I’m late, oh shit, Roxy will kill me.’
In a blind panic, she levered herself out of the bath.
‘Whoa…inappropriate naked bits overload.’ Jude laughed and shut his eyes as Ginny shrieked again, hands flying to cover her vital anatomy.
‘Jude, you need to help me! I should have been on the tube fifteen minutes ago. And I don’t have anything to wear. And my hair looks like an explosion. And…I…can’t…breathe.’
She grabbed a towel from the vanity unit and wrapped it around her.
‘Okay, you can open them now.’ Did he ever drop that cute grin? Aaaargh–why was she contemplating the merits of a stripper’s dimples when she was late for her first day at work? Roxy’s work. Shit. Shit. Shit.
‘Don’t panic,’ said dimple man.
‘I’m already bloody panicking!’ she shrieked, grabbing a can of deodorant and spraying under her arms.
‘Stop!’ he yelled. The sheer force of his voice made her freeze–apart from her bottom lip, which was trembling, and her tear ducts, which were threatening to burst their dam.
‘Okay, here’s the plan. First of all, drop the can–that’s Glade air-freshener and you now smell of Alpine hills.’
Ginny flushed with mortification and placed the can back on the vanity unit.
Jude pressed on, kindly ignoring her beaming face. ‘Okay. Good. Now, forget the tube–there’s a car waiting outside for you. That’s why I shouted to you that it was time to leave.’
Ginny shook her head. ‘What car?’
‘Roxy came to some arrangement with the local taxi company–think she gets the boss a discount at the Seismic. Anyway, a car comes every morning to collect her and take her to work.’
Of course! What had Ginny been thinking? Roxy would rather set fire to her Jimmy Choos than enter the sweaty, over-populated tunnels of the London tube system.
‘And he always waits because Roxy’s never ready either. So you’ve got about fifteen minutes to get ready.’
Ginny felt the rising panic again. Fifteen minutes? To go from someone with the face of a jalapeño pepper and the hair of Crystal Meth Barbie, to the kind of cool, groomed perfection required at the Seismic? She’d need a fucking miracle.
The dam burst, tears and snot commencing flow. Now Jude was the one with the terrified expression.
‘Hello my darling, it’s just me!’ came a voice from the hallway, followed by a slamming door.
‘In here! And we need your help,’ shouted Jude, his tone one of palpable relief.
Ginny wiped her forearm along her nose to stem the snot.
Clicking heels announced the arrival of a figure in the shadows of the doorway.
‘Mmmm. My boyfriend, half-naked, strange woman, completely naked, and yet this doesn’t seem in the least strange or awkward. What does that say about our relationship, my sweet?’
Ginny sniffed and sighed at the same time, causing a delay in her brain registering the word ‘boyfriend’. Even in her over-emotional, frantic, ears-filled-with-Chanel-bubble-bath state, she was cognisant of the fact that the voice bore no resemblance to the dulcet tones of Cheska, attorney at law.
Jude turned to the new arrival.
‘It says that you trust me implicitly,’ he replied, teasing gently.
‘It says I’m fucking mad,’ countered the girlfriend, with an unmistakable smile in her tone. ‘Okay, explain…’
‘This is Ginny, she’s Roxy’s friend, she’s got fifteen–nope, make that ten–minutes to transform from…erm…’
‘I’d go with “tragic disaster”,’ Ginny offered ruefully.
‘…erm, lovely but fairly tragic disaster to groomed perfection, sitting in the back of that cab out there. Honey, think you can do it?’
The heels clicked forward. And in that split second, Ginny’s perception of a national icon changed forever.
‘Are you kidding me? I’ve already waxed some bloke’s crack on national television this morning–a ten-minute makeover will be a fucking doddle.’
And indeed, ten minutes later, Ginny Wallis, makeup flawless but subtle, hair swept back into an elegant chignon, dressed head to toe in cutting-edge black Prada, emerged from the doorway of a Knightsbridge building and headed towards a waiting cab.
As she pulled the cab door open, she looked back up at the flat’s window to see the silhouette of Jude and Great Morning TV’s Goldie Gilmartin snogging the faces off each other.
She smiled, turned and tripped into the car, landing spread eagled on the back seat.
Well, there were only so many miracles that Goldie Gilmartin could perform.
Now this was the way to go to work in London–no stress, no hassle, just sit back, relax, and watch the frantic bustle of the metropolis go by…Oh, and text your pal while you’re doing that.
2 grlfrnds? & 1 is GG. Thnx 4 wrning!
Roxy’s reply came back in seconds.
All hail da sex God. PS: re-arrngd ur filing systm.
Ginny felt a flush of anxiety creep up her neck. No! That system was her pride and joy, her baby. She’d planned it meticulously, she’d worked late, she’d even bought coloured card from the stationer’s up the High Street with her own money, and now–she couldn’t even bear to think about it–now, Roxy had gone and…
Her phone bleeped again. Roxy. She opened the text.
Ha! Kidding.
Why? Why were they friends? Ginny sighed, trying to get her heart rate back to a state that didn’t suggest cardiac arrest was imminent–a task that was immediately undone when she turned her thoughts to the Seismic.
On the plus side, Sam was obviously okay about her coming, as Roxy had promised to warn her if he had any reservations about it.
On the negative side, her body slipped into a mild panic attack at the very thought of the day ahead. Let’s face it, it wasn’t even noon and so far that morning living Roxy’s life had involved near drowning, indecent exposure, and being dressed by a woman who earned in excess of a million a year. If this was normality then she’d hate to get a taste of crazy.
She tried Darren’s mobile again–still no answer. Maybe she should just go home and stop this ridiculous charade before the stress caused permanent damage to her major organs.
Why was she doing this? She could be sitting in the library right now, drinking tea, eating a Penguin and trying to stop the fifth-year study group from the local high school from smoking hash and shagging in the toilets. It
