Phone calls,files, photocopies, needy fecking clients that can't give me a moment to pause for breath...it's times like these when I really envy Caitlyn.
I'm thankful for the success I've had but being some "hot shot" lawyer-bloke is darn tiring work. Caitlyn has problems of her own but she has a quiet sort of life which isn't organised into over packed one-hour slots. Sometimes it's as though the very words I say are working at a deadline themselves.
"Mr. Vale?"
"Yes Nicole?" I'd told her a million times that calling me Will was just fine but she insisted on office formalities...ridiculous really when we'd known each other for most of our lives.
"There's a call for you on line three. Apparently it's quite urgent."
Great. Another urgent call; just what I need.
"Okay Nicole, thank you."
Breathe in....2...3...4 and out...2....3...4...5....6..7..8.
And CALM.
"Hello, William Vale, managing director of ValeLaw inc. speaking, how can I help?"
"That's a very proper greeting for an old pal, Will. Well, I say old but I'm still pretty fine right?"
"Caitlyn Morag?"
"The very same! How are you Will?"
"...I was told that this was an urgent phone call..."
"Oh it is; it is. I just wanted to know how my fiance's day was going..."
"Fiance? So, that's a yes then? You'll marry me?"
"Bingo! I know it's not quite the overcome with emotion response you may have been expecting but I figured that I'd left you in the dark for long enough....what has it been, four months since you asked me?"
"Yeah...around about that long..." I was hardly going to tell her that I'd been counting the days since that phone call on the 28th October. "So, you're really serious, you're going to be Mrs. Caitlyn Vale?"
"I will marry you but that's quite an old fashioned way of thinking, wouldn't you say?"
"I don't think I quite follow what you're saying Caitlyn..."
"Oh, I was just toying with the idea that you could maybe take my name...or do a double-barrel type thing; that wouldmake us sound so posh! Just imagine Lord and Lady Morag-Vale."
"I'll tell you what I'm imagining, Vale-Morag. What about that?"
"But it's alphabetical...M before V; it's the rules, I didn't write them!"
"Caitlyn. Never in all of the twenty five years that I've known you, have you ever played by the rules. Any reason for the sudden change of mind? Like wanting your name first because you're childish, petty and insistent on winding me up?"
"Wind you up? Wouldn't dream of it!"
I could hear her stifled giggles over the line.
"Sure."
"Have you thought any more about that reunion party we were talking about?"
Smooth subject change.
"I've thought about it but how can I realistically take time out of business for the sake of a few too many drinks, resulting in embarrassing photos being posted on facebook the next day with a group of people who I haven't seen in more years than I care to remember?"
"It'd be fun, Will. Sometimes it's good to loosen off that double Windsor tied tye of yours and undo those top few buttons. Let go of the office for a little while; you must have a good enough vice in place?"
Oh no, she was pleading with me, absolutely pleading! How could I tell her that it was a preposterous idea?
"I'll try Caitlyn, I'll really try my hardest to make some time."
"Promise?"
"...yes."
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"Tell me 'I promise I will definitely try my hardest to make time for the reunion.' please?"
"I promise that I will definitely try my hardest to make time for the reunion. Happy?"
"Very."
"Are you done squandering away my time now?"
"Uh huh. Bye bye Will!"
"Goodbye Caitlyn."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
I sighed to myself, Caitlyn was going to be my wife. Wow. I'm a lucky, lucky man.
But as I sat, reveling in time which I'd made no contingency for, I caught sight of my office clock; the arms waving mockingly back at me. I was going to have to work through lunch, yet again.
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