The Girl From It

Charlie woke up with a start. There was a damp patch on the pillow by her mouth. She raised her head and wiped the drool from her lips. Urgh, disgusting, she thought. She peered blearily around her. She knew at once that she wasn't in her own bed. The sheets were different, the smell was different. So she'd pulled last night. Well, that was okay.

She lifted her head a bit higher. The space next to her was empty. A wave of nausea hit her and she groaned. There was a glass of water on the bedside table next to her and she downed it all in a few gulps. She laid her head down again on the pillow for a few minutes and then, with a supreme effort, hauled herself up onto one elbow.

Daylight was shining through thin curtains, showing posters on the wall of Art Deco or Art Nouveau design - Charlie had never been able to tell the difference - and vintage adverts for Bovril and Cadbury's. Fuck, thought Charlie. I must have pulled a hipster.

She glanced down and noticed that she was wearing a T-shirt with a Batman logo on it. She looked up again and noticed that the whole of one wall was taken up with a crammed bookshelf of what looked like sci-fi and fantasy novels.

She frowned, trying to summon up memories of the Christmas party the night before. Sci-fi novels and a Batman T-shirt...could she have pulled one of the guys from IT? Panic rose slowly in her stomach - surely not. They all had beards and she couldn't abide a beard on a man. No way, she wouldn't have pulled a hairy IT man, no matter how pissed she'd been.

The door opened suddenly and Hannah from IT came in, carrying two steaming mugs.

"Oh you're awake," she said. "I didn't know if you'd want coffee or tea so I made one of each. I'll drink whichever one you don't want."

A wave of relief flooded over Charlie. She'd never been so glad to see Hannah in her life. Usually Hannah's tall, dark figure coming into her office meant that something in IT land had gone wrong and if there was one thing guaranteed to wind Charlie up it was IT issues.

"Thank God!" she said, her mouth feeling like she'd swallowed a sand pit. "I'll have the coffee."

That was the good thing about waking up in a hipster's bed - the beverages were guaranteed to be top notch.

Hannah handed her the coffee and sat on the end of the bed, just past Charlie's feet. She was wearing stripy cotton pyjamas and her feet were bare. Charlie closed her eyes as she sipped the coffee. God, that was good. And she hadn't pulled some hairy IT man after all. She'd just crashed at Hannah's - she must have been too drunk to make it home by herself.

Although she'd never had that problem before. No matter how much Charlie drunk, when the time came to go home, her auto pilot kicked in and she would wake up in her own bed, make up removed, pyjamas on and glass of water on standby. Even if she had no memory of leaving the bar, her auto pilot never failed her.

"How do you feel?" asked Hannah.

"Bit rough," said Charlie. "God I must have been really wasted." Hannah nodded.

"We all were."

"Thanks for letting me stay," Charlie said.

"That's okay," said Hannah. "I wasn't gonna kick you out was I?"

Charlie smiled, uncertainly. She'd suddenly noticed her dress and shoes from last night in a heap on the floor by the bed. At the same moment, she realised that her legs were bare under the duvet. She lifted up the duvet and looked down. She wasn't wearing any pants. She looked up at Hannah and frowned.

"Did you undress me?" she asked.

Hannah looked at her for a moment in silence, her dark eyes resting on Charlie's face.

"Do you not remember?" she said. Charlie thought for a moment.

"Last thing I remember is Dave making that crappy speech...or no wait I ordered a bottle of Prosecco...no hang on..." Blurry memories of the night jumbled together. "I remember putting on my make up in the toilets." The image of herself reflected in the bathroom mirror came into her mind with crystal clarity. "I looked hot," she said, smiling in her mind's eye at her own reflection - her blonde hair sweeping down to touch her shoulders and her blue eyes outlined with mascara. She had looked good.

"Yeah you did," said Hannah and then blushed. It was the blush that did it. A sudden, cold suspicion settled in Charlie's stomach like a stone.

"Did we...did something happen last night?" Hannah looked into her tea cup like it was the most fascinating thing she'd seen in her life.

"You really don't remember?"

"If I remembered I wouldn't be asking would I?" Charlie snapped, impatiently.

"We...um...well we...you know," Hannah mumbled into her tea. Charlie shook her head emphatically.

"We did not have sex." Hannah raised her eyes again, her cheeks still slightly red.

"Er...we did," she said.

"No way. Absolutely not. Why on earth would I have had sex with you?"

"Well...cos you wanted to I guess."

Charlie stared at her. She was just Hannah, the girl from IT. The only interaction Charlie ever had with her was when Hannah came up to fix her PC. That was it - no chit chat, no banter, no flirting.

"This is bullshit!"

She flung the covers back and got out of bed, putting her coffee on the side. She picked her dress up off the floor and looked around for her bra. Hannah unhooked it from the end of the bed frame and held it out to her. Charlie snatched it from her and started to pull the T-shirt over her head. She stopped halfway. "Turn around!" she barked.

"Sorry," Hannah mumbled and turned her back towards Charlie.

"Look," she said, as Charlie dressed herself in the silky frock she'd worn the night before, "Look, it's okay. I get that it was a one night thing. We were both drunk - it's fine."

"We did not have sex!"

"I won't tell anyone at work. It'll be like it never happened."

"It didn't happen!"

Charlie sat back on the bed to fasten her shoes. The glamorous, gorgeous outfit from the night before now felt stale and crumpled. She was already thinking how stupid she would look trying to get home and her anger and indignation mounted.

"Why the hell would I ever have sex with you? I don't even fancy you."

Hannah turned back to face her.

"Well you certainly fancied me last night."

"I was drunk. Too drunk to remember anything that happened. And that means you," she pointed her finger accusingly, "took advantage."

"What?" Hannah's voice rose. "Are you fucking kidding me? You came on to me!"

"Oh bollocks I did! Why would I do that? I told you, I don't fancy you and no amount of booze would have made me!"

Hannah stood up abruptly, still holding her tea with one hand and flung open the bedroom door.

"Why don't you just fuck off, yeah?"

"Don't worry, I'm going!"

Charlie stood and tottered towards the door on her stilettos. She felt ridiculous. She stopped by the door and faced Hannah, her heels making her the same height as the other girl. "Don't go spreading this shit around the office, all right? No one will believe you."

"Don't worry, this isn't something I want people knowing about."

Charlie hesitated and Hannah pointed towards the front door.

"It's that way."

Charlie marched down the hallway, heels clacking. She walked through into the living room, where a girl and a guy were sitting on the sofa, obviously just out of bed. They both looked up at her, mouths open slightly in surprise.

Charlie marched on and wrenched open the front door. She slammed it behind her and she walked down the steps onto the street.

She stopped. She realised firstly that she was cold and secondly, she had no idea where she was. She looked up and down the road. A residential street, somewhere in London. Shit.

A middle aged man walked past on the other side of the road and whistled.

"Walk of shame, love?"

"Oh fuck off!" Charlie shouted. "Oh wait, actually! Where's the nearest Tube?"

The man guffawed and jabbed his thumb down the street. Charlie set off with as much dignity as she could muster.

What a fucking nightmare. As if she would have shagged Hannah. No way - just no. She couldn't have gone in the space of one evening from barely passing the time of day with her to having sex with her.

The last time Hannah had come to fix her PC had been the week before the Christmas party. It had been running slowly, so desperately slowly that Charlie felt like taking a hammer to it. She had a massive event running that weekend and needed to print off final details, email the attendees and do all the last minute jobs. Hannah had sauntered up sometime in the afternoon to find Charlie shouting at her PC and calling it a piece of fucking shit. Hannah leaned against the wall of Charlie's office, her hands in the pockets of her low slung jeans.

"What seems to be the problem?" Her calm voice wound Charlie up even more.

"It won't bloody work - that's the problem!"

"When you say it won't work, what do you mean exactly?" Charlie felt like screaming.

"I mean it's taking fifteen minutes to load up a sodding document!"

Hannah frowned with professional curiosity.

"Let me take a look," she murmured, seating herself at Charlie's desk and clicking away.

Charlie took a strategic trip to the toilet, as she always did when she neared boiling point and when she came back Hannah said,

"Should be a bit quicker now. I cleared your - " Charlie held up her hand.

"I don't care what you did. So long as it's fixed."

Hannah had smiled at her in the slightly amused way that always infuriated Charlie.

People smiled like that when they thought they were somehow cleverer or superior to her. Charlie knew that lots of people were cleverer than her - they had better qualifications, knew more about everything and could fling long words about.

But what she lacked in cleverness, Charlie made up for in charm. And she knew that ultimately, charm counted for more.

It wasn't just about looks - Charlie knew perfectly well that she wasn't beautiful. But she was pretty enough and she could talk to anyone. Give her a room full of people and within half an hour she would know everyone's name, their kids' names and what they did for a living. She could talk to anyone about anything and appear fascinated by every word they said. That had got her further in her career than any of her admittedly mediocre qualifications.

She came to the end of Hannah's street and emerged onto a main road. She walked to the nearest bus stop and consulted the map. She was pleased to discover that she wasn't too far from home and could catch a bus to within a ten minute walk of her flat. She sat at the bus stop and waited, shivering in the cold wind.

She'd gone far in the company because of her charm. She'd started at the bottom as an events assistant - the girl who made the name badges and booked the transport and now she was deputy head of the department, deciding what events should be run to best entice and keep clients with the company. She got on well with all the senior managers - she could chat to Paul about his golf and to Steve about his house that he was always renovating. And to the blokes beneath them, she could talk about football, about whether Balotelli was worth the money and whether Man United would ever return to their glory days.

And sometimes, work nights out would end up with her in bed with one of the lads but she was always cool about it. She didn't expect or want anything more and never brought it up at work and the boys liked her for it. She was officially 'all right'.

The bus came and Charlie took a seat at the back, trying to ignore the smirks and curious looks of the other passengers.

Charlie was a success and she held that knowledge in front of her like a shield, deflecting everything that came in her path. Which was why it was impossible that she would have jumped into bed with some geeky, Star Trek loving - she stopped, as if her thoughts had hit a brick wall.

Star Trek - she could remember talking about Star Trek to Hannah last night. She blinked, as the conversation gradually came back to her.

She'd been slurring her words slightly so she must have been quite far gone. They were in the bar, a trendy place under the arches at London Bridge, all bare brick walls and waiters in black waistcoats. She'd been leaning against the bar next to Hannah, tilting her head up to Hannah's ear to be heard over the too loud house music.

"Yeah, me and my dad would always watch Star Trek together. That was the only thing we used to do together. Cos he'd been in the Army..."

The whole conversation came back to Charlie and she put her hand over her mouth. Had she really talked to Hannah about her dad? She never spoke to anyone about him - especially not at work. But as her memory of the conversation replayed, she realised she had told Hannah everything.

About her dad being an Army man through and through and he'd never been anything else. He'd got out of the Army when Charlie was eight and her main memory of him was of a morose and silent man, sitting on the sofa. Watching Star Trek once a week had been the only thing they'd shared.

The bus took a speed bump too fast and Charlie closed her eyes as a wave of nausea swept over her. Why on earth had she told Hannah all of that? Of all people?

The bus lurched to a halt and Charlie realised almost too late that it was her stop. She clattered down the aisle and squeezed through the doors just as they were closing. She stepped straight into a puddle on the kerb and swore. Several passers-by looked at her with a knowing smirk. Charlie wanted to punch them all in the face.

She walked down the high street in the direction of home. As she remembered her embarrassing chat with Hannah, she started to remember other details.

She could picture Hannah's head bent towards hers and Charlie had an impression of a white collar and something different about Hannah's hair.

She scowled as she clomped along, trying desperately to penetrate the layers of alcohol fugging her brain. Had Hannah been wearing something unusual?

Suddenly it came back to her, like a mist clearing. She could remember standing in the bar with Helen Lansdale from Marketing, both of them sipping Prosecco and bitching about everyone's outfits.

Charlie was on her third or fourth glass and feeling pleasantly tipsy. They'd just finished with the Accounts girls' outfits, when someone else had come into the bar, directly opposite where they were standing.

At first, Charlie had thought it was an incredibly handsome man in a tuxedo. She was admiring the cut of his suit jacket and the way his bow tie was clearly not a clip on when Helen had said,

"Is that the girl from IT?" Charlie had looked up to the man's face and almost choked on her drink.

It was Hannah - her dark hair slicked back and looking for all the world like a matinee idol from the thirties.

Charlie's jaw had dropped.

At that moment, Dave Pearson had waddled over. Dave worked in the chief exec's office and was a wanker of epic proportions. He looked at Hannah and said,

"Fucking hell. Did someone tell her it was fancy dress?"

"Shut up Dave," said Helen. "You're just jealous that she looks better in a suit than you do."

"Yeah," said Charlie, not taking her eyes from Hannah. "She looks hot." Dave had snorted and walked off.

Back in the high street, Charlie stopped suddenly. Shit. Hannah had looked hot. She could remember the feeling as if she was suddenly seeing her for the first time. The slightly annoying girl from IT who could never fix her computer fast enough had somehow transformed into something exotic and sexy.

Charlie resumed walking, her head thrumming as she replayed the scene.

She'd watched Hannah saunter up to the bar, seen the heads turn to look at her and watched as a slow smile had spread over Hannah's face. She knew the impact she was making and she was enjoying it. Her usual shy, geeky manner was gone and the confidence and charisma coming off her was like a heady scent.

Charlie had left Helen straight away and joined Hannah at the bar. She'd signalled to the bar man for another bottle of Prosecco and had looked Hannah up and down. Hannah gave her the usual amused smile.

"You look...different," said Charlie.

"Yeah. Well this is a party isn't it?"

"You look like...whatshername. That film star. My gran had magazines with pictures of her. German."

"Marlene Dietrich?"

"That's the one!" The Prosecco arrived and Hannah raised her glass to Charlie.

"That's a great compliment. Thanks." She took a sip of Prosecco. "You look good too." Charlie snorted.

"I always look good."

"And so modest with it!"

"Modesty has nothing to do with it. I'm just stating a fact."

"Must be nice to have such a high opinion of yourself."

"It's essential. If you don't think highly of yourself, no one else will."

Helen had chosen that moment to saunter unsteadily over to them.

"We didn't recognise you!" she said to Hannah. She reached out a hand and touched the lapel of Hannah's suit. "This is a bit different from your usual get up. This something you save for the weekends eh?"

"Some weekends, yes," said Hannah, with a mischievous smile.

"You mean those weekends when you're not at Star Trek conventions?"

Helen laughed the laugh that Charlie recognised as her flirting laugh - high pitched and shrill. Hannah smiled her amused smile at Helen.

"You think everyone who works in IT is into Star Trek?"

"Well aren't you?" Helen asked, with a giggle that ended in a hiccup.

"Well...maybe a little," said Hannah, winking at her.

Charlie was irritated that Helen had gate-crashed their conversation and infuriated that she was now actually flirting with Hannah. She was determined to wrest Hannah's attention back to her so she said,

"Ah, but which Star Trek?"

"There's more than one?" asked Helen, looking dismayed.

"Afraid so," said Hannah.

"My favourite is the original series," said Charlie. "No contest. But DS9 would come in second."

Helen shook her head sadly and tottered off. Charlie tried to keep the triumphant smile from her face.

"You like Star Trek?" Hannah said, incredulously.

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Yes. Why shouldn't I?"

"I mean it's just...not what I would expect."

"Well the company motto is all about challenging expectations isn't it?" Hannah laughed and Charlie felt a thrill of delight.

"True. So come on then. Why the original series?"

"Cos of Kirk and Spock. My dad used to say it was the greatest love story ever told."

And that was how she'd got on to tell Hannah all about her dad.

Charlie turned into her street, quickening her pace now that home was practically in sight. It had been Hannah's wink to Helen that had done it. That had been the moment that Charlie had decided that Hannah from IT, despite her superior smile and general geekiness, was definitely shag-able and Charlie wasn't about to let anyone else muscle in.

Charlie bit her lip as she put her keys in her front door, remembering her words to Hannah an hour earlier. God, she'd been a bit harsh. She clacked down the hallway, making straight for the bathroom. Her flat mate Laura opened the door of her room and poked her head out. She looked at Charlie and opened her mouth.

"Don't say a fucking word!" Charlie snapped.

Laura held her hands up.

"All right! Sorry for breathing."

Charlie went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

It felt good to strip off the dress and even better to stand in the shower under jets of hot water. Charlie closed her eyes and let her mind wander back over the evening. It was finally becoming clearer.

They'd talked about Star Trek for a while and then about work and then the music had started up and Charlie tried to talk Hannah into dancing. Hannah shook her head.

"I can't dance."