Poor guy. Mum had him absolutely whipped. I issued a soft prayer to myself that that kind of heartbreak would never find me.
As we headed off towards Vauxhall, Dad turned briefly towards me and asked, ‘Cassie, are you seeing anyone at the moment? It would be nice to be a grandpa while I still have all my motor functions.’
I guffawed.
‘Dad. You have a whole grandchild currently basting in its own juices in your future daughter-in-law’s stomach right now, ready to drop in the next couple of months. What’s with the pressure on me?’
Dad responded by sucking his teeth and tapping the steering wheel as we ventured down South Lambeth Road.
‘It’s not the same, Cassie. It’s not the same. You were supposed to be first, you know?’
Yeah. I knew. My parents had never let me forget it.
There was silence for a few moments more, before he briefly turned to me again and let out a huge exhale, almost as if he were bracing himself.
‘Thank you,’ he started, his voice solemn. ‘Thank you for your advice this morning.’
I smiled faintly, attempting to burn this moment into my brain, for it was rare for me to receive an acknowledgement of appreciation from him.
‘You’re welcome, Dad,’ I replied. ‘Careful, though – keep being this nice to me, and I might get used to it.’
Chapter 6
I arrived at work with thirty minutes to spare, and in that time, I decided to reflect on the last twenty-four hours with the whole Jericho situation. I quickly checked theOuiMeetapp for signs of a response, but my message was still left unread. I wanted to gauge his response before booking another session, but the excitement from last night’s shenanigans sat deep in my stomach – I needed more. I loved the thrill of it and was tempted to book without waiting for his reply. To hell with feeling embarrassed or ashamed about it; I had had too much fun to let this be a one-time occurrence. I checked Jericho’s ‘menu’ again to see his rates:
My company during the day (up to four hours) – £200 // My company during the evening (up to four hours) – £350.
I logged into my monthly savings accounting app to check how much I had accumulated so far. I’d set the account up five years ago to deposit automatic monthly savings of £400 in my bid to someday have enough to help with buying and doing up a house (most of the funds would be coming via help from my parents but I wanted to save a bit aside for renovations and such). There was currently £24,000 in there; I’d been strict on never touching it except for dire emergencies. I couldn’t help but wonder: would withdrawing £200 to spend time with a strapping young man – improving my mental, emotionaland (hopefully) sexual health – constitute a dire emergency? I transferred the £200 into my current account and went back ontoOuiMeet.Fuck it; I deserved to have a good experience, and the money could always be replaced in time.
I thought it would be cute to schedule a nice weekend date during the day to do something wholesome at first. I wanted to establish a rapport with him that didn’t feel quite so transactional and so I clicked on his ‘daytime date’ option on his profile. I checked his calendar for availability; Saturday was the only day he had available for a daytime date, the same day my mum wanted us to come over so she could spill her alleged engagement news. Damnit.
With fifteen minutes before I needed to officially ‘clock in’ to work, I quickly texted Mum, already anticipating her emotionally manipulative response:
Cassandra: Mum, what time do you need us over this weekend? I may have a clash …
She answered within a couple of minutes.
Mummy: Clash with who? And why?
Mummy: So you can’t even take a day out of your busy schedule to spend time with the woman that brought you into this world? Who gave birth to you? Who gave you life???
Like clockwork. I quickly checked the available times Jericho had for Saturday; 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Damnit. I replied:
Cassandra: Can you really say you ‘gave birth’ to me, though? I was a caesarean, wasn’t I? Sotechnicallyyou didn’t really give birth to me … I was forcefully removed from your body against my will. Ejected. Anyways, I was thinking I could swing by for a couple of hours in the morning?
Steven would most probably end up staying the whole day at Mum’s with Bianca, which would take the heat off me. I crossed my fingers as I booted up my computer, hoping that she’d be OK with the early morning drop-in.
A few minutes later, the office door opened and instead of Kofi, a tall, bald-headed man came through the door and walked in my direction. He had on tortoise-shell horn-rimmed glasses (from Oliver Peoples, I assumed), a black Bottega Veneta intrecciato-woven briefcase, and a three-piece suit, most likely by Ozwald Boateng. Having worked around surgeons and consultants over the last few years, you quickly find out that they all tend to dress the same and reach for the same designer brands when outside of their surgical scrubs. This was a man I didn’t recognise, however. He stopped at my desk, a beaming smile in tow.
‘Hi there! You must be Cassandra. I just thought I’d pop in quickly to introduce myself.’ He had a sunny, charming disposition, not dissimilar to a holiday representative. He held out his hand, which I took hesitantly, and gave me a firm handshake. I didn’t think we were expecting any new consultants on our floor, and if so, HR hadn’t alerted me to any staff changes, annoyingly.
‘I’m Mr Paulson, but you can just call me Jeff. I’m one of the new orthopaedic consultants, I don’t know if HR told you at all?’ He stepped back slightly, allowing me room to go through the piles of letters and notices on my desk and, of course, there was nothing to tell me he was starting today.
‘Hey! Nice to meet you – no, unfortunately HR haven’t updated me at all but that’s no problem,’ I said, trying to sound as professional as possible to cover up the fact that I was completely frazzled. I absolutely hated being caught unaware, especially at work. If I had known that we were going to get a new consultant, I would have arrived at work at least an hourearlier to set up his new office and run through a few logistics with him. But, we move.
‘Oh! Not to worry,’ he chortled lightly. This Jeff guy seemed like a pleasant person; I was hoping he wouldn’t be too much trouble. ‘To be honest, I actually start tomorrow but I just wanted to move my bits into the new office beforehand – I like to be super organised ahead of time so thought I’d quickly introduce myself to you and just say I’m looking forward to us working together!’
He seemed nice enough, and maybe this was right on time too, as a couple of my consultants were currently on annual leave, meaning my workload over the last few weeks had decreased a little – it would be nice to have a bit more to do.
