Chapter Nine
I was faffing, I knew I was. I had to do something with myself, so me looking through my hand bag had nothing to do with me needing to find anything. After my confession the day before I had no idea what to expect when I saw Cheryl. All the girls are already here, even Sarah surprisingly but no sign of Cheryl.
I look over at Hillary and see that she looks a little p!ssed. Sarah then catches my eye and gives me a funny look, as if to see if I know what was up with Cheryl I simply shrug and place my bag on the floor quietly.
“Well anyone know where Cheryl is, she’s 10 minutes late?” says Hillary finally speaking up.
Everyone shrugs and shakes their heads.
“Okay so we start without her,”
The meeting drags on and I’m getting progressively more worried about Cheryl. She’s hardly ever late and when she knows she will be late she lets someone know. About 30 minutes into the meeting the door creaks open. We all look over towards it see Cheryl attempting to sneak in.
“Cheryl! There you are! You’re 40 minutes late!” says Hillary sternly.
“I...I er...I’m sorry,” she says and slumps down into the nearest empty chair which happens to be opposite me.
“Cheryl what’s your excuse, I’m sure you have one?” Hillary continues.
“It’s not important,” replies Cheryl trying to hide something.
“Yes it is Cheryl. You can’t wander in here this late without a decent excuse. The other girls made it,”
I think Cheryl knows we’re all looking at her wanting an explanation so she gives in.
“It was Natalie,” she sighs
I already knew I wasn’t going to like this.
“She found this article in The Sun and it put her in a bad light and she was upset,”
“What?!” says Sarah rather loudly.
“Cheryl that’s a rubbish excuse,” huffs Nadine “I wish I could be elsewhere...” Nadine sees Hillary raise an eyebrow and changes her sentence “you know sometimes but we made it,”
“I’m not joking, she was really upset. Fair enough the article wasn’t nice,” says Cheryl trying to shrug it off as blasé.
As I’m sitting opposite I can see her very well. She’s slumped into the seat with her arms folded, in a guarded position. I can tell she upset and also embarrassed.
I give her a questioning look and she does a little shrug. I tilt my head to the side a little and show her a small smile. I think she appreciated the silent sympathy.
“Cheryl we all know you lot have had bad press but it doesn’t stop you from turning up at work. She’ll need to deal with these things if she’s dating you,” replies Hillary and Cheryl takes her eyes of me to look at her.
“I know, I’ll talk to her,” she sighs.
The meeting continues pretty much where it left off apart from Hillary doing a short recap for Cheryl.
10 minutes have passed and I look up at Cheryl I see her chewing on her nails. I’ve known her long enough to know she only does that when she’s stressed. I nudge her under the table with my foot. I knock her leg and she looks up in slight shock.
I mouth the words ‘We’ll talk’ and nod my head towards the door meaning after the meeting. She nods in agreement and smiles a little as we both get back to the meeting at hand.
TBC...
