by Foster, Zoe
‘Gosh, that’s crazy . . . I had no idea.’ Lily had read something about it online, but would never let on that she ever read or thought about Nikkii in a million years.
‘It was even on the Daily Mail, it went completely worldwide; it’s been really intense.’ Lily could hear the sound of Nikkii’s conversational fishing rod plop into the water, but she wasn’t about to bite.
‘Sorry to hear that, Nikkii, hope things get better.’ And with a smile, Lily began to walk off, keen to get back to daydreams about Jack and cake.
‘Hey, can I ask you something?’
Lily stopped and turned back to Nikkii. ‘Sure, what’s up?’
‘Weeeeelll, I actually wanted to ask your advice. You see, I’m applying for Eliza’s series producer role. Of course I am literally dying that she’s leaving in a month, I will miss her to pieces, but I wondered if you had any ideas for how to make my application super-amazing. You’re good at that stuff, aren’t you? PowerPoint and whatever?’
Lily blinked a few times as though that might assist her understanding of what she’d just heard. Good things: Eliza was leaving. Bad things: the job had already been made public and she hadn’t known; Eliza would pretty much hand it to Nikkii in a muffin-lined basket. Hopeful things: for once Nikkii’s chronic mis- and overuse of the word ‘literally’ might be true, and she was actually dying.
‘It’s been announced, has it?’ Lily said, needing Nikkii to know she already knew about it.
‘Lize told me about it, she thinks I have a reeeaally good chance.’
Of course she fucking does, Lily thought, because she is your number-one fan, and also, she has NO CLUE about what a series producer is or does, despite being one herself.
‘Should I do a whole reel for Sasha, do you think, or just, like, a PowerPoint?’
‘Series producer is a big role, Nikkii, it might mean you won’t get to do all your on-air stuff any more . . .’ Without fully realsing it, Lily was dissuading Nikkii from the role.
‘Lize said they’ll make exceptions,’ she said swiftly. ‘It’s a flexible role.’
Lily couldn’t tell if Nikkii was deliberately fucking with her, or genuinely didn’t know she was being offensive, and that Lily would obviously be going for the role too.
‘Um, I’m really not sure, Nikkii. Eliza will be more helpful than me, I’d say.’
‘True, ’kay, thanks anyway. Wish me lu-uck!’ and with a spin, she bounced off down the hallway, her bum wiggling in just the fashion a bum shouldn’t in the workplace.
Lily couldn’t even accuse Eliza of colluding with her star staffer to get her a promotion, because she’d told Lily about the role, too. Oh well, Lily sighed, she would just have to dazzle Sasha with her application and her actual, tangible and documented skill set. There was nothing to worry about, Lily told herself, she was completely qualified for this job. It was her time. She deserved it. Bring it on.
Returning to her desk, she saw a missed call and a text from Mimi.
Dinner tonight? New French brasserie near me has opened up and I fancy some snails. (For you there are fries.) Call me. ox
The order of her hugs and kisses (wrong) always brought a smile to Lily’s face. And actually, dinner with her mum and a bottle or twelve of red wine sounded like an excellent idea.
Oui! I can be there at 7. Text me address xx
Lily woke up her computer screen, a menacingly empty word document glared back at her. She had decided to create a food tour for Jack, to take the segment out into the country and give all the horny housewives a chance to see him in person, and jam up their Facebook feed with photos of him.
Sasha had agreed to it, but wanted places that already had a ‘foodie’ slant, so they weren’t going to be devoid of an audience, and preferably there would be an existing event in place that they could crash, and borrow all of the equipment and infrastructure. Lily had to give it to Sasha for being so resourceful.
So far, Lily had the crayfish wharves on the south coast, a wine festival in the southern highlands, a cheese fair on the north coast, and a ‘condiments’ market in the Blue Mountains. And they were all shit. There had to be a better way to do things. She’d instructed Dale to get thinking, and was doing the same. This could be her moment to shine, Lily realised; the thing that made Sasha realise she was totally ready for a new role and new responsibilities and a new salary. She had to come up with something cool and fun and unique, and then project-manage the shit out of it.
Alice had walked over and was perched on Lily’s desk to chat, scooping out the bottom of a yoghurt tub.
‘Can I borrow a tenner? I forgot to go to the ATM at lunch and I lost a bet to Grimmo.’
‘Um, yeah, hang on a sec,’ Lily was finally deep in work mode and didn’t appreciate the distraction.
‘Oh shit,’ Alice yelped. ‘I’m meeting Sasha at four, fuck a duck, shit, fuck!’ and she dumped the empty yogurt carton in Lily’s bin and was gone.
Why was she meeting Sasha? Was it about the role? It had to be; why else would Alice be meeting with the EP? Why wasn’t Lily meeting with Sasha? Why was everyone else getting the job she wanted? Fuck! Panic set in. She had to get this role. Life at The Daily under one of her co-workers – friend or foe – would be no life at all.
‘Why don’t I eat this every night? This is the greatest meal ever.’ Lily was inhaling her delicious, crispy fries, dipping them into the wine merchant sauce poured generously over her minute steak.
‘You’d die of heart disease at forty, darling,’ Mimi said as she elegantly chewed on garlic-soaked escargot. ‘You’re looking so slim, Lil. You look lovely.’
Mimi loved skinniness. As she’d been deprived of it for so many years, an early menopause ensured that, it was now her holy grail. If Lily were the impressionable type she would have developed an eating disorder young. She was probably a touch skinnier than usual at the moment because she was stressed, but there was no point telling Mimi that, she’d just ask where she could buy some.
Lily shook her head and sipped her wine.
‘Everything’s a bit shit.’
‘Really?’ Mimi’s eyebrows raised. ‘That good.’
Lily sighed and rested her knife and fork on her plate for a moment; her stomach could probably do with the breather anyway.
‘A series producer role has finally come up, and I want it, and I deserve it, but I don’t think I’m going to get it.’
‘Rubbish. You work harder than anyone else in there, Bean.’
‘We all work too hard. Alice is going to apply too. Every dick and his dog is.’
Lily picked up her cutlery and stabbed at her steak. She knew she was being a sook, but she wanted this job so much more than Alice or Nikkii did, she knew she did.
‘Don’t let this one slip out of your hands because you’ve convinced yourself someone else beat you to the punch. I taught you better than that.’
Mimi was right. Lily was being theatrical and juvenile.
‘Hey, so Simone broke the man-detox pact last night.’
‘And thank God for that. What a load of nonsense, keeping two gorgeous, trim creatures like you man-free when you’re in your prime. There will come a time when it’s involuntary, then you’ll curse the day you did it willingly, I promise you.’
‘She broke it off cos she’s seeing Jack. My chef Jack.’
Mimi’s hand stopped mid-air on the way to her mouth. ‘No’.
‘Yep.’ Lily took a long sip of her wine.
‘Well. This is wonderful news! I’m thrilled! What a gorgeous couple. It’s about time she ditched the bad boys and went for a nice guy, and we all know they don’t come nicer than him.’
Lily cleared her throat. What was she, chopped liver? Her own mother didn’t even for one nanosecond think that Jack might be better suited to her own daughter?
‘Yeah, well, it’s all very new, so who knows,’ Lily said quietly, a cardigan of wine-based spite hanging loosely across her shoulders.
‘What genetically gifted o
ffspring they’ll have. Can you even imagine?’
‘Whoa, calm the farm, Mimi . . . they’ve been for like, two dates.’
‘Bean, you’re not . . . jealous, are you?’ Mimi peered at her daughter while stealing a few more of Lily’s fries.
Lily took a long sip of water, suddenly remembering she had to drive home, and might have enjoyed too much wine.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not my type. They’re much better suited.’ Lily ate some more fries, then realised she had already eaten half a kilo’s worth, and placed her napkin over the remaining mound to stop herself from eating more.
‘Don’t you thin—’
Before Mimi could finish, a man in a white shirt and jeans came over to the table. He was in his mid-fifties, tanned, dark hair flecked with grey, with a warm, smiling face.
‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but I wanted to know if everything was to your liking this evening?’ He had a slight accent, but Lily couldn’t pick it.
‘Oh, yes, it was marvellous. The escargot! My goodness, just divine.’ Lily was amused to see Mimi pick herself up a little and tuck her hair behind her ears.
The man looked at Lily’s napkin covering her plate. ‘Was there something terrifying in your meal you cannot bear to look at?’
Lily laughed. ‘No, no, just a bit of “out of sight, out of mind” with the fries. I gave them a good nudge, I promise. And the steak was perfect, thank you.’
‘I should introduce myself. I am Niko, and I am not French, I am Croatian, but I prefer French food. This is my restaurant, we’re new and anxious to please, so I like to make sure everyone is enjoying their food, and then butter them up with some free sweets. Which I will return with shortly. Excellent choice of wine, by the way, vacqueyras is the perfect pairing for escargot.’ He gave a dazzling smile to Mimi, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
‘Well. That doesn’t happen every day, does it?’ Mimi said, blushing slightly, pulling out her make-up mirror and checking her teeth, and fixing up her curly brown hair and applying some dusky-pink lipstick.
‘No ring, I noticed.’
‘Oh, stop it,’ Mimi said, but her grin gave her away. ‘He had a terrific smile, didn’t he? Probably gay. This is where they thrive, after all. Denis’s boyfriend lives a block away.’
Lily’s heart was warmed, seeing her mother fluff and primp for the handsome devil from the kitchen. What was it with the Woodward women and chefs?
17
Simone had either been chewing through her Benzo stash, or she was caught up in the lust bubble. All Lily received when she asked how things were going with Jack on a dull Tuesday morning was:
He is heaven . . . xoxo
Her description of their latest date when she and Lily finally caught up a few days later was not much better. It was peppered with swooning and smiles and sighs and more gushing than a broken dam. She and Jack already had their next date planned: a trip to the grower’s market, naturally, and after ‘J’ – Simone was an enormous fan of calling people by their first initial – had commented positively on Simone’s freckles, Simone, all giggles and smiles, admitted she had now ditched foundation on her cheeks so that they could better peek through. Lily listened to all of this with a fresh, steely resolve to be happy for them both, and not be weird about it, and see it as a blessing, because Simone might finally kick her Michael thing once and for all, and the beautiful twinset could only be good publicity for the show. That Lily also had freckles was entirely irrelevant.
Lily walked over to Alice’s desk where she sat working away, chewing on a pen, hair wild, humming loudly.
‘Come to the snack machine?’
Alice turned and saw Lily’s grim facial expression.
‘Whoa, stormy lady . . . Did your little red secret arrive? I thought we were in sync, mine came last wee—’
‘No, no. Come on, come,’ and she turned and walked.
‘Hey, will you go for Eliza’s job, do you reckon?’ Lily said once they reached the hallway, trying to play cool, indifferent, no-big-dealsy.
‘Rather eat my own vom. But YOU should go for it. Man, I would fucking love being your slave.’
Lily turned to look at her friend’s huge eyes and wanted to hug her.
‘Thanks, Al. I’d give you a million-dollar raise immediately. But sadly I fear Eliza will hand-deliver it to you-know-who.’
‘Then we’ll both leave and open a strip club.’
Lily exhaled, nodding. She stared at the snack machine, which, being wedged between two old printers at the far end of the corridor, was the perfect place for gossip and the secret shame of drinking Fanta.
‘Also, Jack’s blonde? Simone.’ Alice had been on site so much lately, Lily hadn’t even had the chance to spill the news.
Alice’s mouth broke into an enormous O.
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’ Alice smacked her right hand up to her mouth, her eyes huge and sparkling with excitement and disbelief.
‘Simone broke our man-detox for it. He’s already had her over for a home-cooked meal.’ Lily tried to keep any bitterness from her tone.
Alice’s arms crossed in front of her with suspicion. ‘Does he know you know?’
‘Assume she told him, but I haven’t mentioned it. It’s his personal life, you know?’
‘Jeeeez. Small fucking world, isn’t it. What are the chances? Are you weirding out?’
‘Why would I be?’ Lily asked, a bit too quickly.
Alice’s head flopped to one side, her expression one of disbelief.
‘Still pretending you don’t have a crush on him, huh?’
‘You think I have a crush on everyone. Even Trent the soundo, for God’s sake.’
‘You just know he’s the biggest masturbator in the southern hemisphere, don’t you? I bet you could crack his bedsheets . . .’ Alice shuddered.
Lily turned and quickly punched in her favourite code, B22, and slid in two two-dollar coins one after the other.
‘I don’t have a thing for Jack, and his going for Simone indicates his type of girl is several postcodes from me, so you can drop that idea now, I reckon.’ She bent over and claimed her salt and vinegar chips and then stood up with a flourish, flicking her long hair as she did so.
As Lily began walking, urgently opening her chips and jamming a handful in her mouth, Alice deep in thought behind her, Jack walked out of Sasha’s office and towards the girls.
‘Mind, here comes your non-crush . . .’ Alice said in a whisper.
‘Salt and vinegar, the flavour of kings’, Jack said cheerfully as he passed the girls, with a doff of his head to Lily’s chips, and a large smile, and kept walking.
Alice said, once he was gone, ‘That is called flirting, Woo.’
‘Al, that’s not flirting. That’s Jack in a good mood because of his hot new girlfriend.’
‘You’re such a wet sock,’ Alice mumbled.
‘Blanket,’ Lily corrected, rounding the corner and moving towards her desk.
‘Whatever.’
As Lily sat down in her chair, she looked at the spreadsheet on her screen, and a shiver of excitement whizzed through her body. Sometimes, with so much stress and so many morons taking precedence much of the time, she forgot how much she loved her job. Jesus, she was getting her jollies from Excel; she really needed some action. But as Lily read over what she’d created, she couldn’t help the small hum of delight from creeping back in. She’d come up with a Big New Idea for the food tour, and was now channelling all of her energy and time into it in the hope that Sasha would see how much more creative and invested in the show she was than someone like Nikkii, who essentially used the show as fodder for her multiple social-media accounts. Also, Lily figured if she worked this hard for the next month the whole Jack and Simone thing would become so normalised that any feelings of unrest would kick a tyre, have a sulk and eventually leave.
The Big Idea involved touring in a retro-style food truck. She’d read about one in the US that travelled for
a whole month and got all kinds of national press; people were following the truck in their cars and camping alongside it. It sounded so incredibly cool. Far too cool for The Daily, but she could tailor it. She had sourced an old newspaper truck they could do up and brand. The idea was that for a fortnight they would take Jack around to rural areas, hosting the segment from the truck. Each meal would be themed according to what the area was known for, be that berries or cheese or lamb or bloody lemon butter, so they’d be keeping Sasha happy. The idea was almost finished: she had six very strong shows complete and three fairly strong backups, although heading to Bundanoon to make haggis edible might be a stretch. Eliza would nod vaguely and sweetly, unable to comprehend the idea but willing to assume some form of ownership over it if Sasha liked it, but Sasha was Lily’s first stop. She wasn’t going to let this one slip away.
Dale suddenly appeared from behind her with a folder full of printouts. He seemed nervous, as usual, and kept his eyes facing down lest the floor suddenly start cracking and rippling, and the demons from hell started climbing up, and he needed to make a quick exit.
‘Found a woman in Coffs Harbour who claims to be a descendent of the Russian royal family and is in possession of the original pavlova recipe. She’s open to a visit. I have a meeting with Sasha now, so I could be late for production.’
And he walked away.
Dale.
Dale was being considered for the job. Dale, the lowly assistant producer, admin monkey and onion-chopper? The last – only! – decent idea he’d come up with on this set was the one to cut off his stinky, greasy long hair. Lily slammed the folder down on to her desk and clicked angrily on her mouse to let off some steam. Shit was getting completely out of hand.
18
‘What’s all this about?’ Lily asked, arriving home to find her flatmate tearing around the house manically, polishing and wiping. Lily knew the answer already and hated it. They had a cleaner, who came every week. Someone ‘special’ must be coming over. Someone Lily would rather not see on her home turf, majestic land of tracksuit pants, no bra and reruns of Veep.