I feel like a celebrity between two bouncers as they escort me into the middle of the open-plan office. Billy, without any warning, shouts an ‘Oy!’ almost loudly enough that I feel my eardrum reverberating. It does the trick though and everyone pays attention. He almost skips to a neighbouring desk and retrieves a chair, pulling it back into the office. My first thought is that he’s going to ask me to stand on it because I’m so short but he hops up onto it. It’s not quite a leap but it’s done with almost as much enthusiasm as the skip. “Can I have your attention please.” As if the ‘Oy’ didn’t work. “Good. Thank you, everyone. I’d like to introduce you to our newest member of the team, replacing Veronica for the month.”
I’m listening but beginning to panic. I’m pleased this isn’t day one of my ‘project’ and I’m not yet having to eat anything that could be classed as a healthy ‘dish’. I should get in the right frame of mind though. I had porridge so could have included that but I added so much golden syrup that ‘healthy’ it most certainly was not. It’s a wimpy thing to start on anyway. I should go with something safe. I’m relying on Wetherspoon for its under five hundred calories range but knowing how varied Izzy’s month was, I’m going to have to be a bit more imaginative. I don’t know the town very well, much less than Tring so it’ll be fun exploring.
My brain veers me in a different direction as I realise that they’re all waiting for me to speak. I look up at Billy who’s still standing on the chair. He and everyone else are staring at me.
Confident Donna finally kicks in. “Hello. It’s lovely to be here. This is my first morning so please be gentle.” That produces a few chuckles from across the room. I’m glad it’s broken the ice, not that it felt like there was any that needed to be broken.
I’m almost immediately swarmed with people coming up to chat with me. No one introduces themselves, which is a shame, although I think even I would struggle to remember them all, but they welcome me, ‘to the madhouse’ one says.
They finally disperse and Billy hops off the chair, puts it back where it belongs, then takes me to a desk tucked round a corner I’d not noticed earlier. Unlike the desert of a desk, probably one used for the freelancers, this one’s amazing. It’s swamped with what must be free samples; top brands plus some own labels. There’s a photo frame at an angle, which I expect to be Veronica’s family but I see when I turn it that it’s Veronica and Beyoncé. Of course it is. And it doesn’t look like Veronica’s caught her as she was passing by. No, they look like they know each other. So, Mrs 01442-with-six-digits-thereafter, do you?
Veronica, who could be mistaken for Beyoncé’s younger sister, is as gorgeous as I had expected. She looks like a natural beauty, and I want to think she’s a diva but she’s always been lovely when we’ve spoken on the phone.
I still can’t help liking her, Veronica, jealous though I am. Who wouldn’t be? I look around but there are no other photos. On the shelf behind the desk there’s nothing. There is ‘stuff’ everywhere so there’s no room for anything else but you’d think with three other children and presumably a husband lurking in the background that there would be at least one photograph of her family.
Amongst all the goodies though I spot an envelope with my name on it. The handwriting, all five letters of it, is almost calligraphy and I assume it’s from Veronica as I figure everything’s classy where she’s concerned.
I’m not wrong. Welcome and good luck, it reads. Hazel and Billy will guide you but let me know if you get stuck. Veronica provides her phone number which is the local 01442 code so I think she could always pop in if I got desperate but she’d have to bring Ethan with her and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
Considering Duncan and I weren’t planning to have a baby so soon, I’m shocked at how badly I’m taking not having one… or rather thinking I was, then it not happening. I’m not a spring chicken, as Mike once told me (nor an oil painting – thanks, Mike!), so I can’t leave it too long. A friend of my mum’s had her one and only daughter when she was forty-five so I’ve got, in theory, a decade and a half but…
Chapter 15 – Exploration
Despite me having to come up with a meal, as well as a report on it, tomorrow, twenty-four hours away, I’m far from panicking. The normal, Northampton, Donna would be but I’m beyond crazy so I take a few minutes to settle in. There are drawers either side of the desk. I’m spoilt for choice. I plump for the right-hand one.
I open the top drawer which is about an inch deep. I’m not surprised when it’s only full of pens, pencils… It breezes shut, soft closing, and I smile. I remember Izzy saying she’d played with her kitchen drawers when she’d first had them. Simple things. Next drawer down is normal depth and before I open it, I challenge myself to guess its contents. Given the amount of clutter… sorry, merchandise samples, on Veronica’s desk, I’m assuming that the drawers will be full of them too but am surprised when they’re almost empty. There’s a tray at the back and while it’s again only deep enough for pens and such, there’s one solitary item in it; a picture.
“Ah ha!” I say as I retrieve it, as if it’s the fountain of youth or some other long-lost treasure. I then realise that I said it aloud and look around but no one’s paying me any attention. The office seems emptier and it looks as if the freelancers have gone. As I’m only there for the month, I don’t think it matters but I love people; the more the merrier.
Anyway, this photograph. I’m still holding it sort of aloft so bring it back down to studying level and that’s what I do. Wow. I can almost feel my bottom jaw drop open. Veronica and her children, or rather baby Ethan is represented by a medium-sized bump. The children’s eyes are stunning. One’s are bright blue, as are Veronica’s whereas the other two’s are hazel, almond really. Just like James’s.
There’s no father but I assume he’s the one taking the photograph, especially as the youngest child is sticking her tongue out in his direction. The other two are boys and clearly look as if they’re going to break a few hearts.
A thought leaps into my head and I turn to Veronica’s stack of letter trays. I remove a handful of the sheets and it only takes a few seconds to find her surname. Her email wasn’t initial and surname like iedwards but veronica@ and her signature didn’t have it. I guess she’s that kind of person; unstuffy, natural.
I breathe a sigh of relief as it’s not Norton as I’d been dreading but Abbott. I wonder if she’s married to a Russ or whatever Costello’s partner’s first name was. Relief and dread? Really? Was that what I was really thinking? I nod silently to myself and know I’m in trouble. He’ll have a girlfriend, my brain tells me, and for a fleeting moment I don’t care. I’m mortified, my mum would be mortified, Duncan would be worse, and I shake my head again and tell myself to switch back to work mode.
I pull a sheet that Hazel had given me from my bag, switch on Veronica’s computer and type in the password to get through the firewall, or whatever the first barrier is. Hazel had probably told me but I’d not really been paying attention.
It does the trick as the familiar company logo flashes up, along with the homely ID and password prompts I know and love. I type in my usual details as I want to check my emails and so on before becoming Veronica, and the usual ‘Hello Donna’ appears. I feel comforted by familiarity and check my emails. I’d already told all my regular contacts that I was going to be incommunicado for the month and the stragglers have replied wishing me luck with my thirty-one diets project. I had actually told them it was thirty-one dishes but had no inclination to correct them. Unless you’re a dieter – which I often am – you wouldn’t know that you have to stick with a diet for at least a week.
Being a health and beauty columnist sounds glamorous and it is – food’s a curse in this job. I get as many food samples as Veronica gets makeup, although I get plenty of those too, and I promise to eat them all… the food that is, not the makeup! I know some girls can spend chunks of their wages on new cosmetics each month but I’m super lucky in that I get
it all for nothing… unless there’s something in particular I’m after but I’m really naughty and drop not-too-subtle (at all) hints and hey presto, first class post later.
Izzy’s the same but more subtle. You wouldn’t think of it as she’s more outgoing than me in some respects, some think forthright. I know she’s a pussy cat. Her freebies are usually worth a lot more than mine though. I don’t know how much cosmetics cost to make… ooh, another potential article … but they’re going to be pence, albeit millions spent on advertising, versus Izzy’s laptops, tablets… which is why Veronica’s desk is the way it is. Izzy donates all her ‘finished with’s to charity shops, hospitals, hospices, schools. William’s idea, or protocol, I don’t know. But it’s different with my freebies; who’d want used cosmetics or half-eaten chocolate bars? Not something I want to think about.
Speaking of Veronica’s desk, I have things to do. I’m being allowed to work a day behind for this month as there’s no way I could get a ‘dish’ piece written for today’s issue so I submitted a piece on chemicals in lipsticks on Friday. Izzy didn’t have that luxury and dated her first guy… Duncan, my Duncan, at the Picturedrome… the first evening so she did the same; submitted on the second of May. She couldn’t exactly have been set the task in the morning and be expected to have dated a guy and written the article by the two pm cut-off. That would have been crazy. Instead she had… eleven to eleven, twelve, met at eight so… nine hours’ notice. I got a week. Easy breezy.
He should be with me tonight, Duncan. But it’ll probably just be me, as Mum will be out somewhere – she is most evenings. I have my list of eateries but I’m going to make it easy and plan to visit the nearest Wetherspoon (singular), The Full House at nearby Marlowes, the shopping centre I’m looking forward to becoming acquainted with. I wonder how many charity shops there are here? Then I wonder why I hadn’t searched that online before.
So I set to work…
Chapter 16 – An Unexpected Offer
I’d done little of the donkeywork before I left Northampton but I have my plan of eateries and low-calorie dishes, all courtesy of Google.
I’m lucky really, especially compared with Izzy – she didn’t have much choice when her dates where concerned; other than the weekend, apart from the odd one, she could only really meet them in the evenings whereas I have the choice of breakfast: a healthy porridge perhaps, lunch, good old Boots meal deal, or supper, dinner, tea… And I can eat anything I like pretty much, as long as it’s ‘healthy’. But next up is lunch.
Hazel has filled me in on what people do. I saw from the huge fridge in the kitchen that most bring in their own, some name labelled, most not. It doesn’t strike me as the kind of place where people steal their colleagues’ lunches but nothing surprises me these days. Actually that’s not true, everything does, but I like to keep an open mind.
I snigger at the thought of my brain being like a western saloon with swing doors so busy they never really shut for long. The other alternatives are town or a van that turns up mid-morning with a horn claxon thing that sounds like a cruise ship, apparently. I’ve never been on a cruise ship so don’t know but I imagine it’ll be impressive. I picture the whole office clamouring to the window just to get a glimpse. I’m convinced I was Walter Mitty in a former life.
“Penny for them.”
“Huh?” I look up and there’s James in all his gloriousness. I clamp my mouth shut to stop it from drooling. The relevant emoji replaces the saloon doors and I grin, lips still clamped but desperate to pull apart and show my pearly whites. Or rather, I thought they were pearly white until I met James, but his skin is that much darker. Oh my.
“Just thinking about lunch,” I whimper.
He pats his taut stomach, he’s wearing clothes, sadly, so I can only assume it is; he doesn’t look like he has an ounce of flab and with a hint of a gym bunny, I wonder the size of his triceps. I want to look down at them but know that I’ll end up being Helen Hunt to his Mel Gibson in What Women Want – haven’t seen that for way too long, must make a mental note – where she ends up staring at his crotch, so I resist.
“A girl after my own heart.”
Never a truer word.
“The van’s going to be here shortly. Want to pop down for a bite?”
It’s too late to stop myself and I burst out laughing, probably as much my lips wanting release as the rest of my body does. I apologise but he just smiles.
I go to stand but he continues.
“Actually. No. Let’s wait. If you don’t mind.”
I shake my head.
“Let’s go somewhere proper. It’s your first day, we have to celebrate. Unless…”
“Unless…”
“Unless you have other plans.”
I shake my head again.
“Let’s do that then. Half twelve for one?”
I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak as I know I’m going to gush.
“See you later.”
I nod again and feel so dumb. He doesn’t know I’m not but I’m being a typical dizzy blonde. I’ll show him, I think, and it feels like a challenge but remind myself that I’m here for a month, five full weeks, then it’s ‘Sayonara, James’ and back to my ordinary life.
Maybe that’s the problem. It’s become a routine. A year after meeting Duncan, we’ve ‘settled’. There’s nothing wrong with settling but not when it’s become too familiar and your eyes start wandering.
Those eyes. Those almond-coloured eyes.
Chapter 17 – Change Of Plan
I look at my list as a distraction and the morning soon passes.
“Ready?” I hear and look up. It could have only been one person really – the one I’ve been thinking about all morning – and I’m not wrong.
“Hi, James.”
“Okay to break for luncheon?” he asks in a very stern Shakespearean accent. I expect him to doff an imaginary cap and say ‘forsooth’ or ‘m’lady’.
“Anywhere in mind?” I ask then realise how stupid a question that is because I know nowhere in Hemel other than the aforementioned magic roundabout and ex-Kodak building.
“Just a little place I know,” he says and winks.
Oh my god. I think I’m going to turn into a puddle and slither off my chair. I cough to retain my composure and he points at the box of tissues.
“Hazel said you were coming down with a cold.”
I sniff to complete the pretence, pull a tissue from the box, and stuff it in one of my trouser pockets. I’ll use it at some stage, or it’ll be retrieved when Duncan does the washing at the weekend – did I tell you he’s Superman?
The thought of Duncan brings me back to earth and I breathe.
“You sound okay to me,” James said and stands a little straight as I leave my chair… fortunately not slithering but walking like a normal human being, albeit a five-foot-two-and-a-half one.
Okay is fine, I think as we walk away from my desk and back out into the main area of the office. Fine really is all I want between us. James may be a sex god but he’s a colleague, and only a colleague for a month. Duncan is where my heart lies, not James. James is a stranger and I’m not going to be swayed by his charm. It doesn’t normally work on me, so why do I feel like this?
I cough again and it does the trick of clearing my head, making me see sense.
James stops walking and turns to me. “Oh dear, maybe not so okay. Will you be all right to be Veronica for so long?”
I want to do a Dawn French’s Vicar of Dibley schoolgirl laugh as she’s confronted by the chap who played Robin Hood’s Guy of Gisborne. Richard Armitage. Tall dark and handsome. And James is most definitely those.
I become very adult and say, “Yes, thank you. Just a summer thing.” Knowing it isn’t. Or more accurately a summer fling it most definitely won’t be.
He goes to touch my cheek then seems to think better of it and looks around the office. He then pretends to remove a stray hair from my top and drops it into a nearby bin, belong
ing to one of the many people I haven’t met yet.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
As I imagine what his touch would have felt like, I crumble again.
My head may last the month but I’m not sure my heart will.
Chapter 18 – The First ‘Dish’
After a gentle stroll alongside the River Gade and through Gadebridge Park, James takes me to a lovely little Italian in the heart of what used to be Hemel Hempstead village. It’s been swallowed up by the town but forget that’s looming and you could be back in the past. It’s lost none of the charm I imagine it’s always had and this place, and Ristorante Alberto looks like a jewel. It is, however, closed.
James peers through the front door glass then turns to me. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. You weren’t to know.”
“I should have. I love the place but do only tend to come at night. In the evening. Evenings. Not that it’s my… not every night.”
My heart races at him being flustered. It’s enormously endearing.
I point to a sign on the door. “Closed Sunday, Monday, twelve to two fifteen, six to ten the other days.”
James nods. “Should have spotted that.”
Izzy would have probably checked in advance, on Google or something, but I’m not her and I didn’t know we were coming here. Didn’t know we were going anywhere until James suggested it and this wasn’t on my list which is silly as it looks lovely.
I want to state the obvious and say we need to find somewhere else but he’ll know that. I’m tempted to suggest Wetherspoon but I’ve planned to go there tonight so I think twice in one day would be too much. I only have to eat healthily once a day though.
“McDonald’s?” I jest.
“Okay,” he says a little too readily as if he’s not only a fan but also a regular customer. Of course sophisticated men who frequent probably mid-price Italian restaurants can enjoy Ronald McDonald too. I shudder. Not quite the image I wanted to conjure.
The Serial Dieter Page 6