Chapter Two – Nothing is what it seems!
(Part One)
‘Honey, could you pass the rice,’ my mother asks as we sat down for Sunday dinner.
All weekend all I could think about was the train wreck of Friday night with Angus.
Neither one of us tried to contact each other and all I could do was try to forget about it by indulging in some retail therapy on Saturday and now try to enjoy the lovely and much needed home cooked dinner my father prepared today.
However, there was a slight atmosphere between my parents and the obvious awkward ambience between Renesh and his wife, so I got a bottle of white out quickly.
With the usual small talk around the table, we proceeded to stuff ourselves to maximum capacity and head to the living room for dessert and drinks.
As my mother questioned an embarrassed Renesh about when she should expect her first grandchild, my father made a sudden exit to talk on his phone.
My father was not used to his mobile phone and often called it, ‘an addiction worst than drugs,’ but I think it was because he didn’t know how to use it, and often didn’t, so I was surprised that it was attached to his ear this Sunday afternoon.
The caller was very persistent and seemed to agitate him with each call but I think it might have been one of his competitors as a few new taxi firms had opened in the area and wanted my father’s prime location but he refused to sell.
‘Parwez, can you spare your family some time and get off that phone,’ my mother shouts but my father just waves his hand and shuts the door. ‘I swear if I didn’t know how loud your father snores I’d swear he has got a younger toy,’ my mother announces.
We all looked at each other in shock then Renesh starts to laugh, ‘don’t be silly mum. Dad would never do that. You know you’re his Irish Goddess,’ he says whilst giving her a hug.
After Gabrielle rescues the tension with one of her footballer stories, my father renters the room and we continue to talk about the potential grandchildren my parents should expect from Renesh and Shilpa.
*********************************************************************
Sunday dinner was just what I needed as I knew the week ahead would not be so light hearted or fun.
‘Why has he not called me?’ I questioned myself as I snuggled into bed with my huge mug of hot chocolate and the latest celebrity magazine. The only break in my Angus train of thought came when I saw a very famous actress on the beach and the photographer’s zoom was not kind to her cellulite.
*********************************************************************
The alarm rang and I felt like I had only just closed my eyes.
My heavy heart allowed me to enter a luke-warm shower and eat my uninspired cereal whilst trying not to think about seeing Angus in the next two hours.
I realised that even though he had been a complete and utter sod by not phoning me and clearly blaming me for his misfortune on Friday night, I would swallow the tears back, act unfazed by his childish behaviour and look stunning.
So, out came the hair straighteners, hair serum, and expensive facial cream, the perfume you reserve for high-priced evenings, (when you know that you’ll be getting your money’s worth from the date) and the sexy but professional black, skirt suit.
‘Ooooh sexy lady,’ Amelia joked as I was about to exit the bomb site (sorry the flat!).
I stopped at the door and turned to have a little joke before I set off for the emotional torment but although the humour was in the voice, it was not registering with her face.
Amelia had been crying but tried to cover it up as she usually does with humour.
I was a little early for work in my determination to show Angus that his juvenile actions had not affected my professionalism so I decided I needed to stay for a few minutes and check Amelia was ok. ‘Babe, what’s wrong? And please don’t tell me nothing ‘cos your eyes are redder than a post box,’ I questioned caringly.
She paused for a second, as though not sure whether I had time to listen and continued, ‘I can’t tell you now but can you nip out for lunch today?’ ‘Wow, it must be serious, if she wants to talk about it at lunch. Amelia never has time for lunch,’ I pondered as I continued to hug her.
I agreed and we made the lunch date and I left to face the uncertain anguish ahead.
Getting into the office was the easy part; dealing with Ann’s suspicious looks at my new, glam appearance was painless but seeing Angus already in the office, laughing and looking refreshed and as sexy as ever was a different story.
Until I saw who was giving him the reason to laugh.
*********************************************************************
It was his wife and children, looking like a scene from OK magazine.
The children ran around the office whilst Angus and his wife sweetly glanced at each other whilst they made small talk with one of the investors, who seemed to admire this couple’s ‘natural’ displays of regulated affection.
‘FUCK! Maybe they won’t see me at my desk. I can just go to the toilet and say I have the runs, that’s why I’ve been in there for two hours. Maybe I could get swine flu and have to go home immediately. Can you be infected with swine flu within 5 minutes?’ As I deliberated on that last thought, Ann came over.
‘Ok, so we have to make sure these figures go to Sales and Marketing before 10am but you need to make sure that they are in alphabetical order and make sure there are no spelling mistakes and all the information is correct,’ she ordered. ‘You also need to follow up this ad space request as the magazine has not confirmed if we will make the Friday issue or the overall price. We then have a meeting with Mr. Maguire at noon to discuss the new proposal for the summer agenda and then you need to go to a meeting with Marketing to see what they are proposing for next month for the new client we’ve just landed,’ she barked as she ticked the last demand off her clipboard list.
I swear she only walked around with this bright red clipboard to make her look extra important, even though she was really just a paper pusher just like me.
‘Oh no! Hold on, did she just say we were having a late lunch?’the thought quickly entered my already data overloaded brain. ‘Errm Ann, does that mean we will be having a late lunch? It’s just I made a lunch appointment,’ I asked nervously.
She turned and regarded me as though I said I was going to wee on her prized clipboard. I felt nervous but maintained eye contact. Isn’t that what they say to do when you see a dog? To show there is no fear so it doesn’t come over and bite you on the arse? However, I amend that theory when I am faced with a pitbull or some 14 year old chav’s cross breed fighting machine that they can barely control on their chained leashes; my theory then goes to, ‘RUN and jump somewhere very high before I see my leg in it’s jaw with my favourite pair of black strappies’.
‘If you are unable to prioritise your work above your social life, maybe you should look for another job Nita,’ she said in the clearest, icy tone. She then walked away, making me know she meant business; I dialled the phone to rearrange my lunch with Amelia.
After rearranging the lunch date (which wasn’t hard as she took the day off work…it must be really bad as she lives and breathes work!), I continued with the huge pile of work Ann managed to keep adding to my desk as she walked past every 10 minutes. ‘Oh well,’ I thought as I tried not to concentrate on my heart being ripped to shreds.
But the time had come to face it.
I had been so busy trying to tune out the Romeo and Juliet performance by keeping occupied that I didn’t realise the time had flown past. ‘Please bring a pen and notepad,’ Ann ordered as she regarded the completed work.
So we walked in and immediately I felt the colour drain from my face.
I imagined her to be a horse faced, posh but dull looking blonde, who he only married because she had a few acres of daddy’s land in the countryside and attended boring museum functions…but she was far from that.
Indeed she was blonde, but she looked more like a Swedish natural blonde model. Even after having two children she looked like she was only a size 6. Wearing an expensive looking baggy white shirt, tucked into some dark brown wide calf length shorts, beautiful strappy brown sandals which looked like they were they were designed specifically for her ankles and an expensive large brown Prada bag.
She was naturally pretty with minimal makeup and hair tied in the messy but stylish bun, to show that she wanted to be understated. She smiled and walked over to me.
I began to sweat as she held her hand out and I wondered if at any second she was going to slap me. ‘Hello, my name is Mrs. Maguire. I seem to know everyone here but I haven’t seen you before. Are you new?’ she purred as she examined my poor attempt at dress up.
‘Oh, so she doesn’t have a first name? What a cow! She knows everyone here, does she? Does she know that her husband is a lying, cheating sod, who has trouble getting it up? Bet that would wipe the smug look off her face!’I thought as I tried to gather some form of moisture in my mouth to answer her. ‘Hello, my name is Nita and I am indeed a new recruit. It’s a pleasure,’ I answered as I gritted my teeth.
There was an awkward silence and I could see Angus shifting in his chair out of the corner of my eye. Everyone else had entered the room and some of the management were playing with the children. ‘So, are you enjoying it so far, Nita? I hope my husband isn’t working you too hard? I know he can be a tyrant sometimes,’ she chuckled. ‘Yes, I’m enjoying it, thank you and your husband isn’t much of a tyrant really. I actually think he might be having trouble keeping up with me,’ I laughed.
Angus heard the last remark and shot me a look of pure anger and I made my way to my seat.
Mrs. Maguire stood confused for a second but decided it was time to take the children to their nannies and go shopping (ok so she didn’t say that but isn’t that all these high society ladies do with their days?) and we started the meeting.
The meeting lasted for an hour with regular intervals for tea and coffee (with those delicious, expensive little assorted biscuits that make you want ten but you know that each nugget has about 1000 calories in it!) and although there were initial looks of irritation from Angus, he remained quiet about the recent events.
After the concluding questions and answers session, I made a quick escape to avoid Angus’s rage.
*********************************************************************
Amelia was sat in the cosy, family run restaurant in a small table in the corner of the room.
It must have been serious as she had already gone through half a bottle of white wine. ‘Hey hun, have you been here long?’ I asked whilst looking at the half empty bottle, hoping this was the reason for the liquid absence. She didn’t flinch at the question and just calmly concluded, ‘nope, just been a hard couple of days’.
After the waitress had taken our orders, I went into interview mode, ‘so hun, what’s going on?’ I asked as it was rare to see Amelia upset. ‘I think he’s cheating on me’ she blurted out before the tears came.
Luckily the restaurant was at the end of their lunch time rush so only an elderly couple noticed the upset diner, but displaying the unemotional British stereotype (stiff upper lip!), they pretended to ignore it. ‘Oh my gosh, are you sure?’ I gasped.
I handed her a tissue and she continued to tell me her theory. ‘He was supposed to come over at the weekend but claimed he was working, so I thought I would call his work on Saturday after lunch but they told me he wasn’t in this weekend. I called his flat and Charlize answered but when I asked for him she lied and said he was at his parents.’ ‘How did you know she was lying?’ I pondered, ‘because it took her too long to think of that answer. I’ve always wondered about their “friendship” and now I know that it wasn’t just platonic. He was fucking her and her “so called” partner!’ she loudly replied.
The last sentence made the elderly couple jump in shock and they decided that they couldn’t take anymore of the emotional behaviour and left.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Amelia and Geron seemed like such a solid couple. Although he lived in Paris and worked quite a lot, they still made the effort to maintain their relationship and even talked about Amelia moving over to Paris in the next few months. ‘Why would he ask her to move over there if he was cheating on her? I mean, as soon as she went over to live with him, she would find out, wouldn’t she?’ I deliberated whilst eating my wild mushroom on French toast starter.
‘Have you spoken to him about your speculations hun?’ I tried. She looked at me as though about to laugh then maintained her composure and continued, ‘do you really think he would tell me the truth? I just left a message on his mobile and stated that I knew everything and I hope that they’re all very happy together but do not ever contact me again,’ to which she gulped down another glass of white and summoned the already nervous waitress to bring another bottle.
There was nothing I could say that would change her mind so I continued to listen and arranged a night out after work to help to take this off her mind.
If Geron is cheating on Amelia, I have no more hope for the male species!
Getting back to the office was a little easier than previous expected, especially after the fourth big glass of wine. ‘I really hope you have not been to the pub Nita? As I have left some work on your desk that needs to be completed before you leave for the evening,’ Ann announced. I just nodded and headed for my desk.
I logged back into my computer and was shocked to see an email from Angus!
For a spilt second I wanted to be one of those strong women like Amelia and just delete it, to teach him not to be such a spoilt child but curiosity got the better of me and I pressed open.
It read:
Hello Nita,
I apologise for my behaviour the other night. It was childish and I really regret it.
I really want to make it up to you but I understand if you refuse.
If you can find it within yourself to forgive me, please meet me at the flat at 7pm and I’ll make it up to you.
Yours,
Angus
Oh my gosh! Was he being serious? I thought he wanted to kill me and let his wife wear my skin as her new coat? I didn’t know what to do so I went to the bathroom for some thinking time, as I knew he could see me reading it from his office.
I tried to stay in the bathroom for as long as possible but I had to finish off the new pile of work Ann had refreshed my desk with. So I slowly walked back to my desk and replied,
Hello Angus,
I will accept your invite but I will not be staying long.
I just want to see how sorry you are but I am telling you now that whatever we had is now over as I will not be treated as you treated me; it was not my fault.
Regards,
Nita
‘Ha! One up for girl power,’I thought as I sent the email and continued with my work not wanting to look up to see his response.
He responded minutes later with a short reply, ‘see you later then,’ and I wondered if my stony reply had hurt him?
The minutes gathered into hours and work was finally over and I made my way to the reception doors. ‘Nita, hold on,’ someone shouted. It was Sarah from Research so I stopped. ‘Hey Sarah, how’s it going?’ I asked as she gave me a hug which I’m no longer scared to reciprocate. ‘Hey hun, I have a huge favour to ask? I need another woman’s opinion on this dress I have saved for a wedding I’m going to at the weekend but they’ll only save it until 6pm today. Will you be able to be my clothing advisor for the next hour or two?’ she asked with desperation in her eyes.
I thought about my appointment with Angus for a second then decided even if I am late it would show him that I’m a busy lady who doesn’t need to run every time he tells me to, so I agreed.