“Since when do you eat salad on Fridays?” Jessica asked, eyeing her carefully.
Sophie shrugged. “Just felt like something fresh, she said. The fear of getting in the water with Matthew Silver was huge but she would also have to expose her body, both bottom and thighs in some sort of swimsuit. She just needed to buy the right one. She contemplated asking Jessica, but it wasn’t really the type of conversation to have with a work colleague, was it? She also wanted to lose a few kilograms fast, and the quickest way to do that was to commit. She could commit to vegetables – not to a man.
“This is our traditional burger day, to line your stomach. Kelly’s suggested drinks tonight, farewell drinks for the people who got made redundant.”
“There’s no one even around. They’ve all left the building,” Sophie said, incredulously. “How is it a farewell when they’ve already been walked out, they’re gone?” she said, without a shred of enthusiasm. “It’s just an excuse for a drink, really.”
“Touchy,” Jessica said. “Problems at home?”
Sophie laughed. “It’s all fine.” Sophie said, her voice a little shaky. The problem with Jessica was that she fished for information. She’d start asking one question which would lead to an answer, then she’d ask something else and before Sophie would know it, she’d spill her guts.
“I mean, Derek’s being the same. Just Derek stuff,” Sophie continued.
“I see.” Jessica bit into her burger, sauce dribbling over the side of the bun. “How did he like you going to the gala night? Was he happy? Mad at you?”
Jessica was frightfully close to the truth. Sophie moved her food around her plate, a little bit of lettuce to the edge of the plate, as she decided how to respond. “You know, he was his usual self. Doesn’t like my love for Jamie Oliver.”
“He’s always been jealous. He even hates your promotion, and anything taking you away from ‘Derek time.’”
Sophie nodded. “That’s the understatement of the century. It’s kind of cute I guess, he must love me?”
“Is he going to chuck you over it?”
Sophie looked up, seeing Jessica’s steely gaze. She felt a little unsettled, how did she always know these things?
“It’s not off the cards.”
“The chucking?”
Sophie nodded, her heart squeezing. She’d already been chucked. “Who knows? I might ditch him.”
“Sure,” Jessica said, but Sophie knew she didn’t believe her.
“You know, I got the strangest call yesterday. When you were at home, supposedly getting dressed and ready for the gala night.”
“Um..., yeah..., so,” Sophie mumbled.
“Well, this girl rang up the firm, looking for a Sophie Smart. That’s you.” Jessica held Sophie’s gaze. “Carol Cartwright. That was the girl’s name.”
Sophie stiffened, watching Jessica’s eyes on her, looking for a reaction. What precisely did Jessica know? Sophie tried to keep her expression blank, normal, like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Show no flicker of emotion. “Let me continue, this Carol, she asked if you worked at Clarks. You see, she’d just spoken to you, and wanted to call you back you see, because you were having a flat interview.” Jessica paused. “This Carol wanted to make sure Sophie Smart got the right directions, didn’t want her to be late you see, as she had an audition soon after you were supposed to arrive. Carol seemed most considerate, wouldn’t you think?”
A lump caught in Sophie’s throat. “Sounds considerate.”
“Did you see her room?”
“Got to check my options out.”
“So did you take it?” Jessica asked pointedly.
Sophie moved pieces of tomato round the plate, contemplating their redness, feeling violently ill. Now this was precisely why she always refused to eat salads. There was too much salad.
“Look, if Derek is being a twat, remember, you can always talk to me. Okay? You can stay with me if you need to keep your options open.”
“I took the room, I left him, only because he insisted I leave,” Sophie admitted in a shaky voice. “We better get back.” Sophie stood up, and threw some money down. There was no point hiding the basic facts when Jessica had already discovered the truth. But she didn’t have to discuss the situation any further.
***
After the awkward lunch with Jessica, Sophie made herself scarce on the office floor, avoiding Jessica’s questioning gaze. She didn’t want to be cornered, again. When five o’clock came, she practically fled the office to start the weekend without questions. Sophie skipped the farewell drinks with office colleagues. It felt wrong, since the people they were well-wishing weren’t even there. It was more like a macabre celebration, to thank Bradley, that they hadn’t lost their jobs. Sophie escaped the building, fleeing down the emergency stairs, a whole thirty-four flights.
Back in Highbury, her new suburb, Sophie popped into the local Tesco to buy groceries. Blitzing through the aisles, she cast glares of disdain as she passed the happy-go-lucky couples who were buying grog for their Friday night out.
Since Bradley was pretty much forcing her to go swimming, then it was time to face the consequences of her body.
She wasn’t overweight. She was of normal size and stature but there was no denying she liked to have a few drinks and go out to dinner, so she wasn’t a stick figure either. She did indeed have a womanly round bottom and flesh on her thighs. Her body hadn’t seen the light of day since she was a teenager.
Strolling down the fruit and vegetable section, she loaded up ingredients into her trolley to make a minestrone soup. Onions, celery, carrots, cabbage, potato. There was a particular recipe she had in mind, one from her Jamie Oliver collection. Wouldn’t Derek rage now?
A couple stood in front of her, their fingers entwined together, speaking softly, examining a piece of garlic. Her chest constricted, as a memory of her and Derek came flooding back to the week after they moved in together.
It was a Friday night after work, their first shopping experience as a couple living under the same roof. Derek was beside himself in the shopping centre because it was their first shopping experience. Derek, always so organized, had prepared the list, categorized by aisle. He then informed Sophie of his great plan, a spontaneous house-warming party. He’d already invited everyone, taken the liberty to text mutual friends for an impromptu party the very next day. He’d done all this without asking her.
An unidentifiable emotion had shot through Sophie. What about the people she wanted to invite to the party? She’d barely even moved in yet, and wasn’t ready to have a party.
Sophie didn’t cause any waves, believing she could do anything if she put her mind to it. Instead of arguing about not being asked, she focused on what he had done. He’d done a lot of organizing. She was sure his intentions of throwing the house warming party of the year were perfectly justified. So, she went along with it.
She did however mention, ever so carefully, that she was unbelievably busy with work. She told him that she had planned to work on the Friday night, and asked politely if they could hurry up the shopping.
A look of disappointment washed over his face. He seemed so upset and accused her that she wasn’t prioritizing their time together. Sophie felt a strong need to apologize and she did.
Instead of divvying up the shopping list, and both going separate ways to make the process as efficient and quick as possible, he insisted that they go together, they walk down each aisle. Just to make sure they didn’t miss anything they needed. That’s what couples did, according to Derek.
He’d held her hand, taking almost an eternity choosing the right things for the party. Bags of chips. Booze. Barbeque food. He’d contemplated prices, calories, and quality, after all this was their first shared shopping bill. He wanted them both to be happy.
But Sophie didn’t care. She wanted to race down the aisles, gather all the items on his party list and get on with it. Who cared if a salsa dip was £2.45 or £2.65? The price dif
ference was twenty pence not twenty pounds. She had work to do, and now there was even more because they were throwing a housewarming party the very next day. She didn’t want to get caught up in supermarket arithmetic. If she could have gotten out of the damn supermarket she might have time to finish her work before the party.
As they shopped together, she realized that moving in together, she’d have to be a little bit more flexible. Make a few adjustments to how she used to do things. Work harder on the weekdays or something? Of course Sophie did her best to act like a team, a couple, she even agreed on high fat coleslaw when she really preferred low fat. She pasted a smile on her face, worked together in harmony even though every fiber inside of her was panicking about the time the shopping exercise was taking.
Then after the shopping, Derek had wanted to have sex. Of course Sophie liked having sex with Derek. Of course people who move in together basically can’t keep their hands off each other. It was just that Sophie felt the stress of the housewarming party and thought maybe he could let her work just a little bit without jumping her. She wanted to have sex with him, of course. She also wanted to consummate every room, just not right then.
But she gave into his persistence and the sex hadn’t been Earth shattering or mind blowing. They had however broken the coffee table, and Derek loved it when things happened like that, like it was proof that he was an extraordinary lover.
Broken coffee table or not, that night, the sex was at best, ordinary. They had had fantastic sex before, and the mere ordinariness was most probably because Sophie wasn’t quite in the mood or the right mindset. And afterwards, when Sophie had rushed off to do some work before going to sleep, Derek had gone dangerously silent. Yet come to think about it, he was probably caught up thinking about how he could break the bed.
The morning of the house-warming party, Sophie boxed herself in their room, typing away on the computer, rushing to get her work done before the party. Derek was once again, bitterly disappointed and didn’t understand what was wrong. After all, he’d discussed all the things to do for the party the night before. The chicken skewers to create. The marinade to mix for kebabs. He’d expected her to do that type of domestic stuff (cooking related of course).
The issue was that she was up to her eyeballs in work, needing to complete a project management plan before the weekend was up. She was stressed that if she didn’t finish before the party, she wouldn’t get it done and everyone knew what Bradley’s reaction would be to that. Bradley would most probably make an example of her and kick her career to the curb.
Derek shouldn’t have planned a party without asking her. He’d told her, instructed her of what her role was in the party, with no consideration of whether the timing was okay.
As nice as it was to go shopping together, and putting on a party, she felt unbearably stressed about the whole situation. Derek of course hadn’t understood and thought she needed to learn how to manage her time better.
Now, the couple in front of Sophie placed a piece of Asian garlic into their shopping basket. Was that evidence of a happy shopping experience? Did joint decisions make people happy? That was the type of relationship Derek had wanted. Did Sophie ruin it because she was always too busy working?
Sophie felt a rush of emotion and ran from the fruit and vegetable section, opening a freezer containing the delights of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. She rushed out of the supermarket and went straight for the Highbury flat. Carol was noticeably absent.
Sophie sprawled herself on the couch and opened a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. But before she sat down she realized she’d bought a tub of Derek’s favourite flavour – Chunky Monkey. Unable to stop herself, she promptly tucked into it anyway. Ice cream suddenly became her friend. Her only friend. If there was a replacement for Derek, then ice cream was pretty good.
Turning the television on, gorging herself on almost half the tub, she decided to get wildly drunk. She poured herself an almost overflowing glass of red wine. Who cared about her thighs? Only Matthew Silver was ever going to see them in her swimsuit. Besides red wine was packed full of antioxidants.
As she sat alone, the awareness that she would be spending the weekend alone hit her. She sipped her glass, almost missing her mouth. Alone at almost thirty.
On a whim she called her best friend, Mickey, speaking incoherently into the phone. “I’ve moved,” she whispered. Her voice shook as she finally dared to admit the fact. She didn’t want to believe it was true, or she’d be giving up. Sophie wasn’t the type of girl to simply give up. There was still the possibility that she could work things out with Derek.
“Everything okay?” Mickey answered, the sound of night club music boomed in the background.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Supposed to be unpacking.” Although, she hadn’t started, the boxes still remained on the floor of her room. “Want to come over and keep me company?”
“I can’t. I’m not in London tonight. Maybe I could pop round tomorrow?”
What had she been thinking? Of course Mickey had her own things on and couldn’t come over in an instant. Mickey was an owner of her own coffee shop Beans, she rarely had time to go anywhere.
“Tomorrow’s great,” Sophie said, sanity finding her again, her voice back to normal. Feeling slightly pathetic, mortified at showing her vulnerability, she decided to try to act like she was okay. She was grand. She was getting her life in order.
She put the tub of ice cream down and began rhythmically slicing vegetables. Using her Jamie Oliver cook book she made a lovely Minestrone soup. It was such a shame Derek wasn’t there to see her make it. He would have her exactly where he seemed to want her.
Since Sophie was alone, there was no evidence of her lapse in strength. She even went outside and threw out the tub of ice cream.
While the vegetables boiled on the stove, she decided she wouldn’t even think about Derek any longer. No thoughts of Derek were ever going to help.
She thought of her thighs. She needed to work on her thighs. Not Derek. She was slightly bothered by the fact he hadn’t called her to see if she was okay. Nor had he bothered to enquire if she found somewhere to stay. Was it a sign of the depth of his feelings? Did he ever really care about her? There was a distinct possibility that he never really did.
Chapter 5
Sophie woke early on Saturday morning. It was seven. She was alone. No Derek, and she felt fresh because she wasn’t hung over from a night fuelled from drinking with work colleagues. She checked her mobile phone. There was still no text messages from Derek and she refrained from contacting him. But what was she to do to keep her mind occupied?
Sophie turned on her laptop, initially thinking she would do a little bit of work, but instead she found an exercise program online, targeted at shaping legs. The program prescribed twenty repetitions per day, to start. Twenty squats to fast-track her to fabulous thighs.
Sophie began bobbing up and down, feeling the burn. Before her shower, she did a few more squats. In the kitchen, after having breakfast (microwave minestrone) she did a squat and lunge combo. Turning the television on, during the commercials, she did twenty more squats and lunges. Twenty squats. She didn’t need a fast track. She needed a blooming miracle.
Carol finally emerged from her room, looking slightly anxious at Sophie bobbing up and down.
“What are you doing?”
Oh God, Sophie was being the strange flatmate. She’d thought Carol and her feline nails were weird, and Carol would be the prime candidate for weirdness. But evidently as Sophie bobbed, she knew it was her. Her! She stifled the thought. “Squats. Making sure I don’t think of my ex-boyfriend. That type of stuff.”
“What’s that smell?” Carol wrinkled her nose, referring to the soup.
“Minestrone. Want some?”
“For breakfast?” Carol shook her head and sucked down some vitamins.
“No better way to get into shape, vegetables every meal. Three meals a day.”
Carol shrugged, loo
king at her intently – possibly for signs of madness – and then Sophie realized from her small frame, Carol possibly didn’t eat much.
“Want to go shopping?” Sophie asked. Shopping was normal, not weird. Carol threw back a glass of water, and her energy seemed to come from somewhere, because she didn’t need convincing to go shopping, and the pair were soon headed for Oxford Street.
***
After all the lunging and squatting Sophie’s body felt sore. When an arm, body or shopping bag slammed into her side, almost winding her, it was difficult to know whether a bruise was brewing from being knocked or from the oblique twists she’d tried earlier that morning. All she knew was her body ached. Sore, arms, legs, butt. All self-inflicted. It would be worth it once she was in the pool.
On Oxford Street, shopping was war. Clenching her fists, sticking her elbows out slightly for protection, the crowd bustled in both directions but she didn’t have time to stop. Sophie pushed into the thick of it, amongst those committed to shopping, caught in a group snaking forward along the pavement. Sophie sidestepped, blindly moving off the Oxford Street pavement, to the curb. A deafening horn blasted and tires screeched from a red, double-decker bus skidding to avoid meandering pedestrians.
Carol was panting hard. Her hair was combed back into a perfect bun, her makeup applied flawlessly with strokes of eyeliner extending out to create an illusion of an extra eyelash. Her foundation covering a sprinkling of freckles and her cheekbones were accentuated with blusher. She looked into Sophie’s face.
“This is hectic, are you alright with the crowds?”
“Thanks, yeah. How about you?” Sophie watched the bus drive off.
“Maybe we should call it quits?”
“No.” Sophie’s voice quavered, determined. Resolve and persistence kept her going. Learning how to swim could be her big opportunity to get more of the Silver Leisure Group, she just needed to believe it, and get in.
“We’ve been to at least ten shops. I don’t think you’re going to find a swimsuit in October. You should have bought one in summer,” Carol stated.
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