Best of Bosses 2008(124)

She had been tempted to telephone Lily on the other side of the world and inform her of this new departure, a whole brand-new set of moral codes, but Lily had failed to show the appropriate disgust at Nick’s high-handed behaviour at the party and had just laughed when accused of not coming to her rescue. She had departed for America still clinging to the belief that everything was going to be fine, just wait and see.

Now, sitting in the pizza emporium, which was truly an emporium and one that seemed unnaturally full of rowdy children, Rose was in danger, not of dodging Ted’s wandering hands, but of nodding off through boredom.

Ted was not only very, very fond of the sound of his own voice and enchanted with all the funny stories he had up his sleeve, but he had also confided, on the way over in the taxi, lowering his voice, as if the cab driver could care less, that his inclinations were not entirely of the straight variety.

Of course, he adored women, but…

Rose had nodded and resigned herself to an evening of listening to Ted’s anecdotes and looking at her watch.

At least the place was big so that they could manage to avoid a falsely intimate setting, and once or twice, as she nibbled at her pizza and salad, she actually found herself laughing at some of the wild things he had to say.

Apparently he found her cool and refreshing because she was such a good listener.

‘If you were a guy,’ he paid the highest compliment, ‘then I’d be wining and dining you and inviting you back to my place to…’

‘Look at your etchings?’

Which brought them right back to square one, the main subject for the evening, Ted himself, and his trials and tribulations as an artist before he had discovered his true calling behind the lens of a camera.

It was a little after ten by the time Ted asked for the bill.

‘Been a bit of a waste for you, hasn’t it?’ he said sheepishly. ‘I should have let you know…told you where my preferences lay…’

Rose laughed and impulsively reached across the table and held both his hands in hers. ‘I just don’t understand why you don’t come out of the closet. It’s the twenty-first century, after all, and you work in a world where it’s pretty much the norm, anyway.’

‘Oh, it’s my mum, babe. Don’t think she’d be too hip to the idea and, well…she’s getting on a bit…Gotta play the respect card, man, gotta play the respect card.’

‘Well, if this helps at all, I was playing a part that night as well.’

‘You mean…’

‘Oh, no! Not that.’ Rose threw back her head and laughed, then she leaned forward and whispered confidentially, ‘I’m actually a closet introvert. But last Saturday, I dressed to impress and played the part.’

‘Well, now we know each other’s wicked secrets, I think we’re going to be friends for life.’

It was turning out to be an okay evening after all, Rose considered as they stood up, and when he slipped his arm around her waist she was quite happy to nestle against him and not at all offended when they parted company on the pavement outside, after promising that they would meet up again, maybe in a couple of months time, because Ted’s schedule was ‘like hectic, man’.

She washed her face, kicked off the high shoes and changed into her very un-wild gear of grey track-suit jogging bottoms and a sloppy tee shirt with a faded picture of Minnie Mouse on the front.

Heartbreak had, at least, had one good side effect. Her eating habits had changed. She had lost her appetite and it had conveniently failed to return so as she sat down to finish what remained of the evening in front of a bowl of carrot sticks and some low-fat dip she rested safe in the knowledge that the pizza was not going to be accompanied by a great slab of comfort-eating chocolate.

It took her fifteen minutes of surfing the channels before she landed on one that was watchable.

It would pass the rest of the evening, she supposed. No point heading up to bed because she knew that she would be unable to sleep. It had been the same for ages. She would close her eyes, will herself to think of something mundane, like what Annie at work had done with the reports she had laboriously redone three days ago, or what would be the next stage in her programming to update the Accounts Receivables department, and then she would think of him.

He sprang into her head like sweet temptation and forbidden fruit wrapped up in one agonisingly dangerous package. And he would always be laughing at her. Mostly, he would be laughing at her while rolling around in the bed with the redhead.

She was sipping some of the green tea with lemon that she had made to drink with her carrots and dip when the doorbell rang. She consulted her watch and frowned—nearly eleven-thirty on a Saturday evening.