Only In Lace

Chapter One

I throw various garments around my room. My room looks like a dump everything from clothes to coffee mugs were sprawled across my bedroom floor. God where are those damn car keys? I was going to be late yet again. 'Lara!' I yell frantically. Where the hell are they? I run out onto the landing and lean over the banister. 'Lara!'

I hear the familiar sound of sanding paper on wood as Lara appears at the bottom of the stairs, her curly red hair piled up on top of her head. She looked up at me with a tired expression. Its an expression I've gotten used to seeing recently.

'Keys? Have you seen my car keys?' I said tiredly at her.

'They're on the table under the mirror down the hallway, probably in the bowl of potpourri where you left them last night.' She rolls her eyes and shook her head probably thinking what a goldfish I am. She walks back into her workshop taking that confounded block of wood she's been sanding for weeks with her.

I dart across the landing and down the hallway in a fluster and find my car keys in a bowl of potpourri on the table under the mirror exactly where she said they would be. 'Hiding again,' I mutter to myself, grabbing my tan belt, heels and laptop. I make my way downstairs from the flat above Lara's workshop and into the kitchen where she was making cereal.

'You need to tidy your room Ellie, its a fucking mess up there.' she complains.

Yes, my personal organisational skills are appalling considering I'm a graphic designer for Johnson's Union and spend the majority of my day organising and coordinating. I scoop my phone up from the table and steal a mouthful of Lara's cereal. 'I can't be brilliant at everything, you know.'

'Get out!' She bats my hand away with the cereal box. 'Why do you need your car anyway?' she asks, scooping a mouthful of cereal into her mouth.

'I have a first consultation in the countryside - some country gent with a mansion of some sort.' I feed my belt through the belt loops of my navy pencil dress, slip my feet into my heels and present my tired and restless figure in the wall length mirror.

'I thought you stuck to the city folk,' she says from behind me.

I ruffle my long dark hair for a second, flicking it from one side to the other to try and make it look somewhat presentable but give up and decide to pin it up with a few hair grips. My brown eyes are dull and lack their usual sparkle. I only moved in with Lara a few months ago after splitting with Matt. Lately Lara and I have been behaving like a couple of university students again and my liver is screaming for a rest.

'I do, the country sector is Paul's domain. I don't know how I got landed with this.' I apply my cherry red lipstick and rub my lips together in a circular motion, and kiss Lara goodbye on the cheek. 'It's going to be painful, I know it. Luv ya!'

'Ditto. See you later Ellie.' Lara giggles, without lifting her face from her workstation.

Despite my lateness, I drive my little Mini with my usual care to my office on Bond Street, and I'm reminded why I Tube it everyday instead of drive. As I circle the block trying to find a decent parking space.