For our very own Amy the affable accountant, with all the best wishes for her exams and in recognition that she is a lot smarter and more fun than her namesake here.
And a double helping for you as for once I had an inspiring INSET day, on how to use good literature to teach effectively (and hubbie on a golf course somewhere...)
"What about Edie?" asked Harry.
"Edie the exquisite endocrinologist?" Nikki replied. "No, that's not going to work, you can't get to be an endocrinologist without understanding what a pathologist does," she continued. "Or is it not the fact that you are a pathologist, but what a pathologist does that creeps them out?"
"Surely, you've met some men that have been put off by your job," asked Harry.
"Hmm maybe, but I think having blond hair and breasts goes a long way to ameliorate any problems," Nikki confessed.
Harry shook his head and laughed, so far the evening wasn't turning out too badly even if it was margarita night.
"It's margarita night!" Harry said staring hard at Nikki.
"Yes," she laughed, "I thought we'd established that when I sat down."
"But, you're not even tipsy yet and you're half way through your second," Harry was staring at her, his eyes closed to a slit. "Did you eat before you came here?"
"Well, I knew it was Thursday," she laughed. "Now who's it to be then Amy, Barbara, Chloe?"
"Oh, go on then, start with Amy. I can't think where Zak can be? He knew we were coming to O'Connell's didn't he?"
Nikki, sipped her drink, put it down on the table and then crossed her arms in front of her. She looked coyly up at Harry and then back to her drink. Harry looked across at her confusedly and then realised that this was Amy, she was obviously a bit more reserved than Vera.
"Hello, another drink?" asked Harry proffering the jug to Nikki.
"Thank you, I'd like a new glass though," Nikki answered.
Harry returned from the bar with another pint for himself and placed the glass on the table, filled it and offered it to Nikki.
"I've not seen you here before, do you work near here?" Harry asked.
"Not far, I'm not one of those investment bankers if that's what you're thinking," Nikki added quickly.
"I wouldn't dream of such a thing," Harry said.
"Actually I'm an accountant for a small environmental charity," Nikki replied, twiddling a piece of hair round and round her finger.
"That sounds really worthwhile," Harry began but his efforts at sounding sincere weren't doing the words justice.
"Oh, I know, someone that spends all day staring at numbers has got to be dull. You're all the same." Nikki huffed and flicked her hair over her shoulder and glared at Harry.
"Don't put words in my mouth, Amy. I never said staring at numbers was dull. I spend a lot of my time at work looking for the tiny details; that one anomaly that answers all the questions." Harry said seriously.
"Really?" Nikki asked. "What do you do?"
"I'm a doctor," Harry replied and realised his mistake as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He couldn't believe she'd got him again. It must have been the beer slowing him down.
"Ha ha!" crowed Nikki, her eyes glinting, all signs of the demure Amy abandoned. "She would have been easy, Harry and you blew it!" She drank some more of her margarita and heard Harry mutter.
"Who said I was looking for easy?"
"I didn't mean easy, easy!" Nikki clarified. "I meant she was nice, gentleā¦"
"Yes exactly the kind of person who doesn't want to hear on a first date that the bloke chatting them up spends his days with his hands digging around people's entrails and examining their stomach contents. It's not romantic, Nikki. I told you before it's a mood killer."
"Yes Harry but you don't have to say it like that, do you? I'm sure it would be a mood killer if you go on about digging around in entrails. Why can't you say something like 'you assist the police in murder investigations determining how and why people died?' That makes no mention of entrails or temperatures and everyone likes the idea of solving murder mysteries," Nikki explained.
"S'pose you could be right," he mumbled.
"Of course I'm right, I'm always right!" Nikki affirmed.
"So who's next then?" Harry grinned but he remembered who was next in the alphabet. Nikki really was quite good at this. He was surprised at how easily she changed her body language and how instantly he responded to her differently, no wonder she had half the MET round her little finger. He was curious as to how exactly she intended to do Barbara the buxom botanist, but she obviously had a plan, as she excused herself and disappeared off to the toilets.
He watched her wait to pick up yet another new glass on the way back to the table, flashing Adam another dazzler of a smile. Harry had already clocked two separate blokes, who followed her every move earlier in the evening and periodically checked to see what they were doing.
Adam had obviously made some comment to her, as he saw her laughing and wagging her finger at him, as if she were telling him off, or setting him straight. Knowing her, she probably was.
Out at the pub she was so different from the Nikki that he usually got to see. The one who could fall asleep on his shoulder at the cinema, the one who turned to him in a crisis and could look him straight in the eye without disguising that hers were filled with tears. The one who could put her arms around him and make him feel grounded and strong even when the world around him was spinning out of control. This Nikki, pub Nikki was fun, like Charlotte was fun, and all those other girls were fun; a diversion but actually he thought he preferred the real one. The one only he got to see. The one who every now and then let him look straight into her heart.
