As Ed surveys all the faces at the table, it’s obvious his nightmare has just got about fifty times worse. I almost feel sorry for him.
“That’s… that’s right,” he says at last, as though he can’t quite believe it himself. “We were dancing.” He seems to come to. “Lara, do you know Genevieve Bailey from DFT? Genevieve, Lara. Hello, Bill, Mike, Sarah…” He’s nodding at all the people sitting round the table.
“Your dress is adorable.” Genevieve flicks a condescending glance over my outfit. “Going for the twenties look, obviously.”
“It’s original.” I nod.
“I have no doubt!”
I smile as best I can, but she’s touched a nerve. I don’t want to be dressed up like something out of a Daily Mail vintage-dolls collection series. Especially not in front of what’s clearly a collection of high-profile businesspeople.
“I’ll just touch up my makeup.” I force another smile. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
In the ladies’ room, I get out a tissue, wet it, and frantically scrub at my face. But nothing seems to be coming off.
“What are you doing?” Sadie appears behind me. “You’ll ruin your face!”
“Just trying to tone down the color,” I say between jerky rubs.
“Oh, that rouge won’t come off,” says Sadie airily. “It’s indelible. Lasts for days. The lipstick too.”
Indelible?
“Where did you learn to dance?” Sadie inserts herself between me and the mirror.
“I didn’t. You don’t learn to dance. You just pick it up.”
“Well, it shows. You’re terrible.”
“Well, you’re totally over the top,” I retort, stung. “You looked like you wanted to jump his bones right there!”
“‘Jump his bones.’” Sadie frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It means… You know.” I stop awkwardly. I’m not sure bone-jumping is something I want to be discussing with my great-aunt.
“What?” Sadie says impatiently. “What does it mean?”
“You do it with someone else.” I choose my words carefully. “It’s like a pajama party. Except you take off your pajamas.”
“Oh, that.” Her face clicks with recognition. “You call it ‘jumping his bones’?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug.
“What an odd phrase. We used to call it sex.”
“Oh,” I say, discomfited. “Well. We do too-”
“Or barney-mugging,” she adds.
Barney-mugging? And she has the nerve to call jump his bones an odd phrase?
“Well, whatever you call it.” I take off one of my shoes and rub my sore toes. “You looked like you wanted to do it with him right there in the bar.”
Sadie smirks and adjusts her headband, looking in the mirror. “You must admit he’s handsome.”
“On the outside, maybe,” I say grudgingly. “But he doesn’t have any personality.”
“Yes, he does!” says Sadie, looking offended.
How would she know? It was me who had to make all the bloody conversation with him!
“No, he doesn’t! He’s lived in London for months, but he hasn’t bothered to see anything!” I wince as I put my shoe back on. “What kind of narrow-minded person does that? What kind of person isn’t interested in one of the greatest cities in the world?” My voice is rising with indignation. “He doesn’t deserve to live here.”
As a Londoner, I’m taking this quite personally. I look up to see what Sadie thinks, but her eyes are closed and she’s humming. She’s not even bloody listening to me.
“Do you think he’d like me?” She opens her eyes. “If he could see me. If he could dance with me.”
Her face is so hopeful and glowing, all my outrage dies away. I’m being stupid. What does it matter what this guy is like? He’s got nothing to do with me. This is Sadie’s evening.
“Yes,” I say as convincingly as I can. “I think he’d love you.”
“I think so too.” She looks satisfied. “Your headdress is crooked, did you realize?”
I tug at it and survey my reflection grumpily.
“I look so ridiculous.”
“You look divine. You’re the prettiest girl in the place. Apart from me,” she adds airily.
“Do you know how stupid I feel?” I rub at my cheeks again. “No, of course not. All you care about is your date.”
“I’ll tell you something,” says Sadie, watching me critically in the mirror. “You’ve got a film star’s mouth. In my day, all the girls died to have a mouth like that. You could have been in the pictures.”
“Yeah, right.” I roll my eyes.
“Look at yourself, you ninny. You look like a film heroine!”
Reluctantly, I face the mirror again, trying to imagine myself in flickery black and white, tied to a railway line while a piano bashes out some menacing tune. Actually… she’s right. I do quite look the part.
“Oh, sir, please spare me!” I adopt a pose in front of the mirror, batting my eyelashes.
“Exactly! You’d have been a darling of the silver screen.” Sadie meets my eyes, and I can’t help grinning back. This has been the weirdest, stupidest date of my life, but somehow her mood is infectious.
As we head back out to the bar, I see that Ed is still chatting to Genevieve. She’s leaning elegantly against a chair in a “casual” pose, which I instantly realize is designed to show off her tall, slim figure to Ed. I also instantly realize that he hasn’t even noticed, which slightly endears him to me.