Charlie Glass's Slippers (42 page)
Read Charlie Glass's Slippers Online
Authors: Holly McQueen
“Hey.” Ferdy stops kissing me and gazes down at me for a moment. He’s wearing a huge smile on his lovely soft lips, but a slightly puzzled frown on his forehead. “Am I going mad, Charlie, or didn’t you used to be taller than this?”
“In heels, yes.” I glance at my bare feet, grubby and slightly battered from the evening’s pounding of pavements and sitting around in hospital waiting rooms. “I dropped Mum’s crystal shoes somewhere last night.”
“Charlie! I’m sorry. Weren’t they your mum’s special shoes?”
“In a way.”
But the thing is, I can’t honestly remember an occasion
when I ever saw Mum wearing them. In fact, what I mostly remember, now that I’ve thought about it, is Mum getting them out of her wardrobe before her dinner parties, admiring them in their silvery tissue for a couple of moments, and then putting them away and deciding to go barefoot instead.
“Do you want me to help you go and look for them?” Ferdy asks. “Retrace your steps . . .”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. Thanks, though, Ferdy. Besides,” I add, as I reach up on my tiptoes so we can get on with some more of that heavenly kissing, “when all is said and done, it was only a pair of shoes, after all.”
acknowledgments
Many thanks to Sarah Cantin and Greer Hendricks for fabulous editorial advice and support. Also thanks to Clare Alexander, who helped steer this book through many choppy waters.
Thanks, too, to Dr. Linda Papadopoulos for her expert advice on body image and (many) long discussions about standards of female beauty.
Finally, thanks to Ed Rumsey for equally expert advice on rare and luxury sports cars. Any errors are mine alone.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at
There Goes the Bride
by Holly McQueen!
From:
[email protected]
Date:
December 24, 2011
Subject:
Help
Dear Julia,
I know it’s Christmas Eve. And I know you’re halfway up a mountain in Colorado right now, wowing your half million nephews and nieces with your snowboarding prowess. It’s almost ten at night here, so you’re probably right in the middle of your afternoon ski. So I’m really, really sorry to disturb you.
I’m only emailing because you said I should always get in touch when things are not good. And things are not good just now. They’re not good at all.
I’ve just run out on my sister’s Christmas party. I know, I know—I’m getting good at running out on things, aren’t I? And you're probably thinking,
oh, that doesn’t sound too big a deal. Polly’s told me all about her sister, Bella, and I can’t say I’m surprised she’s done a runner from a Christmas party of hers. Especially if Bella’s annoying boyfriend was there
(he was)
and especially if her mum was getting tipsy
(she was)
and especially if Bella and her dad were engaging in competitive one-upmanship over the
best way to heat up sausage rolls
(they were).
Anybody would make a sharp exit from a party like that!
But none of those things were the reason I left.
The surprise guest was the reason I left. Bella invited Dev. That’s right. Dev.
I’ve no idea what she was thinking. Actually, what am I saying? This is Bella we’re talking about. I know exactly what she was thinking. That one look at Dev and I’d realize the error of my ways, and the wedding would be back on before you could say “Canapés, champagne, and a sit-down buffet for a hundred and thirty!” This is the way my sister’s mind works. Something goes wrong, you just pull your sleeves up and fix it.
I call off my wedding to the love of my life, she just pulls up her sleeves and fixes it.
But there isn’t any fixing this, Julia. There isn’t any fixing me. There isn’t any fixing of the things I’ve done.
Oh, shit, Dev is calling me. He’s calling me RIGHT NOW.
I’m not going to answer. I’ve not answered his calls in six weeks. I don’t need to start now.
Oh, thank God, it’s stopped.
Look, if you do happen to get this, maybe you could give me a call? Drop me an email, even, with some of your much-needed pearls of wisdom? Either way, I’d be so gratef
OK, now Dev is calling me again.
This time he’s doing our Code. Two rings, hang up. Two rings, hang up. He used to do it when he was calling me from work and his landline number would come up Withheld. I have a habit
of screening calls, you see—too many years spent owing people money or forgetting to pay my bills—but I’d always want to pick up if it was him.
I suppose, if I’m being honest, I want to pick up right now.
Maybe it’s because he did our Code. Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas. Maybe it’s because he looked so lovely, standing on Bella’s doorstep, wearing the coat I picked out for him in the sale last January, and the check scarf we bought to keep out the unseasonable cold when we spent this past Easter in Vermont. Maybe it’s because I feel so bad about running away from him earlier. About running away from him at all.
And there are things—you know, Julia, what things—that I know I owe it to him to explain. Seeing him tonight, even just for a couple of moments, seeing him all Dev-like and cozy in his coat and his scarf . . . it made me wonder if he just might understand after all.
Two rings again, now silence.
Right, here’s what I’m going to do. If he rings again, I’ll take it as a sign. And I’ll pick up. Even though you’re not here to advise me what to do, I’ll pick up. Just to talk to him. And maybe I won’t explain anything. Maybe I’ll just listen to his voic
OK, it’s ringing again. Got to go.
Love
Polly x
ALSO BY HOLLY McQUEEN
The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder
Fabulously Fashionable
Confetti Confidential
There Goes the Bride
about the author
Photo Credit: Holly McQueen
Holly McQueen is the author of four novels—
The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder
,
Fabulously Fashionable
,
Confetti Confidential
, and
There Goes the Bride
. She lives in London with her husband.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
authors.simonandschuster.com/Holly-McQueen
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Angela Woolfe
A slightly different version of this work was originally published as
The Surprising Life of Charlie Glass
in 2013 in Great Britain by Arrow Books.
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Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe
Cover design By Anna Dorfman
Cover photographs © Image Source/Photodisc/Getty Images (Shoes); 3Dimentii/Shutterstock (Legs); Sofia Andreevna/Shutterstock (Dress)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McQueen, Holly.
Charlie Glass’s slippers : a very modern fairy tale / by Holly McQueen.—First Atria books trade paperback edition.
pages cm
1. Businesswomen—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Maturation (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Shoe industry—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6113.C5868C43 2014
823'.92—dc23
2013036471
ISBN 978-1-4767-2705-9
ISBN 978-1-4767-2706-6 (ebook)
Contents