Read Spin Cycle for Free Online Page A

we had chicken for a main course that is . . . then again we could go for the kosher Chinese option. You know, spring rolls, mango chicken . . .”
    “Mum, slow down. I’m finding this about as easy to follow as the
Oberammergau Passion Play
.”
    “Hylda says she’s got a Sunday at the end of April that nobody’s taken yet, and she’ll give us twenty percent off if we book now.”
    “Mum, please. Book what?”
    “The reception, sweetie. Yours and Adam’s.”
    “Our reception,” Rachel repeated tonelessly.
    “Yes. Look, I’m in Hylda’s lounge. She’s gone off to make coffee. If we’re thinking about a spring wedding, we have to make some quick decisions.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Listen, Rachel, you can’t go wrong with Hylda Klompus. She did your cousin Geoffrey’s bar mitzvah in 1974. Wonderful melon balls. Not too ripe. She’s over eighty now, but believe me she can still buffet with the best of them . . . Rachel? Please, speak to me.”
    Rachel let out a long slow breath.
    “Mum,” she said, doing her level best to control her exasperation, “I told you Adam and I weren’t going to discuss wedding dates until he got back from South Africa.”
    “I know. But you ended up saying you would think about whether to have a spring or summer wedding.”
    “Yes, think about. That doesn’t give you carte blanche to go organizing receptions without discussing it with us first . . . I don’t believe this. I bet you’ve told the entire neighborhood Adam and I are getting married next spring. You have, haven’t you?”
    “I haven’t. Honest . . . I mean, naturally I mentioned it to your father. And all right, I may have mentioned it in passing yesterday to the girl who waxed my bikini line, but Rachel, she’s from Chechnya, barely speaks English. Who’s she going to tell?”
    Rachel shook her head slowly. “Mum, please . . . you can’t start making wedding plans until Adam and I give the go-ahead. Just say thank you to Hylda whatsit and tell her you’ll be in touch soon. Now then, I’ve got to go. The washing machine repairman’s downstairs and I ought to check how he’s getting on. I’ll phone you tonight. In the meantime please, please promise me you won’t book anything.”
    “But, darling, what about Hylda’s twenty percent discount? Personally I think we should grab it. I mean, if you don’t like the Chinese idea we could think about poached salmon. A bit uninspired maybe, but it always goes down well. . . .”
    “Mum,” Rachel said gently, but firmly.
    “OK, darling. I promise.”
    * * * * *
    Rachel walked slowly down the glass stairs, replaying the conversation with her mother and hoping she hadn’t been too hard on her. Maddening as Faye could be, she meant well. It was a few moments before she got to the bit where Faye had mentioned waxing her bikini line. Rachel frowned.
    “What?” she muttered out loud. “She’s waxing? At her age?” In the thirty-four years she’d known her mother, Faye had never once mentioned owning a bikini line, let alone one she needed to wax. What was more, Rachel had always thought that when women reached Faye’s age things started to get a bit thin on the ground down there.
    “Every other sixty-something woman starts losing it,” she said to herself, “and my mother suddenly develops Velcro inner thighs.” She reached the hallway. As she wandered into the kitchen, she was still puzzling about the cause of her mother’s newfound pubic circumstances.
    “Unbalanced load,” Matt Clapton declared, turning to smile at her as he finished putting away the last of his tools.
    It was a moment or two before she realized he was referring to the washing machine and not her mother’s hormones.
    “So,” she said, having quickly gathered her thoughts and feeling overcome by a powerful, almost childlike need to display her wit to this berk with his smug, self-satisfied smile. “Is that ‘unbalanced’ as in demented, unhinged and in