Leftovers

by Stella Newman

  ‘So exciting,’ she says. ‘A Fletchers client who isn’t hideous!’

  ‘I’ve earned it. Six years of Devron, I deserve a work crush, finally.’

  ‘Sam will be heartbroken when he goes through your inbox.’

  ‘Sam doesn’t read my emails,’ I say. ‘I know he used to, but he’s promised he’ll never do it again. And stop with this whole Sam crush thing, it’s nonsense, he’s my friend.’

  ‘OK … so I think maybe change that bit where you talk about the cake. He’s not actually interested in the cake, he’s interested in you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m trying to flirt with him.’

  ‘Be more obvious.’

  ‘More obvious? Don’t you think “Can’t wait to see what’s on the table” is pretty obvious? Actually I’m taking that out, it’s too full on.’

  ‘Ask him what he’s up to at the weekend. That’ll flush out whether he’s got a girlfriend. Do it. Then you know whether to waste time fancying him or not.’

  ‘Rebecca, it’s a work email, I’m not going to ask him that. And besides, I don’t think he has got a girlfriend. Honestly, there was just that chemistry there, you know, that instant rapport. I don’t think you ever feel that unless the other person is giving off a major vibe too. It was way beyond politeness.’

  ‘Oooh, this is so cool!’ she says, clapping her hands with delight. ‘What are you going to wear?’

  ‘I haven’t got that far.’

  ‘Wear that black dress with the low V at the front that you wore for your birthday, you look gorgeous in that.’

  ‘Meeting’s in a kitchen, not a brothel.’

  ‘With a white cami top underneath it’s perfect. Great cleavage, big smile. He’ll be totally defenceless.’

  ‘What about the burgundy one with the little bow at the neck … feminine, quite quirky?’

  ‘Men don’t want quirky, they want sexy. Come on, Suze, I haven’t seen you even vaguely bothered by anyone since … since last year; you’ve got to come out of hibernation with all guns blazing.’

  ‘I’ll figure it out at the weekend … Maybe that charcoal Topshop dress with the belt?’

  ‘Perfect, feminine and sexy, although I’d argue more cleavage. And shoes, what shoes? How tall is he again?’

  I think back to standing beside him when we were waiting for our coffees. He’d stood so close to me. ‘Taller than Jake, just under six foot? But bigger, broader than him, solid.’

  ‘Sounds hot. Wear your highest heels that you can still walk to the pub in after. OK, so put at the end of the email, “Can’t wait for round two” or something.’

  ‘That’s far too much! You don’t think we’re getting carried away here? He might just be being friendly,’ I say, suddenly filled with paranoia that I’ve misread the whole situation.

  ‘Not at all, you know what the give-away is?’

  ‘The end of day meeting thing?’

  ‘No, that could conceivably just be his diary. It’s where he says us – I’ll cook us something nice. That, my friend, is assumed intimacy. It’s like he’s putting his arm around you already! Come on, just press send.’

  ‘Alright. But I’m just leaving the sign-off as “Look forward to next Monday”. That’s what he said, so if I say it back I’m not exposed.’

  ‘And I bet you something else, now that he’s on the scene there’ll be others crawling out of the woodwork too, that’s what I was saying yesterday, just you wait and see!’

  ‘Yep. I’ll be waiting, Rebecca.’

  Friday

  My phone rings at midday. It must be Devron, in for lunch with Martin Meddlar but wanting to update me on the new pizza range name in person beforehand.

  ‘Susie? Your visitor’s here,’ says Anita, our receptionist, whose sole job is to sit on a chair and look sexy. New clients sometimes get confused when they walk in to NMN, thinking they’ve stepped into a modelling agency: three beautiful women to welcome them, all nearly six foot tall, in white Lycra dresses. Everything in reception is white: thick white carpet, white sofas, and six giant white floor-standing vases filled with lilies that cost £50k a year.

  And now we also have the white lights of the digital tickertape that runs along the back wall. Robbie installed the tickertape last year when he introduced ‘Tweet of the Week’. He’s made it my department’s responsibility to run a Twitter account for every campaign we do. ‘Creative teams are still the Big Thought Leaders but you guys are the soldiers on the ground,’ he’d said. ‘Remember you need killer end lines, always: attack, attack!’

  A little piece of my soul has died every week since. The tickertape runs a live feed, so one minute you’ll have Berenice Tweeting: ‘NMN ranks highest in industry survey! Client servicing is core to our values’. And then a minute later, the pessaries team: ‘New campaign launches in Slovakia, well done Team Euro Bum!!!’

  Devron’s sitting in reception waiting, flicking through the Sun. ‘S-R!’ he says as he stands to shake hands and slips the reception copy of the paper into his briefcase. ‘Just waiting for Marty, but I wanted to share the name, legal have finally signed it off.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Gotta give you some background first,’ he says, adjusting his stance so that his legs are a little further apart, as if he’s about to leap onto a very small pony. ‘So, a while back, me and Mands are watching CSI, she’s eating a choc ice. Mands never eats fattening stuff, so I’m like what’s the deal? She says, “It’s a Skinny Cow.” I’d never even heard of it but they make choc ices, ice cream, all sorts of frozen.’

  ‘Yes, Devron, I know the brand.’ And I can’t believe you don’t. Given that it’s worth like a billion quid and it’s owned by Nestlé and you’re the head of food at a supermarket. Next you’ll be telling me about these amazingly tasty little beans in tomato sauce that you’ve discovered …

  ‘Me and Mands thought it was a brilliant name. Obviously we couldn’t call the pizzas the same thing but we brainstormed and came up with something even better.’

  ‘Which is?’ I say.

  ‘Fat Cow!’

  I do not respond. I’m trying to work out if this is a wind up, as it can only be a wind up. Ad yet from the self-congratulatory look on Devron’s face it doesn’t feel like a wind up.

  ‘Don’t look so stunned, S-R, I didn’t mean you! I meant the name. Fat Cow!’

  ‘Fat Cow.’ I say. ‘They’re Skinny Cow and you’re going to call yours Fat Cow?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, S-R! Of course we’re not calling it Fat Cow.’

  ‘Ha!’ I say, relaxing. ‘You almost had me there, Devron, you looked so serious.’

  ‘It was Fat Cow but those jobsworths in legal wouldn’t let us call it that. They thought it was too close to Skinny Cow.’

  ‘Really?’ I say, sympathetically. ‘They thought Fat Cow and Skinny Cow were a little bit similar, did they? I don’t think they’re similar at all, are they … In fact they’re the opposite of each other, aren’t they, Devron? Fat Cow/Skinny Cow. Miles apart. There’s just that one little word that’s the same. And it’s only three letters …’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ says Devron. ‘Still, they started banging on about trademark infringement, I just said it’s not worth the hassle. So me and Mands had another brainstorm, she’s so good with ideas, Mands, she should come and work here.’

  Yes, entirely what this building needs: another scantily clad young woman looking to spend quality time with a nice married man with a view to home-wrecking …

  ‘And where did you get to, Devron?’

  ‘We had a massive list,’ he says. ‘Pizza Skinnita, Slice-a-Nice, Chick-Pizzas, Thin Bottoms …’

  ‘Are the bases thinner? Jeff’s showing me products next Monday.’ Yes, Jeff’s showing me, just me, me, me.

  ‘Nah. What other names …? Oh yeah, we thought we’d be single-minded, like you guys always say, so we had Shee-tzahs, like pizzas for shes. We had literally hundreds but it was spankingly obvious which name to
go for.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘Fat Bird.’ He grins. ‘I’ve shared it round the wider team and everybody loves it.’

  ‘Fat Bird,’ I say. ‘Fat? Bird?’

  ‘Fat Bird. And Nestlé can’t touch us. So, in your face, Nestlé.’

  I start to say something, then stop myself. ‘Hang on a minute, Devron. Wasn’t there a project last year on desserts that was called Fat Bird? And didn’t it have to be pulled?’ I’m sure I remember seeing something on our department status about a major cock-up.

  ‘It was the wrong time to launch and the developer quit in the middle of the process.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the name?’ I say.

  ‘The name’s the best bit, trust me. Our PR guys say the tabloids will love it. And Tom’s already briefed the printers on branded clothing. Play your cards right and come June there’ll be a photo of you on page ten of the Sun in a Fat Bird onesie.’

  You’ll have to un-bury me first.

  ‘Devron, who are these pizzas targeted at again?’

  ‘Women who are a bit overweight. Tom’s cluster researched the target audience and he’s identified two core groups: Cellulite Sallys and Bingo-Wing Brendas.’

  I take a deep breath and look at the floor. ‘And you haven’t researched the name?’

  ‘Head, heart, guts!’ he says.

  ‘Isn’t it possible that if you were a woman on a diet you might not love being called Fat?’

  Devron crosses his arms. ‘It’s a well known fact that fat women have a better developed sense of humour than normal women. Look at Roseanne. And Dawn French.’ This, right here is the biggest problem with my job: when a man like Devron says something like this it is considered unprofessional to slap him.

  ‘If I listened to a panel of housewives before I made every decision, where would that leave me?’ Good question, Devron. Better informed, perhaps? ‘The public is fine with Skinny Cow,’ he says, pouting like a petulant child

  ‘There is a difference between being called skinny and fat,’ I say.

  ‘I’m not going to stand around arguing, S-R, it’s not up for debate. Aaah, here comes the big man himself! Marty mate!’

  I turn around and sure enough here comes the big man, Martin Meddlar. ‘Big’ being slightly misleading, as Martin’s two inches shorter than me and that’s including two inches of bouffant dyed-brown hair. Still – he does earn £1.2 million. And he drives a lovely shiny red Ferrari. So I guess maybe my ruler’s broken and he is in fact taller than me … Martin’s around fifty but he has that youthful glow that wealthy alpha males have: the glow that comes from the twin blessings of never having to worry about bills, and having access to plenty of rigorous sex with women far better looking than themselves.

  ‘Devron, great to see you,’ says Martin, giving him the full politician handshake – firm clasp with the right hand, left hand offering extra patting on Devron’s arm. ‘Susie darling, I haven’t seen you for weeks.’ He kisses me on the cheek and lets his arm drift down my back. ‘Where have you been hiding?’

  In the mail room, mostly, and sometimes in the basement toilets where no one can hear me scream.

  ‘Perfect timing, Martin,’ I say. ‘Devron was just telling me the name of the new range.’

  ‘Berenice tells me it’s a game changer,’ says Martin.

  Come on, Devron, tell Martin and he can nip this whole Fat Bird thing in the bud …

  ‘Fat Bird pizzas,’ says Devron, giving me a smile that might as well be a middle finger.

  ‘Terrific, I can see the spreads now!’ says Martin.

  ‘You don’t think the feminists will get their knickers in a twist?’ says Devron.

  ‘No way!’ says Martin. ‘Susie darling, you don’t think anyone would take offence?’

  ‘I think there are probably less controversial names.’

  ‘Darling, so many other brands out there competing,’ he says, staring me in the eye. ‘Sometimes you need to be a little bit provocative to get the attention you deserve …’

  I return my gaze to the floor. ‘It’s a super-quick turnaround, Martin,’ I say. ‘Robbie still hasn’t allocated a creative team …’ And if there’s any sort of fuck-up on this project Berenice will blame me and I won’t get promoted and if I don’t get promoted I can’t quit and then I will kill myself.

  ‘Darling, you’re such a worrier, isn’t she a worrier, Devron?’ he says, rubbing my arm. Devron nods his head vigorously. ‘Now, Devron, you and I have a little date with a Mr Ramsay I believe? Shall we?’

  Back upstairs I pop to the fridge to grab my lunch, some leftover Moroccan chicken tagine that’s been in my freezer for six months. I think it’s chicken; it was entirely covered in ice crystals so I couldn’t figure it out last night. I stick it in the microwave, then hurry back to my desk, hoping to see an email from Jeff.

  No, nothing. It’s been almost two days since I sent my email and suddenly anxiety creeps in. Have I over-flirted? Does ‘Good to meet you too’ actually come across as ‘I’m not wearing any knickers’?

  Maybe instead of typing ‘Looking forward to Monday and your cake’ I accidentally typed ‘your cock’? I’d better check in my sent mail. It’s been so long since I flirted with a man, I’m sure it’s not supposed to be this traumatic.

  No, all is fine. Back to the microwave, and I wolf down my lunch. It was actually lamb and pearl barley casserole. (I must remember to put stickers on my Tupperware before they go in the freezer.) The lamb was delicious; one of those slow-cook one-pot dishes that make you feel all warm and happy inside. I return to my desk in a much better mood than I left it in, only to be greeted by an email that is the exact opposite of what I want to read. It’s so bad it actually makes me let out a small yelp of horror.

  No, not Jeff telling me he’s calling HR and Berenice because I’m sexually harassing him. And not Jake telling me he’s impregnated his twenty-three-year-old girlfriend, and that he never loved me anyway. Worse than either of those. It’s an email from Robbie, finally telling me which creative team will be working on Fat Bird.

  ‘Sam, seriously, I should just quit now,’ I say, as I storm into the mail room, only to find him dozing, head on the counter, with his hand covering his packet of fags protectively in his sleep like a nicotine security blanket. God, he looks so adorable and unsarcastic when he’s unconscious.

  He wakes with a start. ‘Huh? What are you doing in my flat?’ he says, before realising he’s still at work. ‘Christ, what time is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s nearly the weekend. What have you been doing? You look like shit.’

  He runs a hand through his hair. I have to resist the temptation to straighten it out for him. He has such thick, shiny hair; it really is a drag that he’s chosen to opt out of relationships. Rebecca’s right – he’s a missed opportunity. If only he stopped smoking, stopped wasting his time in the mail room, changed those old jeans and did something with his life, he would be a decent prospect. ‘I’m knackered,’ he says. ‘Been helping a mate with his website, didn’t get to bed till 3 a.m. Anyway, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘You know how I’m totally late on this brief, and now it has the worst name in the history of brands, and all I need is a team that can be grown up and sensible and turn around some scripts quickly? So guess who Robbie’s given me?

  ‘Dumber and Dumberer?’ Benjy and Al, the pretty-boy coke-head Mancunians.

  ‘If only!’

  ‘Doug Lazy and Sir Dicks A Lot?’ The twins, Doug and Dean – nicknames require no explanation.

  ‘Much worse.’

  ‘It can’t be …’

  ‘It is,’ I say, as he rolls a seat towards me and I slump down onto it.

  ‘Karly and Nick?!’

  I rest my head on the counter. ‘Those sadists are going to blow it for me.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not that bad, Susie. Maybe success has mellowed them …’

  ‘It’s only made them feel more invincible! They gave
Sandra Weston a nervous breakdown last Christmas. Karly even had the nerve to Tweet about it!’

  Sam shakes his head in disgust.

  ‘The only thing that sets Karly apart from those feral girl gangs who terrorise people on the number 38 is the fact that Karly wouldn’t get on a bus in the first place because her Louboutins would never recover …’ I say.

  ‘Her Louboutins? Is that the big bag she carries round like it’s the cure for cancer?’

  ‘That’s her Birkin, the one Robbie bought her when they started shagging. Louboutins, Sam. Shoes with red soles, cost about five hundred pounds a pair.’

  ‘Do they come with a built-in DVD player?’

  ‘Oh Sam, where have you been for the last five years?’

  ‘Working hard to keep you in Post-its.’

  ‘Sam. Do you live in a cave? Do you not watch TV? Have you never read Grazia?’

  Actually I do know the answer to all of these questions: Sam lives in a two-bedroom flat in Walthamstow – it’s spacious and surprisingly tasteful.

  He only watches American TV shows that he streams live online with some dodgy pirate software. He’s always three seasons ahead of anyone else, and his greatest pleasure in life is being able to plot-spoil by saying things like ‘You still haven’t got to the ep where Big Louie gets whacked?’

  As for print media? He has a subscription to Uncut magazine and enjoys reading about popular recording artists such as Steven Van Zandt (guitarist in the E Street Band, Silvio in The Sopranos, how can you not know that?). He never reads Grazia.

  ‘Suze, how can a pair of shoes cost five hundred pounds?’

  ‘Oh Sam, you’re so innocent. Don’t you understand luxury goods? Have you never been to Terminal 5 in Heathrow? The more something costs, the more important it makes you feel and the more other people will envy you. Anyway, you think five hundred pounds for shoes is expensive? It’s a bargain compared to that bag. Guess how much?’

  ‘One thousand pounds,’ he says, like The Count in Sesame Street.

  ‘Higher.’

  ‘Go on then, two?’ he says.

  ‘Try eight.’

  ‘For that Dalston market tut? How is that possible?’ he says, with genuine distress in his voice.