Geli Voyante's Hot or Not (3 page)

I have yet to get it fixed meaning I’m now in a great dilemma. I can either risk picking up the receiver
and take the fifty-fifty chance it will be Glinda and not Tiggy, or I can ignore it and phone back Glinds who will leave a message if it is her.

Unfortunately my mentor walks past my pod as my han
d is hovering over the receiver leaving me no choice but to answer. She’s not a person you should cross and she is exceptionally cranky in the morning; I really don’t fancy being placed even further down in her estimation than I already am, which is guaranteed to happen if I let this phone continue to ring... I have to answer it.

‘Geli,’ the voice shrieks as I reluctantly pick up the handset in dread and trill a polite hello.

‘Have you seen? Have. You.
Seen
?’

‘I’ve seen
,’ I confirm like Glinda has just asked me to verify if an asteroid is currently hurtling towards Earth or whether she’s actually inducing a pretty spectacular display from her own imagination. There’s definitely an asteroid though; scientists have named it Tiggy.

This confirmation is met by a
banshee-like wail. I empathise but, seeing as my mentor is still hovering, I have to trickily maintain an air of professionalism on the telephone, even though inside me a full-on funeral is taking place because of this tragedy, violins and all. Yes, I equal Glinda in the over-active imagination department; it’s why we’re friends.

Although,
I don’t know why I have to maintain this masquerade. Everyone knows work is just an excuse to waste the hours away in return for that all-important moolah that keeps the world ticking over nicely, albeit not as nicely as it once was with this credit crunch malarkey and the over-priced bill increases it seems to be triggering. Credit crunch aside, most jobs apart from maybe A&E staff – oh, and maybe supervising small hyperactive children – do not require full-on concentration. Everyone I know spends most of their working day pretending to work and a small proportion of their time
actually
working. Most people I know don’t have the slightest clue what their job really is and whether their seemingly minuscule contribution even makes a difference in the grander scheme of things. Most suspect it doesn’t.

Let’s face it
,
New News
could set up an automated computer program with some fancy algorithm to select the daily Hot or Not picks. I am not an integral part of this procedure. With regular thoughts like these, it’s no wonder I often feel bored and pointless at work, even though I’m assured I am a key part of the
New News
team when I raise these concerns at my appraisal. I know Glinda feels the same way in her job. As she often remarks, a twelve-year-old or a trained chimpanzee could do it. Where’s the job satisfaction from that disturbing insight?

Glinda works in fashion PR, which as far as PR goes is the lowest of the low in terms of job content and pay packet when you first start out. This is because of the perceived glamour and number of bodies willing to work
slavishly long hours for peanuts to get their foot in the door – this is a job Glinda fought to get.

L
uckily, she has parental support. They let her, and therefore me, live in their gorgeous Notting Hill apartment at quite a cheap rate. Most people starting out in her field aren’t this fortunate. They either struggle on their meagre salary to live somewhere central or face a nightmare commute, a commute that means they can’t even supplement their salary by taking a second job. Not that there’s enough time for a second job. Several people we know gave up their dream job in order to live a less poverty-stricken life. It’s a tough call – do you live to work, or work to live? It has to be work to live, right?

Glinda
’s dream means being treated like a dog at Candygurl PR – she is treated as their slave – but she’s a fighter. Even though she’s a comfortable size ten-twelve, short, with hair some would describe as mousey blonde and a smattering of freckles she doesn’t conceal, she knows she doesn’t scream fashion PR
gurl
based on her appearance. But, she has the determination of a dog on heat, and this meant she finally managed to snag the Candygurl PR job after a double-dozen’s worth of rejections, if not more. She was tenacious and it paid off, even if it means she is unlikely to reap the proper success, credit and respect she deserves for a long time.

What else about Glinds? Well, s
he’s clever. She has a First in Economics and French from Leeds, yet prefers the dizzying world of fashion to life in the serious world. That’s where we met, at Leeds, in our second year. We met on the infamous Otley Pub Run and ended up bonding in the loos, between vomiting. Don’t judge us, we were students. It happens.

Something must have clicked that evening between us
though because we ended up becoming firm friends, sharing a house in Headingley in our final year. It was a stark contrast to where we’d respectively grown-up. I was reared on blue skies and crisp modern architecture in Durban; Glinda on the mock-Tudor style so popular in certain parts of Berkshire. But, it was home, and we became great lovers of the dry-stone walls and rolling hills of the Dales, often heading up to Malhamdale and the surrounding areas to spend the day rambling around, much to the amazement of everyone who knew us. This included Tiggy Boodles who, unfortunately, wound up living next door to us with her motley crew.

Tiggy preferred spending her Saturdays hitting the Victoria Quarter
– Leeds’ awesome shopping arcade – much to her mum and stepfather’s dismay. They were especially peeved to hear I spent mine rambling around in a free leisure pursuit injecting myself with healthy fresh air. In fact, they insisted when they were over from Durban to visit Tiggy that they, and therefore Tiggy too, would join us in the Dales. Cue Tiggy’s absolute horror. Mine too, but it was worth putting up with her and her horrid stepfather just to see the mortified expression on her face when Glinda gave her a leg-up and she fell face-down into sheep poo.

‘Remember when Tiggy fell in
the poo?’ I remind her. Susie, my mentor, has gone so I can speak more freely now.

This
has the desired effect of stopping Glinda’s wailing in a second; they turn into snorts of laughter. ‘Oh!’ She gasps. ‘Do you still have those photos?’ she manages to ask in-between guffaws.

‘I do.’

We’d snapped two photos for posterity – the first shows Tiggy face down on the ground, in the second she is standing up, angry and dripping. That was probably our best ramble, even if it was slightly ruined by their presence. If we could have legged her stepfather up too, that day would have taken the crown for the highlight of my university career. Instead, pulling a member of the
Emmerdale
cast in Majestyk takes the title.

‘Put them up on Facebook
,’ she squeals gleefully. ‘Scan them in and slap them up! See what Calvin thinks of her then!’

Ah, yes.
Calvin
. No doubt the reason Glinda is calling to talk to me. Either that or she is having issues with her boyfriend, Jeeves.

Jeeves is nothing like his faithful manservant namesake
. He is far from faithful and far from attentive. To put it simply, he is a bastard. I can see his appeal, as can many other women in London judging by how many bed him
knowing
he has a girlfriend. Jeeves, you see, would never lie to a lady. He always tells these so-called
ladies
he has a girlfriend and that the liaison can only ever be a one-night stand. Amazingly, nine out of ten of the slappers still go home with him, possibly because he has “incredible shag” tattooed on his forehead – a tattoo only readable by home-wrecking, Glinda-upsetting hussies. I often get wailing phone calls because of his shameless, open cheating, but since he’s never seen her wailing hysterics, I assume this is why he assumes that Glinda is “cool” with his antics. Please...

‘The wailing was about Calvin and Tiggy then, G?’

I know Jeeves didn’t stay at our flat last night because we had a girly night in; there is the distinct possibility he may have strayed given he always insensitively phones her the morning after an infidelity has taken place,
at work
of all places
. He doesn’t have a clue, and sadly Glinds doesn’t either because I know I wouldn’t put up with that sort of behaviour.

‘Yes,’
she scoffs. ‘You must be seething.’

Thi
s is what I love most about Glinda. Even though this is not her battle with Tiggy, she still hates her with a ferocious passion on my behalf. She’s truly fabbity.

She continues before I can reply, knowing full well m
y answer. ‘Of course you are. He looks so nice and normal, too. Jeesh.’

‘I know, I know,’ I
hastily agree for fear of incrimination.

I know Glinda is my best friend, but
I don’t want to admit to her that the photos of Calvin Murphy-Lee are making me tremble. I still have his picture up on screen and he looks even better on the second viewing. I suspect I may be falling in lust...

When we finally hang up the phone, an hour later, I’m delighted it’s twenty past eleven. The morning is flying by and it’s nearly time to meet Glinda for lunch, but now is a legitimate time to take a break and grab a cup of tea.

I am a tea addict.
Glinda says it is because I have trouble with men and tea has become my man substitute. But it’s not me, I swear. It’s men who view me as Trouble. I mean, I am the sweetest, loveliest, non-sexy girl there ever was and I include the fictional likes of Mary Poppins, Nana from
Peter Pan
… Oh, wait, she was a dog. Still, she’s not human sexy, so let’s see… Harold Bishop from
Neighbours
, bless his tuba-playing socks. I am
that
un-sexy, so how can I be trouble with a capital T like men always tell me I am?

Glinda tells me the problem is
that I
am
sweet, lovely
and
sexy but, to be perfectly honest – and I’m not being modest here because I’ve already mentioned how fabbity my column is – I know I’m not sexy. Really, I’m not.

Whereas
I don’t hate what I see in the mirror, I’m hardly kissing the mirror and swooning at myself in sexy delight. Sure, I’m thin, but thin isn’t sexy. Men prefer real women, like Glinda. Or dolls, like Tiggy. I’m neither of those.

What else?
I have chocolate-brown hair, coloured every eight weeks to touch-up my blonde roots, and although I’m not as sun-kissed as I once was, I’m no porcelain doll. I’m the happy medium. When was average ever sexy? 

Sometimes
I think Glinds takes her best friend role a little too seriously. Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice she champions me like she does but whilst friends
should
be supportive and big you up, shouldn’t they be honest? Glinda swears she is but that, I fear, is a contradiction in itself – if she was being
honest
, she wouldn’t be telling me the sexy lies in the first place.

I don’t understand men
, and they don’t understand me, so I’ll take my cup of tea over them and get one right now. Hopefully Sara will be in the kitchen; she’s our psychology columnist and another of my work besties. If she’s not there, I’ll pop over to her side of the Gherkin as she has a gorgeous view of Tower Bridge that even after three years of working I still love seeing.

‘Theo,’ I call o
ver his pod, remembering to log off Facebook because I made the silly mistake of leaving my account logged in once at home and Jeeves “updated” my profile rather cruelly. It wasn’t funny at all because I don’t “like lamp” and I’m not quite sure what that even means.

‘D
o you want a cuppa?’

‘Goodness,’ Theo replies
, popping his head over. I swoon a little bit, but not as much as I usually do... I blame Calvin. Worrying. ‘Is that the time already?’

‘It is.
’

‘Well, I’d love one
. I didn’t realise we were at elevenses already. I’m so absorbed reading about the Hillary–Obama race that I didn’t realise the time.’

It’s all Dutch to me. I’m surprised though because I didn’t have Theo down as a sports fan. I wonder what race is being run, whether it’s a 100
metres or a marathon. Either way, I am surprised Theo isn’t reading about politics. He’s usually so strict at work. He never goes online except to read political stuff and not just off
Wikipedia
like I do when I try and search what he’s on about. He reads
actual
political journals.

I
’ve tried explaining to him that there is
more
on the Internet, more fun things to browse – cat pictures, anyone? – but he is deliciously stubborn. Deliciously stubborn with delicious stubble
and
the best bum I’ve ever seen…
Ever
. A little groan always escapes me every time I view his designer-clad ass – so much so, that Theo thinks I’m slightly asthmatic as I had to pass the groan off as a wheeze. Like wheezing is sexy. Pfiut.

‘Who’s winning?’ I ask politely
.

S
ecretly I’m thrilled that Theo is finally being a little naughty at work. I should encourage this new-found interest in sport. Maybe it will progress into other non-political pursuits. 

‘I’d say Hillary is slightly ahead
, but there’s time for Obama to pull back.’

A-ha! So,
it must be a marathon. Strange though. Who runs a marathon in December? London’s is in April, so New York? Although surely a marathon in the freezing NYC winter would be extremely cruel... and it’s half six in the morning across the pond. Can’t be there. Not that it matters. What matters is Theo’s naughty non-political interest… at work!

‘Well, it’s a marathon, not a sprint,’ I quip
.

I know
I am stating the obvious, but it’s something to keep the conversation going and that’s all that matters to my Theo-fancying brain. Did I mention his tight upper arms? His “rippling guns” as I heard one work experience girl dub them, an irony itself as Theo is a staunch pacifist… this week.

He positively beams at
this. ‘Geli, that’s an excellent way of putting it! I think I’ll use that remark in my column, if you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not
.’

Puzzling.
Why would Theo be writing about a race in his column? What on earth has this marathon to do with politics unless there is a prominent political figure running it? Maybe that’s it, or maybe he’s feeling ill. I’ll put an extra spoonful of sugar in his tea to help him with his malfunctioning blood sugar levels. He certainly needs it if he’s using my very obvious analogies in his column, analogies that shouldn’t be there in the first place. 

‘Thanks, Geli!’
he beams again. ‘In fact, I have some photos to show you at some point that I’d like your opinion on, if that’s OK?’

Wow! Theo is being lovely. Maybe he should be ill more often if the effect is niceness to me. Maybe I won’t slip him extra sugar – maybe he’ll ask me out for lun
ch if I approve his photos – it’s probably his Facebook picture again.

Facebook is the only non-politic
al site Theo goes on at work and he is very choosy about his precious profile picture. He maintains it is because digital politics will be pushed to the front of the political agenda when a six-year-old genius crack-kid (a hacker, I thought he meant a cocaine addict at first which really scared me) wipes out the Internet and causes mass panic, leaving just one site remaining – Facebook.

Theo wants to be in on
the action from the start, even though he suspects Mark Zuckerberg – the Facebook creator – is actually Bill Gates’ puppet and Bill will use this wipe-out to take over the computing world once and for all. Sometimes I don’t understand Theo because he is a genius; in cases like this, I don’t understand him because he can be a little nutty with his stupid conspiracy theories. Also, I don’t see the connection between Theo’s photo fixation and the monitoring of such a ludicrous notion, but I guess it beats the CIA theory he likes to air.

Secretly
I think Theo is as vain as I am when it comes to self-presentation – another reason why we are actually soul mates – but sadly Theo is a womaniser. Like all the best men. Heart-wrenchingly, in the three years I’ve worked here, he’s shown no sign of giving up his womanising ways; I doubt he ever will…

‘Geli… GELI!’

That snaps
me out of the spine-tingling image of me walking down the aisle towards Theo, which would show Tiggy! She has gushed about him many a time as he is considered Gherkin-wide the
New News
Hottie. Perhaps it’s his deep, manly voice… his deep, manly voice that is yelling my name. Drat.

‘Yes?’ I ask in a daze.

‘You were staring at me,’ Theo says. ‘You’ve just been standing there, staring at me.’ He reiterates this like I have committed a cardinal sin.

Oh no. Lust rears its ugly head once again. How embarrassingly obvious. Wing this, Geli. Wing it. Claim extremely serious intellectual thoughts.

‘I’m sorry, Theo,’ I say slowly, struggling to control my mortified face; I’m sure I must be red enough to stop traffic. We don’t need the light at the top of the Gherkin to warn planes away, just send me up there. ‘I was just lost in thought about the race.’

‘Any more insights?
’

I can tell he
does not believe me. I was probably drooling. I must not do something as palpable as wipe my mouth for potential drool removal – it must hang there in shame,
intellectual
shame
.

‘I was we
ighing up the strengths of each,’ I bluff.

‘Oh?’

Let me think about this. OK, so Hillary must be a woman, and Obama is probably a surname. I haven’t the foggiest what athletes are judged on. Stamina? Mental endurance? Obama and Hillary must be the strongest contenders for this marathon. Both must be good if Theo thinks the race is between them. He’s never wrong after all... except in choosing women.

‘Well?’ Theo demands
.

He really does need that cup of tea. 

‘I think Hillary will win it,’ I declare after a quick Obama-Hillary “ip dip do” in my head.

‘Why?’

‘She’s a woman and as a woman she has struggled more than Obama. I’m not saying Obama hasn’t struggled,’ I add quickly – in my opinion, anyone insane enough to run a marathon has to have faced some struggle. ‘But she has strength,’ I continue, inwardly praying I’m making the right call and not sounding like an absolute idiot. ‘Real strength,’ I repeat desperately. ‘Look at what she has overcome,’ I wildly guess. ‘To keep her head up and keep running shows a lot of determination and it’s a determination I think will see her through to the end.’

I’m powerless to stop my mouth; I always have to go the extra mile to try and gain more brownie points. I’ve probably blown it through cockiness.

‘Do you mean, how she kept her head up with Bill and Monica?’ Theo asks me excitedly. He’s grinning again – I can tell all remembrance of my staring has gone completely out of his head.
Thank goodness
.

He continues.
‘Do you really think she will win because, in a way, she’s the underdog in terms of what happened in the nineties and it’s now retribution that she’ll emerge as the victor, despite the race card that Obama may or may not be cashing in on?’

Wow
. Hillary must be in excellent shape if she was running marathons back in the nineties, although I can’t understand what Theo is implying by Obama’s “race card”. Do certain marathon runners get special cards that allow them to cheat in some way? Say they’re diabetic, do they get a twenty-minute head-start to account for their necessary medical breaks?
Is Obama diabetic?
 

‘She has a lot more to prove history-wise,’ I improvise
.

I
do not have the faintest clue about marathon running or any idea what this Obama might be doing with the “race card”. The closest I get to marathons is sponsoring Jeeves who runs the London one.

‘I think that will make her stronger in the end,’ I add, as Theo stands there nodding
, like he is processing my words. I hope I have spoken wisely, even if I have spoken without any basis whatsoever.

Theo whistles, once he has paused long enough to cause my blood pressure to shoot up more than necessary. ‘I’m impressed. I always thought you hated stuff like this.’