Second Shot by Zoe Sharp Page B

of unsuitable boyfriend. I suddenly felt very old.
    “OK, he
seemed
very nice. Friendly. So, he flirted with me? So what?”
    “Simone, he could have been anyone,” I said tiredly. “His sole purpose could have been to lure you out of there and I can’t believe he succeeded so easily.”
    “Oh yeah, sure, because of course I’m so ugly that no
normal
guy could possibly like me just for myself!” she shot back, bitter. “I liked him,” she added, voice lower now.
    “Enough to leave Ella on her own to go for a quiet stroll with him?” I said, and couldn’t quite keep the bite out of my voice.
    Simone’s eyes flashed a warning:
Don’t criticize the way I bring up my daughter. “
Ella was fine. She wouldn’t have moved from the sea lion enclosure until I came back for her.”
    And you know this because
…
you’ve left her alone like that before?
    I knew I was staring. I could see Simone gathering herself for a fullblown argument, and that was going to do us no good at all. However much I disapproved of Simone’s parental style, it had worked for her this far and there wasn’t much I could do about the past. The immediate future, however, was my responsibility
    “Look, I know this is difficult for you—both of you,” I said, as gently as I could, trying a smile. It crashed and burned on both of them. I sighed. “I know you don’t like it, Simone, but you just have to accept that things are very different now. You may have thought that this money wasn’t going to change you, and maybe it won’t, but everything around you has changed instead. It’s just up to you to make it a pleasure, not a burden.”
    She let her breath out fast down her nose, a habit I was getting used to. “OK,” she said at last with the barest hint of a smile. “But now we’re away from … England,” she added, checking Ella’s reaction, “surely there’s no real danger, is there? Nobody knows us here.”
    “Probably not, but I’m paid not to take chances.”
    She paused, seemed to consider that for a moment. “OK,” she said again. “I’ll try not to make your life difficult.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And in return,” she murmured, “you have to promise not to play gooseberry in the future, OK?”
    Ella stopped trying to noisily suck the bottom of her glass up through her bendy straw.
    “What’s a goo’berry, Mummy?”
    Simone switched the smile over to her daughter and for a moment I wondered how she was going to explain the concept of an unwanted third party on a hot date.
    “It’s a very sticky kind of fruit, sweetie,” she said with a sly glance at me. “One that’s really difficult to get out of your hair.”
    W e managed to get round the rest of the Aquarium without further incident. In the afternoon I followed Sean’s advice and directions from the concierge and took Simone shopping at the exclusive stores on Newbury Street, which proved an interesting experience.
    I’d shopped with millionaires before. One of the early jobs I’d done for Sean, back in the summer, involved several days accompanying the wives of an Arab sheikh round London, watching them spend more in a few hours on jewelry and fashions than they could ever wear in a year— and more than I would ever find use for in a lifetime.
    Simone shopped in fits and starts. She blew hundreds of dollars in a very upmarket home furnishings place, almost on a whim, on a set of hideous glass vases that seemed totally out of place with what I could remember of her home decor and were going to be a pain to ship. Then later she dithered so much between two pairs of moderately priced shoes in one of the big department stores that she even taxed the patience of the professionally cheerful sales assistant, and ended up buying neither of them.
    The more the afternoon wore on, the more bad-tempered Simone became, snapping at Ella when she pestered for toys or sweets or clothes, then giving in to her on a giant stuffed teddy bear with a somewhat sinister