A/N: This is based on a game my classmates played when we were in high school. Hopefully this will be a bit of fun but I'm not sure about it. I hope it's OK though!
Sarah x
"Ugh," Mo grumbled as she stood in line with Jac for coffee. "He can be a right little pain!"
"Oh, so you've only just noticed Jonny Maconie may well be the most irritating man to have walked this planet?" Jac quipped sarcastically, knowing full well that the father of her unborn child had the mental age of a toddler and the attention span of a fly. "It's been like speaking to a brick wall all day."
"Bloody football," Mo agreed grumpily. "When Hibs are playing, you've not got a hope in hell of getting a conversation. Not one worth having anyway."
They sat down together. A rarity, Jac realised, but it was far less painful than trying to speak to Jonny while the football was on. "He'll get that when I lose my foot up his arse," Jac threatened, though she knew she would never do it.
Jac snorted in amusement when she spied Chantelle Lane and Serena Campbell, the latter striding in obvious frustration while the former tried to keep up while talking. As the two passed their table, Mo and Jac heard Serena warn, "Chantelle, if you talk about that stupid, arrogant, pedantic man, or Digby, one more time before I have caffeine and sugar in my body, I will be forced to kill you."
Mo burst out laughing. "I'm guessing Ms. Campbell and the big man have fallen out again," she grinned. "Wonder what it was about this time."
"Either she's late with a report, he's getting on her nerves with his habits or they're secretly married and are currently in the process of a divorce," Jac smirked, pouring ketchup on her slice of chocolate cake.
"What is wrong with you?!" Mo demanded loudly in disgust.
"I was about to ask the same thing," the familiar voice of the Clinical Executive drawled behind her.
"Me too," Chantelle echoed. They all looked like they wanted to throw up when she shrugged and cheerily took a forkful; she took great pleasure in particular at making the usually unaffected Serena squirm. She was looking away and clearly biting her tongue rather than speak her mind.
Chantelle and Serena sat down. "I need female company," the oldest woman complained. "Otherwise the next man I see will have his heart ripped out of his chest with my bare hands."
Jac's eyes widened in surprise at her aggressive tone. Wow. Hanssen really had pissed her off this time. "What about you, Chantelle?" Mo asked kindly. "Man problems too?"
"Arthur," she sighed. "He's a good friend but when he's really concentrating on something, I've had better conversations with my nan's cat!" she exclaimed. "Four times I had to ask him to check on Mr. MacLean! Four!"
"At least he's not got his head stuck in the football pitch," Mo replied. "This is why I hate it when Darwin's quiet and Hibs is playing. Especially when it comes to the SPL. Have any of you had to sit through one of his SPL talks?" she demanded of the other women. They all shook their heads, Jac thankful she had never suffered that particular trauma. Yet. "Count yourselves lucky."
"I'm ready to kill him," Jac stated bluntly. "That tablet's going to be cracked right over his head. He doesn't even pay attention! I bet he wouldn't notice if Mo and I sprouted wings and flew away!"
"Hanssen's the same," Serena threw her hands in the air. "He doesn't even look at me when he's speaking to me! Actually, he's downright rude half the time. He stares at that bloody computer screen like it holds the answer to the existence of the universe. Did his mother never teach him to look at people when he's talking to them?!"
Jac remained silent, knowing Hanssen's mother was probably dead before she got the chance to teach him social niceties.
"And you know the worst thing?" Mo added, and Jac was amused to see the woman so infuriated by her best friend's lack of attention. "They think it's alright to ignore us."
"Not only that," Serena snorted. "I don't know about Jonny and Digby but Hanssen seems to think he's so much better than the rest of us."
"No, he doesn't," Jac dismissed that comment. "If anything it's the opposite."
"Either way, he looks at that laptop screen while talking to me one more time and I'm going to knock his head off his shoulders with a slap," she ranted, making Jac and Mo stifle giggles and Chantelle to wear an alarmed expression. "Maybe then he'll realise I actually exist and ignoring me isn't going to change that."
"You know," Jac said, "it's not just when the football's on that Jonny's like that. If he's thinking about something else, he can't hold an adult conversation."
"Arthur does the same thing," Chantelle said glumly. Serena patted her leg lightly and Jac smiled, glad to see they were on speaking terms once more. By all accounts they were a formidable team when they were getting along. "I know!" the young blonder exclaimed happily. "I know how to make them notice us. Or at least get them to realise they're ignoring us," she amended.
"How?" Jac asked suspiciously, wondering if she really wanted to know.
"Well," she said. "When I was in high school we got annoyed with all the boys ignoring us so we played this game," she explained. Jac exchanged a dark look with Serena; any game a teenage Chantelle Lane had devised was sure to end in disaster. "Every day we would wear a different colour of lipstick. Each day the colour would get either brighter or darker, until they noticed us."
"And did it work?" Mo asked.
"You cannot seriously be thinking about doing this?!" Serena demanded.
"Mo..." Jac warned hesitantly, wondering if she really would do that.
"Yep!" Chantelle said. "It worked after about a week. I even got my first boyfriend because of it. He turned out to be a bit of a moron," she added.
Mo looked at Chantelle and then to Jac and Serena. "No," Jac said. "No, no, no!"
"Why?" she demanded. "It'll work."
"A few reasons," Serena piped up. "One, it's immature. Two, we may end up looking like idiots. And three, I am far too old to start wearing ridiculous shades of make up! I'd look like a clown!"
"Not if you do it properly!" Chantelle insisted, leaning forward with great enthusiasm. "I can help you!" Serena glared at the young blonde icily, making her shrink back slightly. "If you wanted."
Jac thought for a moment. It would be fun. Maybe. She could confuse Jonny. She knew him well enough to know that he would notice a change but he wouldn't notice what. She turned to see Chantelle scribbling down something on four napkins. "Here's eight colours for eight days," she explained, handing them out. "The first ones a light pink and the last one's a really dark burgundy red."
"Let's hope it doesn't get to that," Serena quipped, resignedly taking the list from Chantelle. Jac sighed and did the same while Mo did too but with more enthusiasm.
"We're just gluttons for punishment," Jac grumbled. "Do we wear the same colours on the same days?" Chantelle nodded in response. "Won't that make it a bit obvious if Mo and I wear the same shades on the same days?"
"Jonny's got the attention span of a toddler in a ball pit," Mo said, dismissing her question. "It'll be a miracle if he notices anything at all."
Serena's pager went off. "AAU," she sighed. "Got to go," she added as she half-jogged to the lift.
"Me too," Chantelle said, walking to the lift like she really didn't want to go back to Keller.
Jac and Mo both reluctantly stood up, choosing to take the stairs back to Darwin simply because it took longer and it meant a few minutes less around a football-absorbed Jonny. "This is ridiculous," Jac said. "Do you really think wearing goth-red lipstick's going to make Jonny Maconie, the king of ignorance, notice us?"
"It might," Mo replied fairly. "You never know."
They stepped onto Darwin to the sight of a calm ward and Jonny staring at the tablet – ironically intended by Hanssen for medical purposes only – at the live football. "Oh, come on, Hanlon!" he half-shouted at the screen, causing Jac to roll her eyes. "Get it away from the goal, for Christ's sake!"
"This is going to be one long shift," Jac sighed as she flopped into a chair, logged onto the computer and opened a bar of chocolate. She suppressed a smile when Mo stood behind Jonny and made a strangling gesture.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea.
Hope this is alright!
Please feel free to drop a review and tell me what you think of it!
Sarah x