Free The Man Who Understood Women by Rosemary Friedman

someone upon whom she could rely or confide in?
    The possibilities were endless.
    The next morning I stood before my wardrobe knowing that no matter what I wore it would not be up to the standard of Bellotti’s. Mine was not that sort of life.
    I dressed in the best I had and, knowing that I looked nice but not outstanding, set off, feeling doubtful that Rosita would be there at all, almost certain that it would turn out to be a wild-goose chase.
    The lobby of Bellotti’s was full of people waiting for other people and for tables, nibbling olives and sipping at glasses of sherry. There was a girl, a paper cut-out from a fashion paper in a fabulous pink suit, and another in mink with banana- coloured hair, but no Rosita.
    ‘Madame has a reservation?’ the head waiter murmured.
    ‘No, yes, that is I’m waiting …’ and then to my horror I realised that I did not even know Rosita’s name. She had been married to an Alsopp and after that to a South American millionaire called Diaz but according to my newspaper all that was in the past. Messrs Alsopp and Diaz had long ago moved on to pastures new.
    I took a chance. ‘I don’t know if Rosita has booked a table,’ I said, and had an unsolicited view of half a dozen gold teeth as the head waiter embraced me with his smile.
    ‘Aha! Rosita,’ he made the name a caress. ‘Lady Harrington. Yes, we are waiting for her to arrive.’
    At least I had not come all the way for nothing. I squeezed in on the banquette between a young man with a red carnation in his buttonhole and an American matron with a whimsy veil, and watched the revolving doors. I finished the sweet sherry I had ordered to while away the time and had almost worked my way through a dish of peanuts when the doors were suddenly hurled into motion and there, deeply tannedand gorgeous as ever, was Rosita. I had a moment to examine her before she saw me, and noticed first that her handbag was such that its price alone would have dressed me from head to foot. It was as if an alarm had been rung. Everyone, the headwaiter , the barman, my neighbour with the red carnation, the American matron, was looking at her.
    Helen!’ she exclaimed as dramatically as if I were her long-lost sister, and held out both her hands. I stood up and she kissed me. Her skin was cool and had the exotic tang of expensive perfume used lavishly. She took my arm, clinging as if she’d never let me go, and we followed the headwaiter to a table by the window.
    When he’d left us I watched her go through the small settling motions of seeking comfort; I knew that Rosita had not fallen upon hard times. She hadn’t changed, except that the long blond hair was now shorter in keeping with the current fashion and perhaps owed a little, but I could not really be sure, to artifice. She seemed unaware that everyone at the tables around us was watching her, admiring the chiselled perfection of her features, as she leant forward and said: ‘It’s so wonderful to see you.’
    ‘How did you know my address?’
    ‘I saw the birth announcement, a daughter, wasn’t it? I meant to write to you.’
    ‘The birth announcement?’ My youngest child was four.
    ‘I came across the piece of paper in my wallet. I often wondered what I’d done with it.’
    ‘That was four years ago.’
    ‘As long as that? I stick things away.’ She opened her handbag . ‘I bought a present. I should have looked at the date.’ She handed me a jeweller’s box.
    Inside was an exquisite coral bracelet which would have fitted a baby no older than six months.
    ‘It’s very lovely,’ I murmured. ‘Thank you, Rosita.’
    Rosita dismissed it with a wave of her hand. ‘You can put it away for the next.’
    The waiter asked me what I’d like to eat and it wasn’t until he’d gone that I realised Rosita hadn’t ordered anything at all.
    ‘So you live in Sutton,’ Rosita said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said, on the defensive although she hadn’t attacked. ‘Where do you?’
    ‘All