Doing the Right Thing

by Barbara Elsborg

  Addie tensed her shoulders. “He’d better not have.”

  Ed softened his voice. “You don’t need to leave. We’ll be gone in a couple of weeks. You’ll never see us again.”

  “Why should I quit because of you? I’m going to New Zealand to crew on a yacht.”

  Ed’s eyes opened wide. Addie was beginning to believe it herself now. If Ed hadn’t been there, she’d Google to see what she could find, ignoring the fact that she couldn’t afford the airfare to New Zealand, had never been on a yacht and would probably be as much use as a flat battery.

  Before Ed could say anything else to piss her off, Addie reached for her phone and the Lincoln file.

  “Hello, Mr Prentiss?… Good morning. This is Addie Winter from Magelan’s… Yes, formerly Booth’s… Yes.” She glanced at Ed. “It is a shame the way smaller independent companies are consumed by the large ones. Now, I’m ringing in connection with your trip to Lincoln tomorrow… No, no. It’s fine… No, Mr Prentiss, it’s not being cancelled… Yes, I know you’re looking forward to it. The coach will be there at eight. It’s just that I won’t be accompanying you.”

  Addie paused while he raged. She held the phone a little way away from her ear.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Prentiss. I know the price included a guide, but it’s no longer company policy for our tours to take a member of staff in addition to the driver… Yes, of course you can speak to a manager. I’ll hand you to Mr Mansell.” She gave the phone to Ed.

  Several minutes later, he put it down again.

  “You’ll be going to Lincoln tomorrow,” he said.

  “It’s no longer part of my job.” Addie handed him Will’s memo.

  “Change of plan.” Ed ripped the sheet of paper in half.

  “Addie, I need a hand,” came a plaintive voice.

  Addie looked up to see Charlotte the Harlot waving her arms by the photocopier. Addie got up and Ed followed. She stared at him. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  He smiled. “We’ll get a cup of coffee on the way back.”

  Charlotte draped herself over the machine as Ed and Addie approached.

  “The copier resisting your charms again?” Addie asked.

  Charlotte nodded and fluttered her eyelashes at Ed.

  Addie banged the metal casing hard on the left side, kneed a point on the lower right and pressed the copier on the upper left at the same time. The machine purred and disgorged a copy.

  “Wow, impressive.” Ed raised his eyebrows. “A woman with the magic touch.”

  “Would you like a coffee, Ed?” Charlotte asked.

  “You’re an angel. Get Addie one too, would you?”

  As the Harlot walked past with a fixed smile on her face, Addie sighed. “I’m not going to be able to drink it. She has a store of cyanide for rivals.”

  “Are you a rival?”

  Addie blushed. “You made her think I was.” She hurried back to her desk, grabbed the phone again and pressed in a number she knew by heart.

  “Mrs Wilberforce? It’s Addie Winter from Magelan’s. Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I rang several times, but didn’t manage to catch you in… Oh, were you? I’m sorry to hear that.” Addie winced. She didn’t need those sort of medical details. “Yes, that’s why I’m ringing.” Addie glanced at Ed, who stared at her intently. “I’m sorry you feel we spoilt your trip… I can assure you we were discussing important company business.”

  She tried hard not to blush again, but could feel the heat creeping onto her face. “No, I’m sorry, Mrs Wilberforce, I don’t feel a refund is in order. We can’t leave coaches unlocked in case people wish to return early. You’d have been very upset if your belongings had been stolen.” Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, of course you can speak to someone more senior than me.” Addie saw Ed glaring. “Offer her a half-price seat on the trip to Lincoln tomorrow,” she whispered.

  When Ed banged the phone down, he kept his hand on the receiver. “No more of those, please.”

  Charlotte put two coffees on the desk.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” Ed smiled at her.

  As Charlotte walked away, she wiggled her bottom. Addie couldn’t believe it, but when she looked at Ed, he was looking at her and not Charlotte. He rolled his chair a little nearer.

  “So, what’s your favourite food?” Ed asked.

  “And this is relevant, how?”

  “Humour me.”

  “Bread.”

  “I was thinking in terms of Chinese, Thai, Italian…”

  “Patagonian.”

  He laughed. “Most annoying habit?”

  “Saying sorry.” Damn, that slipped out.

  “Maybe it’s better than not saying sorry at all.” He paused. “What were you and Will doing on the coach?”

  Addie’s stomach flipped. “Talking.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Ed said.

  “A married idiot,” Addie whispered.

  “I bet he didn’t tell you everything.”

  “I don’t want to know.” Yes, she did.

  “Vee tried to kill herself on Saturday night. Overdose. She’s done it before.”

  Addie gasped. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, but Will’s not.”

  He bent his head to her ear. “I can’t prove it, but it’s likely Vee did nothing more than drink a glass of salt water. She’s a fucking vampire and she’ll suck on Will until there’s nothing left. He needs help to get away from her. I need help to get away from her. Give Will another chance, please. He’s been a wreck for the last couple of years. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, not with women.”

  “Why would she try to kill herself?” Addie asked.

  “She doesn’t want him to leave her.”

  “How can I compete with that?”

  “If you care about Will, you’ll try.”

  Addie sighed. “What do you want me to do, Ed? Hang around fluttering my eyelashes, wiggling my backside like the Harlot? He has to sort himself out. I can’t do that for him.”

  “I just want you to give him a chance, Addie. Please.”

  “I did, but I can’t save him. He has to save himself.”

  Ed watched Addie and wondered if he actually wanted her to give Will another chance. He’d thought he did but now he wasn’t so sure.

  She was a gem on the phone as a telemarketer, making notes against the person’s name, finding a variety of topics to talk about and by the end of the call was usually on first name terms. Almost everyone asked for a brochure. Ed began to think it would be rather pleasant to go on a coach trip to Skegness, and drop in for a game of Bingo before trying that cosy little pub just off the… What the hell was he thinking?

  “Brilliant sales pitch,” he said.

  “We have one seat left on our trip to Prague next February. We have five hen parties signed up. Would you like to give me your credit card number?”

  “Put me down for a seat,” Ed said.

  “Sold. Perhaps I should have told you their average age is sixty-two.”

  He groaned. “So what do you do with your list now?”

  “Pass it to Graham. Once the brochures have been sent out, he follows up.”

  “And gets the credit?”

  Addie shrugged. “This is teamwork. We all get the credit.” She smiled. “Though some get more credit than others.”

  “Addie.” The Harlot shimmied over, a string of fluffy white tinsel wrapped around her neck like a feather boa. “Delia said we can do the Christmas decorations this lunchtime. You can reach higher than the rest of us.”

  “Been reading my CV?” Addie said.

  “Do you want me to help?” Ed asked.

  “Ooh, no, you’re far too…too…” Charlotte stumbled to a halt.

  “Busy,” Will snapped, coming up behind her.

  “We only do it in the lunch hour,” Charlotte said.

  “So long as everyone doesn’t decide now Christmas has arrived, they can halve the amount of work they’re supposed to
be doing.” Will’s glare sent the Harlot into a fast retreat. “Ed, a word.”

  At midday, the guys from the garage dragged in three large boxes of Christmas decorations. When Will and Ed went off in Will’s car, Delia and Graham nipped out to buy a real tree for the reception. Since they said they’d be gone an hour and the store was only a mile away, Addie guessed they’d be making a detour. Beth put Christmas music on her computer and cranked up the volume so they wouldn’t hear the phones.

  This time last year Addie had been working in one of the travel agencies and the shop’s token acknowledgement of the approaching festive season had been a two-foot, talking Santa that burst into life when anyone walked by. But the batteries were on the blink, and the drunken, almost sleazy nature of the exhortation to have a merry Christmas made Addie shudder every time she heard it.

  She looked round at the chaos. Beth and Daisy were dancing. Joe had lined up mince pies on his desk in some sort of taste challenge and there were fairy lights all over the floor. The head office clearly did Christmas in a spiritual, understated way. Daisy danced over to Addie with a Santa hat.

  “It’s compulsory,” Daisy said.

  Addie grabbed a set of antlers. “I’ll be Rudolph.”

  Everyone was roped in to decorate. Bottles of wine emerged from bottom drawers. Garlands were fastened across the room, tinsel of every colour and variety was wrapped round each computer, polystyrene snowmen appeared on every work surface and sprigs of plastic mistletoe were strategically positioned at crossing points. The biggest clump hung in a space between Charlotte and Beth, giving them an equal opportunity to pounce.

  Addie had never seen so many fairy lights in one room. The National Grid had probably hiccupped when Beth switched them on. They ran around the windows, partitions, doors and along skirting boards. Anything that didn’t move had been adorned, even the wastepaper baskets. In the space of forty minutes the office had been transformed into a tacky Santa’s grotto.

  Genghis and Graham came back with the real tree and Addie was ordered to reception to decorate it.

  “Only silver and blue. Start at the top. Don’t put a silver bauble next to a blue one. Space them evenly. Don’t break them.” Genghis snapped orders like a whip.

  Even after Addie had put the decorations on, Genghis wanted several repositioned and although Addie had been horrified at the gaudy excesses of the main room, she was equally depressed by the lack of heart in Genghis’s artistic creation. Graham appeared clutching four glasses of wine and plonked them on the reception desk.

  “That looks great, Delia,” he said. “You’re so talented.”

  “With a sucking ability like that, you should look for a job with Dyson,” Addie muttered.

  “Lights on, Addie,” Genghis said.

  Addie crawled round the back, trying not to entangle her antlers and flicked the switch.

  Genghis swore. “Damn. One set’s not working.”

  There were three plugs in a gang socket and after a couple of moments, Addie managed to identify the broken set. When she got up Genghis and Graham had drunk their wine, Julie was sipping a glass and the other had disappeared. Had she imagined the fourth?

  “Sort it out, Addie,” Genghis said. “Take that set off and find another one.”

  Addie looked at the tree. All the baubles had been hung after the lights, so taking a set off would be awkward. She retreated to the back to unravel the cord from the bottom and a man-eating spider dropped onto her hand. Addie screamed and sprang up into the tree, spearing it with her antlers. As the tree began to topple, she tried to catch it, but found herself falling with it. A torrent of water from the tree-holder cascaded everywhere.

  “Shit,” someone yelled.

  As Addie and the tree crashed to the floor, she found her face inches from Will’s. He lay on his back with the tree in his arms and Addie on top of the tree, baubles bouncing all around them. There was a prickly fir branch between them, so it appeared as if he’d grown a luxurious green moustache. She had an urge to giggle.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Will shouted.

  The urge disappeared. “I’m sorry.”

  Ed helped her up and adjusted her antlers. He was laughing. Will threw the tree aside and got to his feet, wet through, his suit covered in pine needles.

  “I’ll pay to have it cleaned,” Addie said. “I’m sorry, but there was this huge spider and I’m fright…”

  Her voice trailed off as she took in his clenched jaw.

  “You’re such a complete klutz.”

  “I said I was sorry.” Addie stood her ground. “Just because you can’t sort your life out, there’s no need to take it out on me.”

  The moment that left her mouth, she wanted it back. Will stared at her for a long moment, then stormed off.

  Oh fuck.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  At the end of the day, Addie saw Ed heading in her direction.

  “Still here, Miss Grinch?” he asked. “You didn’t fancy wrecking Satan’s grotto as well?” He gestured to the winter wonderland around them.

  “What and piss off everyone else?”

  “You don’t piss me off. Want to come and find a place that sells Patagonian food?” He sat on Graham’s chair and rolled it over.

  “No, thanks,” Addie murmured.

  “Don’t like no. Much prefer its twin. Come on, say yes.”

  “I’m supposed to be catching up on the work I should have done while I was putting that tree back together.”

  “I won’t tell.” Ed swung her chair round. “You’ve done enough work. Talk to me.”

  She sighed. “What about?”

  “Do you like kids?”

  “Only with tomato ketchup.”

  Ed smiled. “I’d like my own football team.”

  “Not if you had to give birth to them.” She began to tidy her desk. “The last time I had to baby-sit, my seven-year-old niece put her goldfish down the loo so he could go for a swim. Then her brother decided to take a leak in the fridge, in case the fish was still in the U-bend.”

  Ed laughed. “I suppose you were you a perfect child?”

  “God no, I was awful. My parents had their hands full with three boys and I did everything I could to get their attention. I gave up doing as I was told and turned to the dark side. My mother has a long list of things I did to annoy her, including giving the guinea pig Ex-Lax. My most creative crime was shaving our long-suffering cat and spraying it with black dots because I wanted a Dalmatian puppy.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No, Hector still wouldn’t fetch the ball.”

  “I meant did you get more attention?”

  Addie smiled and shook her head. “I thought it was because I was a girl, so I tried to be more like my brothers. I climbed trees, made dens and stayed out when it got dark. I stole their beer and got drunk, I smoked their cigarettes and made myself sick. My brothers just about tolerated me, so long as I stayed a hundred meters away.”

  “Sounds a bit like me and Will. He was the responsible, bossy older brother and I was always in trouble. Will looked out for me, though. He ended up taking the blame when he shouldn’t have, particularly when I pushed our parents too far. One time, I backed the car out of the garage straight over Dad’s golf clubs. I spent the day crying because I knew I’d have to pay for them and miss the school ski trip and then Will told Dad he’d done it. He still does that sometimes, assumes responsibility when he doesn’t need to.”

  Addie got the message. But while Vee was his wife, she was Will’s responsibility.

  “My brothers never took the fall for me. They always tried to make sure I got the blame. Mind you, it was nearly always my fault.”

  “You look so sweet, I can’t believe it.”

  “Nope, I’m wild and bad.” She didn’t want to be sweet. She was fed up of saying sorry, fed up of being picked on. “Last year I got a piercing,” she blurted out, then realized how pathetic it sounded. It had been a miracle she’d gon
e through with it.

  Ed raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you little devil. What have you got pierced?”

  He rolled his chair nearer. Addie’s hand settled over her stomach and she looked at him. His eyes glittered with amusement.

  “Show me. A wild, bad woman would show me.”

  Addie pulled up the bottom of her shirt. Ed’s hand moved toward the silver bar at her navel, his fingers feathered her stomach and her muscles twitched. He pulled back at the same time as Addie yanked down her top. Will stood feet away, staring at them. He opened his mouth, shut it, then turned and walked off.

  “Oh, fuck it.” Ed clenched his fists. “Stay there while I talk to him.”

  Addie didn’t want to stay near either of them. Why had she said all that to Ed? Was it part of his seduction technique, being easy to talk to?

  “It’s not what you think,” Ed explained in Will’s office.

  “What do I think? Why should I care?” Will’s eyes were blank.

  “We were just chatting.”

  “With your hands on her stomach?”

  Ed flinched. “I wasn’t touching her like that.”

  “I didn’t think she was your type.”

  “She’s not.” Although he didn’t think that was true.

  “You mean she hasn’t said yes yet? Face it, Ed, you might say you go for designer babes with names like India, Africa and Asia, but since we’ve been in Leeds you’ve been happy to fuck Yorkshire chicks who like your accent.”

  Ed snapped straight into defence mode. “No, I—”

  “Does it ever occur to you not to sleep with every woman you talk to?”

  Ed clenched his jaw. “I don’t.”

  “Leave Addie alone,” Will said.

  “I’m being friendly.”

  Will stepped right up to him. “Don’t be.”

  “Maybe you should leave her alone. She won’t get on with her life while you keep picking her up and dropping her.”

  “You mean she won’t sleep with you?” Will retorted.

  “You don’t want her, but you don’t want anyone else to have her?” Ed shook his head. “How is that fair?”