Leftovers Read Free Page B

…
to the next level
…’
    She stares at me as if she’s trying to decide between two identical shades of white paint, neither of which are satisfactory. ‘I need you to exceed my expectations. I need to see a step-change in your performance. I need to be convinced you’re ready for this. You are ready for this, aren’t you, Susannah? I need to see that you’re hungry. Are you hungry?’
    ‘Oh I’m hungry, Berenice. I’m hungry.’
    I’m always hungry.
    I’m the hungriest.
    ‘Can we go and eat?’ I say to Rebecca as I hover over her desk at the end of the day. Rebecca and Sam are the only two reasons I’ve stayed borderline sane at NMN and arguably that border has been crossed a few times of late.
    ‘Not bothered about food but I could murder a drink,’ she says, pointing to a presentation on her screen titled ‘Shlitzy Alcopops – Nurturing The Brand Soul’.
    ‘How can you always drink on an empty stomach?’ I say.
    ‘I’m a professional,’ she says, shutting down her computer and grabbing her coat. ‘Where’s good on a miserable rainy Tuesday?’
    ‘Hawksmoor? Killer cocktails and their burgers are meant to be amazing.’
    ‘First round’s on me,’ she says. ‘Let’s make it a double.’
    Is Rebecca a Leftover then? She’s thirty-three, single, does a bullshit job, drinks a little too much. She happens to be gorgeous: she has huge brown eyes with naturally long, thick curly lashes. She never needs to wear mascara, but when she does, people just stare at her as if her eyes can’t be real. Plus she’s curvy, and leggy! Honestly, if I didn’t know her I’d hate her. But I do know her. So I know that along with being naturally beautiful, she’s also funny, kind and loyal.
    What I don’t know is why she’s single. Other than that she’s playing a numbers game and hasn’t found that mythical ‘one’ yet. And with Rebecca it definitely isn’t for lack of trying. Well, who knows what’s around the corner?
    ‘Best Piña Coladas in London, hands down,’ I say, fishing a yellow cocktail umbrella from my glass and sticking it behind my right ear. Perfect! A little friend for the pink one behind my left.
    ‘Try this,’ she says, holding out her Martini glass. ‘It says on the menu that it’s
an anti-fogmatic
, and that in the 1820s, doctors recommended it be drunk before eleven in the morning.’
    ‘And you’d be drunk before eleven in the morning, Berenice would love that … Did the barman say he uses coconut sorbet in this?’
    ‘I wasn’t listening to him, I was just looking at him.’ She grins. ‘Did you see his body?’
    ‘Becka, he’s like twenty-two years old.’
    She shrugs. Rebecca has no qualms about letching over younger men. I don’t do it for fear of looking like a cougar, but Rebecca’s not yet old enough to be branded a cougar. Besides, the barman couldn’t keep his eyes off her either.
    ‘Let’s do Piña Coladas every Tuesday,’ I say, taking another swig of my drink. ‘This is almost like being on holiday!’
    ‘This place is great,’ she says, taking in the dark wood panelled walls and old-fashioned table lamps.
    ‘Isn’t it? We’re two minutes from all that tourist crap in Covent Garden but we could be in a New York speakeasy. Where’s my burger, how long since I ordered?’
    ‘Never mind the burger, I think we’ve got company,’ she says, smiling her perfect Juicy Tubed smile at someone behind me.
    Bingo. It never takes more than a couple of drinks in any social setting before Rebecca has attracted male attention. She’s the perfect wing-man. (Wing-woman sounds weird, like a low-budget super hero; Wing-Woman! She has wings and she’s learning to fly!) ‘Pulling partner’ isn’t right either technically, as Rebecca invariably pulls and I don’t. But that’s because she always gets the hot guy and leaves me with the sidekick. Fair enough, I guess I’m the sidekick too. Still, even the leftovers don’t want other leftovers.
    And here