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CHAPTER ONE
Bethany
“Come on Bethany, spill. How was your date last night?” asks my eternally effervescent colleague Amy, as she slurps her acai berry smoothie through a bright orange straw.
“It was good, thanks. He was nice, and we had a great time, but I don’t think there was any spark between us.”
“Awww, so you’ll be staying on the market longer,” she says, her bottom lip curling down with such genuine pity that I regret ever telling her about the date.
Amy is peppy perfection, has been in a happy relationship for two years, and if she ever found herself single again, would have a line of men wrapping around the building desperate to date her. I could hate her for it, but she’s just too damn nice.
“Looks like it,” I say, forcing a smile.
“At least you had fun last night,” she says, squeezing my shoulder and then winking. “He must have kept you up late. You look exhausted.”
“Thanks,” I say to her perky behind as she spins around and bounces out of the design studio toward her desk, too ashamed to admit that I was actually tucked up in bed by 9 pm.
Suddenly the oxygen feels like it’s been sucked out of the air, a few tense seconds pass, then a husky voice calls out from behind the computer screen opposite.
“So, Kiddo. What really happened?”
“Exactly what I said,” I reply, a little too fast and high-pitched to sound convincing.
A bird-like face with enormous green-rimmed glasses and earrings so large they could knock tower blocks down appears from behind the Mac Screen.
“You can keep trying to sell me this story, but I’m never going to buy it,” she says, and I can tell from her voice that she’s probably raising her eyebrows, but in all honesty, her glasses are so gigantic I’m not sure if she even has eyebrows behind there. If she does, nobody has ever seen them.
“Why not?” I ask, desperately clinging to this narrative even though I know it’s futile. Nancy is like a pit bull, and now she’s locked on, there’s no way she’ll let go.
“My first clue was you said he was nice. And as I keep trying to tell you, all men are pigs,” she says, pursing her fuchsia lips together.
Nancy’s opinion of men is so low there are worms tunneling through it, which is exactly why I didn’t tell her about my date in the first place and chose to confide in every-guy-on-the-planet-wants-to-date-me Amy.
“They’re not all pigs,” I protest, but Nancy makes a rattling sound in her throat like she’s about to cough something up and rolls her eyes.
“Okay then, let’s hear it. Tell me about this guy from last night. What was so great about him?” she says, fixing me with a stare so intense that it vaporizes the last few drops of commitment I had to my lie.
“He didn’t turn up,” I say quietly, averting my eyes from her gaze as I flush hot with embarrassment.
“I sat at the restaurant for an hour, then I gave up and went home. But the server gave me a complimentary slice of cake, so it wasn’t a total loss,” I say, trying to force an entirely humorless laugh to stop myself from crying.
“Like I said, they’re all pigs,” snarls Nancy, tutting and shaking her head as she grabs her bag from the back of her chair and starts rustling through it.
“You’re better off without him, Kiddo,” she says, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag.
“Nancy! You can’t smoke in here,” I gasp, rushing to close the studio door before the fumes make their way out into the main office.
“What are they going to do, fire me? I retire in a week anyway,” she says, with an irreverent wave of her hand. “And this is a stressful situation. I need my smokes to get me through.”
“How is it stressful for you? I’m the one who got stood up.”
“I know, but you look like you’re going to cry or something and then I’ll have to hug you. You know I don’t do hugs, so this is all very stressful,” she says, and I snort out a laugh.
Nancy hasn’t exactly got the most gentle of approaches, but she’s always truthful and I appreciate her acerbic take on things. It feels much better than pity.
“You know what you need? A bourbon. Come on, let’s go to a bar,” she says, pushing out her chair and snatching up her purse.
“It’s only 9.30 am, and unlike you, I do care about getting fired.”
