Read Spin Cycle for Free Online

. . . right,” he said.
    She turned and headed toward the kitchen. He followed.
    “So you a friend of Xantia’s, then?” he said breezily.
    Blimey, Rachel thought, I catch him ogling my tits and he doesn’t even have the decency to look awkward—just carries on as if nothing’s happened.
    “Nope, just the cleaner,” she replied, keeping her back to him in order to make it crystal clear she had no intention of getting into matey banter with him.
    “Oh, I see,” he said.
    He put his toolbox on the floor, took off his jacket and crouched down in front of the machine. The Wiener 2500 was a brushed aluminum washer-dryer of Laundromat proportions that cost thousands and had to be especially imported from Stuttgart.
    “So what seems to be the trouble?” he asked, looking up at her. She explained about the castanets.
    “Probably just needs a few squirts of Oil of Olé.” He looked up at her, grinned and began rolling up the sleeve of his denim shirt.
    Right, she thought, he wasn’t only a letch, he was a smart arse too.
    “You reckon?” she said. Her lips had formed a thin smile.
    “No, not really,” he chortled, “just a joke. Look, don’t worry. You just put the kettle on and I’ll have you sorted in no time.”
    Typical workman, she thought. First he ogles my tits then he starts demanding bloody tea. He was the kind of cocky git, she decided, who rang “Dial-a-Prayer” and asked for his messages.
    “Perhaps you’d like a nice toasted tea cake with that.”
    “Oh God. No, sorry,” he shot back. “You said you were cold that’s all. I thought a hot drink might warm you up. I wasn’t suggesting or even asking . . .”
    “Course you weren’t,” Rachel said flatly.
    “No, really . . .”
    Apparently deciding to give up his feeble protest, he turned back to the machine, released the catch and stuck his head inside the drum.
    “So what do you think might be the matter with it?” Rachel asked.
    “Probably got a foreign body in the works,” he said. “I find all sorts.”
    “Yeah, like lipsticks, jewelry, bottles of nail varnish?” she said in a barely audible murmur.
    He carried on poking around inside the machine.
    “OK,” he said eventually, his head emerging from the drum. “Can’t tell till I get the back off, but I might have to send off for a new part.”
    She nodded, noting that neither the name of the part nor its purpose was forthcoming. He clearly thought she was too much of a bubble brain to take it in. She watched him stand up and hoick his baggy Levi’s back to his waist. Two minutes from now, she thought, he’d be dragging the machine out from the wall, all exposed beer gut and hairy arse cleavage saying, “I mean take my girlfriend, for example. Loses everything. Mind you, she’s about as bright as Alaska in December. If a form says ‘sign here,’ she writes ‘Capricorn.’ ”
    “If you don’t mind,” Rachel told him, “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve still got masses left to do upstairs.”
    * * * * *
    She had just finished putting fresh linen on Xantia and Otto’s bed when the phone rang. Her first thought was to let the answer machine pick up. Then she remembered she’d given the Marxes’ number to her mother and to Sam’s school in case of emergencies. Feeling a sudden swell of maternal panic, she shuffle-bottomed across the bed and snatched at the receiver.
    “Hello?”
    “Rachel, thank God I got you. It’s me. I’m at Hylda Klompus.”
    “Mum,” she said, “I gave you this number for emergencies.”
    “But darling, this is an emergency. A catering emergency.”
    “Sorry,” Rachel said, frowning in confusion, “I’m not with you.” She maneuvered herself so that she was now sitting on the edge of the bed.
    “Look,” Faye said, sounding distinctly harassed. “All I want to know is whether you’d prefer profiteroles or crêpes with hot cherries for dessert. Of course if you went for the profiteroles then the cream would have to be nondairy—if