Chapter ThreeThe face of the shoeshiner was fixed with a frown, prompting Kay to say: “It’s okay – I don’t usually bite.” She winced. Was that the best she could come up with? She had tried to make it sound jocular, but instead it just sounded lame and unconvincing. In the awkward pause that followed, she tried to gauge his reaction. He couldn’t, she reckoned, have looked less impressed.
Kay hesitated in the face of that solid rampart, but then jolted herself onward, a forlorn hope with no breach yet to exploit. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you; I can see you’re busy but can you spare me ten minutes? It’s a bit difficult to explain here but I just wondered if I could maybe buy you some lunch and make a sort of proposition to you.”
She heard herself saying those words and couldn’t help but
