require a more detailed response than this. I sighed, shook my head. I spoke as slowly and clearly as I could.
“I’m seeing you right now, Raymond. You’re sitting right in front of me.”
He snorted with laughter.
“You know fine well what I mean, Eleanor.” It became apparent that I didn’t.
“Have you got a boyfriend?” he said, patiently.
I hesitated. “No. Well . . . there is someone. But no, I suppose the factually correct answer at this point in time is no, for the time being, at least.”
“So you have a lot to deal with on your own,” he said, not as a question but as a statement of fact. “You shouldn’t give yourself a hard time for not having a ten-year career plan.”
“Do you have a ten-year career plan?” I asked. It seemed unlikely.
“Nah,” he said, smiling. “Does anybody? Anybody normal, I mean?”
I shrugged. “I’m not really sure I know any normal people,” I said.
“None taken, Eleanor,” he said, laughing.
I pondered this, then realized what he meant.
“I didn’t mean any offense, Raymond,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be daft,” he said, gesturing for the bill. “So, when do you have to decide about the job? I think you should take it, for what it’s worth,” he said. “Nothing ventured, eh? Plus, I’m sure you’d make a great office manager.”
I looked at him closely, waiting for a follow-up remark or a snide comment, but, much to my surprise, neither was forthcoming. He took out his wallet and paid the bill. I protested vehemently but he flat-out refused to allow me to contribute my share.
“You only had a coffee and a scone,” he said. “You can buy me lunch when you get your first office manager’s paycheck!” He smiled.
I thanked him. No one had ever bought me lunch before. It was a very pleasant feeling, to have someone incur expenditure on my behalf, voluntarily, expecting nothing in return.
The hour was up just as we got back to the office building, and so we said a brief good-bye before returning to our respective desks. This was the first day in nine years that I’d eaten lunch with a companion, and that I hadn’t done the crossword. Strangely, I felt no concern about the crossword whatsoever. Perhaps I’d do it this evening instead. Perhaps I’d simply recycle the newspaper without even attempting it. As Raymond had pointed out, the world was full of infinite possibility. I opened my e-mail and typed him a message.
Dear R, thank you very much for lunch. Kind regards, E
I supposed it made sense, in a way, shortening the names. It was obvious who was addressing whom, after all. He replied quickly:
No worries, good luck with your decision. See you Saturday! R
Life felt like it was moving very fast indeed at the moment, a whirlwind of possibilities. I hadn’t even thought about the musician this afternoon. I logged on to my computer and started researching venues for the Christmas lunch. This was going to be quite the event, I decided. It would be unlike any other Christmas lunch. It would be important to eschew cliché and precedent. I would do something different, something that would surprise and delight my co-workers, subvert their expectations. It wouldn’t be easy. One thing I knew for certain was this: Bob’s ten-pound budget would be the basis of the event, and no one would need to contribute further. I still resented all the monetary payments I’d been forced to make over the years to have a terrible time in a terrible place with terrible people on the last Friday before the twenty-fifth of December.
After all, how hard could it be? Raymond had really been most encouraging over lunch. If I could perform scansion on the Aeneid, if I could build a macro in an Excel spreadsheet, if I could spend the last nine birthdays and Christmases and New Year’s Eves alone, then I’m sure I could manage to organize a delightful festive lunch for thirty people on a budget of ten pounds per capita.
20
Saturday morning passed in a blur of household chores. I’d started wearing rubber gloves to protect my hands, and, although unsightly, they were helping. The ugliness didn’t matter—after all, there was no one to see me.
Gathering up the detritus of the previous evening, I noticed that I had failed to consume all of my vodka allocation; the best part of a half bottle of Smirnoff was extant. Mindful of my gauche faux pas at Laura’s party, I put it in a Tesco carrier bag to