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Lara is in. She announces her arrival by shaking the bun on the top of my head, then sits on my desk. She places one Louboutin’d foot on the floor, leaving the other swinging in the air.
Lara is what most people would call a bombshell. She stands at five-eight at least, with wild, curly red hair, green doe eyes and full lips. Today, those lips are blood red; I can tell she’s had a good weekend. While Lara fits the Ivory Bow employee visual perfectly, she also breaks all the generic beauty rules. Most of the employees here are worryingly slim, extremely manicured and perfectly polite. Lara is beautifully feral-looking, confidently curvy, with a vocabulary that makes sailors sound like choirboys.
‘Babe, you’re really going to need to start making an effort. What’s going on with this bun? Also, a bit of make-up isn’t going to kill you, you know,’ she teases, giving my hair one last poke with her index finger.
I know where this is going. Lara has been trying to give me a makeover for as long as I have known her.
‘Someone’s got to break the mould around here.’ I smirk.
‘I thought that wasmyjob!’
Lara is my best friend at work and always manages to make me laugh at the beginning of the day. She is popular in the office, although scary to some, and I admire that she is always unapologetically herself – usually up to some kind of mischief, armed with her delightfully dirty laugh. We are total opposites.
I’d hoped joining the company would make me more outgoing, but found the permanently upbeat, unwaveringly enthusiastic ‘work hard, play hard’ culture intimidating; so I retreated instead. Lara and I started at the same time and, while she took to the company like a duck to water, I found myself drowning. If Lara hadn’t basically forced a friendship on me by stalking me into submission and dragging me everywhere with her in those first few months, it would have ended up being an isolating place to work.
What I lacked in social status, however, I made up for in hard work. In my twenty months at the company, I’ve had three promotions, with increasing project and team responsibility each time. The last promotion was the most uncomfortable, effectively making me Lara’s boss. Not that you could tell. I went through a full week of vomit-inducing worry before I told her, convinced that I’d lose the only friend I had. When I eventually did, I waited for our relationship to deteriorate. Instead, it brought us closer together.
She pokes my arm. ‘Good weekend?’
‘Yes, thanks. You?’
I know that the next ten minutes are going to belong to Lara, so I settle in. Lara works with the music accounts and is always at a festival, gig, concert or party. She works hard, long and late but recovers incredibly quickly from challenging events, usually involving high volumes of alcohol.
‘The festival was awesome! I wish you could’ve come. The music was amazing, the clients were on their best behaviour, VIP and backstage were packed. I barely did any work!’
‘Sounds fantastic.’ I flick my eyes at the digital clock at the bottom of my screen. Yeah, that document is going to remain unfinished.
‘Don’t lie, it would’ve been your worst nightmare!’ She laughs and rolls her eyes.
She’s not wrong. This is what I love about Lara. She knows, loves and accepts me for who I am.
‘…And I assume you were on your best behaviour, Lara Scott?’
Lara looks around, moves closer and drops her voice to a whisper. ‘Define best behaviour…’
‘What did you do?’ I cover my eyes with my hands.
Lara always treads a very fine line. It is another of the things I admire about her, but it also makes me very nervous.
‘I may have been seduced…’
‘Nothing new there.’
‘CrimeSpree may have—’
‘Lara. Please tell me you didn’t cross the only line you’re not meant to cross, with a client you are responsible for, while you were working with them. You’re supposed to be keepinghimout of trouble. And he’s engaged! And he’s creepy. And you’re gay. And…goodness, I can’t…!’
Lara starts laughing.
‘You’re joking?’
‘I didn’t sleep with CrimeSpree.’
‘Phew. He’s always sniffing around you. That “sexy body” song he sang at your desk when you became his account manager was ghastly. Especially when he grabbed his crotch.’ I chuckle, recalling the performance. We get them all here.
‘Yeah. Yuck!’
Lara and I burst out laughing and relief floods through me.
