[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  Leeza Clark nodded.

  “Zoe tells me that Alan Eades did a fantastic job, and I’m sure you played a part in it too.”

  Andi’s jaw was practically swinging on its hinges. Alan did a fantastic job? Err, in what parallel universe was that exactly? On Planet Earth, which is where she’d lived until about five seconds ago, he was about as much use as a papier mâché umbrella. She’d spent hours clearing up his basic mistakes!

  “Safe T Net was my project,” she whispered.

  “We know all about Safe T Net and who did what,” hissed Leeza, shooting Andi a look of utter loathing. “The CEO of Safe T Net was very clear that we should recognise Alan’s efforts. At no point, Miranda, was your name mentioned.”

  Andi glanced around the office in case this was someone’s idea of a prank. Ha ha, everyone. Hilarious! Not. But nobody leapt out shouting “Gotcha!” And her boss wasn’t laughing either; rather, she was looking at Andi in a very disapproving manner.

  “Here at Hart Frozer we take a very dim view of people who take credit for their colleague’s work,” continued Leeza Clark icily. “People who succeed here do so on their own merits. Zoe Symonds has mentioned your lack of team spirit on several occasions.”

  Andi stared at her, stunned by the unfairness of this statement. She’d put in hours of her own unpaid time to get the Safe T Net accounts ready in time for flotation. She’d taken personal pride in it! For at least the last three weeks she’d never been home before nine o’clock.

  “I’m afraid our decision is final,” continued Leeza, mistaking Andi’s stunned silence for acceptance. “We have to let staff go and, frankly, you’ve been underperforming. You’ll have the salary you’re entitled to paid into your account by close of play today and we’ll provide you with a reference. Now, if you would clear your desk, Gareth will escort you from the building.”

  Andi goggled at her. Head of Security Gareth made Arnold Schwarzenegger look weedy. She’d never met anyone with love and hate tattooed on his face until she met Gareth. And now he was going to escort her from the building like some kind of criminal? Seriously?

  With her brain still struggling to take all this in, Andi returned to the main office. While Alan was summoned she tried to log onto her computer, only to discover that her access had already been blocked. Bloody hell, that was fast. A cardboard box had also appeared on her desk. Numbly, Andi started to fill it with all the detritus of her working life: a picture of Tom in guise as Hamlet, a faded summer snapshot of her and Angel on a pontoon in the Cornish town of Rock a lifetime ago, her pencils and pens, a cheese plant. Oh. Was that it? That wasn’t a lot to show for two years of slavery.

  She paused, fighting back tears. It was a pretty sobering thing to realise that your working life amounted to nothing more than a few pieces of tat in a box. Jen’s desk was already cleared and it was as though she’d never even existed. What exactly had she been working so hard for?

  Just as she was contemplating this depressing thought, the office door opened and Alan sauntered out. It was a bit odd that he was grinning. It was even odder that he was shaking hands with Leeza Clark and kissing Zoe on the cheek. Now he was moving his stuff to Jen’s old desk, which was the best one by the window. What on earth was going on?

  “I’ve been promoted,” Alan gloated when he saw Andi glance over. “They’re so impressed by my work on the Safe T Net account, you see. Even their CEO was singing my praises.”

  Andi’s chin was almost on her desktop. Alan had to be the worst accountant she had ever worked with. She did everything while he did sweet FA; in fact he just did FA because there was absolutely nothing sweet about it! How unfair could life get? Why on earth had they promoted him?

  Then the penny didn’t so much drop as plummet to earth and wallop Andi on the head. That was what Alan had been up to when he’d been messing about with her computer. Never mind pinching her money; it was a thousand times worse than that! He was taking credit for all her hard work!

  Of all the sneaky, sly, underhanded gits!

  Andi couldn’t help it; she didn’t have red hair for nothing. Moments later Alan was wearing her pot plant as a hat, his computer had toppled over and she was yelling at him while he just smirked.

  “Prove it!” he sneered.

  “Don’t you worry, I will!” Andi promised. It was lucky for Alan that Gareth grabbed hold of her at that point, otherwise Alan would have been wearing his gonads as earrings. The next thing she knew, she was being bundled out of the office and, moments later, unceremoniously deposited on the pavement with only her cardboard box to keep her company. Andi supposed she’d better hang on to it; if the worst came to the worst she could always sleep in it.

  “What about my reference?” she called after Gareth’s retreating figure, but he didn’t reply. Andi guessed she could wave goodbye to that now.

  She bent to scoop up her belongings. The unfairness of it all was staggering. In spite of her brave words, how could she ever prove what Alan had done? The simple answer to this question was not by sitting on the pavement close to tears. She needed an emergency caffeine injection to get her head together.

  Once in Starbucks Andi ordered a latte and tried not to wince when it cost nearly three pounds. It’d be instant coffee in a flask until she found another job.

  While she waited for her drink, Andi chewed the end of her ponytail (a bad habit, she knew, but it was free and better for her than smoking) and thought about whom she could call for some sympathy. Tom still wasn’t answering, PMB’s true identity and Safe T Net email address were locked into the company system and she was ignoring Angel after the earlier begging email.

  It looked as though she was on her own.

  Chapter 6

  Being unemployed was not all it was cracked up to be, Angel decided. Once the novelty of reading magazines and drinking coffee while her colleagues toiled wore off, she was at a loose end and bored. It was one thing having all day to herself if there was a limitless credit card to play with or a luxury spa to enjoy, but another thing altogether when she had about twenty pence to her name. By lunchtime even she was tired of admiring all the designer bags in Selfridges. What was the point? It was so unfair; shopping was no fun at all when she had as much chance of flying to Mars as she did of owning one of those beautiful Chloé bags. And what was the point of trying on all the gorgeous clothes when she had absolutely no hope of seeing them wrapped up in tissue paper and lovingly placed in a shiny yellow carrier bag? Angel longed to feel the weight of those black cord handles cutting into her fingers, almost as much as she longed to be heading off for lunch at The Ivy before being interviewed by Heat magazine about her latest TV show...

  Until that happy day dawned, though, she was penniless and unemployed and actually pretty hungry. Checking her purse only confirmed that she really was skint. Maybe she shouldn’t have blown her last twenty on that MAC lippy? But it was such a gorgeous colour and exactly the same one that Katy Perry was wearing in this week’s Grazia. Angel checked her reflection in the shop window and knew she’d made the right decision. The slick gloss, the exact hue of ripe cherries, made her full lips look pouty, plump and totally kissable. In terms of an investment in Project Rich Guy it was a wiser choice than lunch.

  At the thought of food, Angel’s stomach rumbled. Times were hard when a girl had to choose between lipstick and a bagel. God, she was operating on less cash than Kerry Katona! Maybe this was evidence of that recession Andi was always going on about?

  Unable to even stretch to a packet of crisps, Angel contemplated going back home. Gemma was a fantastic cook and there was bound to be something delicious in the fridge or a bar of chocolate hidden in her flatmate’s room. Angel had never met anyone with such a complicated relationship with food before. Gemma professed to be constantly on a diet but was always finding excuses to cram food into her face. No wonder she was several stone overweight. Turning sideways, Angel scrutinised her own figure in the shop window, her blue eyes narrowing critically as
she looked at her waistline. Although a trim size eight with a toned stomach and curves in just the right places, Angel sometimes wondered if she ought to make a bit more of an effort and get herself down to a six. After all, didn’t they say that being on the television added ten pounds? Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to skip a few lunches? Then when she was discovered she wouldn’t look out of place with all the TOWIE and MIC celebrities.

  Pleased with this idea, she ignored her hunger pangs and the delicious aromas drifting on the breeze from the Italian restaurants lining the side roads that fanned away from Oxford Street. Project Rich Guy and fame it was!

  All she needed to do was figure out a way of getting herself into the right place, Angel decided as she rode the escalator down into the bowels of the Tube. If she could only get herself an invite to a place where the rich and beautiful people hung out she knew it would just be matter of time before somebody noticed her. Then she’d be made. Quite what she was going to do until then was a little vague, but Angel thought she could figure that out when the time came. Apart from her beautician skills, she didn’t have any outstanding talents. She couldn’t sing, she couldn’t dance and she wasn’t particularly good at acting either, unless you counted crying on demand, so there wasn’t an obvious talent to get her noticed. Still, that had never stopped lots of other celebrities, had it?

  What Angel did have in spades was charm, good looks and, buried beneath her fake tan and extensions, a razor-sharp brain. Angel had left school with four straight “A”s at A-level and an IQ score worthy of Mensa. She kept very quiet about this, though, because as far as Angel could tell being brainy didn’t get you very far in life. Look at Andi, for instance, with all her qualifications. Where exactly had being brainy got her big sister? All Andi had to show for her years at uni was a dull job slaving over numbers, a wardrobe of identikit sludge-coloured clothes, a flat in the grotty end of Clapham and that waste-of-skin boyfriend.

  Angel was still musing about her sister as she hopped onto the Tube. It was the middle of the day and for a moment she allowed herself to luxuriate in the novelty of being able to take her pick of the seats rather than being crammed into someone’s stinky armpit. When she was rich and famous she would never, ever ride the Tube again, unless it was for a photo opportunity just to prove how normal and how unchanged she really was. As the train slithered its way beneath the city, Angel allowed herself the luxury of another little daydream where she posed in Sienna Miller style boho chic, her long blonde hair sexily bed-mussed and her large statement bag slung casually over her arm. Then, once the paps had pushed off, her Bentley would collect her, sweep her away from the skittering litter and fuggy Tube air and off to lunch at The Savoy with an impossibly gorgeous man.

  Yep. That was what using your looks rather than your brains could get you. Why anybody would settle for a mundane job and an average life was beyond Angel. Take her sister, for example. Why Andi continued to toil away in that hideous office – it must be afflicted with sick building syndrome or something because Angel always felt nauseous just thinking about the place – was a mystery almost as huge as why she put up with Tom.

  Angel dug her iPhone out of her (fake) Louis Vuitton bag and scrolled through her picture roll until she settled on a shot of her sister with her partner. Her blue eyes narrowed. Tom was good-looking, there was no denying it, but his were the kind of good looks that wouldn’t last long. Already his blond hair was looking a little thin and he had a habit of sweeping it aside nervously in an attempt to hide the sparse patch at the crown. He worked out religiously but there was a blur of a double chin and Angel suspected the moment his efforts stopped he would puff up like a peony. Her sister had better be careful she didn’t go to bed one night with Brad Pitt and wake up with Gollum! And talk about self-absorbed. The word me ran through him like a stick of Brighton rock. Her sister could do so much better.

  Angel scrolled to another photo, this one just of Andi. It was a rare shot where her sister was glammed up – or Andi’s idea of glam anyway, which was to pop her contacts in, slick some lipstick on and tug a brush through her hair. It had been lunch at Cliveden House the last time their father had been in the UK, and for such a sumptuous setting even Andi had managed to drag herself out of the office and put on a frock. In the picture Andi was leaning on a balustrade, with the formal gardens behind her falling away to the glittering ribbon of the Thames. Against the vivid green of the spring lawns her hair was a fiery red mane of glossy curls spilling over her shoulders to her curvy chest. As someone who could only fill a B-cup (on a good day, and with the wind behind her), Angel was deeply envious of her sister’s figure. She guessed she could get a loan and sort out her own chest but, like the boobs, her sister’s slender waist, long coltish legs and wide green eyes were all Andi’s own. There was no way Angel could fake those. Angel, who might sometimes have a little bit of help from L’Oréal with her own tresses (because not only was she worth it but she was actually a closet brunette), simply couldn’t understand why her sister insisted on camouflaging her assets with dull trouser suits, scraped back hair and an unmade-up face. Angel thought her sister was stunning. She just wished Andi would think the same. In Angel’s opinion, useless lazy git Tom should be on his knees thanking God her sister even noticed him, not taking the total piss on a daily basis.

  Angel shook her head. If there was ever a way to remove Tom from the scene she would take it. Actually, a solution had occurred to her when Tom’s hand had found its way to her knee last Christmas. Although Tom had laughed it off as too much sherry, the look in his eyes and his still-full glass had told a different story. Angel trusted him about as much as the Road Runner trusted Wile E Coyote, and for a split second she’d been tempted to blow his cover once and for all. Only the thought of how much this would hurt her sister had stopped Angel – but she was biding her time. Tom could wait. Besides, she had her own suspicions about her sister’s low self-esteem. Their father had a lot to answer for. Good-looking, charming and totally unreliable Alexander Evans had swanned in and out of his daughters’ lives for years. Sometimes he had showered them with attention, theatre trips and trolley dashes round Hamleys; on other occasions weeks would go by without so much as a phone call. Their mother had never said much, but sometimes the expression on her face had mirrored the disappointment in her children’s eyes.

  “Talk about parents fucking you up,” muttered Angel to herself. Honestly, Freud would have had a field day with the Evans clan. They had more Big Issues than their local high street. No wonder Andi had been drawn to Tom. It was that old familiar striving to please a man thing, wasn’t it? An impossible task, since nobody had ever managed to please Alex Evans – not even their beautiful mother.

  Well, bugger that. She, Angel Evans, was only going to please herself!

  Angel sighed. Tucking the phone away, she decided to take a detour out towards Balham – sorry, Clapham – and see if Andi was working from home. She sometimes did and Angel, whose rumbling stomach was loudly protesting against her size-six master plan, figured that she might as well grab a bite to eat from her sister’s fridge. Anyway, didn’t Gemma say that diets always started tomorrow?

  As the train drew into the next station, Angel tidied her hair in the blurry glass, craning her neck to avoid the reflections of adverts for Match.com and tooth-whitening products getting in the way of her own image. She hoped her sister was in. They could watch afternoon telly and drink tea. That had to be better than going back to the flat.

  Angel grimaced at the thought of the flat she shared with Gemma. It was a pigsty right now and in serious need of mucking out. When she’d left that morning the place had been strewn with Gemma’s underwear, a downpour of pants, thongs and Spanx as her flatmate had frantically hunted for an outfit that would fit. The detritus of a late-night Chinese had sat congealing on the coffee table, gloopy MSG doing awful things to the French polish and probably sounding the death knell for any hope they’d had of seeing their deposit again. The floor had remained
littered with crumbs and dust bunnies since their last vacuum cleaner had choked out its death throes. Neither Gemma nor Angel had the cash or the inclination to buy another one, so instead the flat was sliding gradually into Dickensian squalor. Angel would hardly have been surprised to come home one evening and find Miss Havisham ensconced on the sofa, while the dust fell softly through the air and the London grime continued to block the daylight out.

  Outside the station the glare was dazzling; above the crawling traffic and leaden rooftops a fried-egg sun blasted down onto the pavements and turned the windows of shops into liquid gold. Fishing out her oversized Gucci shades, Angel turned her attention to scrolling through her missed calls and text messages, feeling slightly alarmed when she saw that there were three from Gemma. Oh God, she hadn’t left her straighteners on again, had she? Last time the firemen had been really sweet about it, and one of them had even slipped her his phone number, but Angel wasn’t sure they’d be quite so amused a second time. Or would this be the third? She’d better call her flatmate.

  Crossing the street and leaving Clapham South Tube station behind her, Angel meandered towards the common, pretending that she hadn’t noticed the attention that her long Fake Baked legs in their miniscule denim cut-offs were attracting. God, she loved the summer! Wearing skimpy vests rather than sweaters and drinking wine instead of tea. It was heaven! If only she could spend the summer somewhere slightly more glam than South London, though, like St Tropez or Marbella for instance. Clapham Common was all very well, and there was no shortage of fit young guys out running or flexing their muscles as they fooled around with Frisbees, but there was a distinct lack of superyachts and eligible millionaires. A cute guy with shaggy blond hair and a six-pack you could bounce rocks off threw a grin her way but Angel chose not to notice. She was twenty-seven now, and the dreaded thirty was only three years away, so there was no time to fritter on guys who were wasting weekdays in the park! Millionaires were too busy making serious cash to have fun in the sun, after all.