Page 67 of Who’s That Girl?

‘There’s only two of us so I didn’t buy a cake,’ she trills, her cheeks pink with excitement. ‘Instead I got Red Velvet cupcakes with special frosting!’

‘You shouldn’t have!’ I smile with amusement.

‘Nonsense,’ she says, setting the box down on my desk. ‘You missed pudding last night, so you deserve a treat.’ Flicking open the lid, she takes a deep, languorous inhale.

‘Four?’

‘Well, one’s never enough,’ she says sagely, peeling off the paper case.

I look at the cupcakes, sitting there in all their red devilness, oozing dairy, wheat and refined sugars, and probably contaminated with nuts from being near peanut-butter-flavoured ones. With all my allergies, I can’t possibly eat them. Plus I’m trying to be healthy.

Then again, I don’t want to offend Beatrice, and a little bit probably wouldn’t hurt, I tell myself, taking a nibble. And it is my birthday.

It’s like a sugar overload. Soft, sweet buttery frosting and a rich, moist, chocolatey cupcake. Wow, they’re delicious. I get a flashback to my training session this morning and feel a stab of guilt. Hastily I put the cupcake down.

‘So what are you doing tonight to celebrate?’ asks Beatrice. The tip of her nose is covered in butter frosting.

‘Having dinner with Miles and some friends.’ I take a swig of coffee. ‘Remember Vanessa and Julian?’

‘Golly, no, I don’t think so.’ She taps her finger on her nose to think, then, discovering the frosting, licks it off.

‘Here, look …’ Tapping my keyboard, I click on to the photos on my computer until I find one of them together.

‘Oh, yes, I remember now.’ She nods. ‘He’s a lawyer.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Jolly sexy,’ she adds.

‘You think so?’ I look back at the photo. I know Julian’s attractive, but it’s hard to see your best-friend’s husband as sexy. I just can’t see him in that way. Especially when I know all about his personal habits, such as using a nose-hair-trimmer and leaving the bits around the sink.

‘If he was single, that is,’ she adds hastily. ‘So where are you going?’

‘Back to that gastropub I went to with Miles on Monday.’

‘Oh, fabulous! What are you going to wear?’

Beatrice’s interest in my wardrobe never ceases to baffle me. She has no interest in her own clothes and recently asked me the name of ‘that girl that I always see pictures of’.

It was Kate Moss.

‘A dress, the one with the little capped sleeves that Miles bought me for Christmas.’ Well, actually, that’s not strictly true, Miles bought me a gift certificate for a local boutique, but I work such long hours its always closed whenever I’ve popped by, so instead I treated myself to a beautiful dress from Net-a-Porter online. Miles will never know I bought it from there.

Or how much it cost.

Trust me, I’ve long since learned to tell Miles that everything costs a fraction of the actual price, thus saving him from a heart attack, and me from another financial lecture.

‘Which reminds me, I’ve got to pick it up from the dry-cleaner’s on the way home—’ I’m interrupted by the phone ringing and glance at my watch. It’s 9 a.m.

‘That’ll be the new gym account people,’ remarks Beatrice.

As I go to pick up the phone, I catch her staring at the cupcakes. ‘Go ahead, have another,’ I tell her, reaching for the phone. ‘One is never enough.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly,’ she protests. Then, without even a missing beat, ‘Oh, well, all right, if you insist. It would be rude not to.’ And reaching for a cupcake she gives a little hiccup of pure, unadulterated pleasure.

When I was younger, my birthday was a huge deal. In 1997, the year I moved to London, I remember spending the whole day in constant celebration: taking phone calls from friends and family, opening presents from my co-workers, enjoying a boozy lunch at the pub with the rest of the office, before returning to work sometime late in the afternoon to eat cake and sober up ready for the evening’s celebrations. God, I used to love my birthday!

Now, of course, it’s business as usual.