Read Christmas at Tiffany's for Free Online

them each a glass and handing one to Kelly, who was kneeling on the floor (no table or dining chairs either) and pulling tiny cardboard boxes out of the bags.
    ‘Japanese. You’ve had it before, right?’ Kelly asked, glancing up at her.
    ‘Not especially. Chopsticks become lethal weapons in my hands.’
    ‘They become hair accessories in Anouk’s,’ Kelly replied. ‘Did you ever see those antique jade ones she bought at Christie’s?’ She sighed. ‘Stunning.’
    ‘Let’s face it, she doesn’t know any other way to be,’ Cassie said, looking down at her squashed thighs encased in the flannel pyjamas. Not a look Anouk would understand – or want to. She oozed chic the way other people ooze blood. Privately, Cassie wondered what it was going to be like staying with her in Paris. It had been a long time since school, when they’d lived in each other’s pockets, arms permanently linked, heads thrown back in laughter as they roared at private jokes. She wondered whether Anouk would be able to tolerate her still-persisting need for sleep and food and bed-socks. Out of all of the girls, Anouk’s life seemed the most alien, most foreign, most removed from Cassie’s.
    Kelly, on the other hand, for her all hyperactivity and brusque manner, was a kitten beneath it all, with a big heart that she endeavoured to keep hidden – protected – from all but her most trusted friends. For Cassie hadn’t been the only one to marry early. Not two years after Cassie’s marriage, Kelly had fallen hard for an insurance broker she’d met on holiday in St Lucia, and they’d married four weeks later, only for him to do a disappearing act with her bank savings when the IRS came calling for $2 million in back taxes. She never saw him again, and his lies – on top of his disappearance – had had a devastating effect on Kelly. He’d been the first man she’d ever loved and she’d given herself to him completely; and although she had long since moved on and had plenty of romances, none had ever endured beyond six months. Something in her had changed – the trust, the childish belief in One True Love, had gone. She changed her men with her handbags, often going on two, even three dates a night. In fact, she told Cassie now, as she opened the boxes, she was having cocktails with one guy later, at eleven, when Cassie would be tucked up in bed, sleeping off the jet lag and hangover.
    The very notion of meeting a near-stranger for drinks in the middle of the night was as alien to Cassie as the unidentifiable parcels of seaweed wraps and raw fish that were passing for dinner in Kelly’s hands. But she knew she had to try to embrace it. This was what it was to be a New Yorker. She had to get with the programme.

Chapter Two
     
    Twelve hours and sixteen minutes later, she was already lagging behind, wishing she was in Paris instead. They were running round the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and all Cassie could think about was getting back into her warm, soft truckle bed and lying in the recovery position. The training watch, which was attached to the heart-rate band beneath her bra, was bleeping and flashing red numbers at her, practically screaming at her to stop – something Kelly’s trainer Raoul was clearly never going to do.
    She did, and watched dismally as they began to pull away – again.
    ‘Guys! Guys!’ she panted, bending forwards so that her head was practically on her knees. ‘You go ahead!’ she gasped, waving them on.
    Kelly rounded back, jogging on the spot, a vision of perpetual energy in her silver and blue running kit. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, we’ll wait,’ she smiled, looking over at Raoul, who apparently whipped all the top catwalk models into shape and was looking distinctly underwhelmed by Cassie’s geriatric attempts.
    ‘Kell, you’ve been running for quarter of an hour now and your body isn’t even aware it’s moving yet!’ Cassie wheezed, tottering over to the nearest park bench. She