Chapter 29
Ibarely felt I’d blinked before Monday was upon me once again. Mondays were always ghastly by nature, but this one was the most horrendous yet. I was going to have to speak to Seb, and I was absolutely dreading it.
My intentions were good. I was going to march straight up to him in his office, tell him I needed to speak to him in private and it couldn’t wait. Then I’d unpack the shit tsunami that was living rent-free in my head and hope his head didn’t spontaneously explode.
But I bottled it. All went well as I marched on rather wobbly legs into his office first thing, where I discovered him sitting behind his desk, engrossed in some reading.
He looked up, briefly surprised to see me standing there. His eyes appeared to brighten slightly, the blueness of them quite beautiful, but then again that might have just been the early morning sun hitting him through the sash windows.
“Lila, how are you? How was your weekend?”
I shifted nervously from one foot to the other, just as I had as a child when summoned to see the headmaster for some misdemeanour or other: pulling a girl’s pigtails or claiming I couldn’t hand in my homework because the dog had defecated over it.
“It…it was good, thank you. Quiet, just stayed in and watched some films, read a little. It was chilled.”
That wasn’t true. My weekend had been far from chilled. Well, apart from the wine, that is. It was fair to say I had indulged in a little too much of that which had then inevitably led onto a family size bag of Chilli Heatwave Doritos. When I had eventually retired to bed Saturday night, I was drunkenly sporting orange tipped fingers and red wine fangs. Not my best look.
I had spent much of the weekend fretting over this very moment and had barely been able to concentrate on the TV or the books I had picked up. As a rule I loved a good lengthy thriller; my taste in books was rather like my men: I enjoyed them girthy and a crowd-pleaser. But I couldn’t concentrate at all on my current paperback and was struggling to even get past page one.
He smiled up at me, still standing there awkwardly across from him. That lopsided grin of his that always gave him a rather boyish charm was threatening to render me weak at the knees. I worried I might faint.
“Stayed in? You’re telling me that Lila Glover, party animal extraordinaire, stayed in all weekend with a good book of all things? Should we alert the elders? The world might spin out of control.”
I smiled, despite myself.
“Oh, I don’t know. I just haven’t felt like going out much lately; it hasn’t had the same appeal.”
We locked eyes for a few seconds then, and I felt as if time stopped in that very moment. I really needed to get a grip of myself. I was beginning to act like one of Lottie’s heroines in her old romantic movies. It must be my hormones playing up. I must go back and see my GP, get myself on HRT or some such.
Seb stretched back in his chair. His shirt moved up a few inches, exposing a smooth, flat stomach. Much flatter than it should have been for the amount of complex carbohydrate and potato-based meals he consumed. I forced my eyes away, feeling like a voyeur.
“Well, I had a great weekend myself. Adam and I went to this sci-fi event at the Town Hall; it was fantastic.”
His face lit up as he recalled his day. He looked young and happy and absolutely adorable. There was no way on earth you would guess he was in his fifties. It just showed that if you were a nice person on the inside, it really showed on the outside. The skin care companies should really take note.
“And then on Sunday Adam and I met up with some of the other guys and did the whole Lord of theRings marathon. Twelve hours it took us in total, an epic day, possibly one of the best ever.”
I couldn’t help smiling at this. We really did come from two very different worlds. But what in the past I would have found annoying about him was now strangely endearing. Maybe the adage had been right all along, and opposites really did attract.
“So, you didn’t see Jocasta this weekend then?”
He looked a little confused by this.
“Jocasta? No, I didn’t see her. Why, was I supposed to?”
I stared for a few seconds at his puzzled face. This was my moment to tell him. To speak my truth. But the words simply wouldn’t come. He looked up at me expectantly, after a few seconds his expression changing to one of concern. No doubt because I was standing there with my mouth wide open, gaping at him like a startled pigeon.
“Are you OK, Lila? What’s the matter?”
I couldn’t tell him. I just couldn’t. I snapped my mouth shut. At least I wouldn’t risk catching flies any more.
“Nothing, I’m fine. I’ll go back to my office. I’ve got a hell of a day today. I really need to get working.”
He nodded his head slowly, the quizzical look still evident on his face.
“OK, well, I’ll see you later.”
I nodded my head briefly and scurried out of his office, just desperate to get away.
I scolded myself inwardly on the short walk down the corridor. I really was a wimp. I owed it to Seb to tell him the truth. But strong, formidable Lila Glover just didn’t have the lady balls to get the task done. I felt ashamed of myself. My mobile phone vibrated from the confines of my coat pocket, and I reached in to retrieve it. It was a text from Lottie.
“Have you told him yet?”
I stopped walking so I could concentrate on typing my reply.
“No! I just couldn’t.”
Immediately my phone buzzed again. I clicked on the message: a sad-faced emoji from her. I knew she was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself.
I hadn’t realised that Jocasta was standing slap bang in front of me until her voice nearly made me leap out of my skin in shock.
Now that was a woman who really should be ashamed of herself. But that was not how her face appeared. In fact, she looked full of the joys of spring for a winter’s morning. Full of smiles and her cheeks were positively glowing. However, that was more than likely down to the heavy make-up she had applied that morning. To impress who, I wondered.
She appeared like she might possibly be wearing the entirety of the Estée Lauder range. She wasn’t trying to achieve the “less is more” approach today, that was for sure. There were at least two layers of undercoat and a thick coat of emulsion, and that was just her base. Her pouty lips she’d painted scarlet, and her eyes had more cut creasing and contouring than you would expect to see on a teenager at a prom.
She had an air of superiority about her that was testing my last nerve. She must believe that secretly shagging the boss gave her some sort of cachet. It really didn’t. It just gave me the massive ick.
“Hello, Lila, good weekend? It must have been incredible! I’ve got to say you look bloody knackered.”
She gave me another one of her trademark winks, to show she was only joking. But I knew there was a grain of truth in it. No doubt I looked exhausted. But there was no need for her to be quite so vile. She really was a walking void of a human.
I was finding her so-called “jokes” about as funny as a turd in a porcelain teapot.
She didn’t wait to see if I would reply, just trotted away on her taupe stilettos. But not before I had the chance to glimpse the smug expression on her overly made-up face.