The One with the White Wedding. Erin Lawless

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       Chapter Thirty-Five

      Cleo bustled herself through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby with more haste than class, shaking the smears of sleet from the shoulders of her dark coat and crossing her fingers that her hair wasn’t too frizzy. It had only been a short dash from the nearest tube to the venue, but, still, she wished that she’d been able to cram her umbrella into her diddy clutch bag.

      Removing her damp coat and throwing it over her arm, Cleo followed the signs for the Oaklands Christmas Party through the warren of a hotel, noting that she wasn’t noticing any familiar faces. She’d been going for fashionably late, but maybe she’d veered into the offensively late bracket. She’d spent a little bit longer in the bath than she’d meant to, and far too much attention to her makeup (which, please god, had hopefully managed to stay put through the pressing fug of the tube journey and the spitting shower of sleet).

      As she approached the atrium for the second-floor function area a blank-faced man in a dark suit appeared as if from nowhere and offered to take her coat and scarf to the cloakroom; Cleo gave up her damp, wintery burden gratefully. This place was even fancier than she’d anticipated. There had been talk that it would be. The headmaster’s ancient PA had finally retired that last summer, and with her went the tradition of a limp three-course turkey dinner in the little reservable area near the toilets at the pub a couple of roads away from the school. The PA’s replacement (who didn’t look like she was long out of secondary school herself…) had absolutely no interest in the fusty local, nor a mandatory novelty jumper rule. Cleo smoothed her palms against her new cocktail dress nervously. A stupid expense (particularly this close to Christmas) – but when she’d seen it in the shop she knew she had to have it. It was a soft and shiny material in rose gold which slouched forward a tad daringly off of her shoulders and hung loose across her frame, allowing it to flow over her body, catching the sheen of the lights. It felt festive and decadent and sexy (Cleo hoped that she herself would accordingly follow suit).

      The broad space of the function room was lit at low-level only, but the white, silver and blue colour theme served to brighten the area. It felt more like a wedding than an office Christmas party, each round, white-clothed table sporting huge centre-pieces – oversized martini glasses filled with prickly sprigs of holly and soft, fat plumes of white feathers. Glitter-dipped laser-cut snowflakes in shades of gleaming silver, snow white and ice blue hung from the high ceiling, like something out of Frozen. Bright strands of silver lametta draped from the branches of a distastefully large real Christmas tree taking up one entire corner of the room. The standard rust-coloured hard-wearing carpeting detracted from, but didn’t ruin, the general effect.

      Spying a work mate taking an artfully-angled photo of the tree, Cleo made a bee-line over to her.

      “You look amazing,” Tia told her, approvingly, aiming an air-kiss in the vicinity of one cheek, then the other (events like this were weird, thought Cleo – it’s not like they greeted one another in the staff room like that). “Have you got a drink?”

      “No, not yet. I’m going to pace myself. Don’t want a repeat of last year and all that!” Cleo laughed self-depreciatingly.

      Tia raised one expertly-threaded eyebrow. “Well, don’t wait too long. There’s a budget behind that free bar, you know.”

      Cleo double-took. “Free bar?”

      “Yup. The management board has put an undisclosed sum behind the bar as a little festive bonus. You know, in lieu of us getting paid actual festive bonuses? But when it’s gone, it’s gone,” Tia shrugged, taking a generous gulp from her generously-large glass of white wine.

      Cleo glanced behind her – that definitely explained the popularity of the bar area, which was already thronged with people. “Well, in that case,” she laughed. “I wouldn’t want to miss out on my bonus!”