‘You can’t stand the people you work with, but you managed a whole wedding without breaking out in hives. Imagine how easy it would be doing the Singh-Smythe thing knowing you’ll be doing it to get paid!’
‘When I said I break out in hives at adult social functions, I might’ve exaggerated a bit.’
My cousin eyes me witheringly as she picks up her Wedgewood coffee cup, bringing it to her lips. But she knows that sort of stuff pushes me right out of my comfort zone. I need time to prepare, to build up to them. To gather mental fortitude. And I maybe I don’t get hives, but I do sometimes itch because I feel like people are watching me, waiting for me to say or do something stupid. I feel so on edge, worried that I’m reading expressions and situations wrong. Whether I’m there in a professional capacity or there by invitation, parties are just so bloody hard, and they leave me completely exhausted for days afterwards.
And last weekend was no exception, only I was left a different kind of exhausted. The kind that leaves your limbs like jelly and your mind and body at war as they decide what’s too much and what’s enough and how many more times you’re going to do it anyway. It left me a good kind of exhausted. The best kind.
And between those kinds of experiences and seeing Barney the next day has spurred me on to stop viewing life from the sidelines. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do about it all, but something has to change.
‘Come on, Mir,’ I say, returning to the topic. ‘You know I don’t like the adult gigs.’Don’t likebeing an understatement.
‘I just don’t get it. Kids’ gigs are a hundred times more hectic,’ she counters a little huffily. ‘Screaming and shouting, and all hyped up on sugar.’
‘Mir!’ My hand to my chest, I feign disbelief. ‘The Kensington and Chelsea yummy mummy set don’t feed their offspring with such poison.’
‘Whether its cake made from honey or coconut sugar, it still makes them loopy.’
‘I still find them easier to be around.’
‘That’s just because you get to hand them back after a couple of hours.’
‘If you don’t like it, you could always hire a nanny,’ I don’t so much suggest as taunt. As well as owning one of the foremost event companies in London herself, Miranda’s husband is also a ridiculously wealthy art dealer. The pair could well afford help.
‘And let another woman come between me and my boys?’ Her response is accompanied by a sly smile. ‘But I was actually talking about work. We get to hand them back at the end of the parties.’
‘All hyped up on natural sugars. But it’s also true that I find children easier to be around. I’m much less likely to be an arse around them, and if I am, they’re much less judgmental.’
‘Speaking of arses, how is that horrible boss of yours?’
‘He’s been quiet this week.’ Silent but sullen is a better description, thanks to Archer’s intervention.
‘You need a new job.’
‘Agreed, but it’s like I said, he’s not going to push me out of this job just because it suits him.’ And it probably suits him even more now that I know where his animosity stems from.Know it yet still find it hard to believe.
‘But you hate that job. You’ve hated it almost since the start.’
‘I know.’ I wince in response to her pointed accusation. I thought social media was my calling, but sometimes selling pretty lies to the masses feels like it’s eating away at my soul. ‘But I can’t leave until I have another job to go to because I have bills to pay. Besides, it’s become a point of honour almost. There’s no way he’s pushing me out. I’ll go when I’m ready, not when Haydn wants me out.’
‘You could just decide to leave as a way of helping yourself.’
‘I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.’
‘You know, there’s always work for you here. More work. Whatever suits you.’
Miranda has always been so good to me. she even got me my first start in social media at a start-up she was working at—E-Volve, the socially conscious Tinder. I was at university when the company was sold to one of the biggest players in the online dating market. I even got a little payout that year, which helped keep my hair in candy hair colours the rest of university. I also got a lifetime membership to E-Volve, though the one time I used it was enough. Online dating isnotfor me.
‘Hey, do you remember Barney? Leif’s friend who used to live next door.’ I’m already beginning to describe him as she shakes her head. ‘Blond. Sort of round. Manners like a little Winston Churchill?’
‘Can’t say I do, sorry. Any particular reason?’
‘I saw him at the wedding last week. He even came back to the olds for Sunday lunch.’
‘You invited him?’
‘He said Leif did, but later, Leif said he more or less invited himself.’ He also pointed out after he’d gone how much more interested Barney seemed in catching up with me, which set Mum off, despite the way he’d phrased it. Like the fact that Barney could be interested in me was somehow astounding to him.
And from such a nice family.
