Katie quickly sniffed under her armpits. OK, so it wasn’t that.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Miko.
‘Nothing!’ said Katie. ‘Checking my email.’
Miko looked under her own armpit.
‘Have you got something new from IT they haven’t told the rest of us about?’
‘No.’ Katie sighed. ‘What’s wrong with me Miko?’
Miko gave her a narrow look. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘That sounded like hmm hmm BUT,’ said Katie. ‘You know, as in nothing…BUT; or I’m single…BUT.’
‘But look at the facts,’ said Miko.
‘Ahh,’ said Katie.
‘We’re in the middle of a crisis.’
‘I wish people would stop saying that. What crisis?’
‘The no-men crisis, you idiot.’
‘Is that a real crisis?’
For the first time Katie noticed that Miko wore false eyelashes to go with her false nails. Was anything about her real? Was that Katie’s problem – too real?
Miko stared at her.
‘What?’ asked Katie.
‘You mean you really don’t know there’s a crisis?’
Miko patiently indicated the big glass lobby wall again. ‘Girl. Girl. Baldie. Girl. Girl. Don’t you get it?’
‘There are no men?’
‘Durr.’
‘But that’s just something people say. We say it every day.’
‘Because it’s true,’ said Miko. ‘Why do you think I bought these tits?’
‘Maybe I should buy some tits,’ said Katie absentmindedly in the Square Root, hiccuping for good measure.
Terence’s little toad eyes lit up. ‘I think you look gorgeous,’ he said hopefully. Katie couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud and, taking it as her own final warning, stood up. If his job was as brilliant as he’d been claiming for the last three hours, perhaps he wouldn’t mind getting the drinks. She stumbled to the ladies.
On Tuesday night the girls had met up in the wine bar. All around them were lots of other girls having girls’ nights out. A lot of white wine was being slugged. Shoes and voices were high. The only man in sight was the waiter. ‘Oh God,’ said Louise. ‘Keep me out of sight of the waiter.’
‘That waiter is the biggest slag in NW11,’ said Olivia loudly. ‘Oh. Sorry Louise.’
Louise was pink. ‘I’d had too much white wine. They serve it in those enormous glasses.’
‘And then a dog ate your homework,’ said Katie. Really, she wanted to talk about work but it was really difficult with Olivia there. Recently, she’d felt as if, on some level, there was a tiny teeny-weeny possibility that doing PR for new food and drink products was…perhaps just the slightest bit…pointless? Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with anchovy pretzels and pink cola, it’s just, that sometimes – like every morning on the Tube – she wished maybe she were doing something a little more useful.
‘What was he like?’ said Olivia to Louise, eyeing the dark-haired waiter preening himself in the bar mirror and deftly jamming two glasses down in the glass washer as if it were an incredibly cool thing to be doing.
‘Perfunctory,’ said Louise uncomfortably. ‘He gave me the impression that, working here, it’s part of his job description.’
‘Ladies.’
He had materialised at their elbow. Louise was suddenly peering for something so deeply in her fake Birkin she looked like a horse with a feedbag.
‘What’s that thing we’re meant to get because we’re too cool for chardonnay now?’ asked Olivia.
‘Pinot Grigio,’ said Katie. ‘Tastes the same, more expensive.’
‘Ah, the plastic Prada bag school of ordering,’ said Olivia. ‘One of those please.’
‘Of course,’ said the waiter. ‘You all look very nice tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ said Louise from the nose up. ‘Again.’
The waiter gave her a quizzical look which showed absolutely no signs of recognition whatsoever, and scooted off.
‘Maybe you should rethink that whole “having unbelievably casual sex” thing,’ said Olivia.
Louise grimaced. ‘I’m getting over Max, OK, and having a great time. Really, really great. Plus, as I keep telling you, it’s the law of averages. If there’s only one perfect person out there for you, you’ve just got to get cracking. And never look back.’
‘What if the one perfect person out there for you is a pig?’ said Olivia dreamily. ‘Or married to Jennifer Aniston?’
‘What if they live in Laos?’ said Louise. ‘That’s what bothers me. Or if they speak Tulag. Did you know that’s the hardest language on earth to learn?’
The other girls stared at her as the waiter popped out the cork from the bottle with practised ease and poured them large glasses.
Louise looked sulky as all around them the women squawked and chattered, their slim legs and expensive shoes glinting in the flattering soft light reflecting off the beige leather chairs. Katie looked at Louise and worried about her. And herself.
‘Goodnight Terence,’ said Katie when she got back from the loo. She tried to be as nice as possible.
‘£60!’ Terence was saying. ‘For this shit! Jesus!’
‘Would you like me to go halves?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘If you like.’
Crossly, Katie put down half the money, noticing Terence counted out his share and didn’t leave a tip.
She felt infinitely more sober once she hit the open air. She liked walking in the city at night. People and couples lurched, shouted or shuffled along, no one paying her the blindest bit of notice.
The familiar sounds of sirens and late-night misadventures echoed as she cut down past the Opera House, her heels clattering on the cobbles, leaving the heavy traffic behind her. A chap was weaving slightly by the side of the road, and she subconsciously hurried up a little bit.
‘’Ello darlin’,’ he shouted after her. ‘You look nice.’
Probably only compared to him, a very drunk man attempting to take a piss on the street, but still, she appreciated the gesture.
She was wondering how low she could possibly plummet on her male-attention appreciation charts, when suddenly, out of nowhere the man was right in front of her. She jumped six feet in the air.
‘Fuck!’ she said. ‘You gave me a fright.’
Her heart started to pound, hard, when she realised it wasn’t the same man after all. She couldn’t work out who this person was or how he had landed in front of her, but late on a Thursday night on a deserted street, it didn’t feel good…Her eyes whipped around to the side, but the genial drunkard was gone.
‘Ah,’ said a soft voice with a slight accent. ‘Yes. That can be what happens.’
He was tall and, with her heart banging furiously, Katie saw that he was dressed all in black, with a hat pulled down over his eyes. He was standing directly in front of the streetlight and she