Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [158]
Fenn, taking Mattie from her, said, `Like changing into a clean sweater.'
`Is he always this bossy?' Miranda rolled her eyes. `Because if you decide you can't stand it a minute longer, you could always run away, you know, come back and live with me.'
Fenn swiftly fastened Mattie into her car seat in the back of the new Volvo. The days of the black Lotus had long gone. Chloe smiled.
`Thanks, but I think I'll stay where I am.'
Envying them for being so happy, Miranda stood and waved until the dark-green Volvo was out of sight. She turned and made her way back into the house, catching a whiff of baby-sick as she went.
Right, now what?
Apart from stripping off her sweater, which appeared to be a bit of a must.
Chapter 62
In Miranda's experience, when heroines in slushy films found themselves depressed and with too much time on their hands, they always seemed to find something deeply worthy and constructive to do in the way of housework. Miranda, who wasn't heroic in any shape or form, had noticed this and decided they must be barking mad. If you were miserable, doing something as awful as scrubbing the kitchen floor was only going to make you feel much worse, surely. Any fool could see that.
Anyway, what on earth was the point of cleaning the house when Florence had just jetted off for a month and nobody was going to see it?
Miranda tapped her fingers fretfully against the telephone, then punched out Bev's number. How often had Bev been at a loose end on a Sunday and rung her, to suggest going out somewhere nice - i.e. containing plenty of men - for lunch?
But the phone rang and rang. Bev wasn't there. Of course she isn't, thought Miranda as she hung up, she's over at Johnnie's being all happy and coupley and so lovey-dovey it made you want to be sick.
Honestly, talk about ingratitude. You take the trouble to sort out your friends' hopeless lives for them, you find them their perfect partners… and the next thing you know, they've swanned off into happy-ever-after-land without so much as a by-your-leave. Huh, you'd be lucky to get a postcard.
If it wasn't for me, Miranda thought, Bev would never have met Johnnie in the first place. And Fenn wouldn't have met Chloe. Indignantly, she pulled her jersey over her head, bundled it up and flung it in the direction of the stairs.
Typical, as long as they're all right, that' s all that jolly well matters.
Never mind me.
When the doorbell rang an hour later, Miranda knew that whoever was at the door, she really didn't want to see them.
Sprawling across the sofa in front of the TV, plucking your eyebrows whilst watching Little House on the Prairie, was possibly the most effective method going if you were desperate for that white-rabbit-struggling-to-breakin-a-newpair-of-contact-lenses look.
Oh yes, massively flattering, thought Miranda, surveying the result in her eyebrow-plucking mirror and making the unhappy discovery that her eyes exactly matched her Germolene-pink thermal vest. Of course I'm going to open the door and frighten whoever's on the doorstep witless.
The doorbell rang again.
She ignored it.
It rang for the third time.
Miranda crawled across the sitting room floor and up on to the window seat, inching her eyes over the window ledge like a sniper in the forest…
And came face to face through the glass with Danny Delancey.
Hugely embarrassed, imagining how silly she must look, Miranda instantly ducked down again.
`Too late, Miranda.' Danny, his voice carrying clearly through the closed window, didn't bother to hide his amusement. `I looked just now and saw you with your big bottom in the air, wiggling across the carpet.'
Yanking the front door open, clutching her coat around her. Miranda said indignantly, `I do not have a big bottom.' As an afterthought she added, `And even if I did, it wouldn't matter. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a big bottom.'
Not that she wanted one herself - no thanks very much - but it seemed only sisterly to make the point. After all, Chloe's bottom wasn't what you'd call petite and Fenn seemed pretty