A Date with Fate

by Cathy Cole

  “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Josh said.

  “Everything apart from a tour of the shopping centre,” Eve said with a sigh. “That would have been perfect, but even I couldn’t make it happen.”

  She had tried every trick she could think of to wangle a tour of the building site, but to no avail. The excuses had been a mile long from everyone she had contacted.

  “Still,” she said, straightening her shoulders, “the best party hosts should always be flexible.”

  Josh shook his head. “You really are amazing.”

  “I think you bring out the best in me, Josh,” Eve said, and patted his hand.

  When he didn’t snatch his hand away, she felt a warm tingle of anticipation in her belly. She almost had him. She was sure of it.

  The goodie bags were an instant hit with the class.

  “Nice,” said Lila, tugging out her T-shirt and holding it up against herself. “And these are really all free? You’re something else, Eve.”

  “I love it!” said Rhi as she slid a new hairclip into her thick dark hair.

  “You’ve done really well, Eve,” said Polly.

  Eve had been longing to hear kind words like these from her friends for ages. “Thanks,” she said, forcing back the tears that had made a sudden and unwelcome appearance in the back of her eyes.

  Her heart skipped as her father came out of his office. There was no sign of tiredness or stress today. He was wearing his best suit, his Rolex gleaming on his wrist. She felt so proud of him, she thought she might burst.

  “On behalf of us all, Mr Somerstown,” said her form teacher, Mr Morrison, warmly, “we’d like to say a huge thank you for allowing us the use of your offices and your staff today. We are so grateful for the opportunity to visit you here.”

  “Hear, hear,” shouted Ollie Wright. Eve noticed he was wearing his T-shirt over his school uniform.

  Mr Somerstown raised his hands to silence the burst of applause. “Thank you for coming. I’m delighted to offer you something to commemorate the first Somerstown Developments Business Away Day we have ever had. Here’s to more in the future.”

  Gloria produced a small wooden shield emblazoned with Josh’s logo, which Mr Somerstown presented to Mr Morrison. Underneath were the words: For 10Y, the Future of Heartside Bay. Warmest regards, Somerstown Developments.

  Eve’s heart swelled with pride as Mr Morrison accepted the shield with a surprised smile.

  “There’s one more thing before we move on to today’s activities,” said Mr Somerstown. He moved over to a small blue curtain on one wall. “I’m delighted to present to you a list of Somerstown Developments’ investors. I am sure you will recognize a good many names on this list. It is down to their generosity that Heartside Bay will soon have the retail centre that it needs and deserves. We’re putting the finishing touches to the complex as I speak.”

  At the tug of a little golden rope, the blue curtain fell away to reveal four columns of names etched into a plaque. Eve noticed the name Valentina Holmes at the top of the first column – Max’s mum. Rhi’s parents were there too, and Ollie’s. At least half the names on the plaque matched the names of local people and businesses that Eve had known her whole life.

  “This will be hung at the retail centre when it opens in the summer,” said her father, “so that every visitor will know and understand the generosity of the people of Heartside Bay. Without them, our project would never have got off the ground.”

  This brought the loudest round of applause so far. Eve had never realized how many of her friends’ parents had invested in the development. It gave her a warm feeling to the tips of her toes.

  Time for the next Josh phase, she decided.

  She turned to him with her widest smile. “Let’s get everything ready for this afternoon while the others take a tour of the office.”

  Josh scratched his ear. “Where are we going to be this afternoon anyway?”

  Eve pushed him through a door towards the back of the office. Josh flung his hand up to his eyes, startled at the burst of brilliant sunlight that greeted them.

  They were in a large glass room that extended off the back of the office block like the stern of a ship. The cliffs, the town and the sea were all visible through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. In here, Eve always felt high above everything, like a seagull coasting on the wind without a care in the world.

  “This is what I call a meeting room,” said Josh, gazing round in amazement.

  “It’s Daddy’s best conference room,” Eve said proudly. “I’ve given him strict instructions not to show anyone else this room until later, when we do the activity I’ve designed. We have to make everything perfect.”

  Josh looked at the great glass table in the centre of the room, stacked neatly with paper, pencils and calculators. “Looks pretty perfect to me already.”

  “We’re dividing into fourteen pairs,” said Eve. She pointed. “The big table in the middle divides into lots of little tables. We’ll line them up around the room. Make sure every table has the same number of pens, pencils, pads, calculators and water glasses.”

  “Mustn’t forget the water glasses,” said Josh.

  Eve whacked him. Not too hard, but hard enough to show that she meant business. “Don’t tease me,” she said. “Get to work.”

  The conference table was like a big glass jigsaw. With a bit of coaxing, Eve and Josh managed to separate it into its constituent parts, which they arranged in four rows. They counted out pens and pencils, moved chairs, and straightened pads of paper.

  “All done,” said Eve at last, standing back to admire their handiwork.

  “Lila had it right,” Josh said. “You really are something.”

  “I’m not sure Lila meant it as a compliment,” Eve said with a little laugh.

  “Well, I do,” Josh said.

  Eve examined her fingernails in a show of embarrassment. Peeking up through her eyelashes, she felt encouraged by the admiring look on Josh’s face. Letting her triumph wash over her like a warm, scented bath, she put a gentle hand on Josh’s sleeve.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said, gazing up into his green eyes. “I’ve convinced Daddy’s advertising department to use you to design the official logo and signage for the shopping centre!”

  Josh’s mouth dropped open. “You what?”

  “You heard,” said Eve, delighted by Josh’s reaction. “Daddy loves the logo you designed for today. He wants to use you, Josh. He’ll pay you and everything. Isn’t that brilliant?”

  A whole range of emotions chased each other across Josh’s face: disbelief, pride, excitement.

  “You. . .” He threw his arms round Eve, hugging her so hard that for a moment she feared for her ribs. “You are amazing. Thank you,” he said into her neck. “A thousand times thank you.”

  “It was nothing,” said Eve. She felt a little breathless.

  Josh pulled back and looked at her. For a heartbeat, Eve stared at his lips. This was it. The kiss. She had been waiting for it. Longing for it. Hadn’t she?

  She felt herself stiffen and pull back. Josh released her at once.

  “Is . . . everything OK?” he said, sounding a little startled.

  Eve gazed at Josh’s puzzled face in mortification. Why had she pulled away? What was wrong with her?

  “Yes,” she said awkwardly. “Everything’s fine. It’s all . . . fine.”

  He looked perplexed.

  Eve wanted to grab herself by the shoulders and shake herself, hard. She had just wrecked the very moment she had been working towards. And she had no idea why.

  FIVE

  Got to push through the awkwardness, Eve thought. She’d done it before. She could do it again. Nothing was going to ruin today. Not even her own stupidity.

  She applied one last coat of masc
ara, and smoothed her hair so that it sat sleekly on her shoulders. No one could tell she had just had one of the most embarrassing experiences in her life. She would smile at Josh and act like everything was fine. Easy.

  “Wow, Eve, you look . . . focused,” said Lila as Eve marched out of the bathroom, tucking her mascara into her bag.

  “I’m always focused, Lila,” said Eve. “Does everyone have a partner for this afternoon’s task?”

  Lila had paired up with Ollie. Rhi and Max had drifted together, although Eve thought Rhi didn’t look too pleased about it. Polly was with Ryan Jameson.

  “Do I have to be with Ryan?” Polly said in a low voice to Eve. “Something tells me he’d prefer to be with Lila.”

  Ryan was gazing across the glass conference room at Lila with a lovesick expression on his face.

  “Sorry, Polly,” Eve said briskly. “Just do your best.”

  Mr Morrison started issuing instructions about behaviour around the town centre as Eve made her way across the room to join her own partner. She was determined not to blush.

  “Planned our victory yet, Josh?”

  “I was waiting for you,” he said in surprise.

  “Have you read the instructions?” Eve asked, despite knowing them by heart. She had, after all, designed this task specifically to her and Josh’s strengths.

  “‘Come up with a product to sell at the Heartside Shopping Centre’,” Josh read. “‘You will need a product name and a print ad to advertise your product. Presentations in the boardroom at four o’clock.’ I guess there isn’t much we can do until we’ve done our research, right?”

  10Y was already drifting out of the glass conference room in pairs, discussing their plans. Josh started forward to join them, but Eve held him back.

  “We’re not taking the lift with everyone else, silly,” she said. “We’ll take Daddy’s special lift. He brings all kinds of important people into his office that way. People that don’t want to be stared at by the whole office, you know?”

  “That lift is reserved for Mr Somerstown’s guests, Eve,” Gloria said, starting up from her desk as Eve pressed the executive lift button.

  “My whole class are Daddy’s guests today, Gloria,” said Eve, pushing Josh into the lift. “He won’t mind.”

  The sun was out, and the weather was mild. Eve and Josh headed to a café to discuss some ideas.

  “I was thinking maybe healthy snack bars,” Eve began. “We can put something together for everyone to try in the boardroom this afternoon. I can’t think of anywhere in Heartside Bay that sells— what are you doing?”

  Josh was doodling a mad-eyed seagull on the pad of paper between them on the café table. “Working on our product logo.” He turned his sketch to face Eve. “What do you think?”

  A seagull stood guard over a pile of nuts and dried fruit. In a graffiti-style font, Josh had scrawled GO NUTS over the seagull’s head.

  “Are you mad?” said Eve, giggling. “We’re not selling bird food.”

  “Nuts and seeds are bird food,” Josh pointed out, grinning.

  Eve scrunched up her nose. “I was thinking of something a little more elegant than a greedy seagull.”

  Josh promptly drew three ladies sipping tea with the same logo over their heads. The absurdity of it made Eve laugh even more. I don’t laugh often enough, she realized. It felt good.

  They left the café with a list of the town’s food shops to visit, in order to sound out the competition. Eve’s gut feeling had been right – there were very few places where you could buy healthy snacks in the town. When she finally persuaded Josh to ditch Go Nuts in favour of the more elegant-sounding Fruitful, everything was in place for what Eve felt sure would be a task-winner.

  “We just need to invent candy floss made of carrots and we’ll be millionaires,” Josh observed.

  “I’m going to experiment with mixes,” Eve decided. “We can offer the results to everyone in the boardroom to taste.”

  “I love how you keep things simple,” Josh said, rolling his eyes.

  “Just concentrate on the logo. I’ll do the rest.”

  They carried a bag of ingredients back to the office, together with a few utensils and three shallow tins. As Eve mixed combinations of ingredients and pressed them into the tins to chill in the office fridge, Josh worked with Somerstown Developments’ art department to produce their print ad: a graphic image of the word FRUITFUL in a colourful, blocky font.

  “We are brilliant,” said Eve happily, standing back to admire their table in the glass conference room. Everything – the cranberry-and-cashew-butter squares, the banana-and-date-syrup bars, the peanut-butter-choc-and-chilli swirls and the FRUITFUL ad – looked amazing.

  Now they had the product displayed so nicely, the pitch was easy to put together. When they finished, Eve checked her watch. “It’s only three o’clock,” she said, surprised. “We’re even better at this than I thought.”

  Josh tried a peanut-butter-choc-and-chilli swirl, flapped his hand in front of his mouth and nodded in agreement at the same time. “Where’s everyone else?” he said around a mouthful of swirl.

  “Who knows,” said Eve, slapping his hand away and covering the snack bars in a layer of cling film. “They’d better hurry up if they want to get something together for the judges at four.”

  “Let’s go and see if we can find them,” Josh suggested. “We could help them if they’re struggling. We’ve got plenty of time left.”

  Helping the competition wasn’t part of the plan. “I’m sure they’re fine,” Eve said dismissively.

  Josh raised his eyebrows at her. “Don’t be mean, Eve. And we’ll take the normal-people lift this time. I don’t want to be responsible for giving your dad’s secretary a heart attack.”

  Feeling a little irritable, Eve let Josh drag her to the lifts and back into the town again. Her feet were starting to hurt, and she wasn’t in the mood for bailing out any of her idiot friends. If they couldn’t hold it together for a simple business task like this one, they didn’t deserve her help.

  They passed most of the pairs heading back to the Somerstown Developments offices, chattering through print-ad plans with their arms full of sample products. Max and Rhi however weren’t carrying anything at all.

  “Tech support,” said Max when Josh questioned them on their product. He thumbed himself in the chest. “The product is me.”

  Eve felt irritated. Max Holmes had come up with Max Holmes? Typical.

  “So where have you been all this time?” she accused.

  “Sitting in the Heartbeat Café watching Tech Man put away three bowls of ice cream,” Rhi groaned. “Come on, Max, you’ve left me hardly any time to design the print ad.”

  Eve and Josh heard Lila and Ollie before they saw them. They were squabbling like the gulls screaming over the bay.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t ask them.”

  “You were supposed to be asking them!”

  “Don’t you have ears, Ollie? I told you—”

  “You told me, blah blah blah. Maybe I don’t like being told, Lila. Has that ever occurred—”

  It made a refreshing change, seeing Lila and Ollie at each other’s throats. Not such a perfect couple after all, Eve thought.

  Realizing they had an audience, Lila and Ollie stopped yelling at each other and regarded Eve and Josh warily. Ollie’s face was red with anger. It wasn’t a good look, Eve decided.

  “We can’t wait to see what you two are going to show us in the boardroom,” she drawled. “Squabblers United: we’ll have all your arguments for you!”

  Lila looked like she was almost in tears. “Shut up, Eve.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” Josh asked.

  Lila shot another poisonous look at Ollie. “Do you do assassinations?”

  “What are we going to do?” Ollie
said fretfully. “There’s no time left.”

  Eve sighed. Did she have to do all the thinking around here?

  She nodded at an accessories shop across the road. “Go in there and get a handful of necklaces or something. You’ll have to wing the rest. It’s almost four o’clock and I don’t want to be late for the presentations. Come on, Josh.”

  Grabbing Josh’s arm, she towed him back towards her dad’s offices. They had a task to win.

  Mr Morrison was chatting to two members of her dad’s management team and – surprisingly – the principal of Heartside High, Mr Cartwright. What was he doing here? Eve glanced around for her dad. She checked her watch. Ten to four.

  The big room was a riot of colour and conversation as people hung posters and arranged products on their tables in preparation for their presentations. Eve started feeling nervous.

  “I’ve made a special detour to be here this afternoon on request,” called Mr Cartwright over 10Y’s heads. “And I don’t have much time. Shall we get started?”

  “Mr Cartwright shouldn’t be on the judging panel,” said Eve fretfully. “It should be Daddy.”

  “Your father was called away about half an hour ago,” said Gloria, passing Eve with a sheaf of paper in her arms. “Urgent business. Your principal has kindly stepped in.”

  Eve felt her eyes pricking with tears of disappointment. Her dad was supposed to be judging this, and seeing how brilliantly she had done everything. He was then supposed to round off her away day with one of his special speeches that would make everyone laugh. But he had left her all by herself.

  Josh nudged her. “Are you OK?”

  Eve was relieved she’d had the foresight to wear waterproof mascara. “Of course I’m OK. Now are we winning this thing or what?” she snapped.

  The presentations weren’t as much fun as Eve had hoped they would be. Everything had taken on the greyish tinge of disappointment. She smiled blindly for the room as she went through the pitch, letting Josh offer their healthy snack bars to the judges. The other teams presented a blur of accessories, beauty treatments and wash-off tattoos that made no impression on Eve at all. She didn’t even have the energy to enjoy Ollie and Lila stuttering their way through a presentation about stacking bangles that they’d called – in a brief moment of inspiration – Off the Cuff. When she and Josh were called out as winners, she felt nothing at all, except the papery crinkle of a thousand pounds’ worth of shopping vouchers for the future shopping centre pressed into her hand by Mr Cartwright.