A Girl Like You - A Girl Like You Part 45
Library

A Girl Like You Part 45

'Yep,' I say breezily. 'I tried so hard to avoid Lonely Single Girl Syndrome before,' (out of the corner of my eye I see Dan mouth 'what?' at Plum) 'but I think it's now time to embrace it. Singledom is safe.' I stand up, handing Sophie money for the bill for later. 'I'm off. Early start for Abigail tomorrow.'

'Are you sure?' says Sophie, standing up to hug me goodbye. 'Is this because the boys are here? I can tell them to leave if you want girl time,' she whispers.

'No, no, of course not,' I say quickly. 'Honestly. Tomorrow's a big day. I'm resigning, remember?'

Chapter Forty Four.

The next morning isn't worth talking about until 10.42 am, when I'm sitting with Helen from HR and my boss Suzanne, who repeats the following two words several times, with increasing aggression and incredulity each time.

'Documentary research.'

'Yep,' I beam. 'On the recession and luxury markets.'

'I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to leave the building immediately,' smiles Helen. She's warm and chatty, with a soul of steel.

'No problem,' I say, smiling warmly back.

'Get your stuff. Security will be with you in 10 minutes,' snaps Suzanne.

Man, she is so pissed off. I feel like clapping my hands.

'Great! Thank you so much. Cheers. Thanks!' I say brightly. I stand up and fight the urge to execute a nimble-footed-mountain-goat-leap out of the room. I walk back to my desk as fast as I can without running, jump behind Charlotte and shout 'BOO!' She jumps and starts to giggle nervously. People don't shout 'boo' in this office. Ever. I quickly whisper what happened in the meeting, just as the security guard arrives. It's Steve from the front desk.

'Hi, Steve,' I say, beaming at him.

'Ready to go?'

'Will you carry me out of here like Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman? Maybe I can wear your hat?'

Steve laughs so loudly at this that the entire floor looks over. Grinning, I pick up my bag. There's nothing else I need. I took the few personal things I had home last week.

'I'll call you later,' says Charlotte tearfully, hugging me.

'I'll miss seeing you every day. But you're dating Henry now so you won't get rid of me. It was all part of my evil plan to make you a best friend.' Charlotte grins, and as her work phone rings, reaches over to answer it. She's way better at this job than I ever was. And she actually likes it. As Steve walks me out of the building, I cannot stop smiling. I feel so happy.

'See ya, Steve!' I say, hugging him goodbye. He looks slightly surprised, but grins and hugs me back.

'Bye bye, Abigail. You take care.'

He leaves me to take a deep breath of lovely clean, cold air. It's sunny and blue-skied. The perfect day to be post-employed.

I'm no longer a research analyst. I'm not working for an investment bank. I don't start work before 7 am every day, or make announcements to testosterone-fuelled trading boys.

What an utterly brilliant feeling.

Smiling to myself, I take out my iPod and start listening to Phoenix, till I remember Robert introduced me to them, and then put on my 60s mix. No memories there.

Smile firmly plastered back on my face, I walk towards Fleet Street, and then up to Covent Garden. The piazza in Covent Garden is so beautiful and yet it's somewhere Londoners practically never go, I muse. I walk up, my heels catching on the cobblestones, looking at the buskers and the tourists.

I'm not sure what to do with a free day. I haven't had one since . . . ah. Hong Kong. Since I flaneured.

And automatically, my mind goes back to Robert. I'm trying not to think about him, as you've probably picked up. There's just no point. What's done is done. And every time I wonder if maybe, just maybe I shouldn't have run out and left him in the hotel room, I tell myself to shut the hell up.

He hasn't exactly been knocking down my door, begging to talk about it either, you know.

I wander in and out of shops and try to engage myself in people watching, but it doesn't take. I'm not peaceful inside. I should be I've quit my job, I'm starting a career that I'm excited about, I'm finally free of my stupid self-imposed dating pressure and the ensuing disease that was Daveticipation . . . yet some-thing's not right.

Then I get a text. It's from Robert.

Heard the job news from Luke. Well done. You deserve it. JimmyJames is sleeping on the couch for a few weeks. Hope that's OK. R I'm stung by the formality of signing off with 'R'. As though I wouldn't know who he is, wouldn't have his number saved anymore. I bite my lip, and draft a reply.

Thanks . . . No problem about JimmyJames . . . happy to have him around!

I deliberate for a second. Is that an appropriate response? What else can I say? Are you OK about Hong Kong? Are you upset with me? Is our friendship over? Can we ever go back to how things were? Should I be more friendly, say how excited I am about the job? No, I shouldn't. He clearly doesn't want to be friendly. I'll even take out the thoughtful ellipses. I edit my text: Thanks. No problem re JJ. A.

Send.

I walk all the way home, head up to my room and work on my documentary research for a few hours, texting Sophie and Plum in an attempt to arrange something to do tonight. But no one's free. I could go to a party that one of the university lot is throwing, or I could force myself on any of the couples if I really wanted to, but I don't. So I keep working.

At about 8 pm, I hear noises downstairs. Robert and JimmyJames!

Inviting them to share a takeaway would be a good way to start mending our friendship, surely? I apply some lip balm and walk downstairs. Be cheerful, I tell myself. Be relaxed.

Robert and JimmyJames are lying on the couches watching a football match.

'Hi guys,' I say, smiling as brightly as I can, leaning against the doorframe. 'Hi,' Neither looks up from the TV. 'How are you, JimmyJames?'

'Alright, Abigail, my darling?' says JimmyJames, turning his head to wink at me. 'Thanks for letting me crash. I promise you'll hardly know I'm here.'

'No problem! Would you like Thai for dinner? I'm about to order . . .'

'Nah, we've got pizza on the way,' says Robert, without even turning his head. He picks up the remote control and turns the volume up.

'OK,' I say as cheerfully as I can. There's a cold feeling in my chest. I've lost my appetite all of a sudden. I get a yoghurt from the fridge, and eat it standing up at the kitchen bench. The ads come on, and Robert comments on the Cadbury's ad, but I can't quite catch what he's saying. JimmyJames laughs and agrees. It's like I'm not here. I can just see the back of Robert's hair and his long legs stretched out on the coffee table. I remember what it feels like to have my hands . . .

Stop it.

I put the empty tub in the rubbish bin, and walk upstairs. Neither of them says a word to me.

Fine. If he wants to be cold, I can be cold too.

Chapter Forty Five.

Monday morning, and the first day of my new job no, my new life.

The winning I'm-not-from-an-investment-bank-I'm-a-totally-cool-media-person-like-you outfit: my favourite J Brand jeans, layered long-sleeved white T-shirts, a big loopy scarf and a sharp navy jacket. Hair in a very high messy bun. I tie the laces of my new leather Converses with a sigh of happiness (goodbye achey work heels!), and survey the results in the mirror. I don't need Pretty With A Punch anymore. I wear what I want, and I just feel like me.

Robert's already left of course. JimmyJames has bombed the living room with shoes, clothes, coins, scrunched up bits of paper . . . At least it'll be annoying Robert too, I think grimly.

I've stayed out of their way since the takeaway incident last week. It hasn't been hard, thanks to all Sophie's wedding admin. I never thought I'd hate something as innocuous as a wedding programme, but once you've folded 120 of the little fuckers and laced ribbon through the corner, you're ready to punch a vicar. The wedding is in three weeks. Just three weeks till we're all at the same bridal party table. Dave. Bella. Robert. And me.

The office is in an old building on Dean Street, and at exactly 9.58 am, after two calming coffees and a deeply enjoyable Soho-people-watch, I walk in. I'm not nervous, bizarrely. I feel calm and excited, but not nervous. Now that I think about it, I haven't been nervous about anything since Hong Kong. I've literally been cured of nerves, my long-time nemesis . . . Perhaps it was the shock of seeing Dave and Bella. Or the shock of waking up next to Robert.

Thinking this, I walk into the building laughing out loud, and a security guard watching TV at a desk gives me a funny look.

I prepare my first 'enthusiastic new employee' face. What I'm not prepared for is Katherine, who runs down the stairs two at a time, and leans in to give me a double cheek-kiss hello and a warm hug.

'Wonderful to see you!' she exclaims. 'How are you?'

'Fantastic!' I say. 'How are you?'

'Frantic. I'm so glad you're here. Right. Let's go.'

Intuition Films is on the top floor, and I note with another thrill that there's no irritating security tag needed to get in to the office. Huge windows line one side of the room, real windows that can actually open over the Mary Poppins rooftops of Soho. The office is a warm, creative mess, with eight people stationed at computers, several couches stacked here and there, film posters all over the walls, and Roxy Music ah! Roxy Music! playing softly. I can see a tiny galley kitchen where a young guy in skinny jeans and a hoodie is buttering some toast.

'This is your desk,' says Katherine, depositing me next to a large desk in the far corner, next to the window. A new-looking laptop is sitting there waiting for me. 'Most days we start at 10ish, and finish at 6 pm or so. Everything should be set up. If you need anything, call me or ask Robyn, the office manager,' she turns and points back to a blonde woman at the other end of the office. I nod. 'We've got a Luxury Project production meeting at 11 am. I'll come and get you.'

I can't describe how interesting my day is without sounding like, frankly, a total geek, but it's incredible how my interest in the luxury market and finance is fired up, simply by looking at it from another angle. We need to make the main finance stories of the past decade both interesting and digestible, and I have loads of ideas. At first, I'm a bit timid, but by 1 pm, when we wind up the production meeting, I'm talking quite volubly and happily to Katherine and Jeremy, the junior researcher and toast-butterer. We have a rough outline of how we're going to progress the research, and the production assistants have a list of immedi ate to-dos.

'By the way,' says Jeremy to Katherine, as we're leaving the office. 'Ronan rang earlier. Asked me to fast track that research on the France project. Is that OK?'

'Yes, we've had some interest from HBO,' replies Katherine. 'We need to get everything together for a meeting in LA next month.'

'What's the France project?' I ask.

'It's our first non-documentary feature . . . we've got an amazing script, it's a four-part historical drama on Blanche of Castile. She was the wife of-'

'King Louis the eighth,' I say. 'Um, I wrote my university thesis on her. I have a degree in medieval French.'

Katherine stares at me for a second and starts laughing hysterically. 'Of course you do. Christ! I'm so glad we met you.'

Jeremy grins. 'So am I. I've been completely fucking lost.'

I smile happily. I don't think I've ever had a work day like this in my life.

The next few days fly past, a blur of meetings and research and ideas that all cement my feeling that this really is the career I was meant for. I tend to stay at work later than everyone else, never leaving before about 8 pm. I can't help it: I feel so lucky to have this job. I don't want to let them down.

I fill up my evenings catching up with the girls, and even arrange to meet up with a few old friends from the university crowd. Anything not to be at home.

Apparently Peter has moved in with the girl he went travelling with yep, the one he had an affair with. The news doesn't affect me at all. It's like hearing gossip about someone who I've never even met, isn't that odd?

On Thursday, I have a few after work drinks with my new colleagues but feel too shy when they all suggest going for dinner. I will, one day. But not yet. Instead, I head home. I'm positive the boys will be out tonight, so I'll have the place to myself.

Having JimmyJames here has made the no-man's-land territory of my friendship with Robert easier to bear, I reflect, as I walk into the bombsite slash living room. In other ways, it has made it much harder. I wonder if we would have talked about things by now if we'd found ourselves alone.

Then again, there's nothing to really discuss, is there? No.

I think I have to move out. I mean, I know I do. I've been putting off thinking about it (how unusual for me). But this cold awkwardness can't go on . . . or rather, it will probably go on forever. So I should just get out, right?

I put some washing on and head upstairs to take a long, hot bath. I try to read ELLE, but I can't concentrate, so I just lie back, watching the steam evaporate off the top of the water. Eventually I shave my legs, since I may as well, and apply a facemask. After about half an hour, the water starts to cool, and my periodic refills aren't hot anymore either. I dry myself, dress in my warmest pyjamas, and do something I've been looking forward to since, well, forever.

I throw out my old work uniform I mean, clothes.

All those awful old Pink shirts I kept for emergencies, when nothing else was clean. The black trousers that I really hate, but kept because I couldn't be arsed to buy a new pair I'd hate just as much. The brown trousers that were good for bloaty days. That cardigan that I always took with me in summer, because the air conditioning was so brutal. The black top that I never, ever liked, but that came in handy for when I just didn't have anything else.

I take particular pleasure in throwing out a pair of mid-winter boots that I only wore because they straddled the tenuous ground between stylish, warm, and work-appropriate.

Now I can wear what suits me. Do what I want. Stop faking it.

Once all my clothes are safely in rubbish bags, ready to give to the charity shop; and my leftover clothes are hanging happily in the wardrobe, I light a candle, lie back on the bed and pick up my book.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a big cardboard box in the corner: my personal things from work. Including the waterproof wet-weather moped gear that Robert bought me, that I only wore that one time. That was so kind of him, wasn't it? So very typically quietly thoughtful and generous, the way he always is was to me.

I wonder where Robert is right now.

He's probably out with JimmyJames. And he's getting on with his life. I'm here, getting on with my life. We're just not friends any more, simple as that.

It shocks me how much this thought hurts, like seeing a bruise on your shin the morning after a party and giving it a good poke to see just how bad it is.

Robert isn't my friend anymore.

The thought is so painful that I gasp.

In an effort to distract myself, I open my laptop and check my emails. There's just one email: from an account called . . . Travel By Proxy.

I smile in delight and open it and there, in my inbox, is a friendly little email from Bree with a link to their blog entry for New Year's Eve.

It's titled: Robert and Abigail, and is followed by a photo of Robert and me from New Year's Eve. We're sitting at that cosy table in The Only Running Footman, his arm is around me, he's grinning at me and I'm laughing into the camera. I've never seen a photo of us together before. We look stupidly happy.

I start reading their intro.

We met Robert and Abigail at a quaint little pub in Mayfair. London-dwellers, City-workers, these two were the most relaxed and friendly of everyone we met in the UK's capital. They could hardly talk without looking at each other, smiling at each other, and even touching each other. True love. All together now: awww . . .