The Great Christmas Breakup (16 page)

She sat back and stared at me.

‘What?’

‘I can’t believe you’ve never noticed.’

Was
she accusing me
of something? I had a sore mouth;
three days to complete a job I couldn’t,
in all probability, do with
any degree of competency;
and now my best friend seemed about to dump me.

‘Look, Lolly, I know I haven’t been there for you–‘

‘What are you talking about,’ she exclaimed. ‘For once, Scar, this is about me
, not you
. You see, I
am
in love.’

Ignoring the dig at my selfish behavior, I clapped my hands
together
like a toddler. ‘Brilliant,
that’s
great news! Who is he?’

Misery
c
louded her gorgeous face again.

‘
That’s the problem.
It’s not a he, it’s a she.

A she?

‘
A she
who is
not interested in other shes.
’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tuesday, November 28

‘Life is fun. Get naked.’

Jocelyn Priestly

‘HOW DID
THAT WRETCHED Jocelyn Priestly
even
get her name on a calendar
, with advice like that
?
’

I was
reading that day’s insightful sentence
aloud
at breakfast
, anger at the woman’s ignorance building.

‘Is she
the one who
shows
her snatch?’
asked Cecily 2.

I sighed.
I
didn’t know how much
more of Cecily 2’s foul language or casual attitude to nakedness and
sex
I could take.

Last night she’d come home at twelve in the S&M outfit she wore for work.
Poor
Mrs Carlisle had seen her
battling with the recalcitrant front door of the building
and thought sh
e was some sort of criminal (the old lady had
actually
mentioned the joker in Batman, which
was, admittedly,
hilarious), and called the cops.

They
’d
almost arrested Cecily 2
for being lewd on the street, until she threatened to snog one of them in return for her freedom.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Officer One.

‘Just d
on’t do it again,’ the second
had instructed
hurriedly, as they backed away.

‘Rude,’ Cecily 2 had remarked.

‘She’d know,’ Carson had whispered in
my
ear.

Burning toast brought me back to the present.

‘Oh, sodding heck, the toast,’ I cried. They were the last two slices.

‘The
se are growing on me,’ Cecily 2
remarked to J, who had stumbled into the room still in his
pa
jamas
.

As s
he was
still wearing her ‘costume’
I figured she
must have slept in it.
I wondered how she could breath
e in the thing
, let alone sleep.

There was the faint w
hiff of BO in the air as Cecily poured cereal into her bowl with wild abandon.

‘What, the con-flakes?’ my son asked.

‘No,’ she said, looking at
her reflection in the microwave. ‘T
hese cold sores.’

Honestly.

Why
couldn’t Cecily 2 take herself off to
Manhattan and get lost for a couple of nights?

Or
take herself off somewhere
permanently.

Rufus and Howie wouldn’t mind. All evidence pointed to the fact that they wouldn’t even notice. Neither had called to check on her while she’d been in Brooklyn.

Which
reminded me.

‘Carson?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why were you in m
idtown, near Bloomingdales, yesterday afternoon?’

He was facing away from me but I could have sworn I saw his back stiffen
.

‘I wasn’t.’

So what was that stiff back all about, then
?

‘
Someone saw you there,
’
I persisted.

‘Who?’

‘Just a friend, f
rom
my
college days.’

Next
it was his turn to look suspicious. ‘The more important question is, what were
you
doing there? Didn’t you have a shift at work?’

Let’s not go there.

‘I was with Lolly.’

‘Instead of at work?’

Having deftly t
urned the conversation from his
own
indiscretions,
Carson waited for me to respond. W
hen I didn’t
, he shook his
slowly balding
head tiredly and
walked out
of the room
.

‘That’s right, just walk away in the middle of a conversat
ion,
’
I called, unable to contain myself, despite the audience sitting at the table.

But Carson kept moving down the hall
.

‘
Not getting’ any?’ Cecily 2 remarked
slyly.

‘Gross,’ J said,
pushing his chair back with a thud
and storming
out.

*

I called Lolly
to discuss the
previously
unmentionable
topic she’d raised
– her sexuality – but it was clear she still didn’t want to talk about it.
H
er answer phone was on at work, and her mobile went straight through to
voicemail.

Was she avoiding me now, after blurting out the truth?
Why
would she do that?

Unless . . .
she wanted to date me?

Oh God, don’t let it be that. How could I reject my dearest friend?

Because the alternate option – dating L
olly – c
learly wasn’t an option at all, e
ven if she was a huge step-up from my present situation.

Of course, Lolly knew that.
Didn’t she
?

If not, w
hy
would she
encourage Robert to call me if she wanted to date me herself?

Unless she was testing my willingness to cheat on Carson?

No. That’s nuts.

My head ached. W
hat a completely awful situation.

Decidin
g I would drop in to
LollyBliss
later
to sort things out
,
I got dressed, pushed the kids out the door, and headed over to
Flindes
.

Fingers crossed that I could explain why I hadn’t called in sick the day before. I hadn’t da
red. As
I lived so close, I wouldn’t have put it past Dan Phillit to come and check on me.

Not surprisingly,
Dan Phillit was in a
less than
congenial mood.

‘Look, Mr Phillit–‘

He didn’t prevaricate.
‘You’re fired,
Mrs
Teeson.’

‘Let me explain.’

‘See those two hardworkers over there?’ He indicated Scott and Maeve, who were batting a broken bag of pasta against a wall w
ith a roll of Christmas wrap.

‘The ones playing baseball with food?’

‘T
hey appreciate their jobs,
’
Dan Phillit said, rooting about in his nose.

‘Can
’t you see what they’
re doing?’

‘Of course I can. They’re picking up broken pasta.
Without being asked. Ent
erprising and punctual. T
he ideal Flindes’ employee
s
.
’

Lord, g
ive me strength not to smash
him one on that huge snout.

‘Look, Mr Phillit,
please
just give me one more chance.
I have a family, and sometimes,
very occasionally,
having a family means I have to miss work.’

‘Then I’ll hire someone who doesn’t have a family.’

‘Isn’t that discrimination?’

‘Not if you
breach the staff handbook by failing to call in
,’ said Dan Phillit. ‘Now, your locker key and discount card, if you please.’

Who said ‘If you please’ anymore?
No wonder he was dateless and bitter.

I threw down the requested items, told Dan Phillit his fly was un
done and that picking his
nose was unacceptable
, especially
in area
s where food was sold.

Then I offered him the universal sign of dissatisfaction
care of my middle finger
, and left.

I got to the corner when it hit me.

What the hell have I done?

Less than five minutes later, I was desperately trying
to stop myself from racing back in and grabbing at Dan Phillit’s knees, begging
for
forgiveness.

I might have, too, if I had
n’t
seen him and Scott and Maeve pointing at me through the dirty glass of the shopfront
and laughing uproariousl
y
.

Trudging towards home,
I remonstrated with myself for being a jerk.
Where on earth was I going to get another permanent job
, with the economy the way it was
?

I was hopeless when
it came to jobs, and interviews Worse, I had nothing to wear for interviews.

And even if I managed to complete the
Chocolato
work, t
here wa
s no guarantee that it
would led to anything
else
, was there?

What had I done
?

- Cue
poignant
tale of disastrous fashion job interviews
:

Although
I dropped out of college when I discovered I was pregnant with J, I still hoped to resume my career. Carson encouraged it – and why wouldn’t he? We ne
eded another income to
be able to
afford to live in New York.

I
occasionally felt a twinge of resentment over
the fact that he’
d dropped law
;
and very occasionally
that he’d done so because of a
nother woman
.

But on the whole, Carson was happy teaching, and I was confident that
,
with two years of college behind me (even with
the
C-grades
I conveniently left off my CV
)
, there would be a full
-
time position in some fashion house
awaiting me. Even if it was, to start with, as a
reception
ist
.

The first interview was at a fabric company called
Weilla
,
to which I’d sent my details
on the off chance. The job was junior fabric buyer, which sounded fascinating.

Unfortunately, the woman who interviewed me homed right in on
my college
results.

‘A C? In business management?
You do know what this job entails, don’t you?
’

‘Yes, I can explain that. You see, I was working hard on my portfolio for design . . .’

The woman ran her finger along my application form.
‘And what did you get for that?’

‘A C, but this isn’t a design job, is it, so . . .’

‘Mrs Teeson, let’s not waste
each other’s time.
’