“Less than you think. And I haven’t had sex with anyone for over six months.”
As she was now styling my hair it wasn’t the time to act shocked. “How are you finding it?”
“A bit like giving up alcohol. The first few days were horrendous. The next month was a blur and now I wonder what all the fuss was about. The therapist I've been seeing has been worth her weight in diamonds.”
“She’s resolved your issues?”
“No, she created some. And I’m not complaining. You know I don’t give two fucks about what anyone thinks, which isn’t always healthy. Well, I do now take other people’s opinions into consideration and try to see their point. I’m not always successful but I am trying. Can I have a job next Wednesday?”
“Why? So you can meet Leif?”
“Yes. I’ve never fangirled over anyone. I can lose my fangirl virginity to him.”
“Okay, let’s take a step back. Your therapist. When did that happen?”
Sophie inhaled and then exhaled audibly. “I decided to develop the business into mental wellbeing as well. We spend so much time on how we look and pampering ourselves, we should be able to find the time to look after our mental health too. However, therapies and counselling are still stigmatised or thought of as new age, so I figured we could use the spas and their umbrella as a way for people to have a massage for the mind. Hence I put myself through counselling so I could start the course to see what it entailed. It’s good. It’s so good I haven’t had sex for six months.”
“And what has that taught you?”
“There’s not enough porn for women on the net. No, seriously, a lot. Look at me.”
I turned around, catching site of the simple ponytail she’d put my hair up in. I looked fresh, almost pretty.
“Can you do this every day?”
“No, but I’ll teach you to do it yourself. Can I be a hostess on Wednesday?”
I rolled my eyes. “As long as you don’t force yourself on any members of my staff.”
Her grin was wicked. “I knew you wanted him!”
I chose to ignore her.
But I didn’t say that she was wrong.
* * *
Bowlingwith the people I worked with brought out the geeky fifteen-year-old girl who had no idea what to say in social situations where she didn’t have a role. At work I had a role. I knew what to say and how to act, what facial expressions to wear and when and for how long. Here I was still the boss and responsible for ensuring that my restaurant was good enough to pay people’s mortgages and in some cases, their shoe habits, but I didn’t know what other facets I was meant to display. Could I be humorous and tease? Did I need to keep in the shadows in case any of them said anything you probably shouldn’t say in front of your boss? Should I buy the drinks? Pay for the games?
I was clueless.
When I was married to my first husband, I was the trophy wife. My role was good hostess, chef, sommelier, discusser of non-controversial but relevant topics. With my second husband I was meant to be the female version of him. When we divorced I became a business owner. A hard-assed, formidable business woman. With Sophie and Vanessa I had found a shade of myself, but I didn’t know her well enough yet to take her role in an environment like this.
“Ready to get your ass kicked?” Jack grinned at me, his eyes noticeably twinkling even in the dim light.
“I think you’ll find it’s going to be the other way round.”
My staff were lounging around, hogging two lanes. Not everyone was out, families and whatever early morning commitments getting in the way or not as the case may be.
“There’s a beer for you.” Jack pointed to where a waiter had just left a tray of beers and some greasy looking nachos. My stomach started to sing. Unsurprising, given I hadn’t eaten much since lunch.
Jack was understated at work. As a chef, you had to have an element of command, bravado in some ways, to make the team pull together and believe in your end product. I’d questioned him because his manner of leading staff was different to mine. He was quieter, less aggressive. He used quieter words and softer phrases, taking more time that I had to direct people to improve their skills. But if they didn’t pay attention or repeatedly fucked up, his quiet words I knew took no prisoners.
Tonight was his show. He’d obviously arranged this and the rest of the staff looked to him to be the organiser, the one to at least get people shifting into teams. Part of me wanted to jump in there and start bossing, but I reigned myself in with thick rope, deciding that my role needed to be observer, to see how my team were different out of the restaurant and how they interacted with each other.
“You’re against me, Wood.” Jack said my surname with a grin that came from a supervillain. “You be needing some extra padding on that ass with the kickin’ it’s going to get.”
I rolled my eyes. It had been years since I’d bowled, so many that rust was probably coating the rust. “You may be surprised, unpleasantly so.” I wasn’t being unpleasantly surprised as he pulled off the blue hoodie he was wearing, exposing a worn Frankie Valli t-shirt and thick biceps. Tattoos covered both arms and I wanted to know where they ended. Dead libido had been a corpse I’d lived with since I’d kicked my second husband into touch. Nothing in my nether regions had stirred properly since well before then, unless some superhero actor had been involved, because they were fictional and safe, and I possibly had some well-hidden fantasy about Thor entering my bedroom window and ravishing me.
