Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [4]
Then came the presentation to Lisa of twenty pounds’ worth of Marks & Spencers vouchers and a large card with a hippo and ‘Sorry to see you go’ emblazoned on it. Ally Benn, Lisa’s former deputy, had chosen the leaving present with care. She’d thought long and hard about what Lisa would hate the most and eventually concluded that M&S vouchers would cause maximum distress. (Ally Benn’s feet were a perfect size five.)
‘To Lisa!’ Barry concluded. By then everyone was flushed and rowdy, so they raised their white plastic cups, sloshing wine and morsels of cork on to their clothing and, as they sniggered and elbowed each other, bellowed, ‘To Lisa!’
Lisa stayed just as long as she needed to. She’d long looked forward to this leaving do, but she’d always thought she’d be surfing out on a wave of glory, already halfway to New York. Instead of being shunted away to the magazine version of Siberia. It was an utter nightmare.
‘I must go,’ she said to the dozen or so women who’d worked under her for the past two years. ‘I must finish packing.’
‘Sure, sure,’ they agreed, in a clamour of drunken good wishes. ‘Well, good luck, have fun, enjoy Ireland, take care, don’t work too hard…’
Just as Lisa got to the door, Ally screeched, ‘We’ll miss you.’
Lisa nodded tightly and closed the door.
‘– Like a hole in the head.’ Ally didn’t miss a beat. ‘Any wine left?’
They stayed until every last drop of wine was drunk, every last crumb of Hula Hoop wiped off the tray with a licked finger, then they turned to each other and demanded in dangerously high spirits, ‘What now?!’
They descended on Soho, swarming through the bars in a Friday-night, tequila-drinking, office workers’ maraud. Little Sharif Mumtaz (features assistant) got separated from the others and was helped home by a kind man whom she married nine months later. Jeanie Geoffrey (assistant fashion editor) was bought a bottle of champagne by a man who declared she was ‘a goddess’. Gabbi Henderson (health and beauty) had her bag stolen. And Ally Benn (recently appointed editor) clambered on to a table in one of the livelier pubs in Wardour Street and danced like a mad thing until she fell off and sustained multiple fractures to her right foot.
In other words, a great night.
2
‘Ted, you couldn’t have come at a better time!’ Ashling flung wide her door and for once didn’t utter her most overused phrase, which happened to be, ‘Oh shite, it’s Ted.’
‘Couldn’t I?’ Ted sidled cautiously into Ashling’s flat. He didn’t normally receive a welcome this warm.
‘I need you to tell me which jacket looks nicest on me.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ Ted’s thin, dark face looked even more intense. ‘But I am a man.’
Not quite, Ashling thought, regretfully. What a great pity that the person who had moved into the flat upstairs six months ago, and had instantly decided that Ashling was his best friend, hadn’t been a nice, big, pulse-rate-raising man. And instead had been Ted Mullins, needy civil servant, aspiring stand-up comedian and small and wiry owner of a push-bike.
‘First, this black one.’ Ashling shrugged the jacket on over her white silk ‘interview’ top and magic lose-half-a-stone-in-an-instant black trousers.
‘What’s the biggie?’ Ted sat on a chair and wound himself around it. He was all angles and elbows, pointy shoulders and sharp knees, like a sketch drawing of himself.
‘Job interview. Half nine this morning.’
‘Another one! What for this time?’
Ashling had applied for several jobs in the past two weeks, everything from working on a wild-west ranch in Mullingar to answering phones at a PR company.
‘Assistant editor at a new magazine called Colleen.’
‘What? A real job?’ Ted’s saturnine face lit up. ‘Beats me why you’ve applied for all those others, you’re way overqualified for them.’
‘I’ve low self-esteem,’ Ashling reminded him, with a bright smile.
‘Mine’s lower,