Zoe Cook - One Day in Cornwall

‘What?’ Lucy asked, trying to think back through the evening to what she had done.

‘You don’t remember?’ Laura trilled. This was the best-case scenario for a serial shamer.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just leave it, okay?’ Lucy replied, trying to sound casual and laid-back.

‘Oh, this is hilarious!’ Laura continued, and people from the other side of the office were listening now, sensing the shift in tone.

‘Do you honestly not remember? That’s amazing! You gave that guy a LAP DANCE!’ Laura exclaimed really loudly, unnaturally loudly , Lucy thought. Lucy’s face filled so quickly with blood she imagined she had turned purple.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laura. Just shut up, will you?’ she snapped back, shocking herself with the force of her words.

‘Touchy, touchy,’ Laura sniggered, turning around to check her audience’s reaction. The office was quiet. It wasn’t just Lucy who couldn’t stand Laura. She’d made herself an unpopular figure many times over for snitching on people and generally stirring up trouble so she could sit back and watch the fallout. Lucy racked her brain for any memory involving anything resembling a lap dance. And then it came, an image of herself, wine in one hand, the other outstretched over the shoulder of a man, seated on the edge of a booth, and her laugh ringing out over the music as she wriggled her hips and rippled her body over him as people watched and laughed. She turned to Warren, who looked embarrassed for her and gave just the slightest head movement that confirmed her fears. Yep, you did . Lucy stood and walked quickly to the toilets. Locking the door, she felt the tears come: big, hot, heavy tears that ran down her face silently and blocked her sore nose – and just would not stop.

I’m a total mess, she thought. Why can’t I just drink like other people? Have a good time, have some fun, then stop . Why do I always get myself to the point where I can’t remember anything, where I do something stupid? Why didn’t I just go back to Scott’s, like he asked me to? Lucy gasped slightly at the thought of Scott, choking on her tears. She cared about Scott, he was good to her, looked after her when she was tired from work, took her out to nice places, tried to make her happy. And this is how I repay him , she thought, hating herself for being the kind of girl who behaved like that when drunk. ‘Making a spectacle of yourself’, her mum would’ve said. And God knows who saw – all those people in that room; people I work with, and work for, people who I need to respect me! That one image she had of herself leaning over the as-yet-unidentified man, made her feel physically sick, not least because she couldn’t finish the scene, had no idea of how it had played out. She didn’t want to find out from Laura; she didn’t actually want to find out at all. She’d never understood people like Warren and Charlie, who loved hearing about what they’d got up to on a night out. Lucy would rather never know, and wished there was some kind of code of silence about the whole thing. Laura was an utter twat for telling her, telling everyone, like that, but she, Lucy, was the biggest fool, she acknowledged painfully, because this wasn’t exactly a one-off. How many times had she drunk herself into this position? What, two or three times already this year? How did she forget this shame and terror each time?

What the hell is wrong with me?

She took her phone from her pocket and thought about calling Scott, before pressing cancel and letting more tears come at the realisation that he couldn’t comfort her, and that it wasn’t actually fair to expect him to.

Warren took her out for lunch on her own and tried to make light of the whole thing.

‘You were joking around,’ he told her, ‘It really wasn’t as seedy as Laura made it sound.’

But it didn’t matter to Lucy, who pushed her pizza around her plate, struggling to make eye contact, filled with shame and self-hatred.

‘What does this say about my relationship?’ she asked, quietly.

‘Nothing, babe,’ Warren said gently, ‘You were drunk; he was a hot guy. Really hot, actually… and you were just messing about. You didn’t even kiss him. It was just a friendly thing.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Lucy smiled at Warren, ‘Just your average friendly lap dance.’ She almost laughed, but Warren reached across the table and took her hand. The tenderness of the gesture shocked her and she thought she might cry again. ‘You’re a good egg, Lucy. You could do with giving yourself a break sometimes, you know. You’re not so bad’, he said, looking her into the eyes and squeezing her hand in his. ‘Chin up, missy.’

The pizza and a walk back to the office helped to ease the hangover and back at her desk Lucy made a deal with herself. Just get through the rest of today and tomorrow everything will seem better . She kept her head down, worked through a good chunk of her red-flagged emails and counted down to 6pm and home time. It was easy to keep a low profile as Emma was locked in her office all afternoon, which meant little conversation among the team, who were afraid she might be listening through the thin walls. It wasn’t as paranoid a fear as it sounded. When the team had relocated to this huge office from a smaller warehouse building in South London, Emma had enquired about the possibility of installing some kind of ‘listening tube’ that would enable her to hear people at their desks from the comfort of her own office.

Laura caught Lucy’s eye a few times throughout the afternoon and offered an irritating facial expression that Lucy thought was meant to suggest ‘I’m slightly sorry for upsetting you, but hey, you did it!’ She forced herself to smile back. This is the last time I feel like this , she vowed. I’m not going to do this ever again .

The office emptied at an impressive pace at 6pm. Lucy walked out of the door after a quick hug with Warren and the tiredness hit her all over again. The thought of getting on a bus felt like an epic mission and the black cabs driving past her with their orange lights on looked irresistibly enticing. Lucy put her arm out and a taxi pulled over. ‘Balham please,’ she said as she heaved her exhausted body through the door and onto the back seat. Her phone vibrated in her pocket; a message from Scott.

Are you okay? I’m working late, but I want to know if you are alright? it said .

I’m okay, Lucy typed , I’m so sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to get so drunk. I hope I wasn’t as terrible as I think I might have been x. She was relieved Scott was, firstly, still talking to her, and secondly, that he was working late. She didn’t want to go to his perfect flat tonight; she just wanted to go home, run a bath, put on her comfiest pyjamas and take her duvet to the sofa. As the taxi turned the corner onto her road, a wave of familiar, pathetic, realisation hit her, I want Tom , she thought, I just want Tom .

Her wardrobe was a mess. Clothes had fallen off their hangers into heaps at the bottom. She reached through fabric until she felt the box. The shoebox was covered in wrapping paper: a garish pink-and-orange print she’d picked when she was thirteen, thinking it was exotic. Lucy carried the box onto the sofa and cocooned herself inside her duvet. Opening the box released the smell of paper and ink she only let herself take in a couple of times a year. She’d thought about throwing the box away as many times as she’d opened it, but always ended up shoving it back in the wardrobe. Amongst the letters, scraps of paper, notes passed back and forth by her and Nina in lessons, postcards from her older sister’s travels, she found the wallet of photos.