by Naomi Joy
Today was such a good day, I had Josh back on my side and Ava’s blackmail ready to go. The man was mine, the job was mine and our final-round interviews were just round the corner. I was within touching distance of everything I’d ever wanted.
I took a sip of my double caramel macchiato and checked my calendar for the day ahead. A sudden silence descended on the office and I broke away from my computer screen to see that Kai had made it to us half an hour ahead of schedule; things always went quiet when clients arrived. I watched over my flowers as he walked over to Josh and shook his hand. What I wouldn’t give to shake that big, gorgeous hand. That was when I realised: the flowers.
Crap!
What if Kai recognised them and asked why they were on my desk, not Ava’s?
I needed to move them.
I needed to dispose of them immediately. I lurched forward, my eyes fixed on Kai and Josh to make sure they weren’t about to come over to grab me for the meeting when, clumsily, predictably, I knocked the pint glass over, punching it instead of picking it up, hitting it with such force the bottom of the glass tipped back in my direction. I watched in horror as water spilled all over my desk spreading entrails of broken-off stem and loose petal all over my notepad, printouts for the meeting, newspaper clippings, my phone… I didn’t have time to worry about my phone because the flowers were still half on my desk, half on the floor and, as I bent down to pick them up and hide them, I saw Kai and Josh moving towards me: their next stop. No time for a clean-up operation. I grabbed the flowers in an iron grip, breaking most of them as I clutched them tight, and threw them under the table, covering the surplus pairs of shoes I kept under here in broken flower debris. Georgette was staring at me like I’d just had an epileptic fit.
‘I’m so clumsy today it’s ridiculous!’ I said, by way of explanation, then stood up, just in time to meet Kai and Josh halfway between Josh’s desk and mine to ensure they didn’t spot my impromptu flower arrangement.
‘Hi Kai, so nice to see you, how are you today? How was your journey in?’ I was speaking at a hundred miles an hour, my face red, my palms pollinated.
Kai threw his hands up at the elbow.
‘Horrible! Trains into London make me feel like a caged hen, honestly, it’s probably against human rights or something to make everyone stand that close together! And the smell of some people! Especially in the summer! Don’t we deserve air con?’
He gagged for dramatic effect then sashayed into the meeting room ahead of us.
Josh and I smiled coyly at one another behind his back.
Kai took a seat at the head of the table and Josh and I sat either side: we’d be staring right into each other’s eyes for the entirety of the meeting.
‘Jade, do you have the print-outs for Kai?’ Josh asked, perfectly reasonably.
I improvised. ‘Sorry, Georgette just flung a pint of water over them but I’ve asked someone to print some more, shouldn’t be too long now. I’ll just pop out to see how she’s getting on.’
I rushed away and as good as throttled the junior on my team – I wasn’t sure of her name (5’1, bouncy ponytail, legs like Bambi). I barked instructions at her: print this document, bind a copy for me, clean up the flowers under my desk, make sure my phone is OK, actually do that first, clean my phone, then sort the documents. She looked like I’d just shot her in the arm but she persevered and set off to carry out my orders. I hoped she didn’t mess up, it was the last thing I needed.
Kai, Josh and I talked for two minutes or so before Ava appeared at the doorway in a pair of tight leather trousers. I looked at her in disgust, why on earth would she wear something that provocative to the office? How inappropriate!
I tried to make a joke out of it to make Kai feel less uncomfortable.
‘The playboy mansion called, Ava, they want their trousers back!’
Her face fell, she looked embarrassed. Good. But a metaphorical tumbleweed drifted past as neither man jumped to agree with me. Instead, Kai shot up to greet her and they shared a series of air kisses.
‘I think they’re fabulous, darling, I’d love a pair but I’d need to saw off your legs to pull them off!’
Kai was impossibly well-groomed. He sported a shock of dyed ginger hair but, unlike most redheads, his skin was tanned. The look suited him and made his hair striking, a talking point, a compliment.
‘Thanks. How are you? Love the top, is it Moschino?’
‘Yes! Their capsule collection. Cashmere.’ Kai looked smug and moved his shoulders back and forth to show off his expensive garms.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
As Ava went to take a seat she fired a look at me: keep your opinions to yourself.
I didn’t hold her stare and busied myself clicking the projector into the meeting room laptop. At that moment the baby deer stumbled in on her new-found walking legs and placed the print-outs and my phone in a bowl of rice in front of me.
‘I tried to get rid of all the flowers but they—’
I cut her off before she could incriminate me any further. ‘You can leave now.’ It was as though I’d shot her in the other arm as she limped out of the meeting room, offended, and closed the door clumsily behind her. Did she want a standing ovation for doing her job? Draining the water from my phone using rice was a nice touch, sure, but telling her that would only have unnecessarily inflated her ego. I prayed the photo of Ava and David I’d risked life and limb to take would be retrievable. Kai kicked off the meeting before I could dwell on it any further.
‘Thanks for being here today everyone. Ava, as head of the project, I’d love to get an update from you first and then you can fill me in on how these two are getting on.’
Head of the project?
These two?!
I rolled my eyes at Josh and he gave me a look back. I knew exactly what he was thinking, the little devil.
‘Thanks Kai. From my point of view, everything’s going fab. But we can each present our own portions on front row, media attendees, security and ticket sales…’
I found it impossible to concentrate when Ava spoke, seriously, it was a real problem. Her voice was so sing-song that it was too easy to zone out of and think about other things. Josh was looking at Ava but I knew he was thinking about me. I wondered if I could reach his foot under the table…
‘Jade did you want to kick off?’ All eyes were on me. I blinked them up from locating Josh’s feet under the table and re-focused.
I went through my front row round-up with pinpoint precision, presenting background information on each attendee that went above and beyond what Kai was looking for. I even managed to land a few blows on Ava’s reputation.
As I finished up I summarised: ‘Everything is accounted for, I’ve confirmed a further ten attendees without needing to pay them and I’m confident the entire front row will be full on the night.’
I was half expecting a round of applause but, before anyone could clap, Ava chimed in with a question. I smiled sweetly at her, all innocence and light.
‘Sorry to jump in Jade, but I heard a rumour this morning about a show planned in the warehouse building just behind us. I think it’s Macdonald, or McQueen, I’m not sure, they’re keeping it all pretty top secret. I’m sure you’re already aware but I just wondered if you’d spoken about it with the attendees? It’s only that I don’t want them to cancel at the last minute and leave us in the lurch. Have you sorted out contracts with the ones you’re planning to pay?’
Bit intense.
‘Right, I’ll have to check on that.’
I sounded pissed off, and I was – she should have given me a heads up before the meeting started.
‘It makes me really nervous that you didn’t know about this already Jade,’ Kai jumped in. ‘Could you find out now? Get someone to send through the details so we can discuss it.’
I sat down to make an angry note in my pad, cutting the paper slightly with my pen, then I emailed Georgette and asked her to send the information through to
the boardroom computer.
Kai continued with the next point on the agenda.
‘Moving on, I wanted to bring you all up to speed with some pictures of the site so you can get a feel for what the stage will look like now the set’s finished.’
He tried to plug his phone into the laptop but error messages flashed back.
‘Jade, I sent you the pictures, would you have more luck with this than me?’
‘Hmm, I can get the pictures but I’m not really sure how to make this talk to that, to be honest.’
Josh must have thought I was a complete Luddite, first I didn’t consider rebooting my fake Wi-Fi problem and now this… I guess I could only hope it added to the loveable moron theme I’d been pedalling.
I unlocked my phone and held it out towards him, desperate for our hands to touch.
‘I can help,’ Ava interjected, snatching my mobile from my fingers. She clicked it into the end of the USB which connected to the projector and a series of pop ups appeared one after the other. Ava quickly clicked through them. Trust computer? Open Photos. OK.
We were all staring at the screen when an image, a thousand times larger than the one I’d become familiar with on my phone, filled the space. It was of me, lying on my dirty bathroom floor, legs lifted, ugly black pants covering my genitalia, my huge, white, flabby, stomach blubbering and gathering in unflattering rolls above each thin-stringed side of my underwear, my right arm cupped round my enormous tits, my right hand covering the nipple closest to the camera, my face in an awkward expression that I’d thought at the time was a sexy kind of ‘ahh’ face but, magnified to this extreme, looked like I was suffering from trapped wind.
I died. I screamed a kind of noise I don’t think I’d be capable of reproducing. I threw myself at Ava, ripping the lead from my phone and knocking her over in the process. She yelped as she fell to the ground and Josh and Kai both lunged to catch her, a contest for who could be most chivalrous. I ran out of the meeting room and sat on the toilet in the far cubicle, where I’d been so happy earlier, and rocked back and forth, trying to stop the voices.
25
Ava
Jade ran out of the room, her face so red it looked like she’d sprinted a four-minute mile, as Kai and Josh helped me up from the floor.
‘I’m fine, honestly, no harm done.’
‘Should someone go and check on her?’ Kai asked, stunned by the last thirty seconds. Josh offered and he paced out of the room but returned seconds later.
‘She’s in the ladies’, but she’ll be OK, we shouldn’t draw any more attention to it. Let’s just pick up where we left off and she can rejoin when she’s ready.’
‘Where did it come from?’ Kai pondered as we settled back down.
‘I think it auto-loaded the pictures when I plugged it in…’ I replied. ‘I feel terrible.’
‘Forget it,’ Kai assured me. ‘She’ll be laughing about it in a few weeks’ time!’
He was wrong; Jade didn’t laugh about anything.
I left Josh and Kai discussing the possibility of our entire launch being scuppered by a rival show and went out to find Jade. I had to talk to her, this was exactly the kind of thing that would tip her over the edge. Our relationship was already strained, already pulled to its limit, already stretched to breaking point.
I pushed open the door to the ladies’ toilets and went inside.
26
Jade
I heard her heels striking the tiles in the toilets as she stalked towards me. I hated her. I hated the way she moved, the way she paused between each step, the overly pleasant way she spoke, and I balked at the thought of having to leave this cubicle to look at her stupid face.
‘Jade?’ she called. I imagined her pulling a taut expression, her lips thick and puckered, her forehead creased. She’d gone too far this time.
‘Jade, let me in. We need to talk.’
I know what you’ve done, Ava. Thunder rolled inside me and I decided I was ready to face her: my nemesis. The woman I’d delight in taking down when the time was right. I flipped the lock open and flung the door to one side. ‘Ava.’
‘Jade, I’m sorry, I didn’t do that on purpose, the photos they just loaded and… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ She looked like she was going to cry.
But I wasn’t David, or Kai: I didn’t fall for crocodile tears. ‘You know, I’d almost be tempted to believe you if it weren’t for everything else you’ve done.’ I snarled.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve taken things too far for this promotion. Using Olivia, showing our top client that photo to undermine me and…’ I changed my voice to a whisper, deciding to say it, to bring her down. Now was as good a time as any. ‘Sleeping with David.’
Her entire expression fell and she took a half-step back, the colour of her skin matching the pale blonde of her hair.
‘And was it really worth it? All that effort just to beat me?’ I asked, seething.
‘What happened with David has nothing to do with you, Jade. I swear.’
At least she wasn’t denying it. ‘And why’s that? Because now you’re in his bed there’s no way I can win against you, is there? No matter what I do I won’t get the job…’
She stuttered, lost for words.
‘Except, Ava, for the fact that I’m one step ahead of you. I can show people what you’ve done, what lengths you’ve gone to. I have evidence. A photograph.’
‘What?’ She gawped, her eyes wide. ‘How?’
‘I followed you and David the night of the summer party and took it. You were going into his bedroom together.’
Blackmail.
I continued, ‘And I’ll use it, you know. If he decides to give you the job. I’ll send it to everyone, I’ll send it to the press… I’ll publicly crucify the pair of you…’
I was huffing and puffing and out of breath, shivering from the adrenaline of winning. Finally.
‘Jade – you can’t, you don’t understand. That photo can never come out.’
‘OK. So quit, leave, resign, break up with David and get fired, I don’t care how you do it.’
She took a long breath in before speaking. ‘It’s like you’ve forgotten what we did. What we went through together.’
I couldn’t stand the thought of her talking about Olivia, I hated talking about Olivia. I turned away. ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ I said firmly. ‘I think about it all the time.’
‘So you can’t go round threatening me, Jade, there’s too much to lose.’
‘Meaning I’m supposed to sit back and let you take the job, am I? Just like that? Or what, you’ll ruin us both?’
‘I won’t, but clearly you would, given half the chance. I don’t know if I even want the job, to be honest with you, especially not after this.’ She paused then, remembering something. ‘This is ridiculous, Jade. We were friends once, what happened to us?’
I wouldn’t let Ava trick me into changing my mind, not now everything was falling into place. I’d known she’d try to dismantle it. I should have been more prepared for something like this, I had to be stronger. She wanted the job more than anything, I knew that.
Come on Jade, you’re better than this. I felt her take my hands in hers, the soft warmth of her skin tempting me to relent.
‘Please Jade, listen to me: it doesn’t have to be this way.’
*
I climbed into my rickety double bed that night and pulled the four, maybe five-week-old sheets over my body. They smelt of me, warm and musty, Marlboro Reds mixed with cheap perfume. I was drunk and I’d taken a handful of pills to try and stop me from reliving the nightmare of today on a loop. Josh had sent me a message after the meeting. Hiding behind a screen was clearly his forte.
If it’s any consolation… I thought you looked amazing in that picture.
No, it wasn’t any consolation. Well, maybe a bit. I was angry, old-testament-God angry, with Ava, even though she’d forced me, somehow, to make up with her. Convinced me to sw
ear my loyalty and the things I knew to her all over again. My eyelids drooped and my head was heavy. I considered replying to Josh but, after a couple of drafts, decided I wasn’t ready to make peace yet. I wanted him to sweat it out, worry that he’d blown it with me for failing to come to my defence, and, before I had a second to change my mind, the suffocating lure of sleep picked me up and transported me to a different place, my head deep in dream-world, my body exhausted from its earthly exertions.
27
Ava
I sat, heels bouncing, outside his office waiting for his PA to unlock the door to his lair. I was supposed to be here for an interview – the final round before David picked his Team Head – but, sitting here, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of it any more. What was the point? I’d fought for my job when I’d loved it, when everything had been within my grasp, when my relationship with David was normal, and working at W&SP was the only light in my otherwise stormy life. But everything was different now: David wanted more than I was willing to give, Jade was threatening to sabotage the rest of my career if I didn’t roll over, and Charlie’s notes were growing in frequency and fury. Every night this week I’d come home to a new note stuffed angrily through the letterbox and finding and disposing of them had become the nightly ritual I hadn’t asked for. I’d pick them up off the mat, read the first line, then fold them up into perfect squares and shove them into the depths of the same kitchen drawer.
You think you can do better, don’t you? You have to talk to me again, meet me tomorrow at…
I’ve never met anyone more perfect and beautiful than you, you are my world.
I see you’re getting better at keeping your windows locked.
Filthy bitch, you never deserved me.
It was textbook Charlie: terrorising, stalking, making me dread going home every night. But if I left W&SP, moved out of Olivia’s, walked away from David, from the job, and from Jade, then all of this would just disapp—
‘You can go in now,’ announced his assistant, cutting through my train of thought.