Jo Platt

“I smiled back, feeling as if I was supposed to know what to say next but hadn’t learned my lines.”
― Jo Platt, Reading Upside Down

“to have regained his attention and was laughing in a come-to-bed kind of way, although she was probably, I mused, the kind of woman who did absolutely everything in a come-to-bed kind of way. She probably pouted and fluttered her eyelashes at the carrots and cucumbers in the veg section of Waitrose. I finished the second cocktail and looked at Daniel. He appeared relaxed. There was no hint of the anger or irritation he had displayed just ten minutes earlier. He was clearly mid-anecdote – probably involving a hedge and a fox. There! I was doing it again – assuming it was all about me. He was right. I was self-obsessed. I looked back to her. Still laughing. And why not? That was what normal people did at a party; relaxed, flirted and had fun. Why couldn’t I have managed that? I turned away and immediately spotted Mike. He was standing just a few feet from me, a Scotch in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other, talking with two men, neither of whom I recognised”
― Jo Platt, Reading Upside Down