My family knows me all too well. Whenever I go shopping, I always seem to come home with something I didn’t go out to get. Sometimes, I see a bargain which takes my fancy, and when I get home, I’ve totally forgotten to buy whatever it was that I went out to buy. They’ve even taken to giving me shopping lists, so that we actually have some spaghetti to go with our Bolognese when it’s my turn to go to the supermarket. So what could possibly happen on a trip to the optician’s? I’ve worn glasses since I was about 10 years old, so for about 11 years. Or maybe I got them when I was 11, so I’ve only had them for ten years. Either way, I can’t see much without them. I knew I needed a new pair. Every time I went, I needed a new pair. There had always been a “slight change” in my prescription, and I’d be able to “see so much better” with my new glasses. It had taken quite a lot of arranging to sort out the right sort of appointment. I always went with my sisters, Alicia and Mia. We are triplets. We all got our first glasses on the very same day, and have always gone together. At first, it was out of convenience for our mother, but now it was out of a sense of history and self-help. We needed each other’s advice to know what sort of frames suited us best, as none of us has ever been tempted by the idea of contact lenses, and none of us can see well enough to use a mirror easily when trying on frames. Even so, it was an undertaking requiring almost military precision. Mia got there first. Alicia and I arrived about a quarter of an hour later. While Alicia was getting her eyes tested, I helped Mia to choose a new frame. When I went in for my test, Mia helped Alicia, and when I came out, Alicia helped me. That way, we were able to get ourselves sorted during our respective lunch breaks. This time, things were a little different. For as long as I could remember, we had gone to F. W. Clements & Son for our eye tests and glasses. It was a strange arrangement. The “shop” was actually in the flat above a chemist’s, and we had to ring the doorbell to be allowed in. We had always wondered what had happened to the son, as we only ever seemed to see an elderly man. The whole arrangement was like a step back in time. “Reception” was a desk on the first floor landing. The “waiting room” was a row of three chairs on the same landing. The “examination room” would have been a bedroom or a living room if the place had been an actual flat, and when it came to choosing new frames, the receptionist, presumably Mrs. Clements, went into a back room and brought out a briefcase with a dozen or so frames which might be suitable for the client in question. However, when Alicia had phoned to book our appointments, she was told that Mr. Clements had now retired and sold the business. She asked about the son, only to be told that Mr. Clements “Senior” had died about twenty years earlier. The business had been bought by a “Mr. Roseberry,” who had also bought the chemist’s downstairs. The shop was to be refitted, so we would have to wait a couple of months before they could fit the three of us in during a lunchtime. The new shop was certainly far more up to date than the old one had been. For a start, when I arrived, I was able to go in without having to ring a doorbell, and I could see Alicia was already waiting for me. The selection of frames was in full view around the walls, and there were computers very much in evidence. The receptionist looked about 40 years younger than Mrs. Clements had been. Her badge told me that her name was “Judi,” although I couldn’t think why I was ever going to need to know it. I’d been waiting with Alicia for about ten minutes when Mia emerged from the testing room. Part of my job was to help her to choose a new frame. “New prescription?” I asked, as she came towards me. “Yes. A little bit stronger, but I was sort of expecting it anyway. Even if I hadn’t, these lenses are so scratched that I’d have been getting new glasses. What do you think I should go for?” This was a tricky question. As identical triplets, what looked good on one of us, looked good on all of us. Growing up, our mother had often dressed us in identical outfits, so as we had got older, we had done our best to dress differently. We all quite liked having fairly long, blonde hair, so we found ways of wearing it differently. Alicia usually opted for a braid, Mia let her hair hang loose, and I frequently tied mine back in a pony tail. However, when we’d just had a hairwash, we looked pretty much identical, and you had to know what you were looking for to tell us apart. In the few minutes I’d been waiting for Mia, I’d had a brief look at the selection of frames. There seemed to be so many of them compared to the briefcase I’d been used to, that it seemed harder to decide what I liked. However, I’d spotted a frame I thought would suit me, so I did my best to find something similar, but different, for Mia. My heart was in my mouth when she picked up, and tried on, that particular frame. Fortunately for me, she rejected it, as it felt “a bit too heavy.” This worried me slightly. I didn’t know what her new prescription was, but I knew mine had been quite a lot stronger for a number of years, and I knew I was only a few minutes away from it becoming even stronger still. Mia still had a couple more frames to try, when I became aware that Alicia had rejoined us, and that a man somewhere behind me had just called out “Jennifer Dubois.” My experience of opticians to date had been of one elderly gentleman, so my jaw nearly dropped through the floor when I saw a man in a white coat, who could only have been a handful of years older than me. I nodded, and he invited me to follow him. As I made myself comfy in the chair, he introduced himself as “Nick Roseberry”, the new owner of the business. He explained how he had bought the business as a going concern from Mr. Clements, and that they had just embarked on the lengthy process of computerising all the records of the active customers. With every new client he saw, they were putting the latest records into the computer, and then scanning in all of the old notes, prior to shredding them. After an initial discussion about my general health, and the reason for my appointment today (routine appointment, but I was 99% certain that I needed a new prescription) I was introduced to several machines I’d not seen in Mr Clements’ time. It was probably a full ten minutes before I had to read anything at all on the wall chart. In days gone by, I’d have done my best to try and work out what some of the letters were, but my attention was more on “Nick” than it was on the wall chart. Some of the answers I gave him were unnecessarily long-winded, just so that I could keep looking at him while I was talking to him. It didn’t help me much when he took my glasses off, to put the trial frames on. To delay him slightly, I complained that one of the lenses was a bit dirty as well. The test itself seemed very thorough. As always, I found myself wondering whether I was contradicting myself with some of my answers. By the end of the test, I was able to read the bottom few lines of the test chart fairly well, even if one or two of the letters involved a bit of guesswork on my part. As he reached forward to remove the frame from my face, I asked him how I was doing. It gave me another chance to look at him while he answered. Fortunately for me, he left the trial frame in place while he did so, and I was able to see him more clearly than I had earlier. “Well, we’re only partway through the test. There’s more to an eye exam than just reading a few letters, but you were right. You do need a noticeably stronger prescription, but you’ve probably worked that out. You can now read two more lines of letters than you could when we started. More importantly than that, though, I need to check the insides of your eyes to make sure that they’re all healthy as well.” He took the test frame from my face and then moved another machine in front of me. He was now so close that I could smell him. I could smell his after-shave. I could hear his every breath. I was also conscious that he could hear mine, and that I was struggling to control it, being so close to this really good-looking man. I suppose it was nervousness, but it was focused on him, not on the tests he was doing on my eyes. All too soon, he had finished. He gave me my glasses back, and turned to type up some notes on his computer. I couldn’t see a word of what he was typing. I was half tempted to pick up the trial frames with my new prescription in them and see if they helped. I was just about to ask about them when he picked them up and looked at the lenses. He typed my prescription into the computer, and then wrote it on a form before putting the lenses back in the tray. “Here is a copy of your new prescription, Miss Dubois. That sounds weird. It’s the first time I’ve had to say that three times in the same morning. But I’m intrigued. I’ve tested all three of you in the last hour or so. Without disclosing anything I shouldn’t, your sisters have fairly similar prescriptions, but yours is, shall we say “significantly”, stronger. Have you any idea why that may be the case?” “Well,” I answered, glad to spend a little more time looking at this almost perfect man. “It’s quite a long story.” “It’s lunchtime for me, and I haven’t got any more clients for another hour or so,” he answered. I don’t know what possessed me at that precise moment, or quite where my answer came from, but I heard myself saying: “I need to go and find a frame for my new glasses while Alicia is here to help me choose it, but I’ll answer your question over dinner tonight.” “I beg your pardon?” “Six o’clock at the Lettuce and Tomato in the town centre?” “Er, okay then.” “See you later. Goodbye, Mr. Roseberry. Thank you. Nick.” What had I just done? I’d just asked my new optician out to dinner. And he’d accepted. Or at least, he hadn’t declined. I turned to see Alicia waiting for me. “Did you just do what I think you did,” she asked, accusingly. “Maybe. It depends on what you think I did.” “Asked him out. I mean, that’s a bit forward, even for you.” I blushed. She was right. I did have a bit of a reputation, but if you never ask, you never know. “He probably won’t turn up.” I needed to change the topic of conversation. “What frames have you picked out?” “I’ve got it down to a choice of two. Which one do you think looks better?” I was quite relieved to see that she hadn’t picked up the frame that I had spotted for myself. Both of the frames she had chosen suited her, so making a final decision was not easy. After a certain amount of swapping between the two frames, she opted for the slightly smaller one, as her new -6 lenses wouldn’t be quite so thick. Once I was sure she’d made her mind up, I picked up the frame I had spotted and tried it on. “What do you think, I asked her.” “They suit you. Perhaps I should go for them as well?” “What? And have more of those arguments we used to have about which pair of glasses was whose?” “You’ve got to be kidding. I couldn’t see anything through your glasses five years ago. I bet it would be even worse now. Go on. What’s your new prescription?” I actually didn’t know. I’d been so busy looking at Nick that I hadn’t looked at what he had been writing on the prescription sheet, so at Alicia’s bidding I unfolded the sheet I was holding. “OMG!” “Well, what does it say?” “See for yourself.” I passed the sheet over to her. I was still trying to get my head around the numbers. I knew my eyes had changed. I was used to that, but they’d changed more than I’d thought. “I didn’t know you could get glasses that strong,” was her comment. “It looks like I’m going to have to,” I answered. I had to wait for Alicia to finish ordering her glasses before it was my turn. I’d been trying to remember my previous prescription, to work out how much my eyes had changed, but I couldn’t. All I could say for certain was that the first number had definitely been lower. As the lady was entering my details into the computer, I asked. “Your right eye has changed from -9.50 with -0.50 of astigmatism to -10.50 with -0.75 of astigmatism. Your left eye has gone from -8.75 with -0.25 of astigmatism to -10.00 but your astigmatism hasn’t changed.” “Is that normal?” I asked. “I’m no expert. I just dispense the glasses. I could go and see if Mr. Roseberry is still here and see what he says, if you like?” “No, no. It’s quite all right. I was just wondering, that’s all.” I wanted to see him again, but I didn’t want him to have the chance to cancel our dinner date before we even got that far. If he stood me up, well, these things happen. I left the optician’s several hundred pounds poorer about twenty minutes later, and hurried back to work. I’d ordered the thinnest lenses I could afford, but had been warned that my new glasses would still be pretty thick, because of my prescription. I found it very difficult to concentrate on my work that afternoon. Several times I got the prescription sheet out of my purse to look at the numbers, and also to look at the signature at the bottom of the form. The clock hardly seemed to be moving. By the time 5.30 came around, I felt as if I had been in the office for a week and a half. My work colleagues were a little surprised when I was still at my desk as they were leaving, as I was often the first out. However, I didn’t want to get to the Lettuce and Tomato too early. With them out of the way, I was able to go to the bathroom and adjust my make-up without having anyone ask a load of questions. I arrived at the Lettuce and Tomato at five to six. My wait in the pub was only about ten minutes, although it felt like a lot longer. I had enough time to get a drink and have a glance at the menu before Nick arrived. He seemed several inches taller than I had remembered, but I wasn’t complaining. I was just relieved he had turned up at all. I had run through various versions of my glasses story that I might tell him which might portray me in a different light. In the end, I decided the truth was best – or at least, as close a version to it as I was prepared to admit. The version that my sisters now knew, although I’d only come clean a couple of years ago. “Sorry I’m late. Have you been waiting long?” “Not to worry. I’ve only been here a couple of minutes myself.” “Would you like another drink?” “No, this one’s fine for now.” “I’ll be back in a moment then.” Now that Nick had arrived, I had lost all that bravado that had given me the courage to ask him out. In fact, I was a bag of nerves. I kept reminding myself that this was just like a blind date – except that I was the blind one. At least, I felt like I was. What would we talk about? Was there a Mrs. Roseberry – or a secret girlfriend somewhere? How did I find out? But then, would he even be here if there were? “Have you had a good afternoon,” he asked as he sat himself opposite me. “It was a bit of a slow day in the office, if I’m honest. What about you?” “I’ve had a very strange day.” “How so?” “Well, to start with, I got invited out to dinner by a patient earlier today.” “You mean, that doesn’t happen all of the time?” “No. Two or three times a week. The main difference was that, for some reason, this time, I accepted.” “Why did you do that?” “Well, the girl was really good looking, but I accepted out of professional curiosity. I know it was a bit unethical, but I guessed that I might learn something interesting from her. It beats spending half my evening computerising old records. Besides, even if I do spend most of my evenings working, I do still need to stop to eat. Talking of which, we’d better order or we could have quite a wait. That lot over there,” he pointed to a group of a dozen or so in the far corner, “look like they’re nearly ready to order.” I hadn’t really spent long enough looking at the menu to choose what I really wanted, but he had a point, so I opted for the scampi. “I’ll get this,” he said. I was about to object, before he added, “You can get more drinks and dessert later on.” It seemed like a sensible idea, so I simply agreed. He was not a moment too soon in getting to the bar. One of the group of twelve got there about 30 seconds after Nick, and then took the best part of ten minutes ordering food and more drinks. “So, why did you really accept my invitation?” I asked as soon as he had sat back down. “I’ve already told you. Professional curiosity. Usually when I deal with identical twins, their prescriptions are pretty similar. You and your sisters look like you’re identical triplets” (I nodded) “so to have one of the three of you needing about four diopters more than the other two seemed pretty unusual, and I wanted to find out more.” “Okay. I’ll tell you the full story, once our food arrives. But first, tell me about yourself.” It turned out that we had actually gone to the same Primary School. Nick couldn’t remember exactly how old he was when his parents bought a new house about fifteen miles away. It was possible we had been there at the same time for a few months. We both remembered enough about the place to exchange a few memories. I’d heard of his Secondary school, and he of mine, but as neither of us was particularly sporting, we’d never been to the other’s for any sort of sports match. He was in the middle of telling me about his time at university when our food arrived. “Go on, I’ve done enough talking. Our food’s here. It’s your turn,” he reminded me. “You might as well finish off your story first. How come you’ve taken over the optician’s from Mr. Clements?” Between mouthsful, Nick explained how he’d worked as a locum for a major chain for several years. Not knowing where he was going to be from one day to the next didn’t help, and only rarely had he seen any patients more than once. When the chance had come to take over the practice in the town where he’d been born, it was an ideal opportunity. It was a lot of work. Mr. Clements had had a steady customer base, but a lot of it was elderly, so there was definitely room for growth. The complete refit of the shop had set him back about 25K, but he hoped to recoup that over about ten years. To help keep the costs down, he was working extra hours almost every evening, so he didn’t have to employ a load of extra staff. He’d got one dispensing optician and another lady who acted as his receptionist / office manager – or was that the other way around – and his sister, Judi, who filled in a couple of times a week so that the other ladies could have a day off. He explained that things seemed to be looking up. He had about 5 days of testing a week at the moment, but it was spread over six days, as he wanted to be able to encourage new patients to come and see him, rather than travel to a chain like he’d worked in before. “Which is why I’m so interested to hear your story. Most twins have very similar prescriptions. I’ve never tested triplets before, but I was expecting something similar. And then you came in. So how, or why, is your prescription so different to your sisters’?” I made him wait a few more minutes before I was ready to tell him my story. We took the chance to order dessert and a cup of coffee. It also gave me the chance to work out where to start. I knew what the key moment was, but I was enjoying Nick’s company. I wanted him to have to wait a bit longer. “Well, I first got glasses when I was ten or eleven. I don’t remember which. I think I told you that this morning. I was in my last year at Primary School. I hadn’t realised that my eyes had started to change. I know that children are supposed to get their eyes tested every year, whether they need glasses or not. I’d been to visit Mr. Clements a few times and was told I had perfect eyesight. I couldn’t see that this time was going to be any different. But it was. Alicia had her eyes tested first. She seemed to do pretty well with reading the letters on the chart, so I was a little surprised when Mr. Clements told her that she needed to wear glasses for reading the board at school and when watching television. That was Alicia, I told myself. She spends too much time watching the television. However, when Mia, who is the most sporty of the three of us, was told exactly the same thing, I knew the writing was on the wall for me. And I was right. By that point, I had heard the bottom line of the chart read out so many times, that I had a pretty good idea of what it said. I don’t know whether my memory had helped. Apparently, my eyes weren’t quite as bad as the other two, but I still had to have glasses. When it came to choosing frames, we weren’t given any say at all. Mum chose the same frame for all of us. I guess it was so that she could continue to dress us identically. I’ve never actually asked her. “I hardly wore that first pair after the first week or so. Once the novelty had worn off, they spent most of their time in the bottom of my school bag. Occasionally, Mum would check that we had all had our glasses, and if we complained of having a headache while watching the television, we’d be made to put our glasses on. If she found a pair lying around, one or other of us would get told off, and reminded that we needed them for school. At some point, one of us lost our glasses, or picked up someone else’s. Either way, when it came to our annual check-up, we only had two pairs between the three of us. Mum was not happy. “When we found out that we all needed slightly stronger glasses, Mum insisted that we all have different colours, so we knew which pair was whose. In one way, it worked. However, if we wanted to swap identities, we could, as people had started to use our glasses to tell us apart. More than once, Mia did an extra PE lesson for either Alicia or me, and I definitely remember failing a geography test for Alicia on one occasion. It wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t been taught the work by that point. Two days later, it all made sense. Alicia wasn’t best pleased with the detention I’d earned her, but she knew we’d both be in even more trouble if she’d told the truth.” At this point, I took a break in telling my story as my Chocolate Brownie had arrived. I was about to own up to something to a total stranger that I had never even told my sisters. “That was so good,” I said to Nick as I finished off the last few crumbs. “How was your sticky toffee pudding?” “Pretty good. Anyway, don’t let me interrupt your story.” “Where was I? Oh yes. Well, there was this girl in my class called Juliet. She was rather overweight, and had to sit in the front row in the classroom as she was always complaining that she couldn’t see properly. She wore glasses, and seemed to get new ones every four or five months. We must have got our eyes tested about the same time near the start of year 8, and we both chose exactly the same frame. We weren’t friends. She didn’t seem to have many. She was okay, just not someone I really wanted to hang around with. Anyway, one day, we had a netball lesson. It was a school rule that no-one was allowed to wear any jewellery during PE lessons, and for any sports involving a ball. This rule extended to glasses as well. It wasn’t a problem for me, but it was for Juliet. For some reason, I was the last person left in the changing room on one particular day. I saw her glasses sitting right by the rest of her clothes. On the spur of the moment, I decided to swap them with mine. I put her glasses in my glasses case and put it back in my bag. I left mine where hers had been. I guess my idea was to have a bit of a laugh when she put my glasses on and found she couldn’t see anything, and then I’d give hers back to her. “Anyway, we were about fifteen minutes into the netball lesson when Juliet got hit full in the face by a stray football from a group of boys about ten yards away. It was a complete accident. Juliet was in tears, and there was an awful lot of blood. She looked distinctly unsteady on her feet, so she was taken off to the medical room. It was probably just as well she hadn’t been wearing her glasses, as I suspect they might not have survived the impact. By the time I got back to the changing room, someone had picked up her clothes and the rest of her school stuff, and my glasses. We didn’t see her in school for another two or three weeks. I overheard her telling someone that she had ended up with two black eyes and a broken nose that they had had to reset. It had taken her ten days until she could wear her glasses, and then discovered that the impact had caused her eyes so get so much worse that she could hardly see a thing with them. She’d had to take an extra week off while they made her a pair of glasses with a higher prescription in them. “In the meantime, I’d had my own vision issues. I’d reached the point where I really did need help with seeing the board. I’m guessing that -1.75 means more to you than it does to me. That was the prescription I was supposed to be wearing. I could manage well enough if I was sitting in the front row, but as luck would have it, I had two lessons that afternoon where I had to sit in the back row. No amount of screwing my face up did me any good. In fact, the teacher told me to get my glasses out of my bag and put them on, in one of the lessons. It was certainly a case of, as you would say, better with than without, but I certainly had to strain to see through the lenses. At least, by pulling the glasses down my nose a bit, I was able to see enough to do what I needed to without getting into trouble. “One of the advantages to having had someone else collect Juliet’s kit from the changing room was that I thought I’d be able to say they had picked up my glasses by mistake, and when she got back to school, I’d be able to ask for them back. That way, I wouldn’t have to admit to what I’d done. I wasn’t responsible for the accident, anyway. I learned one or two things in the few weeks Juliet was off. The first one was that I was okay once my eyes had had time to adapt to her glasses. Everything looked fairly small and distant, but at least I could see what I needed to. I had to take the glasses off between classes, in case I bumped into one of my sisters, but once in the safety of my own classes, I put them on straight away, and kept them on for the full 55 minutes. There was even one day when they were both off for some reason, and I was actually able to wear the glasses from the moment I turned the corner from our house until I got back there seven hours later. “Once Juliet had returned, I became aware that I had a different issue. She wasn’t trying to get by in my glasses, so there was no easy swap to be made. I could pretend to Mum that I’d lost my glasses, but I knew she’d be furious with me. I’d be made to tidy my bedroom several times over, and I’d have to hide Juliet’s glasses really well, as I knew my Mum would look with me. If she accidentally found where I’d hidden them, there’d be hell to pay. If I’m honest, after a couple of months or so, the problems were not when I was in school, but when I wasn’t. I couldn’t wear them at all when out and about as they were noticeably stronger than Alicia’s or Mia’s, which meant that I couldn’t spend any time watching television. I could wear them in the safety of my own bedroom, and occasionally when I was alone in the house, but that was about it. I must have spent about nine months cooped up in my room. With all this talking, my throat’s gone dry. I need another drink. Do you want one?” “Er, what? Sorry, I was so busy listening to you that my coffee’s gone cold. Hang on a moment.” He drained his cup. “Same again, please!” By this time, the bar had got a little busier, and I had to wait several minutes to be served. I also took the opportunity to visit to the bathroom, so it was about ten minutes later when I actually sat back down. “So you were stuck with Juliet’s glasses? It sounds like your eyes had pretty much adjusted to them by that point? Why didn’t you say something to your Mum? You could have got a pair of glasses people expected you to be wearing?” “What would you say if a thirteen year-old girl came in with a -1.75 prescription and left with a -4.00 in both eyes? Especially when her identical triplets only needed just over -2?” “Good question. I’d want to know why.” “Which is why you accepted my dinner invitation.” “I guess that’s the main reason why I’m here, yes. I’ve seen your notes, so I know you must have had to face the situation at some point. What happened?” “Well, eventually our eye tests came round. I know it was a little bit later than planned as it was sometime in February. In the past, we’d got our glasses just before Christmas. I remember that, because when we first got them, we had been made to go and put them on for our grandparents, so they could see how grown-up they made us look. I also remember that our appointments had had to be cancelled not once, but twice, because of snow. I also dropped a few hints that I was pretty sure my eyes had changed, and wondered whether we’d be made to wear our glasses all the time. Neither of my sisters wanted that to happen. “When the day finally came, we all piled into the testing room together. Alicia, as always, went first, because she was the oldest of the three of us, by all of nine minutes. She managed to read most of the chart with her glasses on, and all of it by the end of her test. New glasses needed, but nothing was said about how much she should wear them. Mia didn’t fare any better. Somehow, I managed to persuade them to take my mother outside and look at frames while I had my eyes tested. I’d very deliberately left Juliet’s glasses at home and brought an empty glasses case with me. Fortunately, my Mum wasn’t in the room to tell me off when I acted surprised that this had happened. She also wasn’t there to hear me admitting that I could only just make out the first letter on the eye chart, or that I was wearing my glasses most of the time. “It took quite a while to sort out my prescription. Once Mr. Clements had finished, he sent me out to fetch Mum back so her could tell her about my eyes. He even let me wear the trial frames with my new prescription in them, so I could see how much better my like was now going to be. That’s how I found out that I’d jumped from -1.75 to -4.00. Mum put a comforting hand on my knee when she was told that I should now wear my glasses all the time. I did my best to look sad, but actually, it was quite a relief. I’d have my own glasses to wear whenever I wanted, and no-one was going to tell me off for wearing them. I also had to go back six months later. Alicia and Mia didn’t need to come, unless they were complaining about their vision as well. “It was just over a week until the glasses were ready. Alicia and Mia were fitted for theirs, and promptly put them back in their cases. When I went to do the same, I was told to put them back on as I had to wear them all the time. It wasn’t a difficult instruction to obey. When I got home, I compared them with Juliet’s glasses. Hers were still a little stronger. I might have been tempted to keep wearing them, but mine looked very new, whereas hers didn’t. “I didn’t have any more sudden increases in prescription. I did need stronger glasses six months later, but Mr. Clements was more than happy for me to go back to once-yearly exams when the next test also only revealed a normal change. I guess my nine months stuck in my bedroom reading is what caused my eyes to change so quickly. After that, I always seemed to have a slightly bigger change than my sisters. If they needed half a diopter, I needed three quarters. If they only need a quarter, I needed a half. I don’t really know how they got on today, as we were all in quite a hurry to get frames sorted and back to work. How did we compare?” “I’m not really supposed to say,” Nick answered. “Patient confidentiality, even if they are your sisters. However, I suppose I can say that history is continuing to repeat itself. It sounds very much as if you all have most of the factors in common: gender, genetics and a tendency towards fairly high myopia. However, spending six to nine months wearing a higher prescription than you needed, coupled with an increasing interest in things which require quite a lot of close work would seem to explain why your prescription is noticeably higher than your sisters’.” “Is that why you became an optician?” “Actually, the correct term is ‘optometrist,’ but people rarely use it as it sounds a bit pretentious. Besides, if I describe myself as an optometrist, I usually have to describe what I do for a living, only for someone else to say “oh, you mean you’re an optician.” It’s just easier to say I’m an optician from the outset.” “Why did you become an opto…, optom…, optician?” “I know it sounds obvious, but to help people see better.” “You don’t say? Do you have a favourite type of patient?” “Actually, it’s funny you should ask that. I have a couple, really. One is the patient whose eyes are changing and who is also developing astigmatism. It’s quite a challenge trying to get the best spherical power and cylinder power at the correct angle. It can be quite frustrating going from one lens to the next and then back again, but when you get it right, you get a great deal of satisfaction from a job well done. The other type tends to be children. A lot of the time, they don’t seem to realise that they cannot see as well as everyone else. I like to take them out into the shop once I’ve finished their exam and show them just what they’ll be able to see once they get glasses. Needless to say, the stronger that first prescription is, the more delighted they usually are with the improvement.” “Usually?” “Well, you get a few who are determined not to wear glasses.” “What happens with them?” “I can only make recommendations. However, once they want to start learning to drive, the choice is taken out of their hands. It’s not uncommon to see 16-17 year olds who require a sizeable increase in their prescriptions or a fairly strong first-time prescription just so that they can get behind the wheel.” After that, our conversation turned more to my rather mundane office job. Nick seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, even if my work was really rather boring. When he asked me what the best bit was, I was hard-pushed to come up with an answer. The “Friday Cake Trolley” didn’t seem like the best reason for enjoying my work, but it paid the bills. I earned enough to go away for a week in the sun with my sisters once a year. I explained how I was hoping to put down a deposit on my own flat in a couple of years’ time. After that, we talked about the Algarve, where I was going in a couple of days’ time. Nick had been there before, but I hadn’t, so he was able to give me a few tips about the resort. At the end of the evening, we exchanged numbers. I wasn’t sure quite how to describe the evening. An extended optician-patient interview? A meeting of new friends? A first date? Even, possibly, a job interview? Whichever it was, I had a whole week in the Algarve with my sisters either to try to work it out for myself or to wait and see what might come of it. The only message I got from Nick was the day before we were due to fly home. It was to tell me that my new glasses were ready. Neither Alicia nor Mia got a similar message, so whether it was just because theirs weren’t, or because I was getting special treatment, I had no real way of knowing. I went to pick the glasses up at lunchtime on the Monday. Nick was holding the fort when I arrived, as whoever else was supposed to be on duty that day had had to go to the bank. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was their choice or Nick’s. He fitted my new glasses with very careful precision, but there was something about his manner that gave the impression he had something else on his mind. After I’d admired my new look in the mirror, I took the glasses off again to have a closer look at them. I was surprised to see that the lenses were quite a bit thinner than the glasses I had put on that morning, even though the prescription was noticeably stronger. I couldn’t help but commenting on this out loud. “It was my way of thanking you for the extra details you gave me about your case,” Nick explained. “Also, after listening to how dull your office job is, I wondered if you’d like to come and work here? I think Judi would prefer to be working on her own career rather than helping her brother. I could use your office experience to help with getting the patient records onto the computer. As a lot of people only get their eyes tested every other year, there’s probably at least two years’ work there, and by the time that is up to date, you should have had time to complete most of the dispensing optician’s course. What do you say?” To say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. I asked for a couple of days to think about it, but by the end of an exceptionally dull afternoon of filing, I had made up my mind. All that is now very much in the past. Nick did want me for my office skills, but for other things as well. For the last eighteen months, I have been Mrs Roseberry. I got some very exciting news for Nick this morning. I may start telling others in a month or so, but it’s only fair that he hears it from me first.
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