Read Annie Seymour 01-Sacred Cows for Free Online Page A

was born, or at least that’s what they say, and some idiot’s getting chain pizza.
    Someone was peering through the front window as I sat sideways in the last booth waiting for my pizza, and when I squinted, I could make out familiar features. It was that guy again, the winking guy. He looked like he wanted to come in, but when he saw me looking, he turned and disappeared. I glanced at the kitchen. It would probably be a few minutes before my pie was ready. I went outside.
    He was moving down the sidewalk at a fast clip and turned into Libby’s, probably for cookies and a cappuccino if he had any sense. Flo knocked on the window. I went back inside.
    “Thanks,” I said as I took the box, glaring at the Sinatra portrait as if it had something to do with the mystery man.
    He wasn’t there. In Libby’s, I mean. I risked getting my clam pizza cold so I could check it out. I shrugged and walked back to my building.
    As I put my key in the lock, the phone began to ring. I rushed inside; it was probably a copy editor with a question about the story. I hadn’t hung around while anyone read it, I was too tired and said I’d be home within a half hour.
    “Hello.”
    “So you’re home.” It was my mother. No, oh, hello, dear, how are you doing? It was going to be a guilt trip about something, something I probably either didn’t do or didn’t remember. I brought the phone over to the refrigerator and reached in for a beer. Nothing like a beer with clam pizza topped with guilt. Maybe I should get caller ID.
    “It’s been a long day,” I tried, knowing it wasn’t going to work.
    “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
    “I’ve been really busy at work. And it’s going to be really busy for a while. You heard about the Yalie?” I took a bite of pizza, although I couldn’t truly enjoy it as I’d hoped.
    “Oh, the poor girl. Yes, of course I heard. It’s all over the firm. Her parents called us, you know.”
    My mother went back to school after she divorced my father and became a lawyer. A good one. One of the best attorneys in the city, one who always managed to win her cases. And one who always managed to catch me off guard.
    “What?”
    “The family of that poor girl. They want to sue Yale. But you can’t print that, it’s just a mother telling a daughter something in confidence.”
    Bullshit. It was a savvy attorney giving her reporter daughter a big fucking tip that had to be off the record. It pissed me off.
    “Don’t get upset, dear. Nothing’s in stone yet.”
    But just the fact that they called . . . I had no chance in hell of getting this until everyone else did. A useless cop for a boyfriend, a useless mother. What more did a girl need?
    The pizza was growing cold. “What did you want?”
    “When?” She was smart but could be fairly obtuse at times.
    “Why were you trying to reach me?”
    “Oh, yes, that. I’m having a dinner party Saturday night and would love it if you came.”
    One of my mother’s dinner parties was the last thing I needed right now. “I’m going to be working on this story, probably all weekend.”
    “Which is why you need a break, something fun to get your mind off it for a few hours.” She always had an answer.
    I wanted to tell her I didn’t want to go. But that would have been unacceptable. I thought about the black dress I’d worn the night before. Was it just last night? At least I had something to wear. “What time?” I was too tired to argue, too tired to try to come up with another excuse, even though I knew the evening would hardly be “fun.”
    “Eight o’clock.” I could hear her smile, thrilled with yet another success. “Someone’s going to be there I want you to meet.”
    Oh, God, it was another man. There had been many of them the last few years, lined up at these parties, dressed-up, good-looking men who were smart, funny, could make good conversation. I hated them all, plastic versions of each other, all run off the Ken assembly