It Could Be You: Part 1. Bella Osborne
entered her usual coffee shop, the Hug In A Mug, and Penny behind the counter did a double take. Regan braced herself for the sarcastic comments about her being earlier than usual. ‘You been evicted?’ asked Penny, chuckling whilst she made Regan’s usual order. ‘Wet the bed then?’
‘Had to take a friend to the airport,’ Regan said, with a giant yawn. ‘Actually can I have an extra shot in mine today, please?’
‘Sure thing,’ said Penny. She put it through the till and Regan paid with the joint account card. She liked contactless payments on the joint account because it wasn’t like real money. The only price she had to pay was Jarvis tutting over the statements.
There was a bang on the window of the coffee shop, followed by the cringe-making sound of nails on glass moving slowly down the pane. Penny and Regan winced and turned quickly to look. A large dog was standing on its back legs with its giant front paws on the window. It was the height of an average human.
‘Christ, what is that?’ asked Penny. They both watched, mesmerised by its large fangs and open slathering jaw.
‘Ah, that is Kevin’s new friend. I met him yesterday. Some bloke tied him up and left him, according to Kevin.’
‘Poor thing,’ said Penny, and they watched it lick the glass with its huge pink tongue. ‘What sort of dog is it?’
‘I think it’s a werewolf,’ said Regan. It certainly looked the right size. She grabbed some sugar sachets, slung them on the cardboard tray and headed for the door, calling ‘Bye!’ as she left.
Outside, the giant mutt was waiting for Regan, but thankfully, so was Kevin. Kevin was homeless. Regan had walked past him every day since she’d started her job at BHB Healthcare and he always told her carpe diem, which was Latin for ‘seize the day’ – she’d looked it up. He never asked for money, which had been what had triggered her to start getting him a coffee each morning, and the smile she got from Kevin when she handed it over kept her going for hours.
‘Hey Kevin. You might want to keep your dog off the glass. Don’t want him getting into any trouble.’ She gave Kevin his coffee and he beamed at her. The dog sniffed her groin and retreated. She couldn’t blame him – she hoped her lack of a shower didn’t have the same effect on her work colleagues. She made a mental note to spray herself liberally with perfume when she got there.
‘Thank you. Carpe diem,’ said Kevin, cupping his coffee reverently. Regan tried not to stare at the scars lacing their way across Kevin’s hands.
‘I will.’ She turned to walk away and then spun around. ‘Oh, has your dog got a name yet?’
‘I’ve called him Elvis,’ said Kevin proudly.
‘Because he’s in the ghetto?’ asked Regan.
Kevin looked baffled. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘because he’s a hound dog.’
‘Genius!’ said Regan, and it kept her laughing most of the way to work.
Regan waltzed into the office with a whole twenty minutes to spare. She worked in a small team, which dealt with late invoices. The only break from the unrelenting tedium of doing the same thing every day was her mate Alex. He had a sense of humour, which made him infinitely more likeable than anyone else in the office.
‘Blimey, did they put the clocks back?’ asked Alex, pulling his coffee from the cardboard tray Regan offered him, then picking up the sugar sachets and a stirrer.
‘Your stand-up routine needs work,’ said Regan, taking her seat and switching on her computer. ‘I need to leave early tonight.’
‘What, because of the extra eighteen minutes you’ve put in this morning?’
‘No, because I left in a hurry and basically trashed the place.’ She needed to make it back to the flat, or ‘apartment’, as Jarvis liked to call it, to have a quick tidy-up before Jarvis got in.
‘Jarvis won’t like that.’ Alex tutted in an uncannily Jarvis-like manner.
‘Precisely why I need to get home before him.’
‘Why so early if you were in a rush?’ Alex was screwing up his face.
‘I dropped my friend Cleo at the airport.’
‘Artist. Posh sort?’
‘Yep, that’s the one. She’s jetting off for two months to Dubai, Japan and some other awesome places.’ Regan flopped back in her seat. ‘I wish I was going with her. She has the best life.’ She turned her head towards Alex. ‘Would you like to travel?’
‘I do travel.’ He looked affronted. ‘I go to Skegness every year.’
‘Hmm. Not quite the same.’
Alex gave a twitch. ‘Japan may have the edge on Skeggy.’ They both sighed together.
‘Ooh,’ said Regan, pulling her purse from her bag. ‘Look what I got.’ She held up the lottery ticket and gave it a wave. ‘It’s a rollover on Saturday. Ten million quid. Think what you could do with that.’
They both paused for a moment, lost in thought, until their boss, Nigel, tapped on his glass office door and they both quickly got back to work.
Regan liked Alex. There was no romantic pull on her part, but she knew he was quite fond of her thanks to some slurred words after too much tequila at the Christmas party. In any case, he made the day go quicker: they kept the tedium at bay by winding each other up on a regular basis. Nothing major; just the usual office pranks like hiding each other’s mouse, changing chair adjustments and unplugging equipment. It was quite childish, but it made work marginally more entertaining.
Most of the day was uneventful. In the afternoon, Regan found herself dozing off in a very dull meeting about discounting and promotions. Alex gave her a nudge and she turned what she feared was a snore into a cough. A few heads spun in her direction.
‘Terrible hay fever,’ she muttered, pulling a tissue from her pocket. Alex shook his head at her.
She could see he was furiously scribbling things down on his pad; she eyed him with suspicion. Alex was like her in a lot of ways; neither of them usually put in any particular effort at work, although Alex still fancied himself for a promotion. Regan couldn’t really see the point. She’d get paid very little extra at the end of the month, but have a load more responsibility. No, she was all right just doing what she needed to and no more. She understood why sales people worked harder for a bonus, or people who ran their own company, but it totally foxed her why an ordinary employee would do any more than the minimum required.
She leaned over and tapped a finger on Alex’s pad. He tilted it for her to see. The title at the top jumped out at her: ‘Lottery Rollover – What I’d do if I won’.
‘You don’t even have a ticket,’ she whispered.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got loads of time to get one.’
She pulled the notepad from his grasp and had a read. It was fairly standard stuff. She handed it back and began jotting down her own. Regan chewed the end of her pen and made some crossings out as her imagination soared.
Live in a big huge awesome home
Help Dad out
Get a pedigree puppy
Save the tiger whale some important animal
Run my own successful company
Bask on a deserted island and drink cocktails served to me by bare-chested waiters
Go out and enjoy myself