ignored her and checked the screen.
‘Shit. Shit. Bloody shit. It’s Sam at the Seismic.’
‘What did he say when you resigned?’
‘Actually I just left a note. Couldn’t face them.’
To Ginny, this didn’t exactly come as a newsflash. It was vintage Roxy. Roxy, who couldn’t face up to life’s un-pleasantries if her Miu Miu mules depended on it. It had been the same their whole lives. Roxy couldn’t tell a boy she didn’t like him any more so she sent Ginny. Roxy never did her homework, she just copied Ginny’s. Roxy didn’t want to tell her mother she was leaving home, so she did a midnight flit. Ginny carried the bags. Crazy, impetuous, dramatic, spontaneous, endlessly fucking irritating Roxy.
But then…
Wasn’t that the same Roxy who had poured a can of Vimto down the front of Kevin Smith trousers in primary school because he’d put chewing gum in Ginny’s hair? The poor guy was probably still in therapy trying to eradicate the nightmare of spending the next ten years with the nickname Pisspants.
And wasn’t that the same Roxy who’d bought Ginny her very first box of tampons? Actually, she’d stolen them from a fifth-year prefect’s gym bag, but the thought was still there.
And that was definitely the same Roxy who had invented the care package that got Ginny through every teenage moment of doubt, insecurity or low self-esteem: two Mars Bars, a packet of Silk Cut, a bottle of Diamond White and the Dirty Dancing video.
Ginny’s face reverted to pensive-slash-wasp-chewing as she grudgingly conceded that, despite all Roxy’s faults, she was more than a friend and general irritation: she was the closest thing Ginny had ever had to a sister. One who was insanely annoying, spoilt, demanding, high maintenance, yet still managed to make Ginny laugh more than anyone else on earth. And, if she was totally honest, sometimes she admired Roxy’s spirit. At least Roxy had taken chances in life, she’d broken the mould and experienced a bit of excitement and danger–although that police caution for flashing her baps at a bus full of American tourists travelling down Farnham Hills High Street had been a jolly jape too far.
Nope, at least Roxy would never be boring, Ginny conceded dolefully.
Unlike her chum, no one would ever call Ginny spontaneous. Her life’s CV could fill one paragraph: Same job since she left school almost a decade earlier, same boyfriend for twelve years, still lives in the same village she’s lived in all her life, with her mother, in a bedroom that she hasn’t decorated since before the millennium. Ginny was so ponderous that she took two weeks to decide to order something out of a catalogue, and that was with the safety net of a money-back guarantee.
Boring? Check. Restrained? Check. Dead? It was pretty close…
Ginny pulled at a thread at the bottom of her sleeve and half the cuff unravelled. Fabulous. She hastily shoved the sleeve halfway up her arm to conceal the demise of a sweatshirt that had given her years of loyal service.
She glanced at Roxy and guessed that Roxy probably didn’t have a single thing in her wardrobe that was more than six months old. Urgh, sometimes Ginny really felt like the bland, wardrobe-challenged poor relation. But then, this was the life she’d chosen. This is what made her happy. Content. Satisfied with her lot. Condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity. Ouch, where had that come from?
It was just that sometimes…Well, just sometimes she’d like to know what it felt like to get dressed up to the nines in designer togs, in a bra and pants that weren’t matching shades of grey, in shoes that didn’t lace up and come in three different shades of boring, and spend just one day where she couldn’t predict–down to the last second–everything that would happen.
She shrugged off her melancholy. It didn’t matter if she had the odd moment of regret–she’d already chosen her path, and her ship hadn’t so much sailed as sprung a leak, capsized, and plummeted to the bottom of the local pond. And anyway, who was to say that any other life would make her happier than the one she had here with her mother, long-standing boyfriend and steady job, in the village she’d always lived in, with the same people she’d been seeing every single day of her life? This was it. And it was as good as it was going to get. Wasn’t it?
Over on the bed, Roxy was blustering into the phone. ‘But I don’t know anyone who can cover it! Okay. Okay. I understand. Okay. I’ll get back to you. Sorry, Sam.’
She snapped the phone shut.
‘Fuck.’
Ginny climbed out of the pond and rejoined the drama. ‘Problem?’
‘He says I can’t just walk out–something about a one-month notice period, blah, blah, blah. He sounds really pissed off. Apparently Sascha has gone off with herpes and Tilly has been barricaded in a hotel by the News of the World because she’s doing a kiss-and-tell on some MP this week, so they’ve got no one to cover for me. He says I’ll lose my holiday pay and my salary and, oh, I don’t know, a bloody kidney if I’m not at the desk tomorrow. So much for turning over a new leaf.’
Roxy looked at her watch. ‘The new, penis-avoiding me lasted for a whole eight hours…’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘…and now Felix will know where to find me and he’ll come begging me to take him back.’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘…And I tell you, if he pitches up with a bunch of petunias I’ll shove them up his…What?’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Cover your shift at the Seismic. Sam’s the guy I met at your birthday party, right? The one who helped me fill the vol-au-vents?’
Roxy groaned. ‘Still can’t believe you brought vol-au-vents to my party. Thank God Gordon Ramsay couldn’t make it or you’d have had his stroke on your conscience.’
‘Can we just focus on Sam? He was nice. Your type actually–how come you didn’t go for him instead of the dickhead?’
Roxy’s lip pouted even further than usual. ‘Thought about it, he fits all the criteria, but the man works in a brothel–could you imagine the dinner-party conversation? “Hi, I’m Jeremy, I’m in hedge funds, and you?” “I’m Sam–vaginas.”’
Ginny shrieked with laughter, but Roxy barely rose from her morose state. ‘Anyway, Sam, party, so?’
‘Well, he was nice. Vaginas aside, obviously. Said if I ever decided to move into the city I should check in with him to see if there were any vacancies. Of course, I was wearing your clothes, your jewellery and your shoes at the time, so he probably thought I was Miss Cosmopolitan Girl about Town. Anyway, if it’s only for a month, surely he wouldn’t mind?’
‘But even if it was okay with Sam, what about your job? Where will you live? You can’t commute, the hours are too irregular.’
‘I’ll move into your place.’
‘And I would live…?’
‘Here.’
‘You’re
