by Jo Edwards
Jess thought Lucy might still be upset after Friday’s team meeting. The vote had, amazingly, been 15 ‘Unfairs’ and 3 ‘Couldn’t Give A Shits’. “But I voted Fair!” I exclaimed. “I voted Fair, Cathy, do you remember? I mouthed it at you; why didn’t my vote get registered?”
She shrugged. “I thought you were just doing facial exercises, you know, trying to get rid of those jowls.”
I hated to think of Lucy being upset. I got her number from Jess’s phone and texted her to say I hoped she was ok and to let her know that I had voted ‘Fair’. I added a whole row of smiley faces. Should I put an “x” right at the end? I added it, then deleted it, then added it again. It was a bit difficult to concentrate on the text as I was trying to read out a legal disclaimer paragraph to a customer at the same time. I was forced to skip the really complicated bits. I panicked when I saw Kate, our manager, walking towards me. I tried to turn my phone off, but hit the Send button instead. Argh! I’d sent a kiss to Lucy! Whatever would she think? Kate was standing over me. I tried to concentrate on what my customer was saying, hide my phone and clench my buttocks all at the same time; my bowels were suddenly very insistent again. Kate leant over my desk and whipped my picture of Katy Perry from the blue soundboard in front of me. She slapped it down on my desk. I did a double take. Someone had, very crudely, drawn a picture of a little man trying to climb out of Katy’s bikini bottoms, along with a speech bubble saying, “Help Me! I’m drowning!” How could someone deface the demure Katy in such a way? I tried to shake my head at Kate to show her I knew nothing about this monstrous act but she shot me an icy look and strode off in George’s direction.
Gosh, I really was in trouble now. Plus, I had to get to the loo. How could there be anything left to come out? How? What should I do; cut the customer off or ask them to wait? I couldn’t hold on much longer. As my bowels gave another lurch, I punched the Hold button and speed-minced to the toilets, trying not to attract attention. Martin, a team manager, was in the toilets, head tilted right back as he applied some nasal drops. I muttered, “Sorry Martin” as I shot into a cubicle and ripped my trousers down. The noise was unbelievable. It reverberated around the cubicle, making the door rattle and seemed to go on forever. How had that come from me? It was truly shocking. I heard Martin quietly leaving the toilets - how awful that he’d heard that and what a time for him to have cleared his nasal passages! I made sure to breathe through my mouth as I pulled my trousers up and then slunk back to my desk, praying the foul odour hadn’t followed me out. I put my headset back on, but the customer had hung up. Oh dear. I checked my mobile, but Lucy hadn’t replied yet.
George came over to my desk while I was examining my jowls in the side of the stapler. Here we go. I braced myself as he pulled up a chair. I saw his left eye was very swollen and there was a dark purplish bruise just above his cheekbone. “Football,” he explained. “Clash of heads. Anyway, got some bad news for you, Foggy. Your absence rate is over 7% now, so you’ll have to attend a formal meeting. You don’t need to worry about it; well, not much, anyway. I don’t think they’ll dismiss you for 7%, but I suppose you never know.”
I gulped. “Are you sure you’ve got that figure right, George?”
“Dunno, Kate worked it out, the meeting will be with her.” He looked very weary. “I just need to complete your Welcome Back review with you.” He produced a form that had about twenty questions on it. If you were off sick at Perypils, even for half an hour, your team manager always completed a detailed Welcome Back interview to find out all about your illness and see if there was any support you required in the workplace. They really were a very caring company, and took the well being of their employees extremely seriously.
George picked up my pen. “So, what was wrong with you, then? Had the shits?”
“Er, yes.”
“Sign here.”
Jess had a go at me when George had gone. “You should have said you were off with anxiety or depression; they can’t touch you if you’ve got mental health issues!” I told her I’d remember that for the formal meeting. No reply from Lucy yet. My stomach was churning again.
Practice makes perfect
It was my last evening to practice before the SADS Grease auditions tomorrow night. My Summer Nights rehearsal with Myra had not gone well. I’d got a little confused with the constant switching of lyrics in the duet. When I’d accidentally sung, “Met a boy, cute as can be” Myra had exploded: “Since when was the leader of the T-Birds fucking gay? It’s called Grease, not Vaseline!” Her anger got me all nervous and I did too many shoo-bop bops. We eventually decided we should practise on our own.
Mum was in the kitchen flicking through the Next Directory and listening to her Human League playlist. She looked very nice; she’d done something different with her hair and she had a smart red jacket on that I hadn’t seen before. It was great that she always managed to look good even though she never had any money to spend on herself. I asked her what was for tea but she said she’d been too busy to go shopping. Just as well, really, I was still feeling turbulent. I’d no idea what had caused my stomach to react in such an alarming way. Nerves, perhaps, before the auditions tomorrow. I’m sure John Travolta suffered much the same way before he had to kiss Olivia Newton John. I tweeted Katy Perry to see if she had any suggestions for combating nerves. She hadn’t replied to any of my other 387 tweets but this could finally be the one!
I asked Mum if, when she did go to the shops, she could get me some more fizzy yoghurt; I’d never had anything like it before – it tasted terrific, all tangy and zingy. She looked confused and said she hadn’t bought any yoghurt for ages, not since the incident with the E45 cream. Crafty Mum! No wonder the special fizzy yoghurt had been hidden away right at the back of the fridge - she wanted it all for herself! I gave her a knowing smile and went to change into my green jumper with the leather elbow patches to get myself into a moody Greased Lightning vibe. Nothing from Lucy. I expect her phone was out of credit. I’d offer to lend her some money but after giving mum the extra house-keeping and forking out on all that aloe vera ultra soft Andrex, I only had £6.13 to last me through the month. And I needed that for a Clearasil emergency.
It was really difficult to concentrate at work today; all I could think about was tonight’s audition. One customer became extremely upset with me after asking for a quote to insure his toy poodle. I told him we only covered real animals but he simply wouldn’t accept it. He asked to speak to a manager but George wasn’t around – he’d taken Lucy into the meeting room because she still looked upset. Jess said she’d pretend to be a manager and took the call from me, but accidentally pressed the Release button and said, “Oops! Cut the fucker off!” We both put our turrets into ‘aftercall’ so if he phoned straight back, someone else would get him.
Lucy returned from her meeting with George and I gave her a big supportive smile. She was clearly very touched as her face crumpled and she fled toward the toilets in tears. It was typical of her kind nature not to mention my text message; she must know how embarrassed I’d feel by the kiss. George came over and placed an envelope on my desk. “There’s your invite, Foggy.”
“Oh great!” I exclaimed, excitedly. “Are you having a birthday party?”
He looked at me very strangely. “No. You’re having a disciplinary hearing.”
I opened the letter and saw the hearing was in one week’s time. My head felt all swimmy and my mouth went dry. But I couldn’t worry about this now; I’d worry about it tomorrow. I had to concentrate on tonight. I’d practised as much as I could last night in my bedroom and my throat felt a bit raw from repeated “Na-hites!” It was a very difficult note to hit. Even Myra had struggled; I recalled my goldfish vibrating each time she attempted it.
When I’d gone downstairs to get a glass of water, Mr Ryder from next door was sitting in the kitchen. Mum said he’d come round to say how much he was enjoying my singing, which was very nice of him. He suggested it would be good for my lung capacity if I sang
as loudly as I could non-stop for twenty minutes so I went back to my room and did just that. I think they must have really loved it because I’m sure I heard them joining in at the end of the “well-a well-a’s” with a loud “Huh!” If their enthusiasm was anything to go by, I was going to totally rock the audition! I just had to keep my nerves under control.
I was sitting in Den’s late night diner, passing paper napkins to Myra. I didn’t have any handkerchiefs and the toilets had run out of loo roll. At least she had stopped hyper-ventilating now; at one point I was fearful I’d have to give her the kiss of life, like I’d had to once when we were watching television and her mother had suddenly appeared on Babestation. The diner was empty; all the other customers had fled when she’d started stabbing her fork into the squeezy tomato-shaped ketchup bottle shouting, “Die bitch!” The table and windows were streaked in red.
The auditions were over. I thought mine had gone pretty well, despite tripping up the steps to the stage and wrenching my back. This had caused a certain stiffness in my Greased Lightning movements but that didn’t matter. I could tell I was one of the favourites for the
