Girls' Night In

by Jessica Adams

  Tossing back her hair and pouting at the computer screen, Georgie pressed Reply and typed that of course she remembered him, wasn’t it a small world, she was surprised he remembered her after so long, she was so plain, so boring …

  Her heart pounded as she pressed the Send key. It would be fun to meet up. See him again. More to the point, see him see her again. Watch him take in the slender figure, the plunging cleavage, the glossy hair she had never had at school. Replace the memory of her on the netball court in a hideously unflattering pleated gym skirt with the sight of her in fishnets, in a bottom-skimming skirt designed to show off legs half the width of the ones he had last seen.

  Ping. ‘What are you grinning at? Jx’

  Georgie realized she had never entirely stopped wondering what might have been between them. The memory of what had been between Dave Anderton and Susan Stringer, the glamorous, bronze-limbed hockey captain, however, still rankled.

  ‘Something naughty. Gx’

  The ball was now in Dave Anderton’s court, it was up to him to reply.

  ‘Have fun with Scottie Dog Socks,’ Georgie called loudly as the office was emptying. She grinned as Jenny, en route to the lifts, threw her a furious look. Georgie shut down her machine with a rare feeling of regret. No more e-mails today. But no doubt there would be developments tomorrow.

  ‘Earth move? Gx’. Georgie had returned to the office in a completely different mood than she had left it the night before. If Tim’s eventual arrival home at half-past twelve last night had been irritating, his claim to be researching a feature whose content he could not reveal, because Georgie worked for a rival newspaper, had been infuriating. ‘If it wasn’t obvious no one would touch you with a bloody bargepole,’ she had spluttered, ‘I’d almost think you were having an affair.’

  But Georgie had more important matters to consider this morning. Such as the devastating lack of communication from Dave Anderton in her mailbox. Aptly enough, considering how she felt, her ‘f’ key was finally back in action.

  ‘It was OK. Jx’

  Looking across at her, Georgie was gratified to see that Jenny was as red as a Mon Rouge lipstick. The date had obviously been a disaster – presumably there had been so little to talk about that Jenny and Scottie Dog Socks had ended up discussing the number of regional branches on the back of the Pizza Express menu.

  Georgie shivered. The air-conditioning had finally caught up with the weather; walking into the office had been like opening the deep freeze. Moira’s perspiration stains, however, were intact. Damn Dave, Georgie thought, savagely typing the opening sentence of a piece the fashion editor had rushed over and demanded almost as soon as Georgie had sat down. The feature would eventually be billed as a directional think-piece critically examining a staple of the contemporary wardrobe; for the moment, however, it bore the headline Georgie had been given: ‘Leather jackets. Yes or no. By five o’clock’.

  Why hadn’t he replied? It was almost embarrassing how disappointed she felt.

  Ping. ‘I don’t remember that but it was ten years ago! D.’

  Georgie’s brain, occupied as it had been on the Big Double Or Single-Breasted Fastening Debate, suddenly raced. He had replied. She stared, frantically dividing the message into good and bad points. Ten years ago – bad. It made them both sound ancient. But he didn’t remember her being fat and boring, which was definitely good.

  Ping. ‘Conference in five minutes. Don’t forget. Jx’

  Damn, Five – no, four now – minutes to get ready for the morning features meeting. Georgie flicked frantically through the newspapers, ripping out pages wildly as half-formed ideas struck her. She’d hone them in the meeting, there’d be plenty of time if she positioned herself far enough away from the Editor so she could go last with her suggestions – and show him a bit of leg to soften him up …

  ‘What was the matter with you in conference?’ Jenny asked, as she and Georgie headed for the shops at lunch-time. ‘You barely said a word. Even when the ed raved about that piece you did on beards being the new black, you hardly seemed to notice.’

  ‘That’s because I’m rather preoccupied at the moment,’ Georgie declared. ‘An old flame from school has got back in touch with me.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  A wave of irritation went through Georgie. When push came to shove (and she sincerely hoped that it would), Georgie had no idea why Dave had got back in touch. Call it Fate, call it unfinished business, call it a bit of fun. Jenny, naturally, would have no idea about the latter. In reply, she shurgged theatrically.

  Jenny looked doubtfully at Georgie. ‘Maybe he’s seen you in the paper recently? There’ve been some pretty good pictures of you, after all.’

  The suggestion hit Georgie like a high-speed train. Of course that was it. Perhaps he had seen the current, sleeker, go-faster, Mark II version of Georgie Lee, doing one of her regular ‘how to get the look’ stunts for the paper’s features pages. The most recent one tied in with a new series of vintage episodes of The Avengers; Georgie had, even if she thought so herself, looked stunning in a tight black rubber suit and killer heels. Even if she hadn’t been able to walk for days afterwards and her intestines still ached.

  As Jenny headed for the M&S sandwich counter, Georgie continued down the High Street, her head buzzing with new possibilities. If that was the reason – and how could it not be? – then it was better than she could have hoped. She and Dave could go ahead and have a fully-fledged cyberfling. One heard about e-mail romances. Making passes at each other over the Net would be the perfect way to pass the summer. Not for nothing was her service provider excite.co.uk.

  Georgie smoothed her thin magenta cardigan over her bony hips and smiled to herself. She had destroyed all the photographic evidence she knew existed of her size sixteen adolescence, but there was, she realized with mounting excitement, only one way to lay the ghost that lurked in Dave Anderton’s mind. Lay him.

  ‘Are you living in London? Gx’ There. She’d dithered about it, but finally dared to add a kiss.

  Ping. ‘Freezywater. D.’

  Georgie swallowed. Freezywater. Where the hell was that? Still, at least he was keen, if cool (no kiss), but then, that was probably Freezywater for you. He replied immediately; at this rate, thought Georgie, excitedly, they’d be having a naughty lunch tomorrow. Or even naughtier drinks. She imagined him, Dave Anderton, taller, thinner, more distinguished-looking than when she had last seen him, but with the same grin, that same flash of wicked white teeth, that same blond fringe.

  ‘What’s Freezywater like? Not sure where it is – sorry. Gx’

  Jenny had, Georgie now noticed, returned to her desk after lunch with a number of distinctly racy-looking carrier bags. Scottie Dog Socks must be still around then. Giving it one last go, no doubt, Georgie thought contemptuously. But beggars like Jenny couldn’t be choosers.

  ‘Been exercising the plastic have we? Seeing SDS tonight? Gx’ Georgie felt irritated as Jenny went purple. What the hell was the matter with her? At the moment, she was flushing more than a Royal Opera House loo in the interval.

  Ping. ‘In Hertfordshire. It’s great. There’s a good golf course nearby and the social life is excellent – the local Rotarians are a crazy bunch of guys! D.’

  Georgie wasn’t quite sure what she made of this. Once upon a time, Dave Anderton had been all but a deity. The school football, cricket and rugby captain, he had smoked behind the bike sheds and had sex in music cupboards or, at least, so everyone had heard. The first pupil to have a car, he regularly thrilled the rest of the sixth form by performing handbrake turns in the car park at lunchtime and thrilled them further by smashing the headmaster’s wing mirror. Things had evidently changed since then. And who the hell was we? Girlfriend?

  ‘I never asked you – did you get married? Any kids? Gx’ It was her fifth draft of the enquiry and sounded, she thought, as breezy as an e-mail could. She pressed Send and sat back, exhausted with the effort. It was all so much more complic
ated than she had thought. She hadn’t imagined e-flirting to be the equivalent of grandmaster chess. Every syllable pored over, every comma checked for its interpretative possibilities: far from being the cyber-highroad to untrammeled lust, their exchanges had been so chaste they made Jane Austen look like Jackie Collins.

  There was no reply to this for the rest of the afternoon. I’ve put him on the spot, Georgie thought, panicking and wishing she hadn’t.

  ‘How was it? Gx’

  Obviously good, Georgie observed, irritably. There was a definite sparkle about Jenny this morning. That was a new, more flattering skirt she had on, her white shirt, reflecting more light to her face, made her skin look less muddy. One of Georgie’s own tricks, of course, obviously copied, as were those high heels to make Jenny’s stubby little legs look longer. Imitation, Georgie consoled herself, was the sincerest form of flattery, though watching the usually flat-soled Jenny wobble into the office as if she were on stilts had made Georgie hope it might be the sincerest form of flattening as well. Sadly Jenny hadn’t fallen over, but the possibility had been almost amusing enough to make up for there being no message from Dave Anderton.

  Ping. ‘Fine thanks. Jx’

  Oh, she wasn’t getting away with this, thought Georgie. Not with that ‘I-had-great-sex-last-night’ aura about her. Scottie Dog Socks was obviously good at something.

  ‘Where did you go? Gx’

  Ping. ‘R. K. Stanley. That bangers-and-mash restaurant. Jx’

  ‘Never been there. Think Tim has though. Not my type of thing. Gx’

  Jenny blushed violently again. For Christ’s sake, thought Georgie. It was like working with a nun in a sex shop.

  Ping. ‘Yes, Morag and I got married three years ago. She’s a policewoman. No children though – Morag can’t have them, unfortunately. But we’re very happy with the cats. D.’

  At lunchtime, Georgie walked round the shops in a daze. Dave Anderton was married to a policewoman called Morag. And he had cats. No wonder he was feeling frisky – there was something definitely weary about that ‘got married three years ago’. And then the death blow, delivered with devastating timing – ‘she’s a policewoman’. Know what I mean? the line had silently added. Georgie grinned to herself as she fingered the crotch of a lace-trimmed pair of knickers.

  Steady now, Georgie told herself, as she returned ten minutes early from her lunch-hour. Don’t come on too strong. Be cool yet flirtatious. Subtle, yet sexy. Taking a deep breath, she held her hands over the keyboard for a minute, then plunged in. ‘Ever get back to Elmhurst? I go back to see the parentals about once a year – I can do it in an hour in the MX5. Gx’

  It had taken half an hour to compose, but Georgie was pleased with it. Subtle it certainly was, yet hidden in there was the suggestion that he was welcome to an Elmhurst-bound lift in her glamorous car anytime.

  Ping. ‘I get the train everywhere – and to Elmhurst to see the folks every fortnight. Morag books our tickets weeks in advance, so we can go Apex First. Great system – you ought to try it. D.’

  Georgie was conscious of a rising sense of panic. She replied instantly, her fingers flying over the keys like the wind.

  ‘So you don’t even drive to work? Gx’

  Ping. ‘No. I get the train. But the choo-choo has its drawbacks – this morning a non-stopper rushed past so fast it would have taken my hair off if I had any left! Lucky my glasses are so heavy or they’d probably have gone too! Mind you, I’m hardly what you’d call thin either, so I was probably pretty safe! D.’

  Georgie felt sick. It occurred to her that she wasn’t the only one who had changed beyond all recognition since schooldays. If she herself had shed two stone and a pair of bottle-bottomed spectacles, the carefree, thick-thatched youth of fond memory sounded as if he had picked them straight up and put them on. More than this, he had apparently transmogrified into some suburbanite who thought cars polluted the planet and whose idea of a good time was golf, cats, the Rotary Club and going Apex First with a policewoman called Morag.

  The king of her adolescent heart had turned into a bigger square than Trafalgar. He’d be suggesting class reunions next. And, Georgie suddenly thought in panic, back-pedalling faster than a unicyclist in reverse, here she was, flirting wildly with him. How the hell was she going to get out of this one?

  Ping. Oh God, another message from him. Georgie opened it, heart sinking. ‘Anyway, we’ve been so busy chatting I’ve never told you the reason I was getting in touch. I’m trying to get together an Elmhurst Class of ’89 reunion on July 31st. Fancy coming? D.’

  I’d fancy the Elephant Man more, thought Georgie as half devastated, half relieved, she typed a polite refusal. The sound of Jenny giggling on the telephone just across the desk from her hardly helped her mood.

  Still, there were things to be thankful for. Finding one’s adolescent heartthrob had not so much feet of clay than entire legs of it at least meant she wouldn’t wonder What Might Have Been With Dave Anderton for the rest of her life. And, unlike poor old single Jenny, even if she seemed perkier than usual, Georgie at least had Tim to fall back on. Useless though he was, he was better than nothing.

  ‘I’m resigning,’ Jenny told Georgie, as they left the office that night. ‘I’ve got a job as a commissioning editor on Vogue.’

  ‘Congratulations. Wondered what the new clothes were about, I must say,’ said Georgie, trying not to sound as jealous as she felt. ‘Had enough of working with me, then?’ she couldn’t stop herself adding. As Jenny blushed fiercely.

  To Georgie’s amazement, Tim was at home when she got back to the flat. Even more amazingly, he seemed to be sorting out his clothes.

  ‘Not tidying your wardrobe, surely?’ Georgie said sarcastically. Not having seen much of them recently, she had forgotten quite how bad his clothes were.

  ‘No. I’m leaving you.’ Tim, sorting through a pile of socks, did not look up.

  Georgie felt as if someone had hit her in the windpipe. This couldn’t be right. She was in charge of this relationship.

  ‘How – I mean, who …’ she spluttered.

  She was the one with the career wasn’t she? She paid for everything – surely it was she who had the right to decide when everything ended. Men didn’t leave her.

  ‘Well, you obviously aren’t in love with me any more. I found someone who is. Been seeing them for quite some time, in fact.’

  ‘How, who … ?’ Georgie’s eyes were rolling like National Lottery Balls.

  ‘Actually, I put an ad in the paper.’ At least he had the grace to blush.

  ‘You did what?’ An ad. Her boyfriend. Like those tragic ones Jenny answered? Georgie felt her feet fizz with horror.

  ‘It was for a piece about the new male singleton – that piece I couldn’t tell you about. I had to put an ad in the lonely hearts column and see what happened if someone answered. But someone did answer. And it, um, suddenly became more than just a feature.’

  ‘Who is she?’ But Georgie’s screeched demand dried in her throat. In front of her, on the bedroom floor, having fallen off the pile Tim was hurriedly stuffing in suitcases, was a pair of socks. With Scottie dogs on them.

  Jessica Adams

  Jessica Adams has worked on all the books in the Girls' Night In and Kids' Night In series and is a former trustee and patron of War Child. She is a Contributing Editor at Cosmopolitan magazine and recently edited The Holiday Goddess Handbag Guide to Paris, London, New York and Rome (HarperCollins). Her website is www.jessicaadams.com.

  Love on the Underground

  Jessica Adams

  When I turned twenty-one I left university and tried to get a job as Naomi Campbell. This was a bad idea, because I come from a long line of big bottoms. In fact, my Auntie Letitia is known as Lard Arse Letitia to the family.

  She got that way because she used to be a security officer at King’s Cross station. From 1971 through to 1985 she sat on a vinyl cushion eating jerk chicken with her fingers, watching black and white TV
. As my Uncle Eddie always says, it had a terrible effect on her bottom. When Letitia came to my fifth birthday party wearing a suede skirt, all the kids sat underneath her and used her as a wigwam.

  Did I get my own lard arse from Letitia’s DNA, or from some weird kind of morphic resonance, transferred from her vinyl cushion to my bum? I’ll never know. But I know one thing – you can’t get a job as Naomi Campbell if you’ve got a lard arse. By the way, I learned what morphic resonance was at university. It’s actually the only thing I learned at university.

  When I graduated, I had to fill in a form for the careers officer telling him if I liked people, if I enjoyed the outdoors and if I would consider myself ambitious.

  When I took the form home my mother got to the ambitious bit and screamed, ‘That’s you! That’s your personality, Angela! That’s you!’

  Well maybe. I suppose I was the first person from either side of my family to go to university – even if it was Leeds.

  The Leeds bit didn’t matter to Dad, though. It was enough for him to see me collect my scroll in an academic gown, even if the scroll did have my name spelled wrong, and even if it was for a BA, which a boyfriend of mine used to say stood for Bugger All. When I came down off the stage, with all the others, my dad jumped five seats to get to me, and cried all over the sleeve of my gown. ‘You’re getting us out of the Underground, Angela!’ he sobbed. ‘You’re getting us out of the Underground!’

  Of course, it was his family’s fault that we all got into the Underground in the first place, if you know what I mean. My grandad Lee got off the boat from Jamaica in 1962 and started taking tickets at Paddington a week later, without even thinking if he liked people, enjoyed the outdoors or had ambitions. And after that, there was no going back.

  My brother Viv is still a guard on the Hammersmith and City line, and even my sad Uncle Colin got a job as a cleaner at Willesden Junction. They gave it to him after he tried to throw himself under a train there one day. He was supposed to be going to the zoo at the time. But he’s quite happy now.