_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

looked, how blotchy and bedraggled and bloody awful, that I felt it again
—that need to put on a dress and high heels, to blow-dry my hair and put
on some makeup and walk down the street and have men turn and look at
me.
I miss work, but I also miss what work meant to me in my last year of
gainful employment, when I met Tom. I miss being a mistress.
I enjoyed it. I loved it, in fact. I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I
had to, with my married girlfriends, the ones who live in terror of the
pert au pair or the pretty, funny girl in the office who can talk about
football and spends half her life in the gym. I had to tell them that of
course I felt terrible about it, of course I felt bad for his wife, I never
meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do?
The truth is, I never felt bad for Rachel, even before I found out about
her drinking and how difficult she was, how she was making his life a
misery. She just wasn’t real to me, and anyway, I was enjoying myself
too much. Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point
denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even
though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are.
I was selling a house. Number thirty-four Cranham Road. It was
proving difficult to shift, because the latest interested buyer hadn’t been
granted a mortgage. Something about the lender’s survey. So we
arranged to get an independent surveyor in, just to make sure everything
was OK. The sellers had already moved on, the house was empty, so I
had to be there to let him in.
It was obvious from the moment I opened the door to him that it was
going to happen. I’d never done anything like that before, never even
dreamed of it, but there was something in the way he looked at me, the
way he smiled at me. We couldn’t help ourselves—we did it there in the
kitchen, up against the counter. It was insane, but that’s how we were.
That’s what he always used to say to me. Don’t expect me to be sane,
Anna. Not with you.
I pick Evie up and we go out into the garden together. She’s pushing
her little trolley up and down, giggling to herself as she does it, this
morning’s tantrum forgotten. Every time she grins at me I feel like my
heart’s going to explode. No matter how much I miss working, I would
miss this more. And in any case, it’s never going to happen. There’s no
way I’ll be leaving her with a childminder again, no matter how qualified
or vouched for they are. I’m not leaving her with anyone else ever again,
not after Megan.