Read One In A Billion for Free Online Page B

Sophia said, to save me the trouble.
    ' She's older than most of the usual girls', Janice said, in a matter of fact way. It wasn't anything more than an observation, and she didn't mean to upset me by saying it. I refrained from telling her I'd been one of her most faithful staff members for several years now, because I knew there wasn't any point anyway. She'd only forget for the next time around.
    Janice buzzed off and I finished getting dressed. The outfit was too tight of course, and it was made of that horribly cheap material that gave you a rash if you wore it for too long. Sophia by contrast looked amazing. She was one of those girls that looked amazing in everything. She wasn't conventionally attractive, she just knew how to carry herself with a confidence that made men, sometimes the right men too, fall at her feet and fight each other to kiss them. I was pretty jealous of how she managed that.
    We were in the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favourite buildings in London, and somehow the organisers of the event had arranged to have access for their clients after hours. We were limited to a few of the rooms on the first floor, but it was pretty amazing to be here even if it meant wearing a playboy bunny outfit several sizes too small in order to do so, that made me mince around like a tightrope walker for fear of splitting the seams. There were about a dozen of us in all, some girls I'd worked with before and some new ones, all of whom looked much younger and much more suited to their costumes than I did. Sizes must have gone down, generation by generation, I reasoned. Either that or my outfit had shrunk in the wash.
    Janice rounded us up, adjusted the costumes of a few of the girls, and then gave us instructions on what our requirements were for the evening.
    ' Smile and have a good time', she said, 'and don't let me catch you drinking or eating on the job.' She winked at me when she said that one. 'If you need to smoke, you can have a cigarette every hour, just make sure you don't come back in smelling of smoke.'
    Sophia smiled at me.
    ' What?' I said, knowing exactly what that look meant.
    ' He could be out there', Sophia said. 'You know, your one.'
    ' Pass', I said. 'I've given up already.'
    ' Didn't Marth text back?' she said his name as though he were a British Lord.
    ' Yes', I said. 'He did. He texted, he emailed and he called six times. I had to block him.'
    ' You obviously made an impression.' Sophia said.
    ' To the wrong person.'
    Sophia and I collected up trays of champagne glasses. They had these special paddles that made it much easier to carry them without the risk of dropping them all over the floor, like I seemed to have the habit of doing from time to time. Sophia wasted no time in guzzling down a glass, which gave her paddle a missing spot.
    ' Soph!' I said.
    ' Don't tell anyone', she said and winked at me.
    We made our way to the door and the waiting guests. One round of champagne, one round of canapes. That was the cycle. We had to smile, make our way round the guests, pour champagne into empty glasses and collect others that had been left in random locations. It was a pretty easy job.
    ' How do I look?' I said, just before we entered the lion's den.
    ' Knockout', Sophia said with a smile, and we followed a chain of other girls out into the heart of the post event reception.
    It was a mixed bunch. Some people in suits, some people in casual clothes, men and women of different ages. I didn't see anyone famous, not that I would have recognised them anyway, and I looked for Tom Conti again, but he wasn't there. I'm hopeless when it comes to films, and I'm not the typical girl who flicks through celebrity magazines and knows who the latest famous for five minutes foetuses are. I rely on Sophia for that, but even she was stumped that night.
    I found out during the course of the evening, that the event was a reception for a business charity fundraiser, some private city investment firm or hedge fund,