Going Up

by A. E. Radley

  “I’m not sure. How do you think it’s gone?” Kate leaned forward and rubbed her hands together, trying to get some circulation back into them.

  Carrie frowned. She tilted her head and regarded Kate for a second. “I’m not sacking you, Kate.”

  Kate let out a breath. She felt like she had been holding it in for the last eight hours. “Really?”

  “Of course I’m not,” Carrie said. “You’re the best employee I have. Hell, you’re making me feel redundant with some of the improvements you made. Have you been worried about this?”

  “All day,” Kate admitted.

  “Oh, sweetheart! This is just a formality. We have to have a meeting to check I’m happy with your work but also to check you’re still happy working here. It’s a two-way street.”

  Kate brought her feet up to the chair and hugged her legs. She lowered her head to her knees and took a couple of deep breaths. She’d convinced herself that something would happen and she’d be forced to leave, that Parbrook Age Support would be another organisation to add to the list of jobs she’d raced through recently.

  “So,” Carrie continued, “if you’re happy to stay, then I’m more than happy to sign off this paperwork and consider you a permanent member of the team.”

  Kate lowered her legs and sat properly. She quickly nodded. “I’d really like that. Sorry about all this.” She gestured to her face, which she knew was flushed. “I’ve been in a bit of a panic about this.”

  “I can tell, I’m so sorry… I didn’t know you were worrying about this. If I’d known, I would have done this first thing in the morning. I only left it so we could go out for a nice meal somewhere to celebrate. If you’re up to it?”

  Her stomach rumbled. The panic had lifted, and hunger had quickly struck. She rubbed her hands over her face. “Yeah, give me a couple of minutes to look like a human being again.”

  Carrie walked around the desk and put her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “I know it will take a while, but you have to start building your confidence. You deserve this job. You’re damned good at it, and you must badger me for a raise in twelve months.”

  Kate laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. Now, get ready to go, and we’ll head out to dinner.” Carrie patted Kate’s shoulder a couple more times before leaving the room.

  Kate took a few deep breaths to try to centre herself. It surprised her how some days she could feel fine and then suddenly her entire world view could shift. She supposed having the rug pulled out from under you and losing everything could do that to a person.

  “Get yourself together,” she told herself.

  And maybe speak to someone, she thought. Or at least get a book on the subject.

  But that was a decision for another day. Right now, she had a celebratory dinner to get ready for.

  Her job was safe. She smiled at the thought. Things were going to be okay.

  Dinner Truths

  “Refill?” Carrie held the bottle of white wine up.

  Kate considered it for a moment. The last thing she wanted was to turn up for work the next day with a hangover. She’d not eaten a lot that day, but the bread basket and the filling pasta meal had sucked up most of the alcohol from the first two glasses of wine.

  And she was celebrating. She nodded and pushed her glass towards Carrie. “Thank you.”

  Carrie poured liquid into Kate’s glass and then her own. “No, thank you. It’s nice to have someone to share a bottle of wine with.”

  “I thought you were seeing someone?” Kate asked.

  “I am, but she doesn’t drink.” Carrie put the bottle back into the ice bucket. “I try to be supportive, so I don’t drink at home very often. But when I go out to a nice restaurant, a glass of wine feels essential.”

  “I’ve never really drunk much,” Kate said. “It’s never really been something I enjoyed. My ex drank like a fish, and my parents did, too. That’s probably what turned me off of it.”

  Carrie nodded her understanding.

  It had been a lovely meal, and they were now waiting to see if their stomachs would allow a tiny wedge of space for dessert. They’d talked about work for a while but had quickly changed to more personal topics. Kate felt like she could be honest with Carrie. She was the maternal figure that Kate had always wanted but never had.

  The wine had taken the edge off her nerves, and a question that she’d been dying to ask was floating to the front of her mind. It was something she’d wanted to know for ages but that seemed a little too personal. No worries, though, the third glass of wine was taking care of any scruples.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Kate blurted out.

  Carrie didn’t hesitate. “Sure!”

  “What happened with you and Selina?”

  It was out there. Kate wondered if Carrie would answer or if she had gone a step too far.

  Carrie sipped her wine and gently placed her glass back on the table. “We fell in love very quickly, got married even faster. We didn’t think it through at all. It was a recipe for disaster.”

  “How so?”

  Carrie played with her wine glass. “Selina is very strong-willed. She’s a go-getting, no-nonsense kind of person. I’m more of a go-with-the-flow individual. While those things may sometimes go together, in my experience, it doesn’t work out. I’m as much to blame as she is.

  “I caved in to everything she suggested, even if I knew it was a bad idea. Selina is so confident and powerful that it’s easy to go along with whatever she says. Even if it seemed to be the most terrible idea in the world, I’d find myself thinking that she must know what she’s doing. Her choice of decorating, holiday, car, career choices, everything. Whatever she said, I’d agree because I thought it was the right thing.”

  Kate could see that playing out. Carrie did sometimes struggle to make decisions and was always asking for confirmation and advice from the team. Kate had initially thought it was her management style, but soon realised that Carrie was someone who didn’t like confrontation.

  “I think Selina hated that I never stood up for myself,” she said. “And I think she resented that I let her do whatever she wanted, even if I thought it was a bad idea. Because, when things invariably went wrong, I would tell her that I never thought it was a good idea in the first place. Which would obviously frustrate her. And so, we argued. A lot.”

  “Sounds rough,” Kate admitted.

  “It was pretty awful. We were just not the right people to be together. I loved Selina. In fact, I still do in many ways. I just know that we’re not right for each other at all. She’s a good person under all her hard-ass bravado.”

  “Yeah, I kinda thought there was a good heart under all the ice,” Kate agreed. “She pretty much saved my life. But then, I don’t know. She’s hard to read. One minute I think she’s a good person, the next I doubt myself.”

  “She’s a tough nut,” Carrie agreed.

  “When I first saw her, I was spending my days in a sleeping bag in the car park behind her office.”

  Carrie smiled. “Oh, I bet she loved that.”

  Kate chuckled. “Yeah, I was really classing the place up. One evening she’s walking across the car park, all power suit and attitude. She’s on her phone, saying that her nephews were snivelling little runts and she didn’t ask to be an aunt, so why should she bother to know their names or put time aside to see them. She seemed like a really nasty piece of work.”

  Carrie wiped tears of laughter away from her cheeks. “Yup, sounds like her.”

  “She goes to the coffee shop, and on her way back she is still on the phone but places a takeaway mug in front of me.” Kate shook her head at the memory. “And she doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t even look at me. And I’m thinking this rude woman can’t even be bothered to look at me while she’s complaining about how terrible her privileged life is.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told her I didn’t want it.”

  Carrie burst out laughing. “No
!”

  “Yep. I told her I didn’t want her drink. I’d seen her type before, people who don’t really want to do good, just want to either be seen to be doing good, or feel like they’ve made a difference when really they’d rather you didn’t exist. I once had a woman film herself giving me fifty pence, monologuing about how it was everyone’s duty to help those less well off than them. You know, on Facebook Live probably.”

  Carrie nodded quickly. “Poverty porn.”

  Kate blinked. “Sorry?”

  “No, seriously, it’s a thing. Like when we send some white megastar to Africa for a day so they can hug a black baby and tell everyone back home to donate money to a cause. It’s changed a bit now that anyone with a phone and an Internet connection can instantly stream to a potential audience of millions. Someone sees someone in need, but rather than silently doing a good thing, they tell everyone what they are doing and explain the horrors the person they helped had to go through. It’s exploitative for entertainment.”

  Kate snapped her fingers. “Exactly! Yes. That’s what people do. I saw another woman photographing her daughter giving me money.”

  “Disgraceful.” Carrie shook her head in disgust.

  Kate sipped some wine. “Obviously, Selina didn’t do that. But I didn’t know if she was giving me the drink because she wanted to help me or if she just wanted to feel better about herself. And she seemed so mean that I didn’t want anything to do with her.”

  “So you said no.”

  “I was polite. I said, ‘No, thank you.’” Kate chuckled.

  “I bet that annoyed her.”

  “Yeah, she said I should learn to accept charity, considering my situation. Which was probably a fair point. Anyway, I didn’t accept the drink. The next day Julian, the manager of the coffee shop, came over to me and told me they did community outreach programs and offered me an unpaid job.”

  Carrie smiled. “Oh, I wonder how that happened.”

  “I didn’t put two and two together. It was only later that day, when Selina came in and introduced herself as my guardian angel, that I realised she’d had a part to play.”

  Carrie snorted a laugh.

  “And then she wanted me to say thank you. Like it was weighing on her mind that she hadn’t gotten a thank you the day before, that she’d had to up the ante to something I had to be grateful for.” Kate shrugged. “I told her I wouldn’t grovel for the rest of my life, and that was the end of it.”

  “And was it?” Carrie asked.

  Kate looked at her wine glass as she considered the question. “Not really,” she admitted. “I’ve always been grateful to Selina for that. I know I have a lot to thank her for, but I won’t tell her that. At this point, she knows. She doesn’t need me to tell her. If anything, I enjoy giving her a hard time about things.”

  Carrie picked up a breadstick from the bread basket and bit off the end. “I never gave Selina a hard time about anything,” she said. “Which is why we ended up the way we are. She needs someone to challenge her. But I don’t know if she’ll find someone, as she’s so afraid of getting hurt that she pushes people away to keep herself safe. It just means she ends up alone.” Carrie looked at Kate. “She needs someone like you.”

  Kate felt her cheeks heat up instantly. She grabbed her wine and took a sip. When it had cleared her throat, she shook her head. “No, Selina would never be interested in someone like me.”

  Carrie dropped the breadstick, snapped her fingers, and pointed at Kate. She grinned happily. “I knew it!”

  Kate sat back a little in surprise. “Knew what?”

  “You like her!”

  “I don’t!” Kate quickly denied.

  “You do. You absolutely do! Because you’ve just said that Selina wouldn’t be interested in someone like you. Not that you’re not interested in her.”

  Kate shook her head. “You’re delusional.”

  “No, you’re in denial. And this is your lack of self-confidence making itself known again. You are interested, aren’t you? I thought so. The way you talk about her made me think you were interested, and now I’m certain.”

  “I can’t believe I’m talking about this with you, her ex-wife.” Kate covered her face with her hands.

  “Soon to be,” Carrie corrected.

  Kate lowered her hands, blew out a breath, and looked at the ceiling for a second. She lowered her eyes again to Carrie. “It doesn’t matter what I want. It would never work between us. We’re very different people, and she’d never look twice at someone as young as me.”

  Carrie casually shrugged. “Selina’s dated younger women.”

  Kate wasn’t ready for this conversation. She snatched up the dessert menu. “Anyway.”

  Carrie took the menu out of her hand with a grin. “We’re not done talking.”

  “We are.” Kate laughed and took the menu back. “I’m thinking cheesecake.”

  “I’m thinking you should ask Selina on a date. I’m also thinking chocolate. Whatever has the most chocolate on that dessert menu must be mine.”

  With that, the subject was dropped.

  But Kate couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not as they tucked into dessert, and not later, as she brushed her teeth in her small bathroom. She wondered if it was the wine, but secretly knew that wasn’t the case. Selina was always lurking in the recesses of her mind.

  And yet, it was all irrelevant after the last encounter they had. Selina clearly wasn’t interested in her, as she’d gone weeks without getting in touch, but the argument in Carrie’s office was scorched into Kate’s memory.

  She’d said things she shouldn’t have. She’d been upset that Selina didn’t care about her in the way she cared about Selina. In the end, she had lashed out and said things that she knew hurt the older woman.

  Her interest in Selina was completely immaterial, though, she knew as she got into bed and turned out the light. Selina would never think of her as anything more than the homeless girl she’d once helped, who had then had the audacity to shout her down in a crowded call centre.

  Being Played

  It was nine o’clock in the evening. The cleaners had come and gone, and the office was silent. Silent except for the sound of Selina Hale’s fingers dancing across her laptop keyboard as she replied to emails.

  It had been hard work, but she had managed to turn things around for Addington’s. It had taken a lot of creative accountancy, cutbacks, and an encouragement that the board take over a smaller firm, which would enable them to provide new services currently missing from their portfolio.

  Then there had been the landmark moment where Margaret’s event had fallen woefully short of expectations. Selina gloated as she remembered how she had finally been able to cut the marketing budget to a more reasonable figure.

  The digitisation project she had set in motion two years ago had completed its final phase, which meant that their storage, copying, and postage fees had dropped by more than half. The cuts and savings meant that budget could be reallocated towards strategies that she knew worked, which meant a growing portfolio of clients.

  The future figures were looking good, and Selina knew the credit lay directly at her door.

  It had been worth the long hours, the weekends, the emergency meetings, and the sucking up to board members. Addington’s was financially secure for the foreseeable future. In fact, it was flourishing.

  It was just a matter of time before Selina would be out of her current office and up on the thirteenth floor where she belonged. She was looking forward to the change, and the break from the long hours.

  She’d always known that the climb to the top would be long and arduous, but the last few weeks had pushed her to her limits. Holiday brochures were stacked neatly in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, a reminder that she’d take a well-deserved and long overdue break before taking her place upstairs.

  Her mobile phone rang, and Jonathan Addington’s name appeared on the screen. It was unusual for Jonathan to call so late at
night, which probably meant it was very good news.

  “Good evening, Jonathan,” she said smoothly.

  “Selina, I hope I’m not disturbing anything?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. Just finishing up some emails.”

  “At this hour?” He sounded shocked but pleased. “You always impress me.”

  “Thank you,” she preened. “I try my best.”

  “Well, I hope you’re sitting down because I have good news.”

  This is it, she thought, gripping the edge of the desk. At last, everything has come together.

  “I am. What’s the news?” she asked.

  “I just had dinner with my father,” Jonathan said.

  Good, she thought. Any confirmation of a new board member would have to be approved by Nicholas Addington himself. She leaned back in her chair, unable to keep the grin from spreading across her face.

  “He is finally standing down!” Jonathan exclaimed with far too much excitement for a man of his age and standing. “I knew it was coming, but I thought it wouldn’t be for another six to twelve months.”

  Selina gripped the phone a little tighter. She hadn’t expected that. Nicholas hadn’t given any indication of his intentions to stand down. In fact, the last time succession was even mentioned he claimed he planned to stay in his role for at least another five to ten years.

  Her mind tossed the statement over and over while she considered any possible course of action that might follow. She was frantically trying to figure out what had happened before Jonathan had a chance to verbalise it.

  “Oh,” she said. It was all her brain would give her.

  Nicholas leaving means Jonathan will take his place, she thought. Which means he’ll want to fill the board with his golfing chums, and there won’t be a thing his father can do about it.

  A sinking feeling surged through her.

  Her plan had always been to work as hard as possible to show her worth to Nicholas Addington, a man known for rewarding hard work. She’d watched Nicholas for years and had studied him, made it her business to understand the way he worked. Because of that, she’d always known that he was the type of person who would see her efforts and give her a comfortable board position as a thank you.