Free Did The Earth Move? by Carmen Reid Page A

professionally.'
    'They're not even teenagers any more,' he remembered. 'What's the term for moody young twenty-somethings?'
    'Post-adolescents or "thresholders", that's very now.'
    'Yeah, well...'
    'That's great. I had no idea you were planning all this.'
    'I don't tell you everything, Eve.' This said with a little smile, before he added, 'But I'm telling you ahead of everyone else because I'm going to recommend you for my job. What do you think of that?'
    'What do I think of that?' she repeated. 'Now I really am surprised.'
    Lester was a good man to work for: kind, fair, older, wiser. All the qualities you could have hoped for in a boss in this line of work. He was the reason she hadn't moved areas for an almost unheard-of amount of time. Well, that and the fact that she had never wanted much in the way of promotion. She'd been happy with her lot under Lester.
    'You'd be really good,' he was telling her, leaning over the desk with enthusiasm. 'Everyone here trusts you and likes you. You'd be a very safe pair of hands and I know you'd like the pay rise. It doesn't have to be five long days a week, you could maybe do four longer days and a half-day on Friday, or something else like that. All sorts of things could work. You're the right person for the job. Make it work for you. I don't want them to have to go outside for someone else.'
    They tossed it about a little longer and Eve promised to give it some thought. When he stood up to go, she stood up too.
    'I'm going to really miss you, Lester,' she said.
    'Likewise,' he answered and their eyes held for a moment over her desk.
    'I don't want to make your life any more complicated than it already is,' he added, 'but maybe this would be good for you. You've seemed a bit... I don't know .. . unchallenged lately. Is that the right word? Maybe you need something to move forward in your life.'
    'Maybe.' She held out a hand for him and he took it in a double-handed shake.
    'Better let you get on,' he said, pointing at her desktop paper stack.
    'Oh yes.' Bugger, now she wasn't going to enjoy lunch with the girls nearly so much. This was a secret she couldn't share with them yet.
    And she'd been hoping to leave early because Jen was due for supper tonight, but the paperwork pile had to be diminished. She sat down and pulled open a fresh file.
    By 10p.m. Eve was fading, but judging by the contents of the wine bottle between her and Jen on the garden table, the evening was still an hour or so away from being over.
    'So,' Eve topped up their glasses, 'any improvement on . . .' her voice went down to a mock whisper: 'the sex problem?'
    They both burst into cackles of laughter.
    'No, no. Ryan still considers watching an episode of Sex in the City as foreplay,' Jen confided. 'No, I lie, he's got a new line: "Jen, I've taken out the rubbish"!'
    Further giggles at this.
    'At least he tries,' Eve told her. 'I don't think I could be bothered with sex.' Now why had she gone and said that? She often said it to Jen, but at the moment it wasn't true and anyway, it just invited trouble.
    'So nothing to report on the vet front?' Jen was asking her. See? Now look what had happened.
    'No, no ...' Eve was trying to hide behind her wine glass.
    'Nothing at all?! Are you sure there isn't a thing you want to tell Auntie JenJen?'
    'I quite like the vet... the vet may or may not like me . . . that is absolutely all. And I haven't seen him for ages,' she lied. She'd last seen him two weeks ago, but she'd turned down two recent requests for 'an appointment'.
    'Do you really want to spend the rest of your life alone?' Jen was leaning back in her chair, warming up for their favourite debate.
    'I'm not alone!' Eve replied. 'I'm not alone for one minute of the sodding day! Alone would make quite a nice change.'
    'But your bed is cold and unshared,' Jen reminded her. 'Your children will grow up and move away and you'll die a lonely old maid, all withered up inside.'
    Eve snorted at this. 'I have electrical