Running in Heels by Anna Maxted

it is switched off. So I call his home again and again and again, hitting Redial with my leaky finger like a broken robot.
    On the sixteenth attempt he answers. “Did you just get in?” I blurt. (Good grief, what if he was in the bath all this time? And why do I only think of these possibilities after I’ve pressed the nuclear button?)
    â€œJust,” he replies.
    â€œCan I come round?” I breathe, sliding to the floor with wobbly relief.
    Chris hesitates and says, “I’ve got a bit of a mad one.”
    And you’re speaking to her, dear. I squeeze my hand into a fist and keep my tone breezy. “I can tag along,” I sing as if I am not standing in a lions’ den and his thumb signal, up or down, makes no odds to me.
    After what seems like an age, he laughs and says, “I can’t resist you, princess. Yeah, go on then.” I take down his address, then smirk into the pale blue silence. Babs is mistaken. I can say no to my mother. I can say no to everyone.

8
    IF YOU DATE A MAN FOR A YEAR AND HE DOESN’T propose, dump him. He’s wasting your time. When I was twenty my mother told me this every other day (not realizing that the whole point of under-twenty-one dating is to waste your time). But now that I’m twenty-six and galloping headlong toward forty, she is a lot less rash. Which means that when I confess the life-shattering truth about Saul over a Sunday morning coffee at Louis Patisserie in Swiss Cottage, her mouth turns downward in such a droop of dismay, it prompts the elderlywaitress to ask if there is something amiss with her almond croissant.
    â€œSo, so who…” Even my mother, who has the social delicacy of a dog in heat, cannot bring herself to complete the mystery-condom question. We each crumble our food and die a million deaths in our heads. (Although my food proves hard to crumble—without asking, my mother has ordered me a large yellow sweating Danish pastry, a garish confection that might have appealed to me when I was five and a half years old.)
    â€œSo who what?” mumbles Tony, through a mouthful of apple cake. He is wearing Moschino sunglasses and last night’s Gianni Versace shirt and vintage Levi’s. (“Mad night at the Met,” he explained loudly on arrival, “with Noel Gallagher”—a boast sadly lost on the patisserie clientele, who might have been impressed had Tony’s mad night taken place at Blooms with Neil Sedaka.)
    â€œThe thing is, Saul and I weren’t really suited,” I say apologetically. “But I am seeing a lovely new man.” (And if my mother chooses to interpret “new” man as “does the ironing, attends a men’s group, discusses his emotions freely” rather than “recent,” that’s fine by me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if she’s processed the information that far.)
    She twitches. “You don’t look after yourself,” she says eventually. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Look at you! You look a state.”
    This is an old trick of hers. If she disapproves of something I’ve said she won’t acknowledge I’ve said it. Instead, she’ll pick on me for something unrelated. Then, when the insult has simmered and my self-esteem is zero, she’ll pounce on my original statement and tear it to bits. (I believe terrorist organizations deal with their hostages on the same principles.)
    Tony lifts his dark glasses. I stare back anxiously, because yesterday Chris told me I dressed like a librarian and hauled me to Urban Outfitters, where he encouraged me to choose a yellowT-shirt with a picture of a tiger on it and a voluminous gray skirt made from tent material.
    â€œ Ye-es ,” says Tony approvingly, “but she looks a designer state.”
    I smile gratefully at my brother. Our Sunday morning patisserie meetings once a month are always a trial, but they are family tradition.