She walked briskly to the station as she was 5 minutes behind herself. On the way she avoided the gossipy neighbour she would no doubt make her even later.

‘Oh hello Rachel’ Rachel kept her head down and kept walking so that she could bypass the daily dissection of the single mother at no 39.

Even though she did this, she still missed the 8.19am train to Waterloo ‘Oh well’ she thought ‘at least the deputy manager will be in instead of Mr Sternum’.

Unfortunately for her this was only part of the truth. Mr Sternum, the manager was’nt in, but the

Area Manager decided to put in an appearance the one day Rachel was 20 minutes late.

‘We run a tight ship here Miss Travers. If you cannot be on time, don’t bother coming in. I’ll oversee it this time, but only this once. Once, I say.’

The morning went slow, despite being 20 minutes shorter than usual and @ 12.30 Rachel was ready and eager for lunch.

She went to the local sandwich bar with her workman, Gill, and gossiped over tuna and mayonnaise rolls and hot sugary tea (well; not sugar but sweetex)

‘And I said to him. No, I can’t forgive you this one indiscretion’ Gill said. ‘Get outta here and don’t look back’

Rachel felt sure Ian would not leave her for another woman.

She got so carried away listening to Gill’s lovelife; she spilt Mayo down her blouse.

The rest of the day Rachel fielded calls from narky salespeople and just about kept her cool up until 5.30pm when she clocked off –left her admin job in Waterloo and wet off to do’ freedom.’

On the way home a small girl sat behind her on the train and pulled her hair rather painfully from her ponytail. ‘Ooh’

‘Oh, I am sorry’ said the mother

‘That’s Ok’ Rachel said through gritted teeth.

It hit her when she was walking down Station Road. ‘I’ve left the oven on’ She ran home, luckily to find although this was the case there was nothing in there to burn, it was just monumentally hot.

Gill rang as soon as she was in the door ‘this is strange ‘ thought Rachel. She’d only seen her @ work less than an hour ago.

‘Rachel. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve found out some bad news

‘Don’t say there’s not to be another series of FRIENDS’

‘No, seriously. It’s about Ian. He’s seeing someone else.’

‘What do you…I mean …what do you…?’

‘Look. Don’t worry about how I know ,just accept it’s true’

‘Who is it? Who’s he seeing?’ Rachel did’nt necessarily want to know , but she’d seen dozens of films in which this scenario occurred and they always asked that question. She was on autopilot and did the same.

‘It’s someone you know’

‘Who? Diana, his secretary ? Georgia his mate?’

‘No one of those. It’s Mr Sternum, our manager.

She was right. He would never leave her for another woman.

WENDY GABRIEL
7/12/99