"Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

She came back into the living room and curled up on the other end of the sofa,
tucking her bare feet up under her. "Dinner out, the three of us and Connie." Connie
was our other friend from school who'd moved up here with Gemma and Marcia.
When she got married and moved out, the other two invited me to come to New
York.

"What's the special occasion?"

"I have news." Her expression remained enigmatic, and I knew Gemma well enough
to know that I wouldn't get any more than that out of her until she was ready to spill.
My stomach tightened up into a knot. I wondered if my worst fears were about to
come true. She wasn't dating anyone seriously, so I doubted she was getting married
and moving out, but maybe she'd been promoted and was moving to a loft in SoHo
or someplace infinitely more fashionable than our dingy little apartment.
"Is there a reason I need to dress up?" I asked. It was hard enough to choose one
outfit a day.

"It never hurts to make every outing into an occasion. You never know who you'll
run into." Gemma was our self-declared social director, determined to make the rest
of us experience life in New York to the fullest. Otherwise, she insisted, we might as
well have just found jobs in Dallas or Houston.

She was right, though. You never knew who you'd run into, like movie stars or
musicians. Or Mr. Right from the subway, who might live nearby, even if he was a
little weird. I got up and headed back to the bedroom. "Any suggestions?"

She bounced to her feet. This was her area of expertise. After all, she did work in the
fashion industry.

By the time Marcia got home we were both dressed to kill. Wearing a borrowed
sweater of Gemma's, I felt almost glamorous, even though I knew I was a total plain
Jane next to the rest of the crowd. I certainly wasn't unattractive, but I was extremely
ordinary. I wasn't short enough to be delicate and petite like Connie, and I wasn't tall
enough to be striking like Gemma. My hair was somewhere between blond and
brunette, not short, but not long, and my eyes weren't quite green, but not quite blue,
either. On the bright side, if I ever staged an armed robbery, witnesses would have a
hard time giving an accurate description that didn't sound like half the city.

While Marcia changed clothes, Connie showed up. She was all a-bubble, which
made me suspect that whatever Gemma was up to, Connie was in on it. That made
me relax ever so slightly. It probably had something to do with setting all of us up on
blind dates. That wasn't my idea of fun, but it was better than suddenly having to
come up with an extra couple of hundred bucks a month because Gemma was
moving out.

We got a sidewalk table at a little cafe on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.
Gemma ordered the first round of drinks. "This round's on me," she insisted. That
meant she was really up to something.