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morning-after pill today, I think, as I leave the bathroom to find something not purple to wear.

 
    ‘Isn’t that what you wore to my hookers and pimps party?’ Friendly Wendy asks as soon as she sees me. I can tell she’s surprised because bits of the bacon sandwich she’s eating have just easyjetted out of her mouth and landed on my exposed cleavage.
    ‘Oh, give us a bit of that,’ I pant, looking at her sandwich. She hands it over and I bite into it. Delicious. I love bacon sarnies. I’ll never be thin.
    ‘So is this the sexy Lady Boss look?’
    ‘Hardly. I was wearing my little flowery purple dress, but my dad had a bad feeling about purple.’
    ‘Again?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘But your dad used to love purple.’
    ‘Aren’t they the clothes you were wearing last night?’ I ask, clocking Wendy’s walk of shame. I’m sure she was wearing that outfit in the pub last night. Wendy makes a bad attempt at looking coy, but I’m having none of it.
    ‘Yeah, you’ve still got nacho goo down the top. That’ll be a nightmare to get off,’ I mutter, scratching at the crusty stain.
    ‘Oh, er, Grace, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
    ‘Urgh! Wend!’ I say, jumping back immediately. ‘So who was he then?’
    ‘Freddie’s friend Martin.’
    ‘As in Freddie, the man you fancy above all others? You slept with his mate?’
    ‘Do you think I won’t be in with a chance with Freddie now?’
    ‘I can’t say for sure, but I think it would be a wise move to stop sleeping with his friends.’
    ‘Hmm, but I feel it’s getting me closer to him.’
    Wendy finds it very difficult not to shag people, hence the nickname, Friendly Wendy.
    ‘I feel a bit sick,’ I tell her, looking around our office, which is currently crammed with all the men from Make A Move’s five branches – the men I’ll shortly be whipping into shape in my role as Lady Boss.
    In truth, I quite like this sick, nervous feeling, when you have to hold your breath and clench your bottom because your whole body is gurgling in anticipation. Does that make me weird? Probably.
    I used to experience it much more frequently than I do now. When I was young I sang in competitions. Not because I had pushy parents – far from it – the singing competitions were all my idea. Well, my idea via a girl called Ruth Roberts, who I went to primary school with. Now she
did
have
pushy parents. Her parents were so pushy she’d done a demo of ‘Walking On Air’ and sent it to record labels by the time she was nine.
    Ruth Roberts was my sometime best friend from the age of five to eight. I say ‘sometime’ because she was the sort of girl who would be arm in arm with you and calling you her best friend one day, then the next she’d ignore you and tell your classmates you had nits. Ruth Roberts sang in competitions and I liked singing, so I begged Mum and Dad to let me have a go, too. I did my first one at the age of eight and I loved it. Dad drove me to Milton Keynes and we sang along to Nina Simone in the car and had toasted teacakes dripping with butter in a Little Chef en route. I can’t tell you how exciting it was – my mother doesn’t allow butter or yeast-based products in the house.
    I sang ‘Castle On A Cloud’ on stage in front of four judges, numerous parents and hyperactive siblings – and I won. I didn’t expect to win. It was only when Ruth Roberts eyeballed me on the way to pick up her second-place rosette that I started to feel this gurgly sensation in my tummy for the first time. I beat thirty-two other girls, four of whom also sang ‘Castle On A Cloud’. We had a celebratory Burger King on the way home. Dad and I swore not to tell my mother and discussed what song I’d sing next time. It was one of my best days. Not
the
best day, but it’s absolutely up there. The only problem with the day was beating Ruth Roberts as she never spoke to me again.
    ‘There’s Lube.’ Wendy nudges me and I hide the bacon sandwich in my desk drawer