Geli Voyante's Hot or Not (8 page)

‘I
’d better dash. I’ll call you tonight though, sweetie.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I say smugly. ‘Theo’s taking me out for dinner.’

Ha! Finally, I get in the Theo dinner mention. Her face pales in shock – Tiggy has had the biggest crush on Theo
forever.
It’s even worse than mine, but he doesn’t even know she exists. Tee hee!

‘Since when?’
she demands.

‘Since forever.
It’s not only you who can keep your boyfriend a secret, Tiggy,’ I say pointedly.

She
gog-eyes at me, but she has Calvin now. Any Theo crush has to be relinquished by her, especially considering he’s now mine. Sort of. Hopefully.

‘
Toodles,’ I say as she fails to formulate a response.

I’ve never seen her look so
… shocked? Angry? Disappointed? I just can’t tell, but she doesn’t seem right. Not that it’s my problem; Tiggy Boodles’ welfare is not my concern. She can just stand there and stare all she wants. Hopefully she will miss her appraisal and do us all a favour by leaving the
New News
family once and for all. 

With that satisfying thought, I
finally
manage to make it out of the building and can head towards the Tube. That encounter was worth it just to see the look on her face regarding Theo. I definitely came out the winner in that conversation. In fact, I think I always come out as the winner when it comes to her. How could I not? She’s
Tiggy Boodles
. Yuck.

‘Candygurl PR!’

‘Hey, G!’

‘Geli, thank goodness. I need to speak to you about your lunch date with Theo.’

‘Sorr
y, Glinds. Theo was stood there.’

‘Yes, well,
Theo or no Theo, I need to fill you in on your Hillary-Obama query before you head out to lunch with him. Wait, it’s twenty past one. Why aren’t you at lunch with Theo?’ She sounds suspicious; I can tell she thinks I’ve bottled it.

‘He changed it to dinner,’ I triumphantly announce.

At that I have to move my iPhone away from my ear because of the piercing scream being transmitted down it. Even held at arm’s length, the scream is distinctly audible. A man walking his Doberman has to use all his strength to stop it from howling at the hidden moon; a nanny has to remove a screaming infant from its pram to comfort it – Glinda’s scream is
that
powerful.

I can still hear her happy squeals when I enter the Candygurl
PR offices a few minutes later. She hasn’t even realised she’s been squealing down the phone to dead air.

Glinda is a ridiculously noisy and over-excitable person
, in case you couldn’t tell. I blame the fact on her nanny who was forced to keep her quiet and not let her display any emotion as a child because it infuriated her father when he came home from a slavishly long day at the office to have to deal with an excited, loud child; that would be an excited, loud child who only became that way because her absent father had finally returned home. Of course Mr Rosenberg didn’t see it that way and Glinda soon learnt to be quiet when the nannies started disappearing and the replacements became steadily worse.

Her childhood
sounds so repressed, but she certainly became loud and excited upon turning eighteen and leaving home... Cringe-worthily, this includes when she’s with Jeeves but thankfully they stay at his most of the time. There’s sharing everything with your best friend, then there’s sharing
everything
.

‘Calm down, Glind
a,’ I say as I enter her office.

Luckily for Glinda
, it’s lunchtime. The majority of the senior members of staff – the ones with the power to make or break Glinda’s career – are out for lunch; an irony considering none of them eat lunch and seem to just push it around their plates. In the newspaper world, we
love
lunch.
Proper
lunch, that is.

Fortunately, t
here’s only Margot in the office and she has her headphones in, as she browses trees. From what Glinda has mentioned, Margot always uses this eco-site to give trees and wild flowers as presents. Different, I suppose. Margot would suit doing Greenpeace’s PR rather than working in fashion PR, but her mother’s cousin owns the company. Margot isn’t too fussed if she doesn’t whiz up the career ladder as her job is considered a stop gap until Margot marries her rather mismatched fiancé – he drives a gas-guzzler and has a big enough carbon footprint to ensure Margot can spend her life job-free trying to neutralise his emissions. In a very strange way, they are perfect for each other.

Glinda
, by this point, has completed her yoga-like breathing exercises which serve to stabilise her inner core and expel all her giddiness in doing so.

‘Calm?’

I tried her breathing techniques once but the heavy influx of air in my chest only seemed to make me even crazier; I think the rush of oxygen made me high. I’m more used to shallow breathing than anything more deep and meaningful. Believe me, the comparison to the state of my love life is not lost on me.

‘I’m calm.
’

Irritatingly she has this serene glow to her from
this; she looks like she has being professionally airbrushed. It’s so unfair. I went red when I attempted this; I concluded a cigarette is much more satisfactory to calm me down. No, I do not
need
a cigarette. On the other hand, I do
want
one, and when have I pandered to sticking to needs only? Never.

‘Lunch?’
Food will distract me from the seductive lure of nicotine – seductive because cigarettes put me in the mood. ‘Saying that,’ I continue as thoughts of Theo and tonight dangerously dance in my head, ‘I lost all my appetite when I bumped into Tiggy and she shoved her ring down my throat.’

Glinda pulls the appropriate pained look of sympathy. ‘Tasteful?’

‘Stunning,’ I confirm. ‘Bitch,’ I add, because when do I ever flatter Tiggy?

‘Well
, clearly this Calvin person is a complete nut-job if he deemed Tiggy marriage-material,’ she reassures me. ‘Besides, Theo!’

I am glad we are back on the subject of Theo because I recall the drunken-lust pull I felt
towards Calvin. Worryingly. I must admit though, I am very intrigued to meet the man in the flesh. Knowing Tiggy though, it will probably take her three years to organise her wedding by which time Calvin will have regained his senses. Tiggy Boodles will be single and miserable like she deserves to be; I will be happily married to Theo like I deserve to be.

I smile at Glinda’s squeal of Theo.
She truly is the best friend a girl can have; given my best friend before her was Tiggy, it’s not hard to see why.  

‘I do have Theo,’ I confirm, even though my apprehensions return at the thought of dinner tonight and what it could entail. ‘Plus,’ I continue
, ‘I have the afternoon off. Told Susie about Tiggy,’ I explain. ‘Which was fabulous because if I hadn’t remembered that then she would have hauled my ass up to the disciplinary board for switching my phone off.’

‘T
oday is your lucky day, Geli Voyante!’

‘I know, a
nd I thought my life was over when I saw Tiggy’s engagement. Oh, and she wants us to be bridesmaids by the way.’ I roll my eyes, remembering Tiggy’s very blunt attempt to try and infiltrate lunch. 

‘M
e?’ Glinda groans.

‘That’s what she said.
To be honest though, I think it was a ruse so she could tag along to lunch. No doubt she was serious enough to make me one.’ I shudder. ‘Probably Claire, too. Well, it’s not as if she has any real friends of her own,’ I meanly, but truthfully, add.

‘What’s Claire said?’ Glinda asks me absent-mindedly picking up her coffee cup and twirling it around, a sure sign she is hungry.
It’s one of the Disney princesses – she’s such a romantic at heart. If Glinda and Jeeves ever get married, it’ll be a big white affair with horse-drawn carriages and a castle involved, no doubt.

‘Not spoken to her yet. W
ith the Theo drama and everything, it’s been quite a busy morning. You will never believe this though, Glinds. Apparently Theo has liked me
ever since
I started at
New News
.’

‘No
?’

‘Yes!’ I gleefully declare, at which point Margot finally looks
up to glare at the two of us. That took her long enough; she’s usually not that restrained. Ah, what a delightful brown offering she’s wearing today. Looks more like a sack than a dress but it somehow suits her. If it wasn’t for nepotism, there’s no way she would have landed a fashion PR role.

She removes her headphones. ‘Go for lunch, Glinda.
’

‘Hello
, Margot,’ I say politely.

‘Angelica,’ she curtly replies before bobbing her headphones back in.

‘I can’t leave yet,’ Glinda whispers at me.

A
t that moment though, Philamena – Margot’s mum’s cousin – arrives back. Excellent. She’s one of the Candygurl owners.

‘Geli!’

I leap up off the desk to air-five her, which may sound a little odd to be air-fiving the forty-six-year-old owner of Candygurl PR, but Philamena is an avid fan of my column and religiously follows my trends. Naturally she has to air-five me.

‘Philly!
’ I trill.

Philly’s food nickname is Philadelphia after that spread thing because that’s all she ever eats according to Glinda. Philly suits both her (secret) food nickname and isn’t as stiff as Philamena, a win-win
name. Glinda’s nickname is gobstopper, in case you’re wondering – not that I would dare tell her – because sometimes I wish I could use one to shush her when she’s OTT-excitable. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to bits, but we all have those moments when even our favourite people begin to grate on us.

‘How’s tricks
, lovely?’

I see the glint in
Philly’s eye – she wants me to include one of her clients in my column.

‘Oh, could be better.
’ I pull a face, a plan formulating in my brain. She’s had her blonde highlighted hair trimmed recently because it’s much shorter than I recall. Looks good on her.

‘Darling! Do tell! Maybe I can help?’

‘Maybe,’ I shrug.

Glinda is shooting me looks. Even Margot has removed her headphones again, but she has an in-built scam radar – she knows I’m about to extract something from Philamena
. I will, for a column plug. I’ll extract Glinda from the offices for the rest of the day.

‘Oh, Philly
,’ I pout – a good pout goes a long, long way. ‘I have a huge date tonight and need to go shopping. He could be my one,’ I add. That should swing it; Philly is obsessed with romance novels.

‘You poor lamb
,’ she clucks at me, knowing full well where I’m going with this. ‘Who’s the lucky gentleman?’

‘Theo
,’ I sigh dramatically.

‘Yo
ur dishy political columnist?’ she gasps. See, Theo is a legend.

‘The very same.’

‘Get over to Raphael Von
Coutter’s on Ledbury Road, darling. Tell him I sent you. He’ll give you 30% off. Gorgeous clothes,’ she adds.

‘I suppose I
could
pop over.’ I premeditate this out loud like I’m weighing up this
huge
decision. ‘But it doesn’t solve the fact I have absolutely
no one
to go with me. You know I
hate
shopping all by myself. Isn’t that right, Glinda?’

‘It’s true,’ Glinda corroborates, realising where I’m going with this.

‘That’s very sad, dear,’ Philamena cautiously replies.

I know she’s waiting for my assurance of a Hot mention before she will release Glinda for the afternoon. Margot snorts in disbelief at thi
s and puts her headphones back in whilst shaking her head at the same time. Impressive to someone like me who lacks co-ordination.

‘It is,’ I agree. ‘You
know Philly, it’s all thanks to Glinda here that Steinunn got such approval off me in last week’s column. She’s got a fabulous eye in dressing me, you see.’ I wink at her.

‘Really?’ I can see the cogs lining up beautifully.

‘
Really
.’

‘Well
, in that case, I think you’d better take the rest of the day off Glinda, and see if you can help Geli find something suitable at
Raphael’s
this afternoon.’

‘Raphael Von
Coutter’s on Ledbury Road,’ Glinda repeats, failing spectacularly to hide her smile. ‘Got it.’

‘Maybe you could e-mail me some background info
?’ I ask. ‘I just
love
reading about designers.’