part0021

‘I think she’s coming round. Open that window a bit wider, it’s like an absolute oven in here.’ I recognise Em’s voice and open my eyes to see her leaning over me with concern in her eyes, her hand resting on my forehead.

‘Er...’ seems to be all I can manage.

‘Just stay there,’ she says, getting up from the floor. ‘Let yourself come round properly before you try to get up. Ed’s gone to get you a glass of water.’

I’m starting to feel a bit better now that the breeze is cooling me down and also a bit foolish; only I could pass out when I’ve just been offered a promotion. I can’t stay down on the floor feeling exposed and vulnerable and I hope to God that my knickers aren’t on display. I turn slowly onto my side and push myself up to a sitting position; the headache is still there but not quite as bad and I don’t feel sick anymore.

I stand up, assisted by Em, and sit down gingerly onto the chair that I fell out of.

‘I’m feeling a bit embarrassed,’ I say with a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t know quite what happened, just that I felt really hot and I couldn’t seem to cool down. ’

‘I’m not surprised you fainted, it’s ridiculously hot in here. That radiator’s been welded on full for months, it’s impossible to turn it down and with the window and door shut it was like an oven. Far too hot for me but Ed’s always cold and doesn’t believe in opening windows.’

‘Taking my name in vain again,’ Ed says as he comes back into the office carrying a plastic cup of water in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

He hands me the cup of water and I gulp it down greedily.

‘Bit chilly in here now, isn’t it?’ Ed says as he takes the empty cup from me and passes me the mug of tea. ‘I put plenty of sugar in it, for the shock.’ Em is standing behind Ed and rolls her eyes at me and I stifle a giggle.

‘I think it was the heat, Ed,’ she says. ‘It was unbearably hot in here. I’ve become acclimatised to it but it’s a bit much for everyone else. Don’t you remember that Pam from HR keeled over last year when she came down for a meeting?’

‘Hmm, that’s right, she did. We need to get that radiator sorted out so it doesn’t happen again.’ He sits down behind his desk. ‘I thought it was the shock of being offered a promotion that did it!’

‘No, I think it was definitely the heat, I feel fine now.’ Not strictly true, the headache is still lurking and I feel suddenly ravenously hungry. Now that I’m not fixating on whatever terrible thing was going to happen in this meeting, I feel normal again.

You’re not normal! shouts the Beccabird right on cue, just to remind me that I’m a mess.

I take a sip of the tea, sickly sweet with God knows how many sugars in it, but instead of gagging on it, I find it strangely comforting .

Em pulls the window slightly shut, as the cool breeze has turned into a bit of a gale force wind, and sits back down next to Ed’s desk.

‘Do you think you need to go home? We can continue with this meeting another time when you’re feeling better.’

‘No, I’m fine.’ I wave my hand in a flapping motion. ‘It was just the heat, I’m absolutely okay now.’

Em nods and looks at Ed who quickly pushes the drawer shut on a packet of biscuits that he’s trying to hide and attempts to swallow the biscuit that he’s just put in his mouth. He nods while trying to chew it without us noticing.

‘Could I have a biscuit please, Ed?’ Honestly, I had no idea that I was actually going to say it out loud, it just came out. I hope I’m not drooling.

‘Of course, of course!’ He opens the drawer and pulls the packet out and offers them to me across the desk. I take a chocolate digestive and bite into it; delicious. I wonder if I’ll look a complete pig if I have another one.

‘Here, have another,’ he says, reading my mind, ‘They’ll perk you up a bit, give you some energy.’

I take another and resist the urge to cram the whole thing into my mouth in one go.

Em clears her throat and looks at Ed with a raised eyebrow.

‘Ah, yes, the promotion,’ he says. ‘Can we assume that you want the job or do you need some time to think it over? There will of course be a pay rise to go with it.’

I try to act cool and as if I get offered a promotion and a pay rise every day of the week but I don’t think I succeed in keeping my face neutral; I’m over the moon and can’t stop myself from smiling .

‘Obviously there’ll be a lot of new things to learn but there’s no rush, Em will draw up a training schedule for you. And of course you’ll have to move into this office, but not just yet, there’s not really enough room for three desks.’

‘And we’ll get that radiator fixed so we don’t boil to death in here.’

Ed chuckles and I join in, marvelling at the fact that Em’s made a joke.

‘So, I think that’s all for now, HR will draw up a new contract for you and Em has already prepared a new job description for you to have a look at – any queries just ask Em.’

I look over at Em who’s now looking slightly bored; this meeting has gone on far longer than intended.

‘I’ll email the job description to you. You’ll see that you’re already doing quite a lot of it so I don’t foresee any problems.’ She gives me her tight-lipped smile and I beam at her. Your secret’s out, Em, you’re not an ice maiden at all, you just like to appear to be.

Oh yeah , scoffs the Beccabird, forgotten about the no gentlemen friends and kitchen rota, have we?

Okay, I get your point but nobody’s perfect, are they?

I get up out of the chair and feel surprisingly okay; the chocolate biscuits have definitely done the trick. I get to the door and am about to open it when I have a sudden thought.

‘Um, am I allowed to tell anyone about the job or do I wait until you’ve told the rest of the office?’

‘I’ll be sending an email out this afternoon so you might want to wait until then to talk about it. I don’t think anyone will be surprised.’

I think they will; I’m not sure how well the news is going to be received because I’m the newcomer and I’m sure lots of the youngsters will think they deserve this job far more than I do.

‘Oh, okay, fab,’ I say as I open the door and leave the office.

Fab? Really? Why do I say such stupid things? Why can I never say the right thing at the right time? I really have no idea why Em chose me to be her successor; she obviously sees something in me that I can’t see myself.

The rest of the day passed in a blur; the announcement re Jonathan’s departure generated little interest although I’d sort of hoped it would so that it would detract from the announcement about me getting Em’s job because I wasn’t sure if it would be well received.

I received a copy of the email as well because Em sent it to the whole office. Trina already knew because I’d told her at lunchtime and showing what a true friend she is she was absolutely thrilled for me.

I said I felt a bit awkward because she’s been here a lot longer than me and I feel as if I’d pushed in front of her. She brayed with laughter and said that she’s more than happy where she is and the idea of doing Em’s job sounds like an absolute nightmare to her. And anyway, she reminded me, I’ve way more experienced than her because didn’t I pretty much run the department when my old boss was absent at the Westchester branch? I remembered then that I did, and I’d mentioned it in passing to Trina but I never got paid for it or promoted; it was all very informal and I’d just carried on from the person who used to do my job. So, maybe I do deserve it.

I am definitely going to miss sitting opposite Trina; although as she helpfully pointed out it’s not as if we talk very much in the office because I’m so conscientious and always have my head down beavering away. I didn’t think I was particularly conscientious but she says I am and that it’s another reason why I was chosen for the job. I do my fair share of internet surfing, I told her, but Trina said I only do that because I do my work so quickly that I run out and I’ve nothing else to do. I think Trina knows more about me than I do.

We’ve decided that we’re still going to have lunch together every day and we’re friends outside of work so things won’t really change at all. And there’s email, of course, we email each other all of the time now even though we sit opposite each other, so I’m sure we’ll carry that on when I’m sitting at the other end of the office.

I asked Trina if she’d seen me faint when I was in Em’s office, it has a sort of half window around it so you can see people in there but if they’re sitting down you can only see the tops of their heads. She was shocked because she had no idea what had happened and gave me a telling off for not looking after myself properly and insisted that I have a pudding after my lunch to make-up for the meals that I’d missed. She said she never saw anything and no one else in the office had mentioned it although she did notice that Ed came out looking a bit flustered. He’d passed her on his way down to the kitchen and then trudged back again pretty quickly with a drink in each hand but she had no idea the drinks were for me.

With a bit of luck the fainting episode was confined to the three of us; and at least I didn’t vomit everywhere – I have a feeling that if I hadn’t fainted I probably would have done.

When I take over Em’s job they’re going to have to find someone to replace me; Trina says as I’ll most likely be involved in the interviewing in my new position I have to make sure that we employ a millionaire silver fox who just wants a mundane little job to fill the days so that he doesn’t get too bored. He will, of course, immediately fall in love with Trina and want to take her to expensive restaurants and whisk her away on exotic holidays. But she won’t live with him, she says, because she wants to keep her independence. I told her she was greedy because she already has one millionaire admirer.

I thought I was the world’s worst day dreamer but I think Trina comes a close second.

I’ve told her I’ll try my best but more than likely she’ll end up with another youngster who thinks she’s a hundred years old.

Talking of the youngsters, they’ve really surprised me too; a few of them stopped by my desk as they were passing and said well done and good luck ; they didn’t have to do that, did they? I thought it was really sweet of them and I didn’t notice any snide looks or whispers from any of the others so I think it’s going to be alright; it doesn’t seem as if anyone has taken umbrage at me taking over from Em.

Em, as promised, emailed me the full job description and when I first saw it I went into a panic because the list of tasks seemed to go on forever. But after I’d taken a deep breath and calmed down and read it, I realised that apart from a bit of personnel admin that I’ll be required to do I pretty much did most of the job when I stood in for the boss at Westchester. So it’s not really anything new, I might be a bit rusty but I’m sure it’ll all come back to me.

So all in all, what started out as a bad day turned itself around into an unbelievably good day and by the time five o’clock came around I was feeling pretty good. I was looking forward to getting home and telling Flynn all about it, because we’d have such a laugh about the fainting and also I needed to tell him about Jonathan getting his just desserts.

Which was when I remembered.

We don’t do that anymore.

Flynn’s not in when I get home and I didn’t really expect him to be; he’s out more than he’s in these days. I called in at the supermarket on the way home and bought the makings for a chicken stir fry in the remote hope that he might come home tonight - I think I knew as I was buying it that it was just wishful thinking.

So. I’ve come to a decision; I’m going to be more positive and not dwell on the demise of our short but very sweet friendship, it’s time to move on with my life and take each new opportunity as it comes. I can’t change what’s happened, although I don’t actually know what has happened, I have to concentrate on the fact that I have a good life and lots to look forward to; a new career and a fantastic six-week holiday in Australia to see my brother after seven long years. The new me might even try internet dating and maybe I should follow Trina’s advice and cheer myself up with a casual date or two, who knows? I shouldn’t just dismiss it without giving it a try, if it’s awful I don’t need to do it again. Or maybe I could take up a hobby and do an evening class where I might meet someone; art or creative writing, maybe some sort of dancing or even martial arts?

I’m ignoring the Beccabird who’s rolling around laughing at the mention of martial arts. It’s not that funny, I may be clumsy but I’m sure I could throw a few punches with the best of them; I could imagine it’s Jonathan’s smirking face to motivate myself. Anyway, I’m not saying I’m going to do it – I’m just saying that anything is possible, the world is my oyster.

When I get home I carry my bag of shopping out to the kitchen and after hanging my coat up and washing my hands I decide that I’m not making dinner for two; time to grow up and get real. I shove half the chicken into a bag and put it in the freezer and then start chopping and slicing the onions and vegetables. Even though I made sure to have a good meal at lunchtime - plus the pudding that Trina forced on me -I still feel ravenous. So I change my mind and retrieve the chicken from the freezer, flop it onto the chopping board and slice it up. I will eat it all.

I fling the chicken into the wok and inhale the smell of the spices and garlic as it sizzles, it smells amazing and my mouth waters. There’s so much food that the wok can barely contain it so I think I’ll forego the noodles. I get a huge pasta bowl down from the cupboard and place it on the work top in readiness; a few more minutes and it’ll be ready.

The insistent jangle of the doorbell penetrates through the sizzle of cooking and for a moment I’m bewildered as to who it could be and then it hits me – it’s Flynn, of course, he must have forgotten his key. I feel suddenly uplifted and dash out into the hallway congratulating myself on cooking all of the chicken. Isn’t it a sign that we’re going to be friends again? It must be! I fiddle with the lock and can’t keep the big smile off my face – I knew things would work out.

I pull open the door and my smile fades, not Flynn at all but a tall, stunning blonde who looks as if she’s just stepped out of the pages of an upmarket, glossy magazine. I immediately feel lumpy, dumpy and plain.