The Office Party

Part 1

The tall brunette I've been flirting with all afternoon, across the terrace, has disappeared for a moment. I put my empty wine glass down on the table and almost knock it over. But I catch it, and snigger to myself even as I check no-one's seen me. (It's all fine.) I smooth my skirt unnecessarily and scan the terrace again. I spot the woman over by the buffet, her back to me. Good. The wine has gone straight to my head, and fun as it is to make eyes at a hot manager in a trouser suit, I really need to visit the little girl's room.

In my defence, it is a balmy, sunny, September afternoon, and I've never been good at lunchtime drinking. (OK, it's now like 4 o'clock, but it was lunchtime when we started drinking.) It was like when we went out straight after our last ever exam at uni. I was so ill that afternoon - seems a long time ago now, even if it was only a few months. Well, I'm not going to be sick now, that wouldn't be good. Spending my first work social do, chucking up into the flowers? Not a smart career move. Anyhow, just now, I just really really need a pee.

In the toilets, after I've sorted myself out, I stay locked in the cubicle for a moment. I ease my feet out of my cute little half-inch heels and lean back against the cistern with a sigh of relief. I wiggle my toes. There's a lot of standing around at these things, and I hadn't thought about that when I went with pretty shoes this morning.

An office summer party, well well. The firm likes to throw them every quarter, apparently, as some strange kind of morale-boosting reward activity when profits look good. It isn't exactly like the horror story office parties, but there is a lot of drinking going on and a lot of gossiping, and a fair bit of flirting. One of the sales guys is really trying it on with one of the girls in PR. Who is lapping it up. (I know he's married with a baby, and her boyfriend is both jealous and built like a brick wall, but hey, it's not my life.) I haven't seen anyone photocopying their own arse yet, but the afternoon is still young.

I fish my phone out of my skirt pocket and ring Michelle. She and I started the same day, a couple of months ago: both fresh-faced, enthusiastic young graduates straight out of uni. We've grown close, bonding over both being right at the bottom of the corporate food chain. She has Friday afternoons off when she can, and uses them to go and stay with her long-distance PhD boyfriend, so she's missing out on the fun. I'm missing her.

'Yup?'

'Hi, Michelle. It's me.'

'Hey, Me. Fi.' She gurgles with laughter. 'Me-Fi, that rhymes. So. You pissed yet?'

I wave my hand, knowing full well she can't see me. 'Hmmph. Maybe a bit.' I giggle. 'You clearly are.' I wiggle my liberated toes again and try to think of a way of not having to put my shoes back on. I wonder if the hot brunette manager woman likes my pretty shoes.

'You're not doing it right, sweetie. The wine needs to be inside you, not the bottle, yeh?' I hear her turn and talk to Toby. Her voice is muffled, and she's probably shrugging. 'I keep taking her out to practise, babes, honest. Lost cause.'

I hear Toby very faintly say that he thought I was an enthusiastic learner-drinker, whenever he met me. I stick my tongue out at him down the phone, then tell Michelle that's what I've done. We have a weird, tipsy, three-way conversation about nothing much for a while. I think she's put me on speaker, because I can hear Toby quite well, and quite a lot of background sound. I suspect they're probably in the beer garden of Toby's favourite pub. To be fair, I don't blame them because they've taken me there when I've been to visit and it's where I would want to be on a nice Friday afternoon. Compared to standing around at work getting slowly drunk by myself, anyway.

'So does this thing have no positive features at all?' Michelle sniffs. 'Apart from the free food and booze?' I can hear she's taken the phone back off speaker. I suspect she wants some gossip.