Page 56 of If I Never Met You

‘Your selfie with Jamie Carter is the talk of the office. Are you seeing each other?’

‘Haaah,’ Laurie washed her hands, ‘Thought it might be. He asked me out and I thought it’d be fun.’

‘Out for a drink, then? Nothing more happen?’ Kerry said, running a lipstick round her mouth, eyes moving to the side to catch Laurie’s expression.

‘Bit personal!’ Laurie said, in what she hoped was a jolly way. ‘How was your weekend?’

‘Hmm,’ Kerry said, capping the tube as if she’d not heard, or the question was rhetorical.

Laurie wished she’d rehearsed this more, had her tactics more finely worked out. She’d been reckless. The plan went 1. Post Photo 2. Bullshit that she and Jamie were involved.

There was a lot of grey area, and now she’d made an enemy of Kerry by not preparing a fob off when directly asked if they’d slept together. It was utterly outrageous Kerry felt entitled to know this of course, but these were the unofficialrules of Salter & Rowson. Kerry either got what she wanted from you or she spin-doctored her way around and made life a misery. She Peter Mandelson-ed you the fuck up.

At lunchtime, Laurie received a WhatsApp from Bharat to meet her at Starbucks, and she suspected if he wouldn’t risk saying it on premises, it was nothing to be pleased about.

Laurie was right.

As they queued, Bharat said:

‘Kerry’s telling everyone that this was clearly a totally contrived stunt to make Dan jealous and you and Jamie Carter can’t possibly be seeing each other.’ This tacit support from Bharat was a kindness; it was always accepted that you needed to know what line Kerry was pushing about you, to push back on it.

Laurie gulped.

‘What a cow! Why on earth wouldn’t it be true?’

Laurie knew Bharat would accept Laurie’s word over Kerry’s as a point of honour, and felt both glad and guilty. Laurie had already spun him the line that she was deliberately doing things that felt out of character – broadly true – and threw the bonding-in-lift incident in, relieved that wasn’t an invention.

‘Timing too quick, and that you dodged saying if you’d gone home with him.She doesn’t want to lie, but she wants to make us all think something happened. Laurie is not a natural liar.’

‘As if I’m going to tell her!’

‘I know. She said it’s totally out of character for you, you’re too “straight-edged” to go for a man like Carter, and we all know you’re still in bits over Dan. I quote: “one hundred per cent set up, including the Toni & Guy, Sasha Fierce do.”’

Laurie flinched.

‘Anyway, she’s stirred the cauldron good and proper and even taken it upon herself to tell Dan he obviously provoked this, and that you must be in a real state to go this far.’

Laurie cringed again, and cursed Kerry.

‘What an ultra bitch.’

She was badly needled, like everyone was laughing at her. That she couldn’t see herself the way others so plainly did.

Kerry could find anyone’s weak spot; it was her superpower. Somehow she’d immediately identified that the worst things for Laurie would be pointing up the implausibility of her as Jamie’s paramour, and the humiliation of her ex thinking it was for his benefit.

‘How dare she,’ Laurie said, as they left, holding cups bearing the names LORI and BAWAT. ‘And my hair wasn’t Toni & Guy!’

‘That was the biggest burn of all,’ Bharat agreed. ‘My friend Jessie you met was given the worst time there, she came out looking like Rod Stewart. Not even Faces Rod, Nana Hair Rod.’

‘I don’t think I’ve met Jessie?’

‘Yeah you did. Her sister was the practice nurse in Alderley Edge who gave one of the Spice Girls her abnormal smear test remember? Forget which one. It was fine, she only needed some pre-cancerous cells lasered.’

Laurie guffawed, ‘What a bio!’ and then, ‘Thank you, Bharat, somehow you always lighten the mood.’

‘Like the NYPD, I protect and serve.’

Laurie had seen a case on the whiteboard for this afternoon, with the initials JC next to it. She’d heard Michael and others mutter that because he shared them with Jesus Christ, he thought he was the Second Coming.

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