Marian Keyes spearheaded a new wave of contemporary women's fiction, providing wickedly funny tales of twenty- and thirty-somethings living and loving on the edge. No stranger to the road less commonly travelled herself, Marian has also written two collections of tales and observations from her own life. Nothing Bad Ever Happensin Tiffany's is a small but perfectly formed selection of these.
I love Prada. Not so much the clothes which are for malnourished thirteen year olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Prada handbag, I'd dither. (I am not proud of this. I'm only saying.)
Anyway, in myself and Himself go to the limestone palace on Fifth Avenue and up to the second floor to look at the accessories. I want to fling myself on the floor and sob at their beauty, but Himself reminds me of the Miu Miu debacle and I manage to contain myself.
Then I saw it. The handbag. The handbag. THE handbag.
Reader, I bought it. A Russian woman called Elena was my assistant and I think it must have been the quickest bit of commission she'd ever earned. Then I was kind of getting the hang of things and decided to see about matching sandals. But they didn't have them in my size. Undaunted, Elena brought them anyway. It was no go, so she brought sandals that nearly matched, then sandals that didn't match at all. And didn't fit either. But she could not be faulted for leaving a stone unturned and reluctantly she let me go only when it was clear that I really wasn't going to buy anything else from her. Downstairs I stopped and idly admired some luggage when Elena suddenly popped up again, two inches from my nose. Somehow she'd managed to insinuate herself between me and the holdall. "You would like to buy?"
I told her no thanks, that we really were leaving, but then we noticed that there was a menswear department in the basement. Down we went, Himself picked up a shoe and a handsome young man approached and asked if he'd like it in his size. I had just opened my mouth to reply (Himself is too scared to speak in these places) when out-of-nowhere Elena appeared, did a ten yard skid across the floor of menswear, shoved the good-looking man to the margins with her palm over his face and arrived in front of us wearing a shark's smile, not a hair out of place. "You would like to try?"
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