by Naomi Joy
I caught myself and controlled my temper.
‘What I mean is, I can’t stand for sub-par performance in my team. If I can’t trust the people who are working for me, how can we do anything constructive?’
Georgette fired back angrily, my rage sparking hers.
‘So this is about me liking Ava more than you. Are you twelve years old, I mean, are you? Ava’s missing, Jade. Miss-ing.’ She emphasised the syllables unnecessarily. ‘I don’t know if you noticed in between getting your promotion and acting like you own the place.’
My blood boiled. Ava was a snake. She didn’t deserve the attention she was getting for running away. I knew what had happened: after I’d caught her with Josh, she’d known I could turn both David and Josh against her. So she’d run, scared, like a squealing pig from the slaughter, rather than face up to what she’d done. I’d make sure she did though, don’t worry about that.
‘She’s been gone five minutes and just like that you’re switching teams. Especially when there’s no suggestion anything bad has happened! I don’t get why the whole office is up in arms about it! She ran away!’ I shrieked.
‘She’s been gone a week, Jade! It’s not like her to just disappear, something definitely happened, something awful.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked, ‘Maybe it’s exactly like her.’
‘Is it really that difficult for you to show even the slightest bit of concern, or respect?’
‘We’re not here to talk about my respect for Ava, we’re here to talk about yours. For me.’
‘You can’t get me to leave my job, Jade, you don’t have the authority,’ she said smugly, adjusting the set of gold bracelets on her wrist.
The pit of my stomach burned, embers alight, ready to destroy. ‘It wouldn’t be hard to build a case against you, George. In fact, I have full access to each and every inappropriate email you’ve ever sent. I’ve even gone to the trouble over the years of keeping a folder of them. I’ve logged every inappropriate outfit you’ve ever worn, every slip-up you’ve ever made, every rumour you’ve ever started.’ We stared at one another, unblinking. I carried on. ‘I have endless emails about drunken nights out, flirty texts you’ve exchanged with clients, hideous remarks you’ve made about other members of staff. Which, put together, smacks to me entirely of inappropriate use of company time… wouldn’t you say?’
I didn’t know anything about employment law, I just wanted to scare her enough to think that I did. It worked and she shifted uneasily in her seat.
‘What do you want?’ She masked her nerves with passive aggression.
‘Loyalty.’ I was steadfast.
‘You want me to pledge some sort of allegiance to you? Is this a joke?’ She was out of moves and had resorted to ridiculing me.
‘Not at all.’
‘OK, fine, I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of Jade.’ She put on a pseudo American accent and placed her hand over her heart, the other up towards the ceiling, her bracelets clanging together as she moved it.
‘If you’re going to be like that, you can leave now.’
She eyed me up. ‘What do I have to do then, to prove my loyalty?’
She held up her fingers to denote air quotes over the last three words. I’d rattled her.
‘First, I’d like you to clear out Ava’s office. I’ll be moving in there. Keep her things in boxes and move them to the storeroom downstairs.’
‘What!’ she exclaimed. ‘When Ava comes back she’ll want her office.’
‘I won,’ I snarled, licking my lips, Ava’s blood all over them. She looked at me, horrified, like she’d realised something, then left the room. I couldn’t clear out Ava’s office myself, it sent the wrong message.
I made a note to fire Georgette tomorrow; she was too far gone.
*
I stormed into the building just before nine the next morning. It was my first full day as Team Head and I was ready for battle. I’d spent the previous night lost in the crowded aisles of Oxford Street hunting for an outfit that could handle the bloodshed I had planned. In the end, though, I’d chosen a top I’d seen Ava wearing before, with horizontal thick black stripes interlaced with thin yellow lines. Teamed with a black pencil skirt I knew it delivered the right message: I’m your Queen now. I wondered if Josh would be back today. I prayed he would, I couldn’t go too much longer without looking at that face.
I knew something was wrong the moment my heel struck the slate tiles of the reception area. The too-happy-to-be-here socialite who patrolled it shuffled away from her desk as soon as she spotted me, the daily chirp she greeted each member of staff with notably absent. I ascended the lift in perfect silence with four fellow colleagues all choosing, quite peculiarly, to occupy the same corner, affording me a generous amount of room. Making my way into the kitchen was equally awkward. A woman with white deodorant lines on her black dress and towel-dried hair didn’t even wait for the kettle to boil, choosing to make her morning beverage with lukewarm water rather than be in the same room as me. As she hurried past, I clicked the kettle back on and waited for it to bubble back to life. I busied myself pouring a thin layer of milk and a half-teaspoon of sugar into a mug. Someone appeared at the doorway but headed right back out again. I flung a tea bag into the cup, filled it with boiling water and gripped it tight as I made my way through the double doors, the floor falling to a hushed silence as I passed through the threshold. They’d been talking about me. I slowed my pace, anxious.
What had happened? I turned the corner to my new office and that’s when I saw: My photos for Josh had been printed out, zoomed in, blown up and stuck all over its glass walls. I dropped everything, my boiling mug fell to the floor, the thud audible, drenching my brand new outfit. It took me a moment to spin into action as I took in the grotesque images that looked like a macabre house of mirrors, thanks to the way they’d been cut up, distorted and patched together to look their absolute, horrifying worst. Once I started, I moved fast, barely taking a breath, the shock of what had happened nowhere near sinking in, the urgency of removing the evidence the only thing on my mind. Thank God Josh wasn’t here to see this. The sheets ripped easily from the tack holding them up and it didn’t take long for the wall to be destroyed. I barked at a nearby intern to clear the mess up, incandescent that she hadn’t taken the initiative to start already. My arms were twitching slightly, the ferocity of my recent movement combined with my public humiliation rendering me a quivering wreck. I was sweating profusely under my new striped top, my face shiny and blotchy. I closed my eyes, trying to cling onto some sense of authority. I couldn’t be seen to stand for this. It was imperative that I sent a strong, brutal message. I opened my eyes again, the reflected faces of my shell-shocked co-workers visible in the glass walls of my new office opposite. Who had done this? How? Even though I didn’t know for sure, I had a pretty good idea. I didn’t turn round to address my hostile audience as I called for her.
‘Georgette, my office.’ I wasn’t just going to fire her, I was going to annihilate her.
A voice replied after a prolonged pause. ‘She left, Jade, she resigned yesterday.’
Defeat.
37
You write a note to explain why she’s here. Even though it’s quite simple, really.
Betrayal,
Disloyalty,
Lies.
Revenge,
Retaliation,
Demise.
38
Jade
The team were finding it difficult to accept me as their head. The office felt so much smaller and I was tripping over people who hated me every day. Georgette’s little stunt had set everything off to a terrible start and, without her to make an example of, I had to look to more creative means to earn the respect of my rebellious recruits. And, apart from all that, client work wasn’t going well either. Plans for the AthLuxe launch had veered off course due to the triple departure of Ava, Josh and Georgette. I thought I could handle it but I didn’t realis
e how much weight they’d all pulled and I was sinking in the workload, not helped by the fact that my thoughts were entirely preoccupied. Now that I had the Team Head job, I was beginning to question everything. Did the world really need a sports fashion show?
I was speaking to Kai, no idea what time it was, propping my phone up to my ear with my shoulder, trying to read an urgent press release at the same time, a frustrated hand clutching my temples as I half-listened to him rant.
‘It’s not good enough, Jade! We’ve been talking about this launch for months, and now that it’s just round the corner all four wheels have come off the wagon, the fucking horse has had a heart attack, and today you’ve just told me the hillbilly in the front is on fire!’
It was true that things were bad. ‘I think if we could just discuss postponing for a couple of weeks—’
He cut me off. ‘Do not suggest that to me right now!’ He continued with a high voice, presumably meant to imitate my own. ‘Don’t worry, Kai, the hillbilly’s on fire but if we leave him for two weeks he’ll burn out and everything will be bloody brilliant again.’ He switched back to his own voice, full of fury. ‘I could really do without this, Jade! Just fix it!’
‘Fine, fine, look, we are on top of it, everything will be great, the launch will be fantastic.’
I lifted a glass of water to my lips and shakily swallowed what must have been my fifteenth pill of the day to try and calm myself down. They just weren’t working any more, I needed to go to the doctor, sort it out, but I didn’t have any time. There was no answer to my empty promise and I wondered if he’d just hurled himself out of the fiftieth floor window he sat beside.
‘I miss her,’ he said eventually. ‘I always prefer blondes to head up my teams. Brunettes are terrible luck. My ex was a brunette, he was a witch, and I’m sure he put a hex on me to make sure I could never date another brunette. Now I know that hex extended to work, too.’
I wanted to dive in through the phone line and throttle him. Yes, my hair colour has everything to do with my ability to do the job, I’ll go out and dye it immediately. Then I had a thought. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea? I felt like I needed a fresh start, a makeover; Kai would welcome the gesture as much as anything else and, well, there was one pretty important person who I thought might prefer it too.
After work, in the familiar surroundings of my dingy flat, I formulated a plan smoking a cigarette in bed, dotting the ash on the dusty carpet. My housemate was back. I hadn’t seen her for weeks, but here she was, live and kicking. I didn’t bother going out to greet her and waited for her to barge into my bedroom.
‘Jade! You’re in the news!’ She lingered in the doorway.
‘I am?’
‘Your company, not you. What happened to her, Jade? What happened to Ava?’
I threw the cigarette to the ground and lifted myself out of bed. I marched over to the door, standing face to face with her for a moment, then slammed it shut, the force of the air compressing through the doorway and billowing under my nightshirt.
‘First Olivia died and now Ava’s missing. What is it about the women you work with? What are you, some kind of curse?’ she asked, her voice muffled by the barrier between us.
‘I don’t want to talk about Olivia. Or Ava. Just, go away, just – leave me alone!’
Eventually, I heard her footsteps move away and I knew I was by myself. I couldn’t let her distract me from this evening’s plan so, before I could change my mind, I grabbed my anorak from behind the door and threw it on over my pyjama shirt. I stuffed my feet into a friendly pair of battered Converse and raced down the stairs and out of the front door before she could ask me any more questions. It had been raining for days and thick, tropical drops were still descending on the muggy capital, so I tucked my hair under the hood of my raincoat as I took my first steps outside. I jogged down the pavement, my heels sending dirty splashes up my legs as they struck the sodden ground, slowing as I approached the twenty-four-hour newsagent on the corner. I pushed my bare hand against the front door, disgusted to feel wet condensation under my palm as it made contact, and a robotic sound chimed to alert everyone to my dishevelled presence. I scanned the assorted aisles. How did they choose what to stock in places like this, seriously? Spaghetti hoops next to children’s books, tin foil next to inflatable lilos, printer paper next to Royal Wedding ‘11 memorabilia. I honed in on the shop’s attempt at a beauty section. Thankfully, they had what I needed. Bleach. I pulled the worn packet from the shelf and hurried to the till, plonking it on the counter in front of a sullen-faced young man.
‘Sixteen pound,’ he said in a thick accent.
I dug deep in my coat pocket for the twenty-pound note I knew was in there and, once located, thumped it triumphantly on the counter top.
‘Four pound.’
His expression remained the same as he dropped four pound coins onto the counter and stuffed the hair bleach into a small carrier bag. I jogged home, jamming my key into the front door to lock it shut and considered how pointless the ritual was – if someone wanted to break in, they’d just hop through the window in the lounge I’d smashed and hadn’t bothered to repair with more than a patchwork of newsagent finest bin bags and gaffa tape.
I hurried up to the bathroom, took the packet of bleach in my hand, pulled out the instructions – slightly disconcerted that they were displayed entirely in Greek – and did my best to follow the picture diagrams printed on one side of the flimsy leaflet. I wrestled with the pair of plastic gloves, angry that my hands weren’t slim enough for ‘one size fits all’, and opened the bottle. The smell emanating from the bright blue mixture was fresh, sterile and chemical and I let my brain wander off on a tangent, considering how quickly it would burn a hole in my trachea if I swallowed it. I shook my head, putting the thought of my burning insides to one side, and wiped the mirror in front of me clear with my elbow. It was thick with greasy smears – God knows the last time I’d cleaned it. I applied the bleach first round my hairline, then worked it back into the ends.
I had to wait half an hour for the dye to work, at least, the diagram had a picture of a clock with the number 30 next to it… so I assumed that’s what it meant. I sat on the bathroom floor letting the bleach mercilessly attack my scalp, burning grooves across the length of my head. I prayed out loud the packet hadn’t meant thirty seconds.
At eighteen minutes I couldn’t bear it any longer and jumped into the shower, frantically rinsing my hair free from the chemicals. The powerful smell mixed with the lukewarm water and clouds of off-yellow dirt disappeared down the plughole. After a quick towel-dry I stepped out of the bathroom, paced through to the bedroom and pulled my hair dryer from the side, watching in the mirror as my image transformed before my emerald eyes. I ran my fingers adoringly through my new hair, drying each white blonde strand, clawing through the slightly damp, straw-like texture, smiling.
I didn’t stop there.
I opened my make-up drawer, locating an ancient black eyeliner towards the back. I held it aloft and drew shaky, Ava-worthy, strokes to each eyelid, flicking them up at the end just like she did.
I checked the clock: just gone eight-thirty.
Time to leave.
*
I waited on the pavement outside my destination crouched behind a lumbering 4x4 – a car completely out of place in the middle of the city. Drive an electric car if you must drive in London for heaven’s sake! I scratched my nail along it slowly. Served them right.
It had taken me over an hour to get here and it was approaching ten o’clock. The rain had taken a brief hiatus but the smell of it on the pavement remained. I looked down at my hands, yellowing at the fingertips, and stuffed them deeper into my pockets. I’d changed out of my nightshirt and anorak into dark jeans and my new black and yellow top. I was pleased: I looked just like her.
Then I saw him, my Josh, walking between the rooms of Olivia’s house. I was relieved, nothing more than office gossip had led me here. People had
been whispering about Josh staying at Olivia’s on the off-chance Ava came back. Some thought it was a bit of an over reaction. Some thought he was hiding something. He was on the phone, his eyebrows creased, hitting his fist against his forehead. I wanted to run in there, towards the bright lights and white walls and tell him that everything would be OK and that I didn’t believe what people were saying about him.
After hanging back and watching him for a few minutes, I summoned the strength to approach the imposing front door, its marble pillars either side entirely unnecessary, the obvious locks on the front a symbol to any would-be intruder that there was no point targeting this place. I wondered how he’d react to seeing me. Our virtual relationship had stalled when I’d caught him with Ava, then he’d tried to make amends but I’d ignored him, then she'd gone missing and I guess he had a duty to act like the perfect boyfriend for her family, the media, for her. But I knew the truth. It was me he’d wanted. The real Josh didn’t care where Ava had gone. What would he make of my new look? Excitable, uncontrollable butterflies flew in circles inside me, struggling to remain calm ahead of what could become a really pivotal moment in our relationship. I promised myself I’d remember every detail so we could reminisce about it when we’re married. I probably wouldn’t tell him I’d dyed my hair moments earlier, though, and made a mental note to fabricate the timeline of my makeover. I lifted a hand from my pocket and rapped my knuckles against the painted black wood of the door, numbing them further. Once I’d delivered three steady strikes, I placed my hand back inside my pocket and waited, rocking between heels and toes. One, maybe two, minutes passed as I stood outside and considered aborting my mission. I soothed myself by blowing out long exhalations, reminding myself why I was here. Then, I heard a noise. ‘Got to go, anyway, there’s someone at the door, yes, I’ll call later.’ It was him. A series of bolts retracted and the front door opened revealing the palatial hallway beyond.