pretty sweet.’
‘Anyway, then I stood up – because I wanted to take a picture of it from above, you know? And Harry jumped up too and was all, what’s wrong, where are you going? I said, nowhere! I just want to take a shot of this for my Instagram, it’s so nice … and we sat back down and I was busy trying different filters on for size and not really paying attention. So I uploaded the picture and, you know, everything’s still pretty normal …’
‘Yes, and?’ Bea prompted, impatiently.
‘Go on!’ Sarah insisted.
‘Yeah, then what happened?’ urged the excited waitress, champagne bottle still in hand.
‘Well, Harry’s just staring at me, properly staring. And then he asks me why I’m not eating, so I tell him I need a break because I’m still pretty full from all that spaghetti I just nailed. And he starts telling me to eat one of the profiteroles at least – you love profiteroles, he keeps saying – so, basically, just to shut him up, I forked a profiterole.’
‘And?’ Daisy grinned. ‘And?’
‘And the fork goes – clink! And I look at what’s there, and it’s, well …’ Nora wiggled her left fingers and laughed. ‘Under the profiteroles. And I don’t even know when he did it, but I suddenly realise that Harry’s on the floor next to me, on one knee and everything, and he said – oh, a bunch of stuff! I can’t even remember, I was so shocked! But at the end of whatever he was saying he said – you know, the important bit – ‘So, will you marry me?’ – and I realised it was actually happening.’
‘And I, naturally, burst into horrendous ugly-crying. I couldn’t speak. I just got down on the floor next to him and hugged him and bawled. I got mascara all over his shirt collar! We’ve had to take it into the dry-cleaners, it’s a state. Anyway. I eventually managed to actually say the word ‘yes’ and all the waiting staff were cheering and clapping, and all the other people in the restaurant and randomers started sending over champagne. It was amazing.’
Nora admired her engagement ring again; she couldn’t help it. She was just so very, very, wonderfully happy. She was getting to marry one of her best friends, after all.
‘And so here we all are,’ finished Bea, holding her glass of champagne aloft. ‘So let’s toast.’
The others obediently lifted their flutes, the pale liquid shining and glittering in the light from the candles, and even the waitress motioned cheerfully with the rest of the bottle. Nora glanced around at the faces ringed around her at the table and pushed aside her slight misgivings; she didn’t want that weight on her heart, not tonight. They might not all get on between themselves, but she knew they all loved her like she loved them and she wouldn’t – couldn’t – be without a single one of them by her side for this. Her best friends. Her bridesmaids.
Bea blew Nora a kiss across the table. Cleo laughed and cheered. ‘To the Dervan-Clarke wedding!’
Cleo jabbed the magic button the millisecond the mug was in place and ready and waiting to receive coffee; after three years at this place she’d perfected the timing.
Gray – Oakland Academy’s favourite history teacher – was also ready and waiting, holding out the plastic carton of communal milk, slipping his own mug in to replace Cleo’s on the machine’s drip-tray as soon as he could. It was pretty indecent the way they fled their classrooms at the break-bell – faster than some of the kids – but twenty minutes was a very short time to get sufficiently caffeinated of a mid-morning.
Caffeine was required even more fiercely than normal this morning: firstly, it was a Monday, and secondly, Cleo still felt vaguely hung over from going out on Saturday night. She hadn’t even been feeling it, but by merit of Cole being both a best friend and turning thirty, she hadn’t exactly been able to take a rain check. She needed to have a word with herself about automatically going for the house wine; it was always the sulphates in cheap plonk that got her like this (she also needed to have a word with herself about going out for a nice, grown-up dinner and ending up barefoot on a sticky dance floor come two o’ clock in the morning).
In companionable silence Gray and Cleo made their way over to their spot. It wasn’t much to speak of: two old chairs that had long ago been removed from a classroom for being unstable, and next to the equally ancient staff room printer, which gave off an alarming amount of both heat and noise. But in the grand scheme of things they were both relatively new to Oakland Academy and you had to put in at least a good decade there to get one of the chairs that still had padding.
‘Good weekend?’ Cleo asked without preamble, taking a determined gulp of too-hot coffee, using her free hand to check her Facebook on her phone as she spoke.
‘Can’t complain. Few pints. Domino’s takeaway. Liverpool won their game.’ Gray checked his phone for notifications too; they had the speedy break routine down to a fine art. ‘How was Saturday night?’
‘I don’t remember the last few hours of it,’ Cleo admitted ruefully. ‘Although there are some pictures on my friend’s phone of me joining in with what I can only assume was the Macarena right towards the end.’
‘A success, then,’ Gray grinned. ‘I wish I’d seen that. I love Drunk Cleo.’
Cleo buried her blushing face in her mug. This was Gray’s first year teaching at Oakland and she’d managed to keep her cool for precisely one term before getting plastered, arguing loudly with her head of department about politics and up-chucking amuse-bouches all over the new guy ‘Graham’s’ novelty Christmas jumper. It wasn’t all bad, though – since then they’d been best work buddies. Everyone needed one.
‘Well the birthday boy had a good time, so definitely a success.’ She held out her phone to Gray, her gallery open, so he could scroll through some of the pictures she’d taken Saturday night.
‘Nice dress.’ Gray gave easy compliments; Cleo almost didn’t notice them any more. ‘Any tension with the Queen Bea?’ he asked. Cleo winced; she sometimes wished she didn’t tell him quite so much about her life. (At least not so much that he had nicknames for her friends.)
‘The Queen was on her best behaviour,’ Cleo retorted primly. ‘She hasn’t made a scene in years,’ she admitted, grudgingly.
‘Hmmm,’ was all Gray offered, carefully non-committal (she obviously bitched about Bea a little too often).
Cleo sighed. Her coffee – much like her break – was half gone. ‘What have you got now?’
‘Cuban Missile Crisis with the Year Elevens,’ Gray answered. ‘I’m sure they’re all already queuing at the door in fevered anticipation. You?’
‘Factorising expressions with the Nines.’
Gray gulped down the remnants of his drink and grinned. ‘I wonder which of our lessons these kids will actually need most in real life.’ It was his usual tease. ‘Cos, you know, most phones have a calculator on them now, love.’
‘Yeah, and the Wikipedia app too,’ Cleo shot back, downing her own coffee. ‘Your turn to do the washing up, love.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Gray gathered up the mugs. ‘Nag, nag, nag.’
‘See you at lunch?’ Cleo asked, as she swung her satchel up onto her shoulder and Gray moved across to the wonky kitchenette to swill their mugs out in the sink.
‘I’ll be here.’ Gray grinned at her over his shoulder.
* * *
Any working week that started with you pissing on your own hand and then coming in to a hundred and eighty-five ‘‘urgent’ unread emails should really be considered a write-off from the get-go, thought Sarah. She