It’s Monday evening, and we’ve moved our midweek pub session forward. It was called for after my nasty little surprise today.
The girls are talking about the mice situation in the flat while I furiously type replies on my work phone.
Julie watches me. “What drama is it this time? Someone’s lost a cable?”
I glare at her. “It’s the Seattle office. They have lost connectivity to the London server that hosts the invoicing application.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please stop talking. I’m bored.”
Cat pats my hand. “You have to tune out, Charl. It can wait until tomorrow. There will always be some problem you need to solve.” She smiles sympathetically. “You just need to try to relax and not think about it outside of work hours.”
I give her a strained smile. “It’s out of work hours in London. But in Seattle, it’s morning time.
Then in another few hours, India will be waking up, then Singapore.”
“You can’t be on call all the time.”
“Besides,” I sigh, taking a sip of wine. “Danny Walker already has it in his head that I’m useless at my job. I don’t want to give him an excuse.”
My phone beeps as messages come in thick and fast.
I type my response to the Seattle IT support team and hit Send.
“Jeez,” Julie’s eyes widened. “You’re a freak. You can actually type without looking at the screen”.
I smile. “Don’t you have to type in your work Julie? Or do you just bully your paralegals into doing everything?”
“Of course,” She replies deadpan. “I talk. They type.” “Why do you have so many issues, Charlie?” Cat asks.
I sigh. “Mike thinks we have a big leaver for the company that we pull up and down to get
‘online’.” I make air quotation marks for emphasis. “He won’t let me move us to a cloud solution.”
Cat nods. “The cloud.” I’ve drawn Cat the same diagrams as I’ve drawn Mike. Even her knowledge surpasses his now.
She nods sympathetically, and I decide it’s time to change the subject. Sometimes I wished my friends understood the pressure on me. While Cat and Julie meet for Legs, Bums and Tums twice a week, I’m busy working round the clock trying to support dodgy systems.
I could tell you the time in any time zone at any given point of the day. Cat had a running joke about my ‘clock watching’. I managed all the applications, and all applications had to be running and available twenty-four hours a day.
“Why are you bothering?” Julie questions. “It sounds like you’ll be out the door soon if Danny
Walker despises you so badly.”
“Maybe it’s time to move on, Charlie?” Cat asks.
She was right. Why was I bothering?
My belly lets out a rumble, and Julie looks at me in disgust. “Control yourself, woman, will you?”
“I haven’t eaten lunch today,” I complained. “Where’s Suze?”
Suze was supposed to meet us thirty minutes ago, and the waitress was getting twitchy as we only had the table for another forty-five. If we have to go somewhere else for food, I’m going to throttle her. This is very unlike her to be late for a dinner date; eating is her self-proclaimed favourite and most accomplished past-time.
“She must have fallen under a bus.” Julie looks at her watch in disbelief. “Unbelievable.”
“Hey, girls,” Suze rushes over to the table, flustered, flapping leaflets in her hands. “Guess where I have been?” We wait.
“This!” She lays the leaflet of a zen like model bending backward on a mat down in front of us.
“Bikram yoga,” Cat reads aloud. “That’s the yoga you do in 30 degrees?”
“40, actually.” Suze corrects. “It’s amazing! The difference it can make, honestly, girls, this is it for me.”
“So you have just come from it?” We looked at her in surprise. Suze had signed up for more weight loss schemes than I could remember, but she rarely managed to start them, never mind follow through the course.
“Uh-huh,” She nods. “I’ve bought a 20-day introductory pass. I thought I’d be cautious, I didn’t want to purchase the yearly one just yet, but I reckon I’ll be going to this at least three times a week.” “Let’s not get too carried away,” I jumped in. I’ve been here before when Suze was trying to get a refund for her zen-do kickboxing outfit. “So you actually enjoyed this yoga then?”
She laughs. “Oh, tonight was just the introductory chat and filling in the signing-up form. I didn’t actually do the class!” She waves her hand dismissively. “But I know it is the sport for me. I tried yoga before, and I liked it. The only thing I didn’t like was all the stretching and lunges. But in 40 degrees heat, you bend a lot easier.”
“But you look really…” Cat tries to search for a word nicer than sweaty. ” flushed?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Even the reception was boiling! I probably lost weight just sitting in the reception area.”
“40 degrees is pretty hot” I frown. “I don’t think this class is meant to be relaxing, Suze. If just sitting in reception has made you flushed, god knows what it is like in the actual yoga studio.” “I don’t think I’ve ever stood in 40 degrees heat, never mind exercised in it,” Cat muses.
“Well, now is your chance,” Suze replies happily. “Because I have signed you both up with me.” My mouth drops.
“No, no, no, we are not doing this again.” I shake my head firmly, ready for a fight.
“What about our ‘try everything once’ pact?” She pouts.
“It sounds like my idea of a nightmare. That’s the last place I want to be. I already pay to stand and sweat on the tube. I don’t need to pay anymore. And I’m too busy with work,” I add quickly as my getout clause.