackBerry screen for Saturday. Full up. “Can’t. How about Tuesday?”
    He shakes his head, assuming appropriately that I have another date, but with the good taste not to pry. “Done. I’ll make us a reservation at MK.”
    “My favorite. I’ll speak with you over the weekend sometime.” I hold the door open for him.
    “Okay. Have a good cocktail hour.”
    “Will do.” He cups my face in his hands, kisses me deeply, then turns away. I watch his silvery hair disappear down the back stairs and then head back inside.
    My own hair, a mop of brown curls, has not fared nearly so well from the afternoon’s attentions. It looks very much as if I have attempted to comb it with an electric mixer. I check the clock: 4:42. Gotta boogie. I jump in the shower, wet my hair down, and give myself a thorough scrub. I have that slightly bruised postsex feeling that makes me feel so alive. As if every inch of my skin is attuned to some mild electric charge in the air. After a quick towel-dry, the hair goes up in a ponytail, I jump into a pair of lounging pants and a sweater, throw on my slippers, and head downstairs. On the second-floor landing, I knock on Jill’s door.
    “It’s open . . . ,” she calls out. I open the door.
    “Cocktail time, let’s go,” I say. She appears from out of her bedroom. She is wearing a cute outfit: little gray tweed skirt, lavender blouse, fabulous bronzed leather boots. Her hair, which unlike mine is just sort of gently and perfectly wavy and never, damn her eyes, frizzy, is tucked behind her ears as usual. Simple makeup, our