Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [95]
‘It’s not terribly chilled, I’m afraid,’ Lisa said graciously, putting a chipped ‘Windsurfers do it standing up’ mug full of frothing champers into Kelvin’s beringed hands.
‘Who gives a fiddler’s!’ Kelvin enthused, delighted to be included, despite not working on Colleen.
The small clump of clerical staff waited anxiously in their corner to see if they were getting any. Huge sighs of relief all round when Lisa popped the cork on a second bottle and arrived bearing mugs emblazoned with the respective legends ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’, ‘Kia-Ora, I’ll be your dawg’ and two ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’s.
‘Your good health, Mrs Morley.’ Lisa gave ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ to Jack’s over-protective PA.
‘Cheers,’ Mrs Morley muttered suspiciously.
When everyone had a mug, Lisa raised hers and said, ‘To all of you. Well done for all your hard work over the past three weeks.’
Ashling and Mercedes exchanged a moment’s incredulity. You’d swear Lisa was drunk already. Everyone then drank deeply, except for Trix. But only because she’d already finished hers. And it didn’t take the others long to catch her up. Silence stretched, as everyone’s eyes flickered between the foam at the bottom of their empty mugs (which continued to crackle and fizz in a strange radioactive fashion) and the ten remaining bottles.
Lisa shattered the silence. ‘Shall we open another?’ she asked innocently, as if it had just occurred to her.
‘We could, I s’pose.’ Trix did a good imitation of not caring either way.
‘Sure, why wouldn’t we?’ One mugful had considerably softened Mrs Morley.
But as Lisa was unwinding the wire helmet, the office door opened and everyone tensed. Fuck!
There was a good chance that Jack would go mental if he caught them slugging reader-competition champagne during office hours.
But it wasn’t Jack, it was Mai. Her heels were enormous and her hips were tiny. But not as small as her waist. Ashling was queasy with envy and admiration.
Mai seemed rather taken aback by the complete silence in the office and the way everyone was staring guiltily at her. ‘Is Jack in?’
The silence endured.
‘No,’ Mrs Morley mumbled, wiping her mouth in case she had a champagne moustache. ‘He’s gone to put manners on the people at the television studio.’ Then she triumphantly folded her arms, her demeanour implying that, really, it was Mai who Jack should be putting the manners on.
‘Oh.’ Mai’s plump mouth was pouty with disappointment. She twirled to go, her wall of silken hair swishing with voluptuous weight.
‘You can wait if you like,’ Ashling found herself saying.
Mai swung back. ‘Would that be allowed?’
‘Sure! In fact, why don’t you have a drink?’ As soon as she’d said it, Ashling braced herself for the wrath of Lisa. Bad move to invite their boss’s girlfriend to join in with their lead-swinging. Ashling suspected she was perhaps a little tipsy.
But instead of being furious, Lisa agreed, ‘Yeah, have a drink.’
The thing was, Lisa was as curious as everyone else about Mai. More, probably, all things considered.
‘Cheers.’ As Mai accepted a mug from Lisa, Ashling said hospitably, ‘Come over to my desk and pull up a chair.’
Trix and Lisa also gravitated immediately to Ashling’s desk, reeled in by avid interest in the exotic Mai.
‘I like your bag,’ Lisa said to Mai. ‘Lulu Guinness?’
Mai gave a surprisingly raucous bark of laughter. ‘Dunnes.’
‘Dunnes?’
‘A chain store,’ Ashling explained, with red-cheeked earnestness. ‘Like Marks & Spencer.’
‘Only cheaper,’ Mai added, with another snigger. Despite her lotus-blossom face she suddenly seemed very ordinary.
As Lisa circulated, topping up mugs, Mai said, with sly humour, ‘This is a great place to work, do you do this every day?’
There followed a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. ‘Every day? Not at all! Not