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‘Yep, agreed,’ I said. ‘Let’s make it a quickie. I mean … well, I didn’t mean that.’ Well done, Katie. Cool as usual. I pushed a thick lock of hair out of my face, accidently sticking myself in the eye as I did so. ‘Ouch.’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. I waved away his concern, squinting attractively. ‘So, tell me then. Have you made your vision board? Are all your darkest desires pasted on cardboard for the universe to fulfil? It only accepts paper requests you know.’
‘Every single one is documented for the Fates to act on,’ I said. ‘I even stuck the Philips Pharmacy logo on there. If I could find a photo of Jenny, I’d add it. Maybe with a lock of hair and a voodoo doll.’ Jenny’s latest objection was that we tested the products on animals. We didn’t, but once she was on a roll it was hard stopping her. ‘And I used staples on the really important ones … calorie-free cupcakes and world domination.’
‘Lofty goals. I’m glad you didn’t waste time on trivial things like cancer cures or filthy riches.’
‘Without calorie-free cupcakes, what’s the point of the rest of it?’
His throaty laugh gave me bedroom visions. ‘You always brighten my day, Katie Winterbottom. ’
That’s me, the day-brightener. If I’d had a quid for every time I’d heard that from someone I fancied, the calorie-free cupcake research fund would be nearly full. I suppose being appreciated for my conversations was all right, if he wasn’t going to love me for my body.
‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to make our last meeting,’ he said. ‘A good mate got us last-minute tickets to the rugby. Promise not to breathe a word of it to the higher-ups. They think my mother needed a ride to her chiropractor.’
I held up my hand in oath.
‘Your email was very thorough though. I didn’t expect graphics.’
I knew I’d gone overboard when I found myself in the office after eight p.m. trying to animate tiny pencils to march across the presentation.
‘You must let me take you out for a drink,’ he continued. ‘You’ve saved my arse once again. And I suppose you’ll have to save it today too. We need something to show the board. We can’t really monitor progress, can we? I mean without violating HR policy. The damn things are probably supposed to be confidential.’
‘I suppose I could ask everyone if they’ve done it. That’d give you something to report back on. Maybe a few people would be willing to show theirs to the board.’
‘Would you be willing to show me yours?’ he asked.
I’d show him mine right there on the conference table. ‘I, erm.’
‘That sounded rude, didn’t it?’ He smiled, not making any effort to correct it. Did he mean what he’d said?
Then he laughed a deep, rich chuckle that made my reproductive system wobble with glee.
‘Don’t you need to get to your next meeting?’
He ran his hand through his gorgeous hair, blowing out his cheeks. ‘In my next life please remind me to study architecture or film-making, not finance. Honestly, Katie, I don’t know what I did in my past life to deserve this.’
‘You must have been very naughty,’ I said before I could stop myself. Oh. My. God. I sounded like a MILF from some nineties porn movie. ‘Karma, I mean. Bad karma transformed into a career in finance. You should watch yourself or you’ll come back as something even worse next time. Maybe an ambulance-chasing solicitor. Har har.’
‘My parents are both solicitors,’ he said. ‘Personal injury.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean it! I’m sure they’re very nice people and they probably didn’t do anything horrible in a previous life to deserve to be solicitors. I mean, it was just—’
‘Katie, relax, I was only joking. My parents are doctors. Shall we get on with this?’
I left the meeting in a muddle. He didn’t mention anything about the Christmas party. Still no hints that he might remember more than he was letting on. No lovely innuendos. I’d carried a torch for this man for six years, which hadn’t dimmed one iota. I must have used extra-long life batteries. It couldn’t go on like this.
CHAPTER FIVE (#u05ba700a-2a98-5621-96df-3ac52ccd531f)
Our overdrafts wouldn’t survive sixty-quid theatre tickets for very long, so our girls’ nights were interspersed with thriftier options.
‘I’ve never seen so many skinny jeans in one place,’ Jane said, shifting in her chair to tuck her legs further beneath the table in the cinema’s foyer. ‘Have we walked into a Topshop advert?’
‘They’re hipsters,’ Ellie whispered, as if observing them on safari. Maybe she was afraid they’d stampede if spooked. ‘They all dress like this in the East End. It looks good on teenagers but I could never wear jeans like that.’
‘Oh, but Ellie,’ Jane said, ‘of course you can, you’re only twenty-five! I’m the one who’s probably too old to be trendy.’
‘You make yourself sound like a granny, Jane,’ I said. ‘You’re only thirty-five. And a young-looking thirty-five at that.’
‘She’s right,’ Pixie said, smoothing her hands over her thighs. ‘I’m thirty-five and I’m wearing them. I am! You don’t have to be a size zero you know. Skinny just means they fit your body … whatever body you’ve got. I can’t stand those baggy ones they always stock in big sizes. They make me look like a postie. My calves aren’t too bad. I may as well show them off.’
She did have pretty calves, and slender ankles. She often said her parents had some spinning top mixed in with their Yorkshire heritage. I loved that she could see the good in herself, even when sometimes others didn’t.
‘I don’t know how you do it, Pixie,’ Jane said. ‘I admire you so much. I can’t even let Andy see my wobbly bits, let alone the wider world. I make him turn all the lights out when we’re in bed.’
How I wished some of Pixie’s confidence would rub off on Jane. ‘Doesn’t he get cross about that?’
She smiled. ‘If he does, he doesn’t let on. He’s too good a husband.’
Ellie was keen to find our seats, even though we’d already reserved them. I hadn’t seen her so excited since the Selfridges shoe sale last year. But then it wasn’t every day that her favourite film director offered to do a talk after his film.
There was a collective intake of breath when we saw the huge cushy green velvet armchairs. Pixie made a face. ‘They’re not big enough …’
‘Very funny,’ I said. It was nap-worthy seating. ‘This could be the perfect cinema experience, thank you, Hackney Picturehouse!’ I imagined all the cold, rainy weekend afternoons we could spend lounging in cinematic splendour. In seats like that I’d even watch Vin Diesel without too much of a grump.
Within minutes of the opening credits though, I was yearning for Vin. Instead we sat through two hours of bleak inner angst. As if I needed any more of that, after the day I’d had. My mind replayed the afternoon’s meeting while the actors wept on-screen. Stupid arthouse film.
Every month the entire Nutritious sales team met in the big conference room to divvy up new client prospects and report on progress with existing clients. Everybody lied, of course (occupational hazard), but it was important to go through the motions to give our bosses the illusion of control.
As usual, Clive (he of the vision boards) chaired the meeting and, as usual, we played Buzzword Bingo. Trading the cards around each month made sure that everyone got an equal chance over time.
Nobody could sling vacuous office speak like Clive, and he never disappointed. Ellie jumped when he said ‘Let’s focus on the bottom line, team’ and I knew she had my card from last month. Focus and bottom line in one go. Well played, Ellie.
‘All right, last order of business,’ he said as I ticked off one of my boxes. Just touch base and game plan left to win. ‘New account visits. We’ve got sixteen this month. Who can take Camelot in Northampton?’
I raised my hand with lots of others.
‘Steve, thanks. Cohens in Leeds?’
Again my hand went up. ‘Susan, great. Faith Fitness, also in Leeds? Susan, do you want to take that too? Thanks. Havens Chemist? Matt.’
Each time my hand went up. Each time Clive chose a colleague to take the meeting. By the end of the list, my arm was tired. So was I.
‘Right,’ said Clive. ‘Thank you, ladies and gents. Same time next month. Any questions, just touch base with me.’
‘Erm, Clive? Isn’t there a client I could take?’ I asked, subtly ticking off my touch base box.
He smiled his grandfatherly smile. ‘I’m sorry, Katie, that’s the end of the list. Next time you should volunteer earlier.’ Ellie grimaced her support as she took the minutes. She was lucky. As the company secretary and all-round indispensable person, she didn’t have to fight for client meetings with the rest of us.
I didn’t bother pointing out that my hand was in the air the whole time. I could have danced on the desk and he’d have passed me over. It was a long-standing fact. I was one of their top salespeople on the phone. I never got client meetings.
Once Ellie’s moany film ended we had to stay for another twenty minutes while sycophantic fans stroked the director’s ego. Even she looked ready for a drink by the time we finally made for the pub down the road.
‘You know what I really want?’ Ellie asked as we carried our wine to an empty table. ‘Cake. I could murder a slice of gooey chocolate gateau.’ She licked her lips thinking about it.
‘I could eat two slices,’ I said. Lately my appetite had been colossal. ‘With ice cream.’
‘God, don’t!’ moaned Jane. ‘I haven’t had anything sweet all week.’
‘You’re not still on your stinking wee cereal diet?’ Pixie said. ‘Love, give it up. There’s no reason to put yourself through something that clearly doesn’t work.’ When Ellie protested this rather blunt statement, she said, ‘What? Jane has said as much. It’s been over a month and she hasn’t lost any weight.’
‘I gained a pound,’ Jane confirmed. ‘But I’m going to try something new. Katie, you might know about this too, from work. It’s called Alli. Have you heard of it?’
‘We don’t sell any diet aids.’ I made a mental note to ask the science types around at the office about it anyway.
‘You take it with meals,’ she explained. ‘And it keeps your body from absorbing fat. The best part is you can eat whatever you like!’
‘It sounds too good to be true,’ Ellie said. ‘Is it safe?’
‘I bought it at Boots, so it must be,’ she said. ‘This could be the miracle I’ve been looking for.’
I hated seeing Jane get so excited about the latest fad only to be disappointed.
‘Are you finished?’ Pixie glared at us. ‘Jesus, will you listen to yourselves? We may as well just go to Slimming Zone. It’d be cheaper and we can have the exact same monotonous conversations. Aren’t you tired of always thinking about what you ate yesterday, what you can eat today? It’s exhausting. I quit Slimming Zone to get away from all that and you’re bringing it with you on our nights out.’ Her look softened. ‘Ladies. We are more than the sum total of our BMIs. Honestly, I’m sick to death of it all. Aren’t you?’
Actually I was. And Pixie was right. We had better things to talk about than our waistlines. ‘Well, I thought that film was a load of old donkey’s bollocks.’
‘How can you say that?’ Ellie asked. ‘It was beautiful.’
‘It was boring.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Pixie said. ‘Donkey’s bollocks aren’t boring.’
‘Not all films move along at the pace of Love,Actually.’
Ellie knew I judged all cinema against the Richard Curtis classics.
I shrugged. ‘That storyline was Jurassic. Glaciers move faster.’
‘I thought the main guy was hot,’ Jane said.
Ellie made a face. ‘He didn’t look well-bathed.’
‘And with that seventies porn moustache?’ Pixie laughed. ‘But I suppose you also like Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot.’
‘Do you also have a thing for seventies porn, Jane?’ I asked.
‘Bow chicka bow-wow!’ Ellie said. ‘It’s making a comeback you know.’
‘Seventies porn?’
She nodded. ‘It’s vintage now that everybody’s waxing off all their body hair. Some men still like a full muff.’
‘How do you know that? Does lovely Thomas like a hirsute woman?’
She blushed to her roots. ‘I read it in Cosmo. And I know where this conversation is going, so don’t even bother.’
‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ said Jane. ‘But you’re the only one around here with an active sex life. I love Andy but with two children, we’re lucky if we remember to kiss good night. I’m afraid you must share with the group.’
But Ellie wouldn’t be drawn down that road. ‘Jane, something tells me that you’re protesting too much. You and Andy are probably still ten times more romantic than the rest of us could hope to be.’
‘Infinitely more,’ said Pixie. ‘Speaking for myself.’
Jane had one of those relationships that inspired envy in both singletons, the smugly wed and, as Pixie just proved, the extremely disgruntled. Andy was practically an urban legend, a type often discussed but never seen in real dating life: intelligent, funny, sexy and kind. His equanimity was legendary, but then Jane was just as warm and supportive. Whenever she talked about how she and Andy met, she grinned like a lunatic. It seemed a match made in heaven.
It had actually been a match made in Ibiza, sweaty and knee-deep in foam. Jane was there for her cousin’s hen weekend. Andy was there hoping to snog hens. They danced into each other in the early hours of Sunday morning and by the time they kissed at the airport that night they knew their good-byes would be hellos within the week back in London.
Holiday romances rarely work out, but Andy and Jane weren’t your normal twenty-three year olds. Only two years into her fledgling BBC career, Jane had already bought her own flat. She had a pension and knew exactly what she wanted in life. Unlike most of her friends, whose views on procreation were ambivalent at best, Jane wanted a big, noisy, happy family like the one she came from.
Andy’s future was no less clear, and just as clearly focused on having a family. He was an IT programmer, weekend rugby player, and the friend that everyone trusted with their spare keys. Within a month, he had Jane’s keys too, and she had his. They were deliriously in love with each other and tried their best not to be smug about it. They spent the next two summers taking most of their holiday to go to music festivals and on Jane’s twenty-fifth birthday, they married in a small summer ceremony in Jane’s hometown. Her birthday party cum wedding reception was a huge BBQ in a muddy Suffolk field. Jane wore wellies with her dress. Her wedding photos, which she kept all over the house, looked like they were ordered straight from beautifulbohemianweddings.com.
Children were always part of their plan and they didn’t waste time. Andy knew Jane would be the most perfect mother, and told her constantly how excited he was to see her holding their very own baby one day.
Unfortunately though, nature wasn’t taking direction from Andy. As the months passed and her periods remained regular, Jane started to suspect something was wrong.
Of course, being Jane, she read every book, article and blog she could find. There had to be a way to fix what was clearly broken. She’d always been fit. She ate healthily, took her vitamins, avoided preservatives and mercury-laden tuna. Was she too healthy? Maybe the body functioned best in the middle of the range rather than at the extremes.
Everyone around her seemed to be getting pregnant. Even the teenage daughter of the corner shop owner was knocked up, the stupid girl, and her cousin, the hen weekend raver, was already pregnant with her second child.
At first Jane loved seeing her cousin, but as the months passed it got harder to smile convincingly when she held her cousin’s tiny baby. With every sniff of that delicious little head, Jane felt more despondent, and surer that her insides weren’t functioning like everyone else’s. She didn’t tell Andy about her fears. She wasn’t about to blow his illusion of her perfection so early in their marriage. So she kept it to herself, and it festered.
Andy was the first to bring up the ‘I’ word.
‘But we’re young,’ Jane said, panicking to hear her biggest fear from Andy’s lips. ‘We can’t be infertile.’
‘I’m sure we’re not,’ he said, smoothing the hair from her face. ‘There’s probably a very simple explanation.’ His IT-programming brain knew there must be an answer for this run-time error. ‘Maybe we should just get checked out to make sure everything’s okay. If you like, I can make appointments for us.’
Dear Andy was willing to wank in a cup for the love of his life. But Jane kept putting off the appointments, and hoping, until finally Andy confronted her.
All her fear tumbled out in a wave that threatened to wash away what they had together. But Andy wouldn’t let it. He held on, anchoring them both, and convinced Jane to go for tests with him.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_742d8bb2-4c27-51f7-821e-0fc5a40c1621)
‘You’ve lost two pounds. Well done, Katie,’ gushed Pam the next week at Slimming Zone as she updated my chart. Pam was a gusher, which made her the perfect slimming coach. She acted like we’d found a cure for PMT every time we dropped a bit of weight.
The last time I’d lost two pounds was when Jane made us do the Caveman Diet. It was no compensation for the eggy burps. Thankfully, womankind then left the caves and evolved to discover baked goods.
I grinned at my friends. Ellie pulled a face. Sore gainer.
