now looking at Ben as something more than just a reliable shadow in the workplace. As for the Champagne, Elaine is probably the best in her class at public and company relations. You only have to think of it as the same way she uses cookies.
After Diane and Melanie finally disembark with the parting exit lines of 'Staff drinks later at our place!' repeated until they're out of earshot, which is across the road at Blonde's where they continue the routine, Salem and Hurst resume their ordinary small-talk. Consisting of cars and Easter Eggs, and whether or not to enter a team in a charity Tug O' War, which they think they'd lose against Trebor and Axwel's Team Poleaxe .
Then Salem mentions he saw Sandra Harte's husband today.
I pay more attention, as I overhear them discuss how she'd died Of complications in an emergency C-section . After 'collapsing' following work the other night - having taken drugs with Igor and 'a new guy' who's now missing. Barry Harte, her husband, is facing raising five children alone, three of which aren't even his. It sounds as though he'll be able to bring the newcomer home in two weeks' time, who apparently shares the same unknown father as the next youngest. His workplace has granted him a year's paternity leave - plus both his older daughter from a previous marriage and his widowed mother are going to move in with them and help out, neither of whom Sandra allowed to see the children before.
In a strange way, it sounds like things are turning out for the better in their lives. Although it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable about it.
An ambulance passing gives me a fleeting reminder of Terry Dyer and Adam Grayson, and my brain confuses the two in its current information-overload backlog-processing state, as I notice I've just wondered if Adam is all right. Of course he's all right, I tell myself, pulling my senses back together. He's a machine. Adam never considered anyone else in his life as having priority. His life was a series of lists of things to do before there was any such thing as a To Do List. Even with a list of girlfriends. They weren't emotional commitments to him - just things to tick off the list.
Almost immediately I feel a current lack of Connor around for reassurance, and look at my watch for the first of several dozen times that evening. I know I'm acting like a needy dependent waiting to see him, but I'm used to the opposite, with nothing to look forward to. So maybe the anticipation is something I should appreciate, that defines whatever's wrong with my own mind at times, as being different from people like Adam.
It feels like hours before the last stragglers finally leave, they of course being Sadie and the Gucci Cheerleaders. Trying to drag the tuxedo-clad promotion boys with them, and whispering to Hurst and Salem, after any rumours of a lock-in that the door staff could get them into. Salem merely says that Blonde's is still open and they could go and try their luck there. The D.J. overtakes them on his way out of the front doors, whirling by with his cases, and stops to give me a kiss on the cheek with a conspiratorial wink and a muttered 'See you in Vegas, baby!' before dashing out to his taxi. I picture him going straight from work to the airport, to amuse myself.
My phone rings as I do the final toilet checks, and I answer it to find it's Connor.
"I'm just on my way down, you nearly done?" he asks.
"Yeah, just about."
"I'll be out front in a couple of minutes."
We've checked out our radios and venue logo hi-vis ten minutes later. Now we're all hanging out in the lobby restlessly, in our habitual black wool crombie overcoats, milling around like a murder of crows under the pretence of having a staff meeting. Because Sadie and her friends are still on the steps outside the locked glass doors waiting for approachable men to emerge, who they can then follow to their imaginary staff lock-in party.
I'm standing just inside the tinted glass. When Connor's
After Diane and Melanie finally disembark with the parting exit lines of 'Staff drinks later at our place!' repeated until they're out of earshot, which is across the road at Blonde's where they continue the routine, Salem and Hurst resume their ordinary small-talk. Consisting of cars and Easter Eggs, and whether or not to enter a team in a charity Tug O' War, which they think they'd lose against Trebor and Axwel's Team Poleaxe .
Then Salem mentions he saw Sandra Harte's husband today.
I pay more attention, as I overhear them discuss how she'd died Of complications in an emergency C-section . After 'collapsing' following work the other night - having taken drugs with Igor and 'a new guy' who's now missing. Barry Harte, her husband, is facing raising five children alone, three of which aren't even his. It sounds as though he'll be able to bring the newcomer home in two weeks' time, who apparently shares the same unknown father as the next youngest. His workplace has granted him a year's paternity leave - plus both his older daughter from a previous marriage and his widowed mother are going to move in with them and help out, neither of whom Sandra allowed to see the children before.
In a strange way, it sounds like things are turning out for the better in their lives. Although it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable about it.
An ambulance passing gives me a fleeting reminder of Terry Dyer and Adam Grayson, and my brain confuses the two in its current information-overload backlog-processing state, as I notice I've just wondered if Adam is all right. Of course he's all right, I tell myself, pulling my senses back together. He's a machine. Adam never considered anyone else in his life as having priority. His life was a series of lists of things to do before there was any such thing as a To Do List. Even with a list of girlfriends. They weren't emotional commitments to him - just things to tick off the list.
Almost immediately I feel a current lack of Connor around for reassurance, and look at my watch for the first of several dozen times that evening. I know I'm acting like a needy dependent waiting to see him, but I'm used to the opposite, with nothing to look forward to. So maybe the anticipation is something I should appreciate, that defines whatever's wrong with my own mind at times, as being different from people like Adam.
It feels like hours before the last stragglers finally leave, they of course being Sadie and the Gucci Cheerleaders. Trying to drag the tuxedo-clad promotion boys with them, and whispering to Hurst and Salem, after any rumours of a lock-in that the door staff could get them into. Salem merely says that Blonde's is still open and they could go and try their luck there. The D.J. overtakes them on his way out of the front doors, whirling by with his cases, and stops to give me a kiss on the cheek with a conspiratorial wink and a muttered 'See you in Vegas, baby!' before dashing out to his taxi. I picture him going straight from work to the airport, to amuse myself.
My phone rings as I do the final toilet checks, and I answer it to find it's Connor.
"I'm just on my way down, you nearly done?" he asks.
"Yeah, just about."
"I'll be out front in a couple of minutes."
We've checked out our radios and venue logo hi-vis ten minutes later. Now we're all hanging out in the lobby restlessly, in our habitual black wool crombie overcoats, milling around like a murder of crows under the pretence of having a staff meeting. Because Sadie and her friends are still on the steps outside the locked glass doors waiting for approachable men to emerge, who they can then follow to their imaginary staff lock-in party.
I'm standing just inside the tinted glass. When Connor's
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