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‘Okay, so what’s on offer?’ All Jess could see were nervy colleagues, well-coiffed middle-aged women, scruffy academics, daggy bookshop staff and sleazy journalists. The bar was full of the usual stereotypical suspects, all nice enough but there was no one there to raise the pulse, except Cheekbones, who’d been captured.
    ‘Weeell …’ Zoë examined her voluptuous upper half in a nearby mirror, making sure that her hair was as artfully fluffed as it had been last time she’d checked. ‘There’s that waiter.’ She pointed to the waiter with a Celtic tattoo peeping out from under the sleeve of his skin-tight white t-shirt.
    ‘Gymbo bimbo, probably gay; either way, more you than me.’
    ‘Honey, where have you been? The safe money would be on metrosexual not gay. But, fine. What about him? Maybe he’s more your type …’
    She nodded in the direction of a man standing alone at the bar, critically surveying the crowd and, if the supercilious arch of his well-defined left eyebrow was anything to go by, finding it wanting. ‘Actually, I take that back, I think he’s more my sort. Oh yes, he’s just my sort.’ Zoë gazed his way, not concerned that this might attract his attention. ‘Anyone who can successfully wear low-slung, snug-fitting pants like thatworks for me. And I’m kind of partial to that dark, crumpled hair, pale-skinned thing – what would you call it? Vampire chic? Mind you, with that eyewear he’s also giving off a bit of an early sixties intellectual vibe. Does it a lot better than David. Maybe he’s a designer of some kind?’
    ‘Or he works in a clothes shop.’
    ‘And the problem with that would be exactly what?’
    ‘Nothing. Just saying: don’t judge a book.’
    Almost on cue, the dark-haired mystery man noticed them, and Zoë being Zoë gave him an artificially coy smile. Jess had been through this all before. She’d be given all of five seconds to make up her mind about someone before Zoë pounced. Sadly, assuming his arrogant-clothes-horse affect was only superficial, he had appealed to Jess, but she knew better than to try to compete with her curvy silver-suited friend. Nevertheless, it was a pity.
    Zoë, unaware as always of Jess’s thoughts, returned to the main topic. ‘You know, the thing I admire about Eve is —’
    ‘Voice down, Zed.’
    ‘Oh, no one’s listening.’
    ‘What were we just doing?’
    ‘Oh, right, I see, fair enough.’ She frowned, ran her hand over her hair and glanced over towards the dark-haired man again before whispering, theatrically, ‘My theory is that she rose above her destiny.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘I think she began life as Yvonne and she rose above the destiny such a name bestows upon a person.’ Zoë pronounced Yvonne with the stress on the Y. ‘It’s the name of a robust bridge-playing, fundraising society matron, or a tragic suburban librarian with a fondness for mauve polyester blouses, who organises the children’s activity schedule, but, as cruel fate would have it, is never able to have children of her own.’
    ‘Due, ironically, to her love of mauve polyester, that well-known prophylactic.’
    ‘Sadly.’
    ‘So Yvonne isn’t the name of a managing director?’
    ‘Well, how many industry leaders called Yvonne do you know? But wait, there’s another one.’
    Irrationally expecting to see another Eve, or even an Yvonne, Jess instead found that Zoë had Phil, Papyrus’s sports publisher Phil, in her sights.
    ‘Do you know what else I like about the big Y?’
    ‘You do know that she’s not really called Yvonne, don’t you?’
    ‘Don’t be dull, work with me here.’
    ‘Okay, what else do you like about her?’
    ‘That she surprises me. I mean, when I came here tonight, I just didn’t know which direction she’d be heading, you know, fashion-wise. She’s so fabulously promiscuous.’
    ‘Who’s promiscuous?’ Phil was rarely where he was supposed to be, but could always be counted on to be