Free Summer With My Sister by Lucy Diamond

replied, waving a hand in what she hoped seemed a casual fashion. Richenda made a grab for her glass just before that got knocked over too. ‘To be honest, I’ve got something way more exciting lined up,’ she lied, tapping her nose once more. It was becoming her signature gesture tonight. Any minute now she’d go to tap her nose again and she’d find that it had shot out twenty centimetres like Pinocchio’s.
    ‘Oh yeah? What’s that, then?’
    Polly wished Mean Sophie didn’t have to sound quite so disbelieving. She tipped her head right to indicate Elliot McCarthy’s table. ‘I’ve got an in with Elliot,’ she said loftily. ‘I was just about to go and discuss things with him when you lot arrived actually, so if you’ll excuse me a minute . . .’
    ‘What, now?’ Nice Sophie looked concerned. ‘With Elliot McCarthy? Polly, don’t you think you’re a bit’ – she hesitated, clearly agonizing over whether to offend Polly or potentially save her – ‘you know . . . a bit pissed for a discussion with him right now?’
    ‘Of course not,’ Polly said, trying to disentangle herself from the table. She stuck her nose in the air, not making eye contact with any of them. Sod ’em. They were nothing to her. Watch this, losers , she commanded in her head as she stumbled towards Elliot McCarthy. Watch and learn. This is how Polly Johnson likes to operate – she scents blood and goes straight in for the kill.
    ‘Hi,’ she said, and then her mind went horrifyingly blank as the bigshots turned their impassive, who-the-hell-are-you? faces on her. Shit. What was his name again? ‘Emily McCartney?’ she blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘May I introduce myself as your biggest fan, Polly Johnson. Hi there.’ And then, with exquisite timing, she swayed on her heels and toppled clumsily into his lap.

    Some hours later Polly opened her eyes and then immediately clamped them shut again, as blazing sunlight scorched her eyeballs. Ow. OW .
    Her head throbbed in agony. Her mouth felt as if someone had hoovered out all of the saliva and coated its lining with fur. Her stomach was churning as if she was about to—
    Oh God. Polly staggered off her bed and just managed to make it to the bathroom before spewing violently into the toilet. Ugh. She heaved again and dry-retched a few times, trying to spit out all the bits of sick that were trapped behind her teeth. Disgusting.
    She lay on the bathroom floor whimpering, the stone floor cold against her hot cheek, not even having the energy to reach up and flush the loo or get some water to rinse her mouth. She felt as if she might die, right there on the tiles. Help. How had this happened?
    She paged blearily back through what she could remember of the night before, cringing as a series of dreadful images flashed into her head. Marcus humiliating her in front of her friends. Humiliating herself in front of Elliot McCarthy and his companions, who just happened to be pretty much the most influential people in the City. Being asked to leave the Red House by the management, after Elliot McCarthy had complained to the staff about her.
    She winced, remembering how they’d tried to manhandle her out of the building when she’d refused. Hell, she’d never be able to show her face in there again. And then what? She vaguely remembered being in another bar, somewhere (where?), drinking gin after gin and pouring her heart out to someone (the barman? complete strangers?), but the details were fuzzy – she couldn’t make out her surroundings, other people’s faces. As for how she’d got home again, it was a complete mystery. Shit.
    She lay there for some time on her bathroom floor, not sure whether she was going to throw up again or not, but oddly comforted by the tiles beneath her face, as if there was no further to fall. This is what rock bottom feels like, she said to herself, and shut her eyes.

    The whole day was a write-off. So much for continuing the bombardment of