Merry Christmas Darling

Invitations

"It's on Friday at 7.30pm Jenna - everyone's  going to be there.  You HAVE to go!"  Claire badgered her again over their first coffee break of the day.  "If you don't go, people will talk about you!" she smirked, trying to find a chink her her feisty friends armour.

"Well then they couldn't be talking about a better person" Jenna looked at Claire and took a sip of coffee.  "And anyway, I won't know anyone other than you and Luke.  You forget I've only been here what, 3 months? You'll get sick of me hanging about when you're trying to get off with James from photographic at midnight!" she laughed as Claire looked suitably shocked.

"I will NOT be trying to get off with James!" she protested, a tad too much to be believable." He's just a friend.  A GOOD friend!" she winked "Well, maybe a little" she conceded. "But you still need to go. Luke won't take no for an answer you know." Claire shrugged and stood up.  "time for me to get back to it.  See you later ok?"

"Yeah, later hun" Jenna smiled and remained seated, wanting to spin the last few minutes of her break out as much as she could.  For a few quiet minutes, she sat and mulled over the last few weeks since she'd joined the agency.  It had certainly been a whirlwind.

Jenna Martin was, to all intents, a smart confident woman.  She was a successful financial administrator for a PR agency in London.  She lived alone in a small one bedroom flat in the north of the city, had a cat called Benny and a passion for Shakespeare that bordered on obsession. She had joined the firm at the end of the previous September and was currently working under her new Boss, Luke Windsor.  There was just one aspect of the job she couldn't quite get used to.  The clients.  Most were fairly middle of the road famous, reality tv stars, athletes and footballers, but some, some were the real deal.  A-listers that made her eyes widen and her mouth gape whenever they came into the office.  

Take Luke for example, he only had one client. Just the one.  And he was a genuine A+++ in the celebrity stakes.  Tom Hiddleston.  Or as Jenna liked to think of him, Henry the Fifth.  She'd watched the Hollow Crown more times than she cared to think about and every time he appeared on screen, her brain - and her insides - turned to mush.  So far, he'd never been to the office, Luke had always gone out to meet him.  She could only hope that he never did.  Explaining why she was in a heap on the floor would have been rather embarrassing.

Talking of embarrassing, her mind wandered back to the office party.  She really did not want to go.  Too many people drinking too much and having way too many regrets the next day.  What made this one even worse, if that was possible, was the fact that sometimes the clients who were available would also show up.  Staff and clients schmoozing together in some private nightclub for one night, all barriers down.  The unwritten but strictly followed rule, what went on in the club, stayed in the club. Jenna was no party pooper, not in any sense, but she wasn't the type to flirt and she had absolutely no sense of self.  It passed her by completely that her blonde hair and green-blue eyes were attractive and because she wasn't 21 any more and a size 6, she felt very out of place with the pretty young things like Claire.

Claire had become a good friend very quickly. A good few years younger than Jenna, she had a sensible head and a party head and fortunately knew when to wear which.  She was forever trying to get Jenna to party more, all to no avail.  She knew Jenna was a stunner, even if she didn't and if she had been that way inclined she would have quite fancied her herself.  But she wasn't so it had become her mission in life to get Jenna paired off with someone.  The party had seemed like the perfect opportunity.

She was relentless.  By the time Thursday came, Jenna could stand it no more.

"OK! OK! Enough with the nagging Claire, I'll GO!" she sighed, exasperated. "I don't have a bloody thing to wear that doesn't make me look like a granny compared to you lot and I will probably end up in a corner talking to Phil from accounts most of the time, but hey ho.  It's Christmas." she shrugged and Claire clapped her hands.

"Oh Jenna this is going to be sooooo much fun!"  she threaded her arm through Jenna's as they walked out of the office for the night.  "Come on, let's go shopping.  Benny can open a can of tuna for himself tonight love.  WE have a DRESS to buy. " she giggled and emphasised the word DRESS for effect as if it was something more than just some fabric and zip.  Jenna laughed, there was no putting her off the scent.  She was like a fashion terminator, once she got going there was no stopping her.

Two hours later, they collapsed in a heap on a sofa in a boutique in Camden, not far from Jenna's flat. It felt like a million dresses had been tried on and discarded.  Either the colour wasn't right, or the style or the size.  Even Claire was beginning to think this wasn't going at all to plan.  It was as they were about to call it a day, she saw it.  THE dress.

Green, dark green.  Vintage and very fitted, it wiggled all the way down to her calves making her feel like a 50's pinup and when she popped on the black high heels, for the first time in her life, she felt properly sexy.  Admiring herself in the mirror she smiled and whispered "Look out world, here I come!"  Claire just gaped when she sashayed into the main boutique to show her.

"Girrrrll!" she exclaimed "You lookin MIGHTY fine! They're NOT going to know what hit them tomorrow night!" and the two girls laughed.

"I can only hope" said Jenna softly, looking at herself one last time.

A few minutes later, they emerged into the cold night air laden with a dress bag that contained a dream.. One that Jenna would have no idea would be fulfilled in the most astonishing  of ways.