Free The Crasher by Shirley Lord Page A

state of just-arrived chaos when, to her father’s irritation, Alex had turned up.
    The touchy subject of Her Future had arisen, and Alex, who knew all about it from Aunt Lil, jumped into the fray with “having
     a business degree can be a wonderful insurance, Ginny, no matter what career path you finally take.”
    He’d winked to take the sting out of his words and later, helping her with the washing up, he’d whispered, “Give yourself
     some time, Gin. Go to the blankety blank business school, get your degree—you know you’re the little Einstein in the family.
     Then you can tell the parents to stay out of your life, you’ve done what they wanted you to do, now it’s your move… you can
     stick it to ’em.”
    The moment she’d heard it from him, business school hadbegun to make sense, and she’d said so. Had her father been appreciative? Of course not. He’d been furious that it was Alex,
     not he, who’d changed her mind. You didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to understand why.
    Jealousy. It was all about jealousy—for lots of reasons, many of them to do with her. Although she knew it drove her father—and
     to a lesser extent, her mother—wild, why did she sing Alex’s praises and quote him so constantly? It was easy to answer.
    Who had taught her to swim, to dive, to ride a bike, to catch a butterfly, to dry her tears when she didn’t make the square-dance
     team (and then make her realize knowing how to cha cha cha was much more cool)? Alex, of course, not her father and not her
     mother either.
    She’d figured it out a long time ago, reading a book about the formative years—
From Childhood to Puberty.
It was sheer luck that hers had mostly been lived in California with Alex close by.
    While her mother went to work and her father was, as she grew up to accept, “busy behind closed doors, not to be disturbed,
     writing, studying, working on a new course,” it was Alex who’d shown her how to turn ordinary days into adventures, who’d
     introduced her to a world seen through his especially sophisticated eyes.
    Ginny didn’t exactly know what Alex did in what he called the Wall Street trenches. Whatever it was, since her eyes had been
     opened in Denver to the true worth of the Walker School, in her opinion he was infinitely more qualified to give and sell
     advice than her father.
    Alex’s own financial situation, as he was the first to admit with a Paul Newman shrug, swung like a pendulum from rags to
     riches, riches to rags, but at least when he did make a mint, he’d told her, he didn’t need the services of the good old U.S.
     mail. Of course, it was a dig at her father, but she didn’t blame him for that.
    The meter was twenty-five cents away from dollar numberfifteen, but at last the traffic was moving; in fact, the cab was zipping fast through the tunnel.
    “I can’t make a U-turn, miss. D’you want me to drop you on the corner of Fifth and Forty-second or go up to Sixth and come
     down?”
    Now he was telling her. But how could a Sikh taxi driver know how essential it was that she arrive exactly at the Bryant Park
     entrance and not have to burrow through the garrisons of gawkers always surrounding entrances and exits at fashionable events.
    Ginny looked at the meter, then at her watch. Her timing was perfect. Not too early. Not too late. Although her half-boots
     were killing her (maybe that’s what Elsa’s “dressed to kill” compliment really meant), she decided she could always limp to
     tonight’s class at FIT. The boots (bought by her mother in a Chanel sale) needed breaking in anyway.
    “Go up to Sixth and come down.”
    No backpack today. She’d read that Anna Wintour, the unutterably chic editor of
Vogue,
never carried a purse, but she was never going to be that confident. Money, powder and a lip pencil were essential. As she
     didn’t want to spoil the line of her black wool wraparound coat by adding a pocket to carry those vital impedimenta, she’d