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wasn’t over Todd. In her imagination he’d decided that he was madly in love with her, had made a dreadful mistake, and wanted her to go back to him. She could see herself serving in the store and Todd bursting through the door and folding her in his arms, showering her face with kisses and telling her how stupid he’d been — he’d just been infatuated with the other girl, and would she, Flick Flack, his pet name for her, please take him back?
    Dumb, dumb, dumb.
    Todd didn’t know where she was, even if he did care about her.
    ‘I’ve got to get Todd out of my mind,’ she told herself firmly. ‘I can’t get over him while I’m thinking like this. But how could he have looked into my eyes and told me that he loved me while he was seeing someone else? Does that mean he still loves me? Or he never really loved me at all? And if another guy says he loves me, how am I supposed to believe it? I’d never tell anyone that I loved them unless I really meant it. No way!’
    She thought about her girlfriends and their boyfriends. Two of them were still going with their long-term guys, but then Anna and Danni were both airheads and always compliant. They did what theguys wanted and never argued. The other two friends, Pip and Georgie, had also experienced major bust-ups. Idly she wondered if they’d got over the experience and were going out with new partners.
    Well, she’d had enough of so-called love to last her a lifetime. She wasn’t going to stick her neck out again like that and get her head chopped off from her body by some guy, because that’s what it felt like. She still felt emotionally detached, as if her head was permanently severed from her heart. How was she ever going to trust someone again? Todd had always said their relationship was built on trust, then he’d knocked it down like some fragile castle built of sand that had been jumped on then washed away by the swirling tide.
    Unable to sleep, Flick switched on the TV. She turned the sound right down until it was a soft murmur. There was some late-night panel show on, a debate about the sexes.
    ‘Just what I need to cheer me up,’ grimaced Flick, but she watched it anyway.
    ‘The most important things in life are power, money, sex appeal and charisma, and you need those four if you want to succeed and get to the top,’ said this sleazy-looking guy called Mark Thornton who was an ex-rugby player and now a TV panelistrenowned for his fast girlfriend change-overs. He was nearing fifty, had obviously dyed hair and was nothing spectacular to look at.
    ‘Power, money, sex appeal and charisma,’ said Flick to herself. ‘Most women haven’t a hope of getting those things. Power. That’s a pretty tough call. Power as in leadership? Or in manipulating others to get what you want? Money? Most women I know with money have married into it. I suppose there’re a few who’ve earned it with their own talent, but most of them hit the glass ceiling and can’t go any further. Sex appeal? Well, I know girls who use that to get what they want. Is that what he means? And charisma. Most politicians have got that. And TV comperes, too. Used car salesmen? Actors? Are they born with it or do they learn to conjure it up from somewhere? And because they’ve got charisma, does that mean they then get sex appeal? And money? And power?’
    It was all too complicated. Fuzzily, Flick remembered a woman saying something about it being a man’s world. Men could look old, grey and wrinkled but if they had money it didn’t matter, they could still pull in some good-looking bimbo as a trophy bird. Whereas, if women looked old, grey and wrinkled they were considered over the hill and past their use-by date. It wasn’t fair.
    When she woke the next morning the TV was still on, but now it was an early morning cartoon show. Suddenly the curtain swished back and Kay was standing there holding two steaming mugs of tea.
    ‘I thought you were awake because the TV was on,’ she