New Kid On The Blog

Taken from Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes

It was after nine before Dylan got home. Clodagh had managed to get both Molly and Craig to bed, which was nothing short of miraculous.

'Hiya,' Dylan said wearily, flinging his briefcase against the wall in the hall and pulling at his tie. Swallowing anger as the briefcase buckles scratches the paintwork again, she braced herself for his kiss. She'd have preferred it if he didn't bother. It wasn't like it meant anything, it was just an irritating habit.

She opened her mouth to launch into her horrible day, but he beat her to it. 'Christ, the day I've had! Where are they?'

'In bed.'

'Both of them?'

'Yes.'

'Should we ring the Vatican to report a miracle? I'll just go and see them, then I'll be back down.' He'd changed out of his suit and into sweatpants and a T-shirt when he came back.

'Any news?' she asked, eager for information and excitement from the outside world.

'No. Any dinner?'

Ah, dinner.

'Between Craig's stomach-ache and Molly's tantrums ...' She opened the fridge looking for inspiration. Nothing doing. The freezer didn't help either. 'Alphabetti Spaghetti on toast do you?'

'Alphabetti Spaghetti on taost. Good job I didn't marry you for your cooking skills.' He shot her a smile. Was she imagining a certain tightness to it?

'Good job indeed,' she agreed, fetching a can from the cupboard. She couldn't be sure whether he was angry or not. He always acted sunny even when he was raging. Not that she minded, it made life easier.

'So how was work?' She tried again. 'What has you so late?'

He sighed wearily. 'You know that big American sale? The one that's been dragging on forever?'

'Yes,' she lied, sticking bread in the toaster.

'I can't remember what the state of play was the last time I talked to you about it. Had they actually made any decisions?'

'They might have been just about to,' Clodagh attempted.

'OK, so after deliberating for ever, they finally narrow it down to three packages. Then they say they want to test them. Which, as you know, is a huge waste of fucking time so I offer them the reports from the trial sites. First they say OK, they'll accept that. Then they change their minds and send over two techies from their Ohio office to run the tests ...'

Clodagh stirred the saucepan and tuned out. She was disappointed. This was extremely fucking boring.

Slumped at the table, Dylan let it all pour out. '... Then I get a phone call this afternoon, they've only gone and bought a package from Digiware, and they're not even going to test ours!'

This was the point where Clodagh tuned back in. 'But that's brilliant! If they're not even going to test yours!'

# posted by Skye @ 2:02 am