This week would, so far, have to be the worst week I’ve had in a long time. And it was only Wednesday. In contrast, the previous weekend had been fun. It had been Neil’s 30th birthday party at his parents’ house in Sorrento and the usual crowd had headed down after work on Friday. We’d arrived late, had a relatively quiet night and Saturday had been spent lazing around the pool at our rented villa that overlooked Port Phillip Bay. The birthday boy was an old university friend and, as expected, his parents, Helen and Tom, had really pushed the boat out for their only son. He was the apple of their eye. His three sisters rarely got a look in – but jealousy was never a feature and Jo, Ella and Amanda absolutely doted on him. Theirs was a close-knit family. Three of the four children worked in the family construction business with Neil already lined up to take over from his dad as Chief Executive Officer when he eventually decided to hang up his hard hat and Hi-Vis vest.
The party didn’t wrap up until one am but we all stuck around and chatted until just before the sun came up. At five am we called it a night and, leaving Neil at his parents’, the five of us wandered the 200 metres to our villa for some essential shut-eye. Six or so hours later I was roused from my slumber by Jenny shaking me awake and telling me Dave was cooking up a batch of his famous buttermilk pancakes. I don’t exaggerate when I say his pancakes were famous. Dave owned a café not far from where I live in Richmond and his pancakes are his signature dish. They’d even been written up in The Age Good Food Guide. They were an absolute staple on hangover days such as this and I didn’t waste much time in getting dressed and making my way to the kitchen.
Sitting around the table in the expansive kitchen, I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of my Nespresso. Despite the slight headache, there was nowhere I would rather be. The five of us, six if you include Neil, had all met during our first week at Melbourne University twelve years ago. We were all enrolled to do a Bachelor of Commerce – the thinking behind that for all of us being that it was a good, generic degree that would stand us all in good stead to do whatever we wanted. Of the six of us, though, Neil and I were the only ones who graduated. Jenny had quit after the second term, taken a couple of years out, completed a Psychology degree and was now a lecturer at Deakin. Kara, the most intelligent of all of us, transferred to law and was now on partner track as an IP solicitor at one of the big firms. Jamie, the resident joker, got thrown out at the end of first year and moved up to The Whitsundays to pursue his love of sailing. He’d returned to Melbourne a couple of years ago following the break-up of a very short-lived marriage and was working down at St Kilda marina as a sailing instructor. Dave you already know about. And as for me, Sally, I’m a Marketing Manager at one of the health funds.
Dave, as usual, excelled himself with the pancakes but with a midday checkout we couldn’t stick around. We stopped by Helen and Tom’s to say thanks for the previous night and to pick up Neil and then, as we always did on trips down to the peninsula, we raced the two cars back to the city with the girls in one and the boys in the other. The invisible finish line was always the turnoff to Yarra Boulevard and, as usual, the girls were the victors. My mum’s brother lived on a farm just outside Shepparton and I’d first got behind the wheel of a car when I was twelve. By the time I got my learner’s permit I could parallel park and take corners like Lewis Hamilton at Albert Park. I passed my test the day after my seventeenth birthday and would drive whenever I could. I’d never lost this race in all the years we had been competing which was a thorn in the side for the boys.
I dropped Jenny at her apartment block and was pulling into my car spot less than five minutes later. The rest of the day passed quickly, with the most energetic thing I did being to climb the stairs to bed. No sooner had I switched off the light, or so it seemed, when the alarm awoke me from a deep sleep at 5.30. I groaned audibly. Not only was it Monday morning but, even worse Matt, my personal trainer, would be outside my door in 15 minutes to “kick start” my week as he liked to call it. I preferred to call it “me paying sixty five dollars for the privilege of being shouted at for forty five minutes by someone who had clearly missed their calling as a torturer for the French Foreign Legion”. Exhausted, I returned home a little before 6.45am cursing the day I had ever met him. I showered quickly, got dressed and was heading out the door by 7.45 and half an hour later I was taking my seat at the regular Monday morning meeting at 8.15.
The Monday morning meeting is 45 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. We’re supposed to talk through what we’re working on and what help we might need but it usually deteriorates fairly rapidly into a bitching session about people in the office. My boss, Caroline, who checked out years ago, goes with the flow and half the time she’s blatantly not listening – probably thinking about the long working lunch she’s going to have with the CFO, Lucas. Everyone knows they’re having an affair but they both seem completely oblivious to the gossip. They’ve been caught out countless times. People have seen them sneaking into and out of the Sofitel at Collins Place or they’ve been seen in the office after hours coming out of his office looking slightly dishevelled. It’s actually laughable that they think no one knows. One of my colleagues – Mike – asked her about it once over an Oaks Day lunch. To be fair she did a pretty good job of denying it, but her body language told an entirely different story. Later she was overheard on the phone clearly saying to him that she’d been asked about it but managed to pull the wool over our eyes. Yeah right! Added to that, her EA is a really good friend of mine so she has access to her emails. As Lucy says “there’s a touch of 50 Shades about them”. That, for me, is far too much information. Neither of them is exactly God’s gift and, put it this way, you wouldn’t want to stand too close to Lucas in a confined space. Rexona Dry is something that doesn’t seem to be on his shopping list. He’s also a bit of a letch and when he’s talking to you, tends to look around 6 inches lower than he should. The type of man to be avoided at all costs.
Typically, at exactly 9am, Caroline interrupts Jayne, who’s in the middle of talking about a branding campaign she’s working on, and calls the meeting to a close. Poor Jayne. She’s relatively new to the team and is painfully shy. Speaking in an open forum, even in an internal meeting, is a big deal for her and I know she would have probably spent a reasonable amount of time preparing. She looks completely deflated as everyone troops out – either heading to their desks or, in my case, heading straight for the coffee machine.
The kitchen is quiet and I look around for a clean mug. I find one at the back of the cupboard, press a few buttons and before long I’m rewarded with a flat white. It’s not as good as the one I could buy from Konig around the corner but this one’s free and also means I don’t need to go outside which is a blessing as I now see it’s pouring with rain. Thankfully it wasn’t like that first thing this morning when I was doing lunges, star jumps and all other manner of things at Matt’s command. I decide I’m not quite ready to face my inbox so sit down at one of the tables and flick through The Age. It’s just a reminder as to why I rarely watch the news. All doom and gloom. Terrorist attack in Germany. Plane crash in Russia. And the Opposition are disagreeing with the Government on some policy issue relating to refugees when, I swear, a few years ago they were advocating for the exact same thing.
Politics has never held my interest. My dad, when he was a student, had stood as a Labor party candidate at a local council election and despite what was a well-run campaign, or so he claimed, his first and last foray into the political arena ended in an embarrassing defeat with a final vote tally barely in three figures. He soon gave up on his left-wing philosophies when he joined Macquarie Bank in Sydney and discovered that, for him anyway, a wealthy life was a happy life. He’d recently retired as Managing Director of one of their divisions and was spending the first few months of his retirement travelling with Jo, Wife Number Three. Jo was definitely an improvement on Catherine, Wife Number Two. That marriage was short-lived and ended after six months when Dad returned home early from a golf trip to discover her in bed with an ex-boyfriend. Dad, being Dad, calmly took it all in his stride. Despite her pleading with him that it was a mistake and it meant nothing he only allowed her back into the house to pack her belongings. As the taxi was pulling away he was already on the phone to the local locksmith to come around to change all the locks and then spent the next week, as he was to tell us later, eradicating all trace of her from the house.
We, my brothers Jamie and Marcus, only found out a few weeks later when he casually mentioned it over a lunch when he was down from Sydney visiting. The furtive looks between the three of us of “Knew it. Didn’t we say this would happen?” didn’t go unnoticed by our eagle-eyed father who, for once showing a level of vulnerability, admitted to not being shocked as he was always surprised that someone so young (she was nearly 27 years younger than him) would be interested in him. Marcus, who by this point in the proceedings had drunk two Bloody Marys and had singlehandedly downed a bottle of Shiraz expressed the thought that “perhaps it had something to do with the fact that you’re loaded, drive a Bentley, live in Double Bay and have a holiday home in Noosa”. There followed an awkward silence and you could have heard a pin drop. I glanced at my Dad and, instead of being apoplectic with rage, he let out a loud, hearty laugh and conceded that Marcus did, in all probability, have a point.
It was another loud, hearty laugh that interrupted me as I was skimming through the paper trying to find something interesting to read. I looked up and saw it was Lucas, he of the “body odour problem and sometime lover of my boss” fame walking into the kitchen with Carl, one of the managers in his team, who was telling him about a party he’d been to at the weekend and how one of his mates had gone to sleep in the bath. I liked Carl. He and I had started as grads on the same day and it was often the case we were the last ones standing on a Friday night.
“Hey,” he said. “You missed a belter on Saturday at Pete and Lauren’s place. Just been telling Lucas here. Steve got absolutely leathered. He’d been at the races earlier and had been on the cans since midday. Totally hit a wall around midnight and wandered off. We just assumed he’d gone home but he came to at 8 in the morning in the bathroom out the back by the laundry – you know, that one on the left no one uses. He was wrapped up in a Spiderman doona – must have nicked it off one of the kid’s beds. He shuffles through to the kitchen – Lauren nearly had a heart attack! Said it was the best sleep he’d had in ages too. Quality. Just quality.”
I laughed. Steve was Carl’s oldest mate and if anyone was going to fall asleep in a bath it was him. Furthermore, I suspect Lauren wouldn’t have cared. Ten years older than Carl, they were the closest brother and sister I knew and she has always been so welcoming and kind to Carl’s friends, Steve and me included.
“Sounds like Steve’s just being Steve as usual. Sorry I missed it. Couldn’t exactly skip Neil’s 30th though. He’d have killed me!”
“Yeah, fair point,” he agreed. “Good Fun?”
“Sure was,” I replied and then proceeded to update him on the party, finishing up with the fact that the girls had, yet again, beaten the boys home.
Still smiling at remembering my victory, I got up, told Carl I had a mountain of work to do, suggested drinks later in the week and headed for my desk. Lucas fell into step beside me. I assumed he was on his way to see Caroline so they could arrange their next clandestine meeting. But I was wrong.
“So, Sal,” he began. “Wondering if you could help me out. The thing is, my nephew’s over from Canada. Think I might have told you my sister emigrated there years ago? Anyway Chris, my nephew, is over here and he wants to stay. They’ve all spent heaps of time here over the years and on top of that he’s a mad keen rower and has decided that Melbourne’s where it’s at. I offered to introduce him to someone in Marketing as that’s his background. He’s worked in Communications or something like that for one of the banks over there. Would you be a love and spend an hour or so with him and give him some advice”.
I groaned inwardly. But instead of saying “Are you kidding? I’d rather die than spend time with anyone related to you!”, I found myself agreeing to meet Chris the next evening to give him some pointers on how to get a marketing job in Melbourne.
The rest of the day was, as usual for a Monday, busy. I had a meeting with one of our copywriters, then had to spend some time with the graphic design team to brief them on a campaign we were planning. The team leader and I don’t get on – he’s a bit of a know-all and can’t go through a meeting without saying “Well, when I worked at Vogue in New York…”. If it were up to me he’d be teleported back there in an instant but I stifle that thought and get through the rest of the meeting without making any smart comments.
I don’t have time for lunch as I get dragged into briefing the CEO on a television interview she’s doing with Sky News the next morning. This was something Caroline was supposed to do but she excused herself saying she had a migraine and would I ‘be a trouper and just go along and make sure she knows what she’s saying’. She doesn’t exactly look like she has a migraine – a fact confirmed when I see her applying some lipstick and spraying on her favourite perfume before getting in the lift. No prizes for guessing where she’s going and who she’s going to meet.
The CEO briefing took up longer than I’d expected. Lynn, our CEO, is an absolute perfectionist and we had to run through the questions eleven or twelve times before she was happy with it. I was half way out the door when she called me back and asked if I would mind doing it again only this time could we film it so she could look at it afterwards. What should have been a half hour meeting took close to three hours and by the time I left her office I was starving. I managed to run out and grab a couple of California rolls and then locked myself in a meeting room to tackle a presentation that I needed to send to Caroline the following afternoon. It was going to be a long afternoon and evening.
Carl popped his head round the door around six-ish to see if I wanted to go for a drink. What I wouldn’t have given to have a couple of glasses of wine, kick back and relax but I knew the presentation wouldn’t write itself. So, regretfully saying no, I once again immersed myself in the research that was an integral part of the presentation. At nine thirty I decided enough was enough, hailed a cab from the street and was letting myself into my house ten minutes later.
Hungry again, I opened the fridge to be met with empty shelves containing two lemons, half a jar of strawberry jam and two bottles of Crown. Grabbing one of the bottles, I sat on the lounge absentmindedly channel surfing. Half an hour later and with my beer finished, I decided to call it a night.
Tuesday morning I was up early. I still had to finish that presentation and then had a full afternoon of meetings with our external advertising agency to plan for the upcoming year. The first person I saw when I walked into the office was Lucas.
“All set for tonight, Sal?”
I nodded. He’d made arrangements that Chris would come and see him first at the office and then the two of us would go for a couple of drinks. The plan was to meet in the foyer at 6 but before that I had a lot to get through. I’d grabbed a coffee from the café downstairs so headed straight to my desk. I noticed the drawer to my desk was already open which was strange as I’m usually meticulous at locking everything away. Not really thinking much of it, I opened the drawer. No laptop. Opened the other two drawers. Still no laptop. Swinging round, I opened my cupboard and began to frantically trawl through the shelves. I was beginning to panic. Where the hell was it? I knew I hadn’t taken it home last night.
“Sally, you were working late last night weren’t you?” enquired Gerard, one of my colleagues.
I nodded to agree.
“Don’t suppose you saw anyone lurking around, did you? I left my Garmin on my desk by mistake and it’s gone. So has Clare’s laptops along with the money for the charity chocolates”.
“Bugger”, I said. “And you can add my laptop to that as well. I knew I’d put it in my drawer and now it’s gone”.
I leant forward and softly banged my forehead on my desk. What was I going to do? I needed to send the presentation to Caroline and it had disappeared. And I had stupidly saved it on to my desktop instead of uploading it to the network. I was a dead woman walking – she’d have no sympathy for me whatsoever. There was no point in my feeling sorry for myself so I sprang into action, begged IT for a spare laptop and rescheduled the meeting with the advertising agency. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to remember the entire 28-slide presentation. I finally finished it just before 6 and sent it to Caroline along with a note saying I’d had some technical issues and apologising if it didn’t quite hit the mark.
All I wanted to do was go home and spend the night watching something inane on TV. The thought of a night with Lucas’s nephew was about as appealing as root canal surgery but I knew there was no way I could get out of this late. As I headed to the bathroom to fix my make up my phone rang. It was Lucas. “Please let him be phoning to cancel,” I prayed silently. No such luck. He was just calling to tell me that Chris was running late and he’d meet me in the foyer downstairs. Lucas wasn’t going to be able to join as something urgent had “come up”. By that I assumed he meant he was seeing Caroline – a fact confirmed 30 seconds later when I see them both getting into a lift.
I walked back to my desk to pick up my coat and arrived in the foyer a couple of minutes after six. There were only a couple of people in the foyer – one was an elderly gentleman who I’d seen before and the other was a tall, very handsome man in jeans and a grey shirt. That had to be him. I was a bit surprised that Lucas was related to someone so good-looking. Maybe this evening was going to turn out all right after all.
Wrong! The evening was a disaster. Chris would have to be one of the most obnoxious, arrogant and self-absorbed people on the planet. We’d gone to a bar really close to the office and within two minutes of us sitting down he’d already told me that he once went out with Jessica Biel and only just missed out qualifying for the Canadian Olympic squad. He then proceeded to tell me his life story: how great he was at sport, how he graduated top of his class but didn’t have to study too hard, how he was offered eight jobs straight out of university, how he’s always being headhunted, how he’s dated a string of models, how he bought his first Porsche at the age of 28. Throughout this monologue, he’s also downing drink after drink and within an hour he must have got through eight nips of whisky. I’m still nursing my second glass of wine and praying for the end of the night.
“So Sal… can I call you Sal?” he says. “What’s your story? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Both?” He then bursts into a fit of laughter thinking he’s cracked the funniest joke in the world.
“Neither actually,’”I reply. I’d split up with Dom about a year and a half ago. I’d had a few dates with a colleague of Jenny’s but that had just petered out. Having a boyfriend really wasn’t a priority. I had a really busy job and an even busier social life – fitting a boyfriend in would have been hard.
“But sex, Sal. What do you do for sex? Surely you miss that?”
Not that it had anything to do with him but when it came to sex I was doing just fine. Carl and I would often end up in bed together. It had first happened a few months after we met and it had never affected our friendship. He’d sometimes stay over at my flat and then an hour and a half later we’re sitting next to each other in a budget meeting acting perfectly normal. No one at work knows – not that we’re hiding it – but it’s something we keep to ourselves. We’re mates first, bed-buddies second. We’ve spoken about hooking up and being boyfriend and girlfriend but neither of us want to risk ruining our friendship.
“Not really,” I tell him. “I can take it or leave it to be honest.”
“Wow. I’m, like, the total opposite. I’d explode if I didn’t have sex at least three times a week. I’ve only been here a week and I’ve already nailed three chicks. Aussie girls are so hot. Mind you, one of them was German. She blew my mind. And something else!” Again, he burst out laughing at what he’d said. Well, at least one of us was having fun.
“Ok,” he said. “What do you say we take this party somewhere else? It’s a bit quiet in here. What about heading somewhere a bit livelier? Where do you suggest?”
“Am afraid you’ll have to count me out. I’ve had a really busy day at work and have an early start, so I really need an early night. But if you want to go somewhere else then you might want to head for Prahran or St.Kilda,” I said, silently adding “as long as it’s far away from me!”
“But it’s only 7.30! The night is young! Ok then how about I buy you dinner? I’ve heard Cumulus is really good – and they make a mean Aperol Spritz apparently. Come on – you can’t ditch me!” he whined.
“I’m really sorry, Chris. I have a bucket load of work to do tomorrow. I’m not that hungry anyway. I had a late lunch.” That was an outright lie. I was totally starving and was already planning on ordering Uber Eats on the way home.
“Ok. Last chance then. One more drink and then I promise you can leave after that.” It’s at this point I should have stuck to my guns, made my excuses and left, but he was making such a scene and people were looking at us so instead of thanking him for a lovely evening, which would have been a lie, I found myself agreeing to one more drink.
He went to the bar and soon returned to the table with a glass of wine for me and what looked like a very large scotch for him. I suddenly remembered the reason Lucas had asked me to meet Chris was to give him some advice on how to get a job.
“So,” I began, “Lucas tells me you’re looking for a job over here. What do you want to do?”
“Never mind that. I’m more interested in trying to get you to stay out a bit longer. And don’t say you’re busy tomorrow. That’s just a feeble excuse. Hey, I know: what about some shots?”
And with that he leapt up and headed for the bar. I called after him that I didn’t want anything but he either didn’t hear or chose to ignore me as a couple of minutes later I could see him walking back carrying two shot glasses with a slice of lime atop each. As he’d had a lot to drink he wasn’t that steady on his feet and he banged into someone a few feet away from our table. Nearly all of one of the tequila shots spilt onto his wrist and started to run down his arm.
“Oi buddy. Watch where you’re going, will you?” he said to the man who he’d bumped into. The man stopped, turned around and started walking towards Chris. “Me watch where I’m going? It was you who ran into me! Watch where you’re going next time, will you?”
The sensible thing for Chris to do would have been to apologise, as it had been his fault, but for whatever reason he decided that the right thing to do was to continue the argument. Putting the two glasses on the table, he turned to face the man.
“Oh, it’s like that is it? You make me spill my drink and don’t even have the decency to apologise. That’s pretty fucking rude, don’t you think?”
“Chris, just leave it. No harm done really, is there? And I didn’t want one anyway. So why don’t you just sit down?” I said, trying to defuse the situation.
“You should listen to your girlfriend. As she said, ‘no harm done’,” the man said and turned to walk away.
“Wait”, Chris shouted. “We’re not done here. You made me spill a drink. The least you could do is offer to buy me a replacement.”
“Now why would I do that? You’re the one who spilled it, not me, Yankee boy.” he fired back.
By this point they were squaring off about a foot apart. I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. Chris was in the wrong, was overreacting and didn’t want to let it go. I had a quick look around to see if I could find someone in security to get involved but there was no one around. The bar was pretty busy now and all the staff were serving so were oblivious to what was happening.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris poke the man in the chest and hear him say “You owe me a drink.”
The man shoved him gently and Chris stumbled backwards but managed to stay on his feet. He stood up and aimed a fist at the side of the man’s head, but the man was clearly expecting it and held his arm up to shield his face whilst at the same time aiming an uppercut to Chris’s jaw with his other arm. Chris retaliated by punching the man in the stomach but the man, who was clearly the better fighter, stepped out of the way and Chris fell to the floor. By now there were a few people standing around but no one was making any moves to stop the fight. Chris got to his feet and turned to face the man who was, by now, standing in front of me with his back towards me.
“I’m going to deck you for that,” Chris shouted, as he lunged towards the man. He swung a punch at the man’s head who stepped aside at the exact moment I stood up to get out of the way. Chris’s right fist landed on the side of my face and I immediately fell down, the side of my face connecting heavily with the hard, concrete floor.
I could see Chris running for the door being chased by the security guards who, two minutes ago, were nowhere to be seen. The man he’d been fighting with was being manhandled to the door and a girl who had been sitting at the next table was screaming at someone to bring some paper towels. Someone else was helping me to my feet and guiding me to a chair. I put my hand to my head and could feel warm blood oozing out of what was clearly a cut just above my eye. I looked down and my pale blue shirt was now covered in spots of fresh, bright red blood. Hand towels were pressed into my hand and I did my best to stanch the flow but it just kept on streaming and soon the towels were saturated. Someone shouted “Call an ambulance!” while someone else appeared with more towels and applied pressure to the wound on my face.
The security guards who had run after Chris returned a couple of minutes later with Chris nowhere to be seen. He’d managed to outrun them, and they’d seen him hail a taxi and drive off. Part of me was relieved as it meant I wouldn’t need to see him again. But the other part of me was furious that he’d left me alone, unconcerned for my safety.
The ambulance must have been very close as five minutes later the emergency services people arrived. By now the bleeding had slowed but I was told I needed stitches so was taken to the Prince Alfred Hospital. Thankfully, with it being a Tuesday night, the ER was quiet, and I was seen straight away. After registering, I was immediately given a tetanus shot and within an hour was being stitched up by a junior doctor who had just started her shift. The cut was just above my eyebrow and, even with a local anaesthetic, I could feel every one of the 12 stitches she made.
I had thought that they’d just let me leave but the doctors were worried I might have had a mild concussion so they kept me in for observation. The nursing staff kept coming in to my cubicle to check my blood pressure and heart rate and every now and then a doctor would ask me how I was feeling and shine a light into my eyes. At around four am, some seven hours after arrival, the same junior doctor who had stitched me up discharged me, after asking me a lot of questions to determine whether or not I was well enough to go home. Thankfully I was able to tell her the date, who the prime minister was and who was captain of the Australian Cricket Team. I drew a blank to the question “Who has an album called ‘The Life of Pablo’?” I let her know I wouldn’t have known that without a concussion let alone with one. She laughed, told me it was Kanye West and pronounced me fit to leave.
Luckily I was able to get a taxi home almost straight away. Sitting in the back of the cab, I knew I wasn’t going to be in a fit state to go to work so quickly emailed Caroline telling her I’d been in an accident, had had to go to hospital and wouldn’t be in. I reassured her I was fine and that I’d call her later that day. I got home a little after four am, undressed and crawled into bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I slept heavily and when I woke I could see the clock on my bedside table telling me it was 12.09. My head was pounding so I went to the bathroom to look for some painkillers. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. What a mess! The cut above my eye was bloodied over with stitches still intact and the bruise on my cheek that, last night had been a faint reddish colour, was now darker but was turning purple in places. I looked awful. There’s no way I could go into work looking like this. Bloody Chris. What an arsehole! I never wanted to see him again.
I found some Nurofen in one of the drawers, swallowed a couple and washed them down with some water. I really felt dreadful and the fact I hadn’t eaten in more than 24 hours probably wasn’t helping matters. I shuffled through to the kitchen miraculously hoping that someone had filled my fridge with food, but it was an empty as it had been two nights ago. I opened the pantry and peered in. I found a tin of mushroom soup, opened it, poured it into a bowl and heated it up in the microwave.
Sitting at the table a few minutes later, my phone rang. It was Carl, but I just let it go to voicemail as I wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone, even him. I quickly checked my voicemails – I had 16 – mainly people from work concerned about me. There was also one from Chris apologising for last night and asking if I wanted to go out for drinks this weekend. Was he crazy? Not only had I had a miserable time I’d ended up in hospital with a possible mild concussion and looked like I’d done a couple of rounds with Conor McGregor. And yet he has the gall to flippantly apologise and ask me out on another date. I was seething. Absolutely seething. And before I knew it I was hitting the ‘call back’ button. He answered after two rings.
“Hey Sally. Thanks for calling me back. How’s your day been?”
I could feel my heart rate start to rise. “How’s my day been?” I replied with a hint of sarcasm. “You really want to know? Well, let me enlighten you. I didn’t get out of hospital until about 4am. I’ve got a splitting headache. The cut on my face is going to take ages to heal and I’ll probably have a scar for life. The bruise will fade but it’s going to be a cracker so I’ll probably need a heap of makeup to cover it. I’m supposed to be a bridesmaid at the weekend as well but likely can’t do that as I look hideous. And thanks so much, by the way, for just running out of the pub and leaving me lying on the floor. Really appreciate that. I’m so fucking angry at you for what happened. You’re a total fuckwit. And you think it’s OK to just call me up and say ‘Sorry. Let’s have a drink at the weekend?’ What on earth makes you think I’d want to see you again? Seriously. Why would I do that to myself? Just delete my number and leave me alone.”
And with that I hung up. It felt so good to get that out of my system. And I would have left him in zero doubt about how I felt about him.
My heart was still racing as I finished my soup. I put the dirty bowl in the sink and headed for the shower. Twenty minutes later I was curled up on the lounge watching an old episode of ‘Friends’ when I got a message on my phone. My phone was on the lounge next to me and, when I looked down I saw it was from Chris. Seriously? What could he possibly want to say to me now? I opened it and started reading.
“Hi Sally. It’s Chris. Look, this is really awkward but I just thought I should let you know. It wasn’t me you were out with last night. It was my twin brother, Jack. I realised half way through your rant what had happened and I did try and interrupt but you just kept on talking. When you hung up I asked him about it and he admitted he’d impersonated me for a laugh. He’s a total dick – he’s done it before. Gets a kick out of pretending to be me. I’m really sorry this happened to you. The offer still stands to take you out for drinks. I promise you, I’m nothing like him. But I will be using his credit card if you do decide you want to catch up. Let me know what you want to do – but I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted nothing more to do with me.”
Another message had come through while I was reading the first message – it was a photo of the two of them standing by the Opera House. They were absolutely identical. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So instead I called Carl and told him the whole story. Once I’d assured him I was fine, he did try and make me see the funny side of the story. “Only you could go out with someone who isn’t the person you’re supposed to be going out with!”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to call him back?” he asked.
“I think I probably should. If nothing else I need to apologise for shouting at him and calling him a fuckwit.”
I said goodbye to Carl a couple of minutes later and thought about what I would say to Chris. I picked up my phone and dialled his number. It rang a few times and I was about to hang up when he answered.
“Sally? Thanks for calling back. I’m so sorry. He’s just a…”
I interrupted him. “I think this time it’s me who needs to apologise. The whole thing’s so bizarre. I seriously had no idea he wasn’t you. I mean, why would I?” and then I found myself laughing at what, really, was a ridiculous situation. He joined in and soon we were chatting like old friends and he was telling me about other times when they’d swapped places. Like the time he did detention for his brother as Jack had an interview for a part time job or the time when they did each other’s tests at school and both failed as they were trying to get the other one into trouble. He was so easy to talk to. I could hardly believe he was related to Jack, let alone his twin!
“So…”, he said. “Drinks on Friday. What do you reckon?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? Can’t be as bad as the last time I went out with ‘you’!”
“Perfect. And Jack is most definitely buying!”
Maybe this week was going to get better after all!
Stories by Mrs Mac 