The Whole World Over
Chapter One
A Piece of Cake
One the call came on the twenty-ninth of february: the one day in four years when, according to antiquated custom, women may openly choose their partners without shame. As Greenie checked her e-mail at work that morning, a small pink box popped up on the screen: Carpe diem, ladies! Scotland, according to her cheery, avuncular service provider, passed a law in 1288 that if a man refused a woman’s proposal on this day, he must pay a fine: anything from a kiss to money that would buy her a silk dress or a fancy pair of gloves.
If I weren’t hitched already, thought Greenie, I would gladly take rejection in exchange for a lovely silk dress. Oh for the quiet, sumptuous ease of a silk dress; oh for the weather in which to wear it!
Yet again it was sleeting. Greenie felt as if it had been sleeting for a week. The sidewalks of Bank Street, tricky enough in their skewed antiquity, were now glazed with ice, so that walking George to school had become a chore of matronly scolding and pleading: “Walk, honey. Please walk. What did I say, did I say WALK?” Like most four-year-old boys, George left his house like a pebble ... read full excerpt from: The Whole World Over ebook
