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laughter
whenever he came into the Call Center to speak to me, but nobody
was laughing now.
    “Party’s over
guys,” I said, standing up and preparing to leave the room. “Send
me all the details on Manchester, and tell your Facebook friends
it’s time to get back to work.”
    Adrian and
Stephen looked stunned as I opened the door. “One more thing,” I
said, looking back over my shoulder. “Add Parker to the list. It’s
time she got out of the office and put those inter-personal skills
of hers to use. I’ll let you know who else I want.”

Chapter 6
    Indian food was
never my thing, but I was a new me, trying out new things, so I dug
in to my lamb curry as if it were a favorite dish. It was eleven in
the evening and we’d checked into the Travel Lodge after dropping
off all the equipment we’d need for tomorrow’s user-group. Hotels
didn’t get any cheaper than the Travel Lodge, and there was no
prospect of the company springing for rooms at the four star hotel
where we’d booked the following day’s event.
    “Cheap beer,
cheap food, and cheap, shitty rooms,” Parker said. “Sounds like a
typical Saturday night on the town to me.” My Saturday nights were
usually spent at home, alone, watching re-runs of Casualty or ER , so I couldn’t really comment.
    Chloe, Keira,
Parker and I were representing the Call Center, and Malcolm was
from IT. He was supposed to answer any technical questions that us
Call Center girls couldn’t handle, but he had the inter-personal
skills of a donkey, so I didn’t expect much help from that quarter.
No, it was a girls show tomorrow — no real
men allowed.
    The drive up
from London had been an eye opener. I’d never socialized with any
of the girls before, and they turned out to be more fun than I
thought they’d be. Keira drove her husband’s X5, which had more
than enough room for all five of us, as well as the boxes and
supplies. We’d talked about men — a first for
me — and I’d told them that I’d dumped
Phillip only he didn’t know it yet.
    “Was he a crap
shag or what?” Parker said, genuinely interested.
    “Well, let’s
just say he didn’t put a lot of effort into it,” I answered, being
as vague as possible. How was I to know if he was a crap shag or
not? It’s not as if I had anything to compare him to — yet. Maybe Phillip’s quicky up against the door was a
screw of legendary proportions, something to write home to Mother
about, or maybe it was the tawdry fumblings of a forty three year
old virgin. Only time would tell — but not
too much time, I hoped.
    “You’re well
shot of him,” she said. “He was old, and it’s not as if he had any
money to sweeten the pot.”
    Phillip had
accompanied me to the Christmas party a few weeks earlier, and to
say he hadn’t fitted in would be an understatement. We’d left
early, after the dancing began.
    “So I’m
available,” I said, putting myself forward in a way I never would
have dreamed of only last week. “If you see any hot guys, send them
my way.”
    “If you’re
serious, leave it me.” she said. “I’ll find you a stud who can make
you forget all about the boring Mr. Chips.”
    The rest of
the drive had been filled with stories of dumped boyfriends and
orally challenged husbands. Poor Malcolm had his head buried in a
book for the entire journey, and probably wished he could open the
car door and fall out. I sympathized, but not enough to change the
tenor of the conversation — I’d no idea I was
missing out on so much. Parker had given one of the sales guys a
blow job in the photocopy room, in the middle of the day while
everyone was working in the office only feet away, and Chloe was a
lesbian who went on the pull every Friday and Saturday night to all
sorts of gay bars around London.
    It was nine
thirty in the evening when we reached Manchester, and it took us a
good hour to find the hotel, drop off the boxes for the next day,
and then track down our cheap Travel Lodge. The only