Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

I turn back to my computer to get on with some work, but my mind is buzzing. Lunch with Mike? I don’t have much time. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get to the restaurant, which means I’ve got about an hour to put on some makeup, and rehearse all the incredibly smart things I’m going to say about my fabulous life.

Before I can start to bullet-point the exciting things I can talk about (my new curtain rail is all I can think of right now, and I’m not sure that’s really going to make Mike realize he was stupid to leave me), Nigel walks over to me.

I hate it when Nigel comes over to my desk. He kind of leans over so he can see exactly what I’m doing, which is generally surfing on the Internet or writing e-mails to my friends, and then he makes some sarcastic remark about how he’s assuming I’ll be staying late that evening to catch up on all my work. So whenever I see him moving in my direction, I always jump up and get to his desk before he can get to mine. One time we did actually collide, which wasn’t a very pleasant experience, but I say you take the rough with the smooth.

But this time I’m too preoccupied with Mike to notice Nigel slithering over, and before I know it he’s about two inches away from me. Luckily, I am at least looking at my research report.

Unluckily, I have so far managed only to type the heading.

“Looks like you’ll be working over lunch, if that’s all you’ve done this morning,” Nigel smirks.

I smile lamely.

“Actually, Nigel, I was wondering if I could take a slightly longer lunch today.” I’m trying to sound assertive, but I’m not sure it’s working. We published a CD-ROM once on business communications skills and it said that to be assertive you need to look people straight in the eye and never deviate from your message. But I hate looking Nigel in the eye. He’s got such thick glasses it’s difficult to properly see his eyes through the glare, and he’s generally got a huge spot somewhere on his face and I always end up looking at that instead.

“That will be quite impossible,” says Nigel flatly. “We’ve got far too much work on.”

Okay, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

“But I’ve got a hospital appointment at one, and I’ve really got to go,” I wail. I’ve simply got to make lunch with Mike. And while it said on the CD-ROM that you should never make an excuse (that weakens your position, apparently), I’m not deviating too much from my overriding message of needing to go early.

“A hospital appointment? For what?”

I pretend to look embarrassed. “Women’s stuff,” I whisper.

Nigel moves back quickly.

“Very well. You may leave at twelve-thirty, but I expect you to be back at your desk by two o’clock on the dot.”

Thank the Lord. I check that I’ve got my lipstick and mascara in my purse and go to the Ladies to get ready.

The Place is a very smart restaurant in Kensington. I have only been there once before, for a meal with my mother, who took me there to inform me that she was getting married. I didn’t know about her break up from husband number three, and apparently nor did he (yet), but this didn’t worry her unduly. My mother is the most unlikely man-eater. I mean, she looks her age (fifty-six), reads theDaily Mail , and thinks bikinis are vulgar. But she certainly knows how to make men fall at her feet. She left Dad when I was just five, and the two of us moved in with Brett, an American businessman who had a huge apartment in Grosvenor Square in London.

That lasted about three years; she then decided she wanted a house and Brett preferred apartments, so that was the end of that. She met, and married, Stan, who was sweet but a bit old for my liking. (Brett and I used to go roller-skating in Hyde Park, but Stan’s idea of an active day was walking over to a bench and sitting down on it. When you are eight and full of energy, sitting on a bench is not exactly a good day out.) Stan had a big house in Dulwich Village and we lived there for a good five years, until my mother met William, who owned an antiques shop in Kensington and kept giving her antiques until she agreed to move in with him. We lived above the shop in Kensington Church Street, which was great because it was the perfect place to meet boys and that’s all I really cared about then. Candy lived round the corner and we soon started hanging out together (whenever she was home from her smart boarding school, which seemed to be a lot; I’ve never understood why the more expensive the school, the shorter the amount of time you have to stay there) with the sole intention of attracting attention from the opposite sex.

My mother never married William, and the day I went off to university she told me about a new love, Stephen. Stephen became husband number three—he was in mergers and acquisitions and my mother got heavily into throwing dinner parties and being a corporate wife. Not for long, though. She came to stay with me my final year and complained that she never saw Stephen—

mergers and acquisitions were too time consuming for her liking and she missed having someone around in the evenings. I think in the end she sent Stephen a fax when he was on some business trip or other telling him it was over. And then she met me for lunch, at The Place.

Mike is waiting for me at the bar, champagne bottle in hand.

“So, Mr. Business Executive,” I say, accepting a glass from him and brushing his hand with mine. Accidentally? On purpose? I’m not sure. “You seem to be doing very well for yourself.

Are you going to tell me where all this money is coming from, or are you going to do your usual trick of ordering everything on the menu and then asking at the end if I can put it on my credit card until your money comes through?”

“Ah, now there’s a gamble for you!” Mike winks.

I let him lead me to our table, and study the menu.

“The sole is very good,” Mike murmurs, picking up the wine list.

“Does this business meeting have an agenda?”

Mike looks at me quizzically, raising one eyebrow.

“I want to know why you want to see me now when you’ve made no effort to contact me for two years.”

“Has it really been that long?”

He’s doing that soppy-eyed look at me. I hate that. It always works and I end up smiling stupidly and letting him get away with whatever he’s done this time.

“Yes, it bloody well has been that long.”

I catch the eye of a girl a few tables away. She looks away immediately. This sort of thing happens a lot when you’re out with Mike. People just stare at him. Once we were in the pub and there was this gorgeous guy in there who kept catching my eye. I was feeling pretty good about it and after a while mentioned it to Mike in an offhand sort of way. (You should always make sure your date understands how desirable you are, according to Candy. She does things like sending flowers to herself, which is probably taking things a bit far, but I understand the sentiment.) Anyway, rather than looking impressed and challenging my admirer to a dual, Mike laughed, spluttering into his drink, and told me that actually the guy had been checkinghim out all evening. I mean the audacity of it! Except that when I studied the guy more closely I realized that Mike was right. It was hopeless. Not only did he get loads of female attention, but he even got more male attention than I did.

“I see,” says Mike, putting his hand through his hair. He suddenly grins at me. “Okay, well, when I saw you on Saturday, I just realized how long it’s been, and I thought it would be nice to see you properly, that’s all. I’m sure I must owe you lunch anyway.”

“You owe me food for a year actually.”

Mike raises an eyebrow. He has good eyebrows. No straggly bits, good shape. His eyes are good, too—they’re soft and dark and surrounded by thick luscious eyelashes. I would kill for eyelashes like that.