wardrobe would feel about being a grandmother. It’s almost as hard to imagine as Rosie changing a nappy.
‘I know, but there is only one Mr Selin and you don’t want to share him, do you?’ I said, making her giggle before she blew me a couple of kisses down the phone and said goodbye.
Now, after dropping Rosie safely off at the doctor’s and turning my fingers black thumbing through
Loot
on the tube, I’m back at work in the Customer Care and Sales call centre, phone headset on, picking up calls from clients on average every two minutes. I periodically yell from my little goldfish cubicle that it would be nice if someone else on the sales floor could manage to interrupt their dissection of last night’s TV to pick up some calls. We all wear Madonna-esque headsets so the phones don’t ring here, they beep; all I can hear around me is a cacophony of monotonous beeps and they all seem to be coming my way.
The one good thing about all this is that I haven’t really thought about Michael and the fact that he hasn’t called me yet. OK, last night as I was drifting off to sleep I did think about the kiss and wondered what else it might have led to, but I know that’s dangerous territory. I mean, we all know that the more of a dream personality you attribute to someone you hardly know, the more you will be let down. But it’s OK with Michael because I’m not going to get to know him at all, so if I use him to take my mind off real things that’s OK. It will be OK until he actually phones me, and then I’ll put a stop to the whole thing. So for now it’s OK to dream about his sweetness, the soft warmth of his mouth and his long guitarist’s fingers.
Day three and he hasn’t called yet. My phone has been turned on and charged up since Saturday, although I will never know why I bothered to buy it – the only people who ever phone me on it are Rosie and Selin and the occasional shop. When I chose the tiny model with its glittery casing and ‘Disco Inferno’ ring I had the vague notion that I’d need it for emergencies. Really, I wanted it because Rosie had got a pink one that plays the theme tune to
Top Cat
and Selin has a holographic cover for hers that makes it look like it’s covered in 3-D love hearts. Deep down we are still the three little teenagers who used to swap coloured shoelaces to go in our trainers and badger our mums for stiletto-heeled patent-leather shoes from Freeman, Hardy and Willis, just like our friends had, still not proper grown-ups.
Today my phone is sitting like a tiny glittery little toad next to my work phone, sparkling provocatively under the daylight-effect strip lighting. I look at my calendar, 28 August. When do kids go back to school these days?
My work phone beeps a long single beep which means it’s an internal call and the display tells me it is my boss, Georgie.
‘Hello, Georgie.’ I try to remember to sound a bit croaky.
‘All right, darling? How are you today?’ When I read Georgie da Silva’s name on my interview letter three years ago I pictured some horsy long-faced Sloane, fished out my fake pearls and turned up the collar of my shirt especially for the occasion. When I met her and found out that she was an East End princess with a thing about new-age alternative Eastern therapy I couldn’t have been more surprised. But it’s partly her faddy experiments with crystals,
feng shui
and the like that make life here fun. She is a brick really, I feel bad lying to her. But not enough so I can’t live with it.
‘Yeah, much better thanks. I think it was one of those forty-eight-hour things, you know.’ I cough, pretty realistically I think.
‘Those girls giving you trouble?’ She is referring to the call-centre team I am in charge of (in theory), two of whom are actually boys. In practice, I think I just preside over the natural rhythms of their work pattern: gossip until ten, work like bastards until one, dawdle around until three and then pretend to file
‘I know, but there is only one Mr Selin and you don’t want to share him, do you?’ I said, making her giggle before she blew me a couple of kisses down the phone and said goodbye.
Now, after dropping Rosie safely off at the doctor’s and turning my fingers black thumbing through
Loot
on the tube, I’m back at work in the Customer Care and Sales call centre, phone headset on, picking up calls from clients on average every two minutes. I periodically yell from my little goldfish cubicle that it would be nice if someone else on the sales floor could manage to interrupt their dissection of last night’s TV to pick up some calls. We all wear Madonna-esque headsets so the phones don’t ring here, they beep; all I can hear around me is a cacophony of monotonous beeps and they all seem to be coming my way.
The one good thing about all this is that I haven’t really thought about Michael and the fact that he hasn’t called me yet. OK, last night as I was drifting off to sleep I did think about the kiss and wondered what else it might have led to, but I know that’s dangerous territory. I mean, we all know that the more of a dream personality you attribute to someone you hardly know, the more you will be let down. But it’s OK with Michael because I’m not going to get to know him at all, so if I use him to take my mind off real things that’s OK. It will be OK until he actually phones me, and then I’ll put a stop to the whole thing. So for now it’s OK to dream about his sweetness, the soft warmth of his mouth and his long guitarist’s fingers.
Day three and he hasn’t called yet. My phone has been turned on and charged up since Saturday, although I will never know why I bothered to buy it – the only people who ever phone me on it are Rosie and Selin and the occasional shop. When I chose the tiny model with its glittery casing and ‘Disco Inferno’ ring I had the vague notion that I’d need it for emergencies. Really, I wanted it because Rosie had got a pink one that plays the theme tune to
Top Cat
and Selin has a holographic cover for hers that makes it look like it’s covered in 3-D love hearts. Deep down we are still the three little teenagers who used to swap coloured shoelaces to go in our trainers and badger our mums for stiletto-heeled patent-leather shoes from Freeman, Hardy and Willis, just like our friends had, still not proper grown-ups.
Today my phone is sitting like a tiny glittery little toad next to my work phone, sparkling provocatively under the daylight-effect strip lighting. I look at my calendar, 28 August. When do kids go back to school these days?
My work phone beeps a long single beep which means it’s an internal call and the display tells me it is my boss, Georgie.
‘Hello, Georgie.’ I try to remember to sound a bit croaky.
‘All right, darling? How are you today?’ When I read Georgie da Silva’s name on my interview letter three years ago I pictured some horsy long-faced Sloane, fished out my fake pearls and turned up the collar of my shirt especially for the occasion. When I met her and found out that she was an East End princess with a thing about new-age alternative Eastern therapy I couldn’t have been more surprised. But it’s partly her faddy experiments with crystals,
feng shui
and the like that make life here fun. She is a brick really, I feel bad lying to her. But not enough so I can’t live with it.
‘Yeah, much better thanks. I think it was one of those forty-eight-hour things, you know.’ I cough, pretty realistically I think.
‘Those girls giving you trouble?’ She is referring to the call-centre team I am in charge of (in theory), two of whom are actually boys. In practice, I think I just preside over the natural rhythms of their work pattern: gossip until ten, work like bastards until one, dawdle around until three and then pretend to file
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