The Office Party

Part 3

I swing by Michelle's desk on my way back to the stairs. (I take the stairs whenever I can, because someone told me once it's good for your arse and legs and I figure it saves me joining a gym. It's a bummer in heels, though.) Michelle seems pleased to be distracted, which is nice, and leans back in her chair as her hand goes for the packet of fags in her top drawer.

I still her hand. 'Relax. This won't take long. We just need to scratch something off that list.'

Michelle changes reaching for her cigs into reaching for the list, in the bottom drawer. I look at it and wonder at the extent to which alcohol makes my handwriting go utterly awry. She watches me run my finger down the scrawly writing. 'Been to see her by yourself, then? Your idea or hers?'

'Hers. Here we are.' I twist round and borrow a pen from Michelle's desk, to scratch off one of our entries. '"Keeping her hands to herself".'

Michelle grabs the list back and stuffs it back in its drawer. 'Keep your voice down.' She locks the drawer. 'So, she asks you up to the office and then doesn't come on to you? And why is that even something significant?'

'Yup. I even brushed my hip against her arm and everything. And it's only significant if she doesn't touch me when I want her to. I gave her the chance, and she chose not to take it.' I grin. 'So it counts.'

Michelle sniggers, then frowns at me. 'I dunno, Fi. I know we've only been here a few months, but I've seen her in action. It's not usually like this. You'd be a distant memory for her by now, normally. Something's not right, and I don't like it.' She gestures at the closed bottom drawer. 'And I definitely don't like that.'

I sigh. 'OK, rip it up, then.' I lean in. 'But seriously, I am going to make her take me on a date. I want that. I want her, of course, but I know I want to get to know her first.' I stare out the window for a moment and sigh. 'I know that's an odd thing to say, because she's a bitch, but...'

Michelle shrugs and looks past me, where she can presumably see someone senior circling suspiciously. 'OK, fine. Good for you. Now, piss off and let me do some work. I'll catch you later.'

I blow her a kiss and trundle back to the Finance department.

***

Diana, Roger and I seem to end up having regular meetings - at least twice a week. To be fair, the complexity of the accounting in the case is particularly baroque, and Roger confesses to me on several occasions that he would love to take his counterpart in the other company for a pint sometime. He says it must take a mind of particularly subtle financial deviousness to have come up with the scheme they tried to work on us, and that an evening spent in that person's company would be entertaining indeed.

I can understand his point of view. Being more naïve than him - lacking his 30 years' worth of experience - I'm possibly less excited about the actual accounting, though I can appreciate the inherent beauty in the numbers. What does please me immensely, though, is that I find I have a facility for explaining it in terms that outsiders (and Diana, in particular) can understand. Roger begins to insist on taking me with him to meetings all over the place, to act like his translator.

One Friday afternoon, about a month after the disastrous party, a group of us are sat round in Diana's office, intending to discuss the case: me and Michelle, Roger, Diana and Sandra. It's the last few hours before the weekend and no-one really wants to be there - apart from maybe Diana. We're milling, before the meeting starts. Michelle is doodling on her pad and daydreaming about Toby. Sandra and I are discussing a band that we'll both be going to see the next night - I've bumped in to her and her husband a few times now, at pub gigs. Roger is on his mobile to his wife, discussing something their son has done at school. Diana is standing at the window, hands behind her back, staring out over the town's skyline. Her reading glasses are pushed back on top of her head.