Read Over You for Free Online Page B

might scrub up nicely in a suit . . .’
    Lisa rolled her eyes. ‘God! I’m not desperate, you two. Leave it out!’
    ‘Nobody said you were desperate!’ Nell retorted. ‘We were only having a laugh.’
    ‘Yes, but . . . Oh never mind,’ Lisa said. Her mouth twitched as if she wanted to say something else, but she fell silent.
    ‘What’s everyone after today then?’ Josie asked, changing the subject. ‘Shopping-wise, I mean,’ she added quickly, in case Lisa thought she was still talking about men.
    ‘Summer dresses,’ Nell said, running her hand through a rack of colourful strappy numbers on a nearby stall. ‘These are nice, aren’t they?’
    Josie paused to rummage through a pile of tops on a table. ‘I like this,’ she said, holding up a smocky kind of top, with a drawstring scoop neck and floaty sleeves.
    Lisa wrinkled her nose. ‘Bit mumsy,’ she said dismissively, turning to a tray of sunglasses.
    Josie felt her cheeks flame. Mumsy – was that Lisa putting her in her place? She tried to pretend she hadn’t heard. ‘I don’t really wear pretty things like this any more,’ she said. ‘It’s practical all the way these days. Jeans, jeans and more jeans. And boring old tops that can be washed two hundred times without falling apart.’
    Lisa was trying on some sunglasses in front of a mirror and pouting at herself. ‘God, I couldn’t bear that,’ she said. ‘Don’t you get sick of it?’
    Josie shrugged. ‘I suppose,’ she said. To be honest, though, she hardly thought about what she wore. She had enough to do every morning, getting the boys fed and dressed, without stopping to agonize over which outfit to put together for that day. Which was why, more often than not, she grabbed whatever was on top of the clean-washing pile.
    She put the scoop-necked top back on the pile and turned away from it. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she needed to dress up like a mannequin every day, was it? She was hardly out there on the pull any more, trying to dazzle the guys with her shag-me outfits. She’d done all that and got through to the other side, husband in tow, hadn’t she?
    She saw a rail of skirts in bright jewel colours and felt a wistfulness steal over her. Back when she’d been a designer, she’d worn clothes like that. Loud, look-at-me clothes. You could get away with wearing quirky, funky stuff and statement jewellery if you were a designer. In fact, she could even remember lying in bed in the mornings, not being able to throw off the duvet until she’d planned exactly which ensemble she was going to wear. It had all mattered so much then. Her clothes had defined her. She had cared.
    They made their way slowly through the market, past the jewellery stalls, the painted crockery, the mosaic-framed mirrors, the decorated light-bulbs and kooky hat stalls. Nell bought some flip-flops with large pink flowers over the toe straps. Lisa bought a bottle-green vase for her sister’s birthday present. Josie bought two painted wooden dinosaurs for the boys and a retro silver clock to go in the kitchen. The boys had broken the last one with a badly aimed Frisbee that came in through the back door.
    The sun had emerged from the clouds and was glinting off the canal. Josie was carrying her coat as well as her overnight bag, and suddenly felt hot and tired. ‘Anyone want coffee?’ she asked hopefully as they passed a stall.
    ‘Definitely,’ Nell said. She was laden with her coat and bag too, and was fanning herself with one of her new flip-flops. ‘Good idea.’
    ‘Could you get me a latte?’ Lisa asked, pressing a two-pound coin into Josie’s hand. She was holding her BlackBerry. ‘I’m just going to send a quick email to the States. Something’s come up.’
    ‘Sure,’ Josie said, rather taken aback that Lisa was still together enough to even think about work, three beers into a sunny Saturday afternoon.
    She and Nell joined the queue for coffee, as Lisa perched gingerly on a metal chair nearby