Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [71]
‘Bananas aren’t welcome round here,’ Tara said curtly.
‘Too fattening?’
‘Too fattening.’
‘Bananas aren’t fattening.’ Vinnie knew he should maintain managerial distance, but couldn’t help himself.
‘That’s right. Nothing is fattening,’ Teddy insisted. ‘Look at me. I eat whatever I want, as much as I want of it, and I’m like a stick insect.’
‘Women talking about how many calories things have – that’s what makes them fattening,’ Vinnie decreed. ‘Women ruin food for themselves.’
‘Did you see the documentary last night about the blokes up Everest?’ Ravi brayed. ‘Bloody freezing. One of them, his thumb completely froze and fell off. Nothing to eat but snow…’
‘Maybe I should try that,’ Tara said, thoughtfully. ‘The Everest diet. Right, Ravi, Evelyn, everyone gather around, we’re going to have a credit-card-cutting-up ceremony.’
‘Another one?’ Vinnie exclaimed. ‘It’s only six months since the last time.’
‘I know, but I got my Visa bill this morning. Stop me before I spend again,’ she intoned darkly. ‘Ravi, scissors!’
Ravi dutifully passed the office scissors.
‘Bin!’
Ravi already had the wastepaper basket in his hand: he knew the drill of old. Tara took out her purse and held her Visa card aloft, swivelling from the right to the left. ‘Everyone looking?’ Then, fighting a pang of loss, she pushed the scissors through the unwieldy plastic. As everyone except Vinnie burst into applause, Tara murmured, ‘I am cleansed, I am pure. Now for my Access card.’
Everyone stood in respectful silence as the Access card was neatly snipped in two, then clapped again.
‘Your Amex?’ Ravi suggested, and after a slight hesitation, Tara took it out and reluctantly bisected it.
‘Sears card?’ Ravi then said, and Tara said irritably, ‘Look, I’ll need something. What if it’s an emergency?’
‘You’ll still have your cashpoint card and your Switch card.’
‘O… K.’ Sadly, Tara cut her Sears card in two and let it fall into the bin.
‘I’ll give it a week before you’re on the phone saying your purse has been stolen and that you need replacement cards.’ Vinnie sighed. Maybe it was time he went on another course to learn how to manage staff. ‘Can you all please do some work now?’ he urged, belatedly trying to act like the boss he was.
News of Tara’s fruit stall spread, so much so that people from other departments came to look and snigger. She was embarrassed, but unbowed. Something had to be done, especially after the frenzy in the supermarket the previous night. If she was surrounded by fruit, there was no excuse for eating anything else.
But fruit just never seemed to hit the spot, no matter how much she ingested. She ate an apple, a plum, a couple of satsumas, three nectarines, another satsuma, four more plums, a handful of grapes, one more satsuma and was still starving. So she started into a pear and nearly broke a tooth. She sighed. She knew about pears. There was a one-and-a-half-minute period during which pears could be eaten. Until then they were as hard as concrete. Thereafter they were rotten mush. If you caught them during the short window, they were delicious, but the chances of that happening were slim.
They had a brainstorming session that morning as they formulated a game plan for the MenChel project they’d just been allocated.
Vinnie marched up and down in front of the office whiteboard, drawing grids and time scales and anxiously rubbing his thinning scalp.
‘I’ve put my cock on the block with this one, lads,’ Ravi muttered to Tara, as Vinnie did his spiel.
‘We’re talking a two-thousand-person-day project and we’ve got to do it right because we’ve got the ruddy quality auditors breathing down our necks,’ Vinnie urged.
‘What do you think that white stain on Vinnie’s sleeve is?’ Ravi whispered to Tara.
‘Baby puke.’
‘We’ve a very tight deadline,’ Vinnie galvanized, ‘no room for slippage, so we’ve got to really pull together as a team on this one and… and what on earth’s that funny, squelching noise?’
Ten people turned to look at Tara.
‘It’s Tara,’ Teddy said triumphantly.
‘That was