I know I shouldn’t really touch alcohol again. At least not for a few more days. And maybe not until I’m at some social event, like going round to Bianca’s to watch an important episode of Eastenders. But I’ve sort of made a deal with myself that, if I don’t touch Bacardi Breezers again, I can have a couple of vodka lemonades tonight in front of the telly.
The knock on the door comes just as I’ve settled down and switched a repeat of CSI on.
I like to think that I live in a nice neighbourhood but those teenagers who are constantly hanging around do give me the creeps a bit. And the knock was too plain to belong to Bianca.
Who else visits me? Jehova Witnesses, but not usually this late. Kelly from next door sometimes asks to borrow some milk. Occasionally, my mother calls in if she’s come down from Harrogate to see some friends.
I peer at the frosted glass panel at the top of my door to try and see who’s there but all I can see is a dark blur. When I finally work up the courage to open the door, I see Mark Edwards looking at me with a lopsided smile.
“I was passing,” he jokes.
I smile back and let him come in. Now this isn’t awkward. This I could get used to. Having hunky men turn up at my front door, I mean.
“Why are you really here?” I ask, leading him into my living room. My eyes automatically scan the small room for anything embarrassing.
Mark sits down on my sofa and makes himself comfortable. “I’ve been out with Janine.”
“I know.” I hover awkwardly for a moment before sitting down next to him.
“She said you’d helped her pick her dress.”
I nod, thinking of the black fitted pencil dress I’d suggested to her.
He focuses his dark eyes on me intensely. “Why would you do that?”
I shrug as though the whole matter is no big deal to me. “Didn’t you want her to look nice?”
“Oh Chloe.” He leans forward, resting his head in his hand. “I don’t want to be with Janine.”
“Why did you go out with her then?”
It’s Mark’s turn to shrug. “She’s pretty and she’s nice and…well, to be quite honest, she’s the only girl who’s ever asked me out and not let me do all the running.”
“She’s just after my job anyway.” I know it isn’t the right thing to say but I can’t stop myself.
“Really? Well that’s made me feel a bit worse.”
I bite my lower lip like I can stop myself from saying these things. “Sorry.”
He sits back up and looks at me. “Not your fault, is it?”
“It’s Suzy.” I sigh dramatically. “I think she’s set the whole thing up so that Janine gets the job.”
Mark lets out a throaty laugh. “I’ve read your answers to the interview questions.”
“Suzy showed those to you? I thought she wasn’t going to take it seriously so I tried to make myself more like Janine.”
“You don’t want to be like Janine,” he assures me. “Sure, Suzy might have engineered those interviews a bit but Janine was a disaster dressing those women.”
“But I thought…weren’t they friends of Suzy’s?”
“Nothing to do with Suzy. I got them in.”
YOU ARE READING
Pear Shaped
ChickLit~Chicklit short story contest finalist~ For Chloe Mills, her life starts to go pear-shaped when she turns thirty. Her boyfriend has just left her and soon even her job as a personal shopper at a department store is threatened by recession. Can Chloe...
