that Jane would hold a grudge on Pixie’s behalf for a long time. She was a good friend like that.
‘There should be a way to know beforehand whether seats will be comfortable,’ Ellie said. ‘A nice easy rating system like they do with the food in restaurants.’
‘Maybe we should make one.’
‘No way,’ said Pixie, laughing. ‘I don’t fancy jamming my arse into seats all over London.’
‘Okay, so we don’t jam our arses into that theatre’s seats,’ I said. ‘We just need to find some that are more accommodating for the larger lady.’
‘That would be useful information to have,’ Jane said. ‘Not just for us – for lots of people.’
‘I guess we could ask when we book the tickets,’ I said. ‘Send someone down from the box office with a measuring tape. Get him to bounce on the seats, assess springiness, see if his knees hit the seat in front.’
Jane wasn’t laughing with the rest of us. ‘Jane?’
‘That’s a really good idea,’ she said. ‘Seriously, why don’t we ask these things before we book again? After all, we want to have fun, and it’s not fun when one of us has to sit on an office chair at the back.’
This reminder sobered us. ‘So we’ll ask next time,’ said Pixie. ‘Cheers, ladies. To us.’
‘Here’s to many more nights like this!’ Ellie said. ‘With comfortable seats.’ We all clinked to that.
Later we walked towards the Tube feeling very merry. I offered to find the next performance with roomy seating and I knew I’d book it as soon as possible. I hadn’t felt this good in ages. It was so much better than stepping on the scales every week.
‘Hang on,’ Ellie said, steering us towards the cash machine. ‘I need to get some money for tomorrow morning. It’s my turn to buy the office treats.’
Jane was getting her groove on while we waited, singing one of Jackson’s hits while she danced in place.
Two young men passing by glanced over. Then one of them started singing, ‘I’m fat, you’re fat, come on, you know, woo!’ They laughed as they carried on up the road.
‘Beat it!’ Pixie shouted, catching my eye.
‘You don’t wanna be starting something!’ I said.
‘That’s all right, it doesn’t matter,’ Jane said. ‘They’re out of my life anyway.’ But she slouched into her coat with her hands in her pockets and we didn’t talk much on the walk to the Tube.
I wasn’t about to lose momentum with our girls’ nights out, and spent most of the next morning between work phone calls googling theatres with roomier seats. I was quickly able to whittle down my list. To my surprise, people did take the time to gripe about their bad experiences online. Unfortunately there was no centralised whingers’ repository, which made the process a bit slow.
I kept watch for Cressida. She had a knack for popping up over the cubicle wall like a censorious jack-in-the-box whenever I faffed around. As my boss, I suppose she had the right to do this but given that most people didn’t even want to do my job, she should really have been grateful that I was there at all. Calling up strangers with money-saving offers put me just above a Jehovah’s Witness in the social acceptability stakes. Sure, I called pharmacies, nutritionists and health food shops, not people in the middle of dinner. But that still meant I got hung up on. A lot.
Even so, I liked my work, though I’d had my doubts when they first hired me. They sent us on a week-long training course to learn the science behind the nutritional supplements we were selling. Men in white lab coats explained everything in mind-numbing detail. Luckily I had a head for mind-numbing detail. It didn’t take long to start managing my own client list, but it wasn’t always easy. Oversharing clients sometimes admitted to heinous bodily irregularities before I could remind them that I wasn’t a trained professional in that sense. Then I spent weeks worrying about their health.
Eventually I got used to being tethered to my desk by the sleek headset that made us all look like Justin Bieber’s backup singers. It took some practice to learn to ignore the other sales reps’ patter, to concentrate only on my own call. But now it was completely normal. What a funny word that was: normal. It was all a matter of perspective.
I spotted Alex before he reached my desk, and used those few milliseconds to remember I hadn’t plucked the chin hair I noticed in the mirror that morning.
‘Hiya!’ he said, oblivious to my chin. ‘Want to try that new Japanese place for lunch?’
‘That depends. Are you buying?’
‘I’ll spring for the green tea if you’ll consult on the sushi. I never know what to get besides California rolls.’
‘Well, I do know my way around a bento box.’ What was I saying? There’s no sushi in a bento box.
‘One o’clock?’
‘Make it twelve-thirty.’
That still gave me enough time to nip to Boots for tweezers.
It wasn’t unusual to go to lunch with Alex, which meant I’d had ample opportunity over the past month to feel awkward about the Christmas Kiss. He never let on that he remembered, but he could be cagey like that and I was constantly alert for clues. If we were proper friends I’d have just asked him, but as things stood I didn’t want to spook him. It had taken me six years to get to the friendly acquaintanceship stage with him. Given enough time and luck, we might just become something more exciting one day. I lived in hope.
The restaurant was packed. We wedged onto a cramped table in one corner. The large plate-glass window at the front ran with condensation and the menus were already spotted with soy sauce. The prices were good and if the food was even mediocre, it was the kind of place that’d do a brisk lunchtime trade amidst the sea of sandwich shops in the area.
Alex closed his menu. ‘I won’t pretend to know what I’m looking at,’ he said with a grin that loosened my insides.
‘You just asked me here to order for you.’
‘I did warn you. And I’m paying you handsomely in tea, don’t forget.’
I sighed dramatically. ‘I’m not just brains you know. I’m also a pretty face.’
‘Of that,’ he said, raising his tiny tea cup, ‘there’s no doubt. Now order quick, I’m starving.’
There seemed to be just one waitress in the restaurant, a gangly young woman with long blonde hair tied haphazardly into a loose bun so that tendrils escaped to frame her pretty face. When I tried to do that I looked like I’d been in bed with ’flu for three days. Finally she approached our table.
‘Are you ready to order?’ she asked, looking at Alex, who nodded to me.
‘Yes, please may we have two orders of spicy tuna roll, one California roll
