Angels Read Online Free Page A

drunk. Messy drunk, so bad that on one of my many trips back from the loo, when I met Stuart Keating, I ended up lunging at him. Stuart worked in another department, and he'd always been nice to me; I can still see the surprise on his face as I zoomed in on him. Then we were kissing, but only for a second before I had to disengage. What was I doing ?
    “Sorry,” I exclaimed and, appalled at myself, I returned to the party, picked up my jacket, and left without saying good-bye to anyone. From across the room Frances watched me, her expression unreadable.
    When I got home, Garv was waiting, bolt upright, like an anxious parent. He tried to talk to me, but I mumbled drunkenly that I had to go to sleep and lurched to the bedroom, Garv in hot pursuit. I stripped off my clothes, letting them lie where they fell, and climbed between the sheets. “Drink some water,” Garv said, and I heard the clatter as he put a glass on my bedside table. I ignored it and him, but just before I sank into the merciful oblivion of sleep I remembered I hadn't taken out my contact lenses. Too tired, drunk, whatever to get on my feet and go to the bathroom, I slipped them out and plopped them into the handily placed glass of water, promising myself I'd rinse them good and proper in the solution in the morning. But when morning came my tongue was Super Glued with dryness to the roof of my mouth. Automatically I stretched out my hand for the glass of water and gulped it in one go. Only when the last of it was racing down my throat did I remember. My contact lenses. I'd ANGELS / 21
    drunk my contact lenses. Again . The third time in six weeks. They were only monthly disposables, but all the same.
    And the following day, as luck would have it, I lost my job.
    I wasn't exactly sacked. But my contract wasn't renewed. It was a six-month contract and since I'd moved back to Dublin from Chicago it had already been renewed five times. I had thought renewing it again was a mere formality.
    “When you first started here,” Frances said, “we were impressed with you. You were hardworking and reliable.”
    I nodded. That sounded like me all right. On a good day.
    “But in the last six months or so, the standard of your work and commitment has dropped dramatically, you're often late, you leave early…”
    I listened, almost in surprise. Of course I'd known that in my head , stuff hadn't been great, but I'd thought I'd done a pretty good job of presenting a convincing business-as-usual facade to the outside world.
    “…you've clearly been distracted and you've taken ten days' sick leave.”
    I could have leaped to my feet and given a speech telling Frances why I'd been distracted, where I'd been on my ten days' sick leave.
    But I remained sitting like a plank, my face closed. It was no one's business but mine. Yet, paradoxically, I felt she should have seen that something had been very wrong over the past months and made allowances for me. I've had more rational moments, I suspect.
    “We want people who care about their work—”
    I opened my mouth to protest that I did care, until I realized, with a shock, that actually, I didn't give a damn.
    “—and it's with regret that I have to tell you that we are unable to renew your contract with us.”
    It had been years since I'd been fired. In fact, the last time had been when I was seventeen and baby-sitting for a neighbor. I'd smuggled my boyfriend in when the children had gone to bed because a house with no adults in it had been too much to resist. But the horrible son—appropriately enough 22 / MARIAN KEYES
    called Damian—spotted me smuggling my boyfriend back out. I'll never forget it: Damian was standing at the top of the stairs and his expression was deeply malevolent. I was never asked to babysit there again. (To be honest, it was nearly a relief.) But since then I had never been fired. I was a pretty good worker—not so good that I was ever in danger of winning the employee-of-the-month award—but