Which has left Fliss, Erin and I holding the fort. And for some ludicrous reason the two of them have nominated me to be in charge of the team until a new senior account planner is appointed. Erin says she isn’t ‘boss material’ and Fliss says she’s past it.
But I’m a terrible leader. I hate telling other people what to do. I’d rather do something myself than have to ask somebody else to do it.
Fliss and Erin are very sweet though. They never take advantage of my complete inability to delegate. If the roles were reversed, I can’t promise I wouldn’t completely take the piss – come in late, take extra long lunch hours, leave early…
Come to think of it – I do all that already…
As if to prove my point, they are both already in as I survey the nuclear disaster that is my desk.
“Cup of tea, Becky love?” Fliss asks, illustrating one of the many reasons I totally adore her.
“That’d be fab, Fliss, thanks,” I reply, shrugging my coat off and draping it over the back of my chair.
Erin and Fliss are the perfect people to share an office with. Fliss makes a fabulous cup of tea, and Erin, despite being on a permanent diet, always has a well-stocked bucket of Maltesers hidden between the hanging files in her desk drawer.
Fliss is amazing. She has worked for Penand Inc her whole life. Well, almost. Thirty-eight years to be exact. Can you imagine that? Working for the same company for nearly forty years? If I’m still at Penand Inc when I’m forty, never mind sixty, someone please put me out of my misery.
Not that I’m knocking Fliss. It’s what you did in her day, isn’t it? You joined a company straight from school and stuck with them, getting your carriage clock after thirty years and a big retirement bash a decade or so later. Incidentally, why a carriage clock? Why not something more useful like an iPod, or a Kindle, or a weekend in Paris? A carriage clock, tick-tocking away on your mantelpiece, is surely just a brutal reminder of all the time you wasted working for a company that deems you worthy of nothing more than a carriage clock?
Fliss has had her carriage clock, but she has another few years to go before the big bash. She’s thinking about early retirement though. She should. She can afford to. Her husband Derek has just sold his veterinary practice. They’re loaded. But she says she’d miss Erin and I too much. She says we keep her young.
Despite that claim, Fliss has been doing her damndest to get rid of me for the last eighteen months. In the nicest possible way, of course.
“Don’t be like me,” she keeps saying. “Still here when you’re sixty.”
No chance.
“You’re wasted here, lovey,” she says.
Fliss knows my real goal is to be a writer. I wrote a short piece about her once – and Erin and Hannah – after I realised how much they all made me laugh.
For weeks I kept a little notepad in my desk drawer and every time one of them did or said something funny I would write it down. Like the time Erin laughed so much at a joke I told she did a huge fart in the middle of the office cafeteria. And the time Hannah told us she’d forgotten to take her contact lenses out before she went to bed and woke up the next morning thinking there had been a miracle. And the time Fliss came out of the ladies with her skirt tucked into her knickers.
When I had completely filled the notepad I wrote a short story about them. It was only meant to be for the girls to read, but they loved it so much they made me submit it for the company magazine.
And ever since then, Fliss has been on at me to “chase my dreams.”
“Malcolm wants us to split the Leeds accounts between Roger Calvin and Dave Anderson,” Fliss tells me, flicking the kettle on and dropping tea bags into three mugs. We’re not supposed to have a kettle in our office – we’re supposed to use the kitchen on the third floor, but we can’t be arsed. We’re rebels. And it gives us a little thrill every time we plug it in, knowing there’s a chance we might get caught.
“Why, for heaven’s sake?” I ask.
Fliss shrugs.
“Does he realise how much time that’s going to take us?”
“Bill is leaving, apparently. He and his wife are moving to France to run a Bed and Breakfast. He says he’s had enough of doing a job he hates.”
“I know how he feels,” I say, immediately regretting it, as I sense Fliss lifting one foot up onto her soapbox. Three, two, one…
“So leave. I keep telling you that you should.”
You don’t want to be like me…
“You don’t want to be like me…”
Still here when you’re sixty…
“Still here when you’re sixty…”
You’re wasted here, lovey…
“You’re wasted here, lovey. Go and use that degree of yours.”
Chase your dreams…
“Chase your dreams, Becky.”
“Yeah, I will Fliss,” I say, getting the milk out of the fridge – another illegal appliance – “just as soon as we’ve changed these accounts over.” I grin at her and she shakes her head, resigned to the fact that she’s probably stuck with me.
I switch on my computer and wait for it to whir into action, Fliss’s words ringing in my ears.
It would be great to be that brave – to just chuck it all in and ‘chase your dreams’. People do it all the time, supposedly. You read about them in magazines, don’t you – people who pack in their high-powered city jobs to run a pig farm in the Yorkshire Dales, people who swap their laptops and Blackberries for packets of doilies and recipes for fruit scones and run their own tea rooms, people who give up their six-figure salaries to become aid workers in Rwanda? People who give up something safe and secure, to do something they actually want to do.
It happens.
CHAPTER FOUR
Alex is out when I get home. He plays five-a-side football on a Monday night with the boys from work.
I unlock the door and trample on a pile of mail on the doormat.
There is more than usual and for a brief moment I imagine that the contents of one of these envelopes is about to change my life. A letter telling me I have been picked at random to win a year off work, for instance, notification that I have won the competition I entered for an all-expenses-paid trip to Australia, or a letter saying that I’ve been headhunted by Hello magazine.
As if…
But as I open the envelopes and stare at the property details for seven different houses for sale, I realise that one of the envelopes really could be about to change my life.
Do you think I should be considering buying my first house with a man I’m not sure is Mr Right?
Me neither.
I look at the details just long enough to come out in a cold sweat before putting them down on the coffee table. Upside down. Underneath the newspaper. If I can’t see them, I can pretend they are not there, that they don’t exist, that I’m not about to have to make one of the biggest decisions of my life.
CHAPTER FIVE
When I get into the office the next morning I phone Katie.
“Hello, Books!, Katie Roberts speaking,” she answers.
Katie is a publicity manager for a big publishing company in London. She works in the entertainment section, which basically means she gets to swan about the country accompanying celebs on their book tours. Last year she met three film stars, two footballers and a well-known soap-star who has written her autobiography at the ripe old age of twenty four.
It’s her ideal job. Not just because she’s some maniac celebrity stalker, but because she loves books. When she and Matt started renovating their flat in London, Matt’s first job (he’s an architect) was to put in a wall-to-wall bookcase in their living room. It’s already half-full. It’s a wonder the floor hasn’t fallen into the flat below under the weight of it. And it’s going to get worse. Instead of the traditional wedding gift list of Egyptian cotton bath sheets and Jamie Oliver muffin moulds, they are asking their guests to buy them a copy of their own favourite books. Knowing Katie and Matt’s friends t
hey’ll end up with eighty nine copies of the Karma Sutra and one copy of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course Volumes 1-3 from Katie’s Great Auntie Rose.
“It’s me,” I say. “How’s things?”
“Good. You?”
“I’m bored.”
“I thought you might be. You don’t usually phone this early. Haven’t you got enough to do? I’ve got some press releases you can write if you like?”
“I’ve got plenty to do. I just can’t be bothered to do it!”
“I don’t know why you don’t just look for something else. You’ve hated that job for as long as I can remember.”
“Is it really that long? Hmm… Maybe I’ll just pack it in and move back home…”
“Really?” she asks, excited.
“No, not really,” I laugh, though I’m not entirely sure why.
The worst thing about staying up in Leeds with Alex is being away from my friends. Katie moved back to London as soon as we finished our finals and Emma has never been far from the south.
“Katie…”
“Yes?”
“If I ask you something, will you promise to forget all about it when everything’s okay again?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think about Alex? About him and me, I mean. Do you think Alex is right for me?”
She says nothing for a few seconds.
And then, “I don’t know.”
It’s not what I expected her to say. I mean, I didn’t expect her to say yes, or no even, but I guess I expected her to be a bit more surprised that I was asking – a bit more surprised that I am having doubts at all. I forget sometimes how well she knows me.
I take a slurp of lukewarm tea and wait for her to say something else. I know she will. Katie never finishes anything with ‘I don’t know’.
“Well, personally I think you are perfect for each other,” she says. “You have the same values. You find the same things funny. You are both incredibly gorgeous, obviously,” she laughs at this one. “You love each other. And you want the same things out of life.
“But whether you want those things with each other is a different matter altogether. And only you can answer that. Only you know if he’s the one for you, B.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sigh.
And I do. I know it’s up to me. I think I just want someone else to make the decision for me. But it doesn’t work like that, does it? I have to find that damn label myself.
“Let’s chat about it at the weekend,” Katie says. “Are you still coming? I’ve made an appointment for 12pm.”
“Yes. Alex is going to bring me to work in the morning and Fliss said she’ll drop me at the station.”
“Excellent. And Emma’s going to meet us at the shop. I’ve got a good feeling about this shop, B. I think it might be the one.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I think I might want to split up with Alex,” I tell Katie and Emma as we take a well-earned break from wedding fever on Saturday to get some lunch. We’ve found a lovely little Italian restaurant around the corner from All Things Bride And Beautiful, which is very handy as we’ll be going back there as soon as we’ve stuffed our faces. They have loads of dresses that Katie likes and she’s only tried on fifteen so far.
“What?” Emma says, as the spaghetti she has just spent the last five minutes twirling onto her fork falls back onto her plate in a heap.
“I think I might want to split up with Alex,” I say again.
“That’s what I thought you said. Why?”
Katie takes a bite of her pizza while I bring Emma up to date on my love life.
“I am happy,” I say. “I’m just not sure Alex is Mr Right.” This is the wrong thing to say to Emma, who rolls her eyes at me.
As I’ve said, Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right. She thinks the whole idea is, and I quote, ‘codswallop.’ She thinks that the best you can hope for is to meet someone who loves you, who you love back, and who doesn’t drive you too far up the wall when they leave their dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, drink the last of the milk before putting the empty carton back in the fridge, or delete the final part of a three-part drama that you haven’t quite got around to watching yet.
“Right, shmite,” she says. “You love him, yes? And he loves you?”
I nod.
“Well, there you go then.”
“But what if there’s someone else out there I’m meant to be with?”
“And what if there isn’t? And you throw away what you have with Alex for nothing? You said you’re not sure he’s Mr Right. But you’re not sure he isn’t either, right? So what if he is?”
“I don’t think she’d be questioning it if he was, Em,” Katie says, my fellow follower of the Mr Right religion.
“Well I think you’re both bonkers,” Emma says, abandoning her spoon and chopping up her spaghetti with a knife and fork instead.
“I know you think it’s rubbish but I’ve always believed in Mr Right,” I tell Emma back at All Things Bride And Beautiful while we wait for Katie to emerge from the fitting room in dress number sixteen. “Ever since we held that wedding for Barbie and Ken and I asked my dad why Barbie wanted to marry Ken.”
“Oh god! Yeah!” she laughs. “When we made ourselves sick on Love Hearts! And made Ken those sparkly trousers out of one of your dad’s old hankies and some glitter!”
“Yeah. Well, I’m just not sure Alex is my Ken.”
Today we are being looked after by Pippa. And she is looking a little concerned. I guess this is not the sort of conversation you would normally hear in a wedding shop. More like gushings of eternal love and all things fabulous.
“Better I discover it now, before I get to the point where you’re getting me to strip off and try on wedding dresses,” I tell her as she scuttles away to fetch dress number seventeen.
“Maybe you’ll get it when you’ve met someone you’re crazy about,” I tell Emma.
“Who says I haven’t already?” she says, suddenly grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“So things are still going well with Jim then?”
“Really well, actually. He’s cooking me dinner tomorrow night. He says there’s something he wants to talk to me about.”
“Ooh, what do you think it is?”
“I’m not sure. But I think maybe he’s going to ask me to move in with him.”
“Wow. That’s exciting, Em.”
“I know. I really like him, B.”
“What’s he up to this weekend?”
“He’s in London, actually. He was meant to be away for some work thing but it was cancelled.”
“Why don’t you phone him? Get him to meet us for a drink. Katie and I are dying to meet him. Aren’t we Katie?” I shout through the cubicle curtain.
She pokes her head out, looking a little flushed.
“What?”
“Emma’s Jim. He’s in London this weekend. I said she should call him so we can meet him.”
“Absolutely,” she says, disappearing back behind the curtain.
“I could, I guess. He’s pretty busy, I think, but I can ask.”
She takes her phone out of her bag and dials Jim’s number.
“It’s ringing,” she mouths. I hear him answer.
“Hello you,” she says. “I was just wondering if you fancy meeting up for a quick drink. I’m in a wedding dress shop with Becky and Katie,” she tells him. “They want to meet you. And I’ve probably kept you to myself for long enough!” She looks over at me and grins. I nod enthusiastically.
“No…Yes…Oh, that’s a shame. Oh well, never mind. Another time. Becky’s down here all the time at the moment, anyway. Are you still okay to pick me up from the station tomorrow night?
“Great…okay, see you tomorrow.”
She switches off her phone and tosses it back in her bag.
“He says he’s already made plans to meet up with a mate,” she says. She looks disappointed. I think she really likes this guy. I hope it lasts. She
deserves a bit of luck on the love front.
Emma and I have been friends our whole lives. Well almost – since we were barely out of nappies. We grew up in the same street in a little village by the sea near Brighton. From the moment she and her family moved in next door, Emma and I were inseparable. She and her brother Sam sat on the curb watching my brother Johnny and I playing hide and seek with the rest of the kids in the street while their parents supervised the removal men. The first time she spoke to me was to tell me where Johnny was hiding when I was ‘it,’ which I was chuffed to bits about because he had won every single game so far and was being a smug little git about it.
We walked to school together every day with our matching My Little Pony lunchboxes and on weekends we’d spend hours playing with our Barbie dolls – usually at Emma’s house because she had the Barbie mansion. It was brilliant – it was four storeys high and had a pulley-operated lift on the side, a kitchen sink with taps that you could get real water to come out of and a four poster bed which though it was very swish was clearly designed without heed to Barbie’s enviably long legs.
Every summer my nana and granddad hired a beach hut near their home in Bognor Regis for the holidays and they would take the two of us there as much as we could pester them to. It was our summer treasure trove – filled with buckets and spades, inflatable dinghies and fishing nets that we used to scoop up crabs from the rock pools. My granddad had a greenhouse and we’d spend hours walking up and down the path behind the huts looking for ice-lolly sticks which he’d use to label his plants. We played mini-golf on the green across from the beach and went to the amusement arcades on the seafront and played on the two-pence machines until we’d spent all my granddad’s coppers.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 132
