by Brigid Coady
And if that meant an uncomfortable Christmas Day, then so be it. She could get through anything if she had a plan. If she choreographed her time with Mum and Dad and their partners then they were less likely to crash into her life unexpectedly and bring her carefully constructed world tumbling down. At least she could avoid her stepsister, Boopsie, this year. She was sure that Gee was one step away from getting a restraining order for her.
‘But Ems…’ Mum was whining wetly.
A calendar alert pinged up.
Her meeting with her boss, actually her boss’s boss, Malcolm McKee, the head of Mega! Management.
She could feel her heart racing. Ever since the meeting had gone in her diary two days ago she had tried to keep her cool. It had to be good news. It had to be.
You didn’t get called into McKee’s office for anything but one of two things: a step jump in your career, or alternatively a drop kick of your job and reputation onto the street.
‘Sorry Mum, I have a meeting,’ she interrupted.
‘But we still haven’t decided on…’ her mum wailed.
‘I’ll call you back on Sunday as usual and we can talk through the Alps trip,’ she promised, not even bothering to cross her fingers while telling the lie. Because it wasn’t a complete fabrication. They would discuss it, with Emma telling her how much organising and money it took to plan the kind of trip her mum had in mind. It would take merely minutes to get her mum to come around to her way of thinking. And they would all be having Christmas at hers, exactly the way she had planned it back in the spring.
Sometimes she wondered why people didn’t just go along with her in the first place. It wasted so much energy when they always ended up doing it anyway.
‘Bye Mum.’ She absentmindedly blew a kiss, clicked off the call and pulled out her headphones.
‘Are you ready?’ Jamie swung his chair round, as if he’d been poised, waiting for her to get off the phone.
She took a deep breath. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ she said.
This was it, the big career move. The one she was sure was due to happen in December, according to the plan, but was now being brought forward a few months. That was good. Admittedly it meant she’d spend the weekend re-doing her Gantt charts to make all the key milestones re-align but who cared.
‘Wish me luck?’ she said as she pushed her chair away from the desk and stood up.
‘You don’t need it, you are going to kill it.’ The shiny worshipful look in Jamie’s eyes was intoxicating.
‘Every little helps though,’ she said. Jamie didn’t need to know that her stomach was roiling and her knees felt weak.
‘Good luck,’ he said as she walked through the door and into her future.
Emma smoothed down her top as she pressed the button to call the lift. She didn’t stop to check her reflection in the glass doors that opened to the lift area, or look when she got into the lift.
Why should she?
Her jeans weren’t from Top Shop but an expensive brand with a bit more Lycra in them to give a good fit. Her black top draped perfectly and her Golden Goose trainers, which had cost an arm and a leg and only those in the know would notice, looked perfect. Okay, so they weren’t the embellished and patched ones that had called to her soul from the Gucci Instagram account. She was happy to spend money on clothes but that was excessive.
Stop thinking about shoes, she thought, why did McKee want to see her?
The lift doors slid open to the executive floor.
Emma cringed slightly as her shoes squeaked on the highly polished marble floor.
A small drop of sweat trickled down her back, and her fingers twitched.
No, she couldn’t pull her shirt back. Cool, calm, in control. That is what she needed to exude.
Thank god, here was the carpet.
The squeaking of her shoes was muffled now as she reached the CEO’s boardroom. His PA, Perrie, was waiting outside.
‘Hey, Emma. He’ll be another minute.’ Those were the most words that Perrie had ever said to her.
Should she make small talk? Find out what this was all about?
She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Maybe she should have dressed more corporately for the meeting? But no, she’d done her research, she was perfectly presented for what she did and what she wanted to become.
Why was she doubting herself? She’d earned this.
Perrie was staring at her phone, occasionally stabbing at it with talons that were decorated with incredibly elaborate art.
Emma looked at them admiringly. She believed in looking your best but the time commitment for that kind of work was excessive and you couldn’t multitask when it was happening.
There was a quiet ping from the bejewelled case clasped in Perrie’s hand.
‘You can go in,’ Perrie said without making eye contact and wandered back to her desk.
Chapter Seven
This was it.
Surely this was the moment when she could get her fingertips to touch the next rung on the ladder. She’d have to make sure she grasped it because she didn’t plan on ever getting kicked out of here.
The door opened.
It wasn’t the first time she’d met Malcolm McKee. All newbies to Mega! were wheeled in for an uncomfortable ten-minute one-on-one with him at the beginning of their employment. He’d cross-examine you about your future career plans. Emma had loved it. And when she’d left she was sure he’d been smiling.
The only other time you were guaranteed to see him was when he presided over the beginning of the company Christmas party, exuding Yuletide cheer, and leaving before it descended into Bacchanalian debauchery. She didn’t believe the rumours that he knew exactly what went on when he left, knew who was naughty or nice.
Because McKee didn’t look like Father Christmas. His grey hair was receding and his ears stuck out a bit too close to ninety degrees.
‘Ah, Emma, welcome.’ His voice was higher and squeakier than his body size suggested. And how had she forgotten the gap between his front teeth? Probably because he was always intensely concentrating when she saw him.
‘Mr McKee.’ She shook the hand he held out.
‘Call me Malcolm,’ he said and waved her to one of the seats in front of his desk.
She sank into the seat, finding herself at a much lower angle, staring up at McKee as he clasped his hands and stared back down at her.
Wiggling, she moved herself up until she perched on the edge.
‘We’ve been watching the whole “Phooke” relationship and wedding,’ he said without any further preamble. ‘It was masterful. Beautifully done. No one would guess that they had started as a “fauxmance.”’ He then winked.
Did he think it was still a stunt, she wondered? She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking, it was probably best not to contradict him.
‘Thank you. It was a great project to work on,’ she replied.
‘Good, good. I’m glad.’ He leaned further forward and lowered his voice. ‘We think, with what you’ve accomplished there, that you’re ready to deal with some of our more complicated and high-profile clients. We want to really give you something to sink your teeth into.’
High-profile?
Complicated?
‘That is amazing. Yes, I’d love to,’ she found herself saying, her natural caution being overridden. Because this was the opportunity she needed to pull herself further up, to take that next big leap. If McKee thought she was capable of big things, then…
‘Excellent. I do like staff that understand the meaning of when someone says “jump” ask “how high?”’ He winked again and laughed.
She found herself laughing along, while she tried to untangle his words. They weren’t that funny, in fact… but before she could work it out, he said.
‘Instead of letting you worry and speculate about who they could be for the next few days, I want you to meet with them now. Get to know them, see what we have in the works for them and then work out how
you can best do your magic.’ As he said magic, he fluttered his fingers. It seemed odd to see him flicking them almost like he was casting a spell.
‘Absolutely,’ she said. This was it. The butterflies in her stomach grew bigger wings. She could do it. Yes, of course she could.
McKee rose and beckoned her up.
Holy crap, it was like the chair had taken her hostage. Even though she had been perched on the edge, it seemed to want to suck her down into the cushions. With a small arm flail and an undignified lean forward, she managed to extricate herself. She smoothed her clothes down and hair back. Luckily McKee had his back to her.
He led her to a floor-to-ceiling door she hadn’t noticed at the other side of the office. It was the same bright white as the rest of the décor. He pushed it open and it made a quiet whooshing sound like an airlock. Sound started spilling out.
This was the CEO boardroom, they must be high-profile clients if they were using it. Even Phooke hadn’t got as far as this floor. They’d done all the negotiating and planning in the general conference room near reception.
If the Phooke fauxmance got as far as it had from that conference room, then imagine what she could make happen for the people in this room, she thought. The sky was the limit.
Who was it? She squinted slightly. One wall of the boardroom had floor-to-ceiling windows, letting in the late morning September sun and obscuring the room’s occupants.
Holy…
Her breath caught.
It couldn’t be?
Chapter Eight
She shouldn’t be star struck, she’d hung around with Gee for long enough but… Sprawled around the table, draped over chairs and talking over each other and the harried looking middle-aged men attempting to look trendy in skinny jeans was this year’s, hell this decade’s, biggest boyband. THE boyband…
Breach Of The Peace. Or BOTP as they were known by their fans, who pronounced it Bop.
Their success knocked Gee’s band, Status Single into a cocked hat. His one Brit and Teen Choice Award were dwarfed by the number of awards they’d collected in the past two years.
Bloody hell.
Emma’s hand shot out quickly to steady herself on the door then dropped. This was it. This was the big time.
Those Gantt charts in her life plan would be moving so much she might have to make new ones. If she did well here, she could jump any number of stages.
Gee wasn’t going to believe this.
Okay, professional face on. If she could deal with Gee on a daily basis and the Feckless Rogues every time they camped at the house while Gee remastered some tapes, then she could do this. Shoulders back. Head up.
These were her clients…
They were on every magazine cover, every gossip site. Their music was at the top of charts all over the world.
How had they snuck into the building without hordes of screaming teenage girls following them?
‘Ah, Emma…’ McKee said with a smug smile; he must have been watching the shock hit her. He waved her in from where she was currently hugging the wall.
She put her notebook on the part of the huge conference table nearest her and gripped the back of a chair. It was somewhere to put her hands, nothing to do with needing support.
‘I wanted to introduce you to Breach Of The Peace. Your new project.’
Everyone turned to look at her except two members of the band who sat at the far end of the table and were too engrossed in talking to each other.
‘Boys, this is Emma Woodhouse, she’ll be coordinating that special publicity we spoke about.’
‘Hey.’
‘Wotcha’
Those comments came from the two boys that were paying attention.
‘Ed! Will!’ One of the middle-aged men snapped a finger at them. Emma noted out of the corner of her eye that McKee had crossed his arms and was staring at them, his smile hardening.
The two blokes turned away from each other and looked at her. They looked as if they’d stepped directly from one of their posters, all boyband cool and yet they also looked like any normal teen boys, wishing to be somewhere else.
‘Hey,’ Ed drawled, his voice deep and sleepy. He blinked slowly. All curls and dimples. She tried to remember everything she knew about him, the memory of stories of him being a bit of a ladies’ man tickled the back of her mind.
‘Hi.’ Will’s voice was higher and lighter. His gaze was sharp, and she recoiled slightly. His chest puffed out, like a small terrier dog. She wondered whether he’d bite if she held her hand out to shake. She didn’t remember much about Will, he always seemed to be in the background, unlike today.
‘Hi.’ Emma smiled and nodded at them all, keeping her hands firmly on the chair. She didn’t want any kind of bites.
But this was going to be great with four of them to sort out, hopefully. Ideas and plans started to spark and roll out as she looked round.
It was a dream come true. Each one of them fit a different fan demographic. She got it now, why they were successful. Something for everyone – they’d been constructed to appeal to the greatest amount of people. A bouquet of ‘boys next door’ for anywhere you lived.
Whoever had done it deserved a medal. It was as if the prototype had been Status Single and they had perfected it for BOTP.
And yet, none of them were intimidatingly plastic and perfect, although… She looked at Amit whose eyes were inky pools of darkness and you could cut silk on those cheekbones plus the eyelashes… she pulled her thoughts away.
Okay, so some of them were objectively very good looking, but none quite reached the gloriousness of Gee. Admittedly she was biased, but he’d always been that bad boy and very masculine, while these boys, who were all over eighteen, were still boys. They were definitely not threatening to any parents anywhere. There wouldn’t be an outcry in Middle America because of them.
‘Emma, I’ll leave you here. Good luck, I’m expecting to hear good things about this.’ He smiled at her showing her his gappy front teeth. It made his words seem less intimidating, almost benevolent.
‘Thank you for the opportunity.’ She wished that hadn’t come out quite so breathlessly. That wasn’t the way to be professional.
McKee walked back through the door into the office and the room seemed to be suspended as they waited for it to close. As if the headmaster was leaving.
‘Thank you for the opportunity.’ A voice sneered as soon as the door shut. It was Will. She turned to him, frowning. He’d only just met her.
‘Oi, stop that. We’re going to get Emma up to speed, have a nice chat, Will. If that is something you can find yourself doing, yeah? Then we’ve got rehearsals.’ It was the same middle-aged man who’d snapped his fingers earlier, he seemed to be in charge.
Who was he? She looked questioningly at him.
‘Oh, I’m Simon Campbell, Si, I’d forgotten we haven’t met yet. I don’t work out of the office very often.’
Oh, so this was Si Campbell. He was Mega!’s biggest success story. The man who put the band together and now managed them. In the past two years, Emma had only seen the back of him as he whizzed through the offices. Rumour had it he had his own office at Maple Groove records, the band’s record label.
She had always thought it was a little odd. A bit incestuous having management and record label teams in the same office. A conflict of interest, surely?
He came around the table and shook her hand before she could think further. He was younger close up, less middle-aged. He was maybe mid-thirties but due to the extra weight around his stomach and his too tight, trendy clothes, he looked older. Probably not the effect he was going for.
The handshake was brief and too tight.
‘Okay, Emma, here’s the deal. We’ve got a presentation that can get you up to speed faster than telling you.’
Before she knew what was what she was pressed into the chair she’d been holding onto. Si took the back of it and swung it round to look at the TV screen at one end of the room.
>
She clasped the arms of the chair, trying not to slap Si’s hands away. This wasn’t on, no one pushed her around like this. She felt like she’d been overrun by a personality even bigger than her own. She was the one who made the plans and made people go her way.
It was a good thing that the presentation started right then, before she said something that would ruin this opportunity. She swallowed down any hasty words and sat on her hands.
After slide fifteen of the presentation, she started to frown.
Where were the other band members in it? Because it seemed to be photo after photo, video after video, of just two of the boys. Occasionally one of the others was in shot but the focus was on two of them.
Will Poulson and Ed Selley.
The two who were currently sat together, at the other end of the table from her.
And it seemed as though they were always together even in real life. Even on stage.
It was sweet, two boys who didn’t have a problem with affection. Almost like a puppy pile, she thought. In fact, as she looked at the group photos of the four, she saw they were all happy to invade each other’s space. There was no macho posturing.
If this was what the fans saw no wonder they had a great following, that easy intimacy made them real. They may have been put together as a business decision but they looked as if they were all best friends. As if they’d known each other forever.
The presentation finished on a photo of all four in an aforementioned puppy pile. Emma felt herself smile as she looked at it. It was just sweet enough, almost making your teeth ache but not quite. Why they needed her help she didn’t know.
‘And now you can see the problem we have,’ Si stated.
Problem? Emma wasn’t sure what he was on about. The boys had good, boy-next-door images. They were obviously close friends, even if they’d been constructed by management. With some closer than others.
‘Problem?’ She echoed.
Si actually rolled his eyes. She could feel the flush rise on her cheeks. She was good, but she wasn’t a mind reader. It wasn’t as if the boys were doing lines of coke off My Little Pony merchandise.