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‘Like I said, that’s what life coaching is for. I can help you find the right path.’
He looks surprised. ‘You can?’
He must have a low-to-no opinion of what we do. Although from what he’s just seen I can hardly criticise.
‘I mean, I could but I’m fully booked,’ I say, backtracking.
‘Are you? I thought you had no clients yet, which is why you wanted me to pretend,’ he says, before politely waiting for me to think up a quick way out of the fib.
‘No, you’re right. I’m not actually fully booked, but I don’t think it’s a good idea because we have’ – I dare to look at him – ‘we have history, you know? It would be very unprofessional, not to mention very dishonest.’
Pot. Kettle. Black.
My cheeks redden even more as I get a flashback to our rolling around on the forest floor and him skilfully teasing my nipples into a frenzy.
‘But you just said “if Nidi has no objections” it would be okay. And besides, I hardly think a bit of harmless fooling around constitutes grounds for turning away legitimate business. We’re all adults here.’
Fooling around?
I leap up, and he mirrors my actions. I’m flabbergasted. How could he so easily dismiss our history? I was at my sensual peak, while he was caught up in a total and utter cyclone of female erotic pleasure-giving.
I push him out through the door into reception.
‘Thanks for being a good sport, goodbye!’ I say, hastily closing it behind me. I wait five whole minutes until I’m sure he’s gone and march over to the reception desk. I need Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen to not book him in should he ever try to, but she’s too busy catching up with all of her relatives, including second cousins twice removed, on the phone. I’m furious with myself. How could I think that Oliver would be asking me on a date after the way I’ve been behaving? And fooling around? FOOLING AROUND?
My fury is temporarily interrupted by Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen. She is tutting loudly, then shouting angrily, and now she is hissing weirdly. I will never understand this language. Never. I’ve told her, no personal calls at work. So far, she has smiled, nodded and carried on as if I simply did not say it. I am stood right in front of her, catching her red-handed in the act of not working, and yet she is not bothered in the slightest.
I glare at her. ‘Put that phone down!’
‘But Mees West—’
‘Now!’
I watch as she slams it back into the receiver, her eyes wide like a startled bunny rabbit.
‘How many times have I told you, no personal calls?’
‘No fue personal. But Mees Weston—’
‘Don’t but Miss Weston me, Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen!’ I squeal, just about getting to the end of her bloody name without passing out. That’s another reason Nidi should have hired someone else. Someone with a much, much shorter name.
‘Era tu hermana!’ she yells back, full of fiery Spanish cheek that takes the wind right out of my sails.
‘Oh,’ I say, shocked. It was my sister? We have not spoken for over two weeks. Not since the day I left for Spain, in fact.
‘What did she want?’ I ask sharply. I stow the little nugget that Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen can only lie in Spanish away for now. ‘And don’t think for a second that I don’t know you were talking to your mother afterwards. My sister speaks even worse Spanish than me,’ I state triumphantly. Shite. I forgot I’m supposed to have a secure working grasp of the language.
Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen smiles insolently. ‘Your sister, Abba,’ she says with a dramatic pause. ‘As in, the sister you say you no have.’
Double shite.
‘Ava,’ I correct, glossing over the fact that I have told her and Nidi that I have no siblings. That my family was dead. ‘And I mean, I don’t have a sister. She’s just a… You must have misheard.’
‘Mees Weston, your sister, Abba,’ she says insistently. I’m going to let it go. We could go around in endless circles with her pronunciation. ‘Your sister, who no exists, says to tell you…’
A loud banging from a car door downstairs interrupts our bickering.
‘Must be the client at 11 a.m. He arrives on time,’ says Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen, looking confused. ‘So, who was that other client? The big one? He is new client?’ She is looking confused, at the diary and then at the computer screen and then at me.
