Page 2 of If I Never Met You

Emily really owed her. Tonight was the product of something that happened roughly once every three months – her best friend, and owner of a PR company, begged Laurie to join their team night out and make it ‘less bloody boring, or we’ll spend the whole time discussing the new accounts.’ Emily, as CEO and hostess, was at the head of the table putting everything on the company credit card and handing round the Nocellara olives and salted almonds. Laurie, late arrival, was at the far end.

‘Who was that, then?’ said Suzanne, to her right. Suzanne had a beautiful shoulder-length sheet of custard-coloured hair and the gaze of a customs officer.

Laurie turned and concealed her irritation with a ventriloquist’s dummy smile. ‘Who was what?’

‘On your phone! You looked well intense,’ Suzanne rolled her doe eyes upwards and mimed a sort of chimpanzee-like, vacant trance state, her hands moving across an imaginaryhandset. She whooped with girlish, alcohol-fuelled laughter, the sort that could sound cruel.

Laurie said: ‘My boyfriend.’

The word ‘boyfriend’ had started to sound a trifle silly, Laurie supposed, but ‘partner’ was so dry and stiff. She had a feeling her present company already thought she was those things.

‘Awww … is it early days?’ Suzanne combed her fairytale princess hair over her ears with her fingers, and put her flute to her lips.

‘Haha! Hardly. We’ve been going out since were eighteen. We met at university.’

‘Oh myGOD,’ Suzanne said, ‘And you’rehow old?’

Laurie tensed her stomach muscles and said: ‘Thirty-six.’

‘Oh my GOD!’ Suzanne squawked again, loudly enough that they had the attention of a few others. ‘And you’ve been together all this time? No flings or breaks? Like, he’s your first boyfriend?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I couldnothave done that. Oh my God. Wow. Was he your …’ she lowered her voice, ‘First-first?’

Laurie cringed inwardly.

‘Bit personal after two drinks, hah?’

Suzanne was not to be deterred.

‘Oh my giddy aunt! Ohno!? Je-SUS!’she said gaily, as if she was being fun and not judgemental and prurient and generally awful. ‘But you’re not married?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to be?’

‘Not really,’ Laurie said, shrugging. ‘I’m not madly pro or anti marriage.’

‘Maybe when you have kids?’ Suzanne supplied. Oh, subtle.Piss the piss off.

‘Are you married?’ Laurie said.

‘No!’ Suzanne shook her head and the lovely hair rippled. ‘I want to be married by thirty, for sure. I’ve got four years to find Mr Right.’

‘Why by thirty?’

‘I just kinda feel that I don’t want to be on the shelf.’ She paused. ‘No offence.’

‘Sure.’

Laurie briefly debated saying:you know that this is really rude, right? I mean you know you can’t stick ‘no offence’ on the end like it takes the curse off?And then made the usual British calculations about the ten seconds of triumph not being worth the hours of embarrassment and hostility afterwards.

‘Where are you from, Laurie?’ said Carly in the animal print top, sitting on the other side of Suzanne, and a familiar heavy lead settled in Laurie’s gut.

‘Yorkshire,’ she said, with a brightaw-hell-please-can-we-notsmile, which she knew would be lost on the recipient. ‘You can probably tell from the accent.’

‘No, I meant where are youfrom?’ she said, vaguely gesturing at her own face.Of course you did.

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