Don’t You Forget About Me(79)

‘Guess so.’

‘And how are they going to check it’s true anyway? Produce receipts from Bella Pasta, circa 2010?’

I laugh and chew my lip. ‘Actually, I do have one funny-awful date story. But it’s about Robin. Is that morally OK? Or wise?’

Lucas shrugs. ‘He talked about your …’ He stops and restarts, so he doesn’t have to say the words ‘sex life’, and a little voice in my head starts shouting, Is this significant? You definitely get prudish around your crush, rule of courtship. Shut up, voice. ‘… Talked about personal things in public. I don’t see it’s that wrong, after that. At worst it’s levelling up.’

I nod. ‘I suppose. And if he doesn’t get to hear of it …’

Lucas spots a regular, acknowledges him, swings a pint glass under the relevant pump.

‘Just leave his name out of it. If he’s not actually in the room, it’s quite a stretch it’ll ever reach him.’

Lucas is right. And if Robin said ‘How dare you!’ he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I mull over the date story, redrafting key passages in my head. Sadly, due to its specific and identifying nature, I’ll have to leave out the part where Robin suggested to my parents that if we were a portmanteaued celebrity couple we’d be ‘Robgina’ or ‘Hornee’.

A young man in a Superdry sweatshirt walks in. He looks vaguely familiar.

‘Georgina! I heard you were working here!’

It’s Callum, erstwhile That’s Amore! waiter and its junior sex pest: I didn’t recognise him out of the grubby off-white frilled shirt and without his giant pepper pot.

‘Hi, Callum,’ I say. ‘As you can see, you heard right.’

‘You said if I did what you wanted, you’d go on a date with me. Then you totally ghosted me! Cold.’

‘I didn’t say that. If you want to get technical, you were meant to get my coat and you didn’t, so no deal done.’

Oh great, out of context this still makes me sound terrible.

‘Yeah, well, now we’ve been shut down. Health and safety. They found a dead rat by the scraps bin. Tony said, “It’s dead, we dealt with it” and the man was like, “Nah, mate. Not how it works.”’

I try to keep a straight face so I get to hear more.

‘Yeah that would be … not how it works.’

‘I think it made it worse that there was only half a dead rat because they reckoned there was a live one somewhere that had nibbled on it. They couldn’t find that one, though, so, no proof.’

He does a shoulder-dropping shrug with hands up, as if the complex, controversial case of That’s Amore! vs Hygiene Standards is one for great legal minds to battle out.

‘Anyway, Tony’s left and we’re going to reopen with a new name once Beaky gets the licence going again. I’m going to be manager! Want in?’

I’m about to politely decline when Lucas says:

‘Er, mate, she’s working here. Maybe recruit on LinkedIn, not in front of me?’

‘What’s it to you? Free country,’ Callum says, fists now thrust in sweatshirt pockets, showing the quick wittedness that made him so skilful in service at That’s Amore!

‘I’m the boss,’ Lucas says.

Callum gives a slack-jawed smile. ‘Lol. Yeah well we’re going to pay time and a half so maybe you’re going to have to work extra shifts, tell your boss.’

Lucas blinks.

‘I’m not her manager, I’m the boss, it’s my name above the door. Piss off, you chippy little herbert.’

I have the decency to wait until the door’s swung shut behind Callum to collapse laughing.

‘“I’ll date you if you fetch my coat,” alright, Lady Penelope,’ Lucas says, with a grin.

‘I didn’t say that …! Oh my God, I’d been sacked, they threw me off the premises, he tried to hold my coat hostage in return for a date. Oh my God!’ I splutter, while Lucas laughs heartily. ‘For the record I did not offer to go on a date with him.’

‘Given your current predicament with the writing competition, that might’ve been a mistake. Speaking of which,’ he looks up at the clock, ‘I think it’s about to start.’

‘Then she said, “I’m sorry, that’s actually my Mooncup.” I can’t drink ruby port to this day. The End.’

The thin man in the flat cap takes a small bow amid much laughter and applause and I feel a ripple of fear that I’m going to end the night with a damp squib. The date story I’ve decided on is more of a slowly unfolding disaster than bam-bam-bam jokes.

Once again, I’m last in the running order at Share Your Shame and unlike last time, I’ve decide to watch the other acts first. My shift downstairs is also over and I arranged to finish early so I could concentrate on my craft and get drunk after.

Kitty is working the function room bar this time and the brothers are downstairs.

I sip a white wine with my friends, sister and brother-in-law and wait to be called up. I was touched when Esther went out of her way to inquire when the next event was.

When I say so, she said: We honestly loved it! I admit I was doubtful beforehand but I was very proud of my witty little sister. I told Mum and she says you can say anything you like about her as long as you make it clear her house is always clean and tidy.