The Year that Changed Everything

by Cathy Kelly

  Will answered on the first ring.

  ‘Hey gorgeous,’ he said in a warm tone.

  Ginger felt like a volcano that had been building up pressure for thirty years and today it was going to blow.

  ‘You never told me you knew my boss, Carla. And how could you agree to go to the press awards with her? Why did you agree?’

  ‘Ginger,’ he protested, ‘she phoned this morning. She’s sort of pushy. I knew she wanted a free membership when she suggested us for the magazine feature and the gym needs more publicity, but it’s just work, Ginger.’

  ‘Just work. Which part? Her or me? At least I know now, Will.’

  ‘It’s not like that—’ he protested. ‘Damn it, Ginger, after everything we shared last night—’

  ‘Exactly. You didn’t share one vital thing. All the old girlfriends, yes. The fact that you know my bitch of a boss, and were capable of going to an event with another woman when you’re allegedly going out with me, no. You never told me any of that. So case closed. Goodbye, Will. It was, briefly, nice knowing you. Until you showed me your true colours.’

  And she slammed down the phone.

  He kept phoning and phoning, but she blocked his number and deleted it. He could try to wriggle his way out of this one, but it was no good.

  Ginger knew that Carla had simply seized upon the opportunity presented to her because she was angry that Ginger was being promoted. But why did Will have to go along with it? There were ways to get publicity without going on a date with another woman. He could have said: ‘Sorry, I’m dating Ginger Reilly.’ But he hadn’t. He’d been ready to jettison Ginger for publicity, and who knew if the ‘date’ with Ginger had just been publicity too . . .? She might never know. But she no longer cared. Ginger had had it with men.

  Will sent flowers to the office, a giant bouquet of pink flowers that made the delivery person almost stagger in carrying them.

  There was also a note.

  Please answer my calls. I am so sorry. I’ll get out of it. She is work – you were never work, Ginger, never. I’ll wait and hope you phone. I won’t give up.

  Will.

  She crumpled the note into the bin and sent a simple text: Go with Carla. Publicity comes first. Stay away from me. It’s over.

  Who needed a man, anyway?

  The Caraval table was by far the noisiest at the Press Awards. The media group had taken out four wildly expensive tables and the staff were making full use of the free bar.

  Ginger was excited despite the pain in her heart. Her friends were thrilled that she was nominated for best feature writer of the year. She’d never expected to be up for an award, had thought that Carla had just been taunting her, but it turned out to be true. Totally unexpected as far as she was concerned, but true.

  She didn’t have a hope in hell of winning, particularly when someone as experienced as Carla Mattheson was up for it as well. When she thought nobody was looking, she ran her finger over the names of the people who’d been nominated. She never let her finger touch Carla’s name, as if mere contact with that name would contaminate her. Carla contaminated everything.

  ‘I hope that ho Mattheson doesn’t win,’ said Paula, settling herself down beside Ginger, when the MC had finally insisted for the fourth time that people had to come in from the bar and sit down because the awards were going to begin, and that the bar would close if they didn’t all shift it.

  ‘You know she will,’ said Ginger glumly, not bothering to correct Paula for her use of the word ‘ho’. She’d spotted Carla clinging on to Will and her heart had felt like the proverbial stone. If he looked good in gym gear, he looked utterly delicious in an evening jacket.

  And not hers, she reminded herself. Stupid Ginger – again pining for someone who would never be hers. It astonished her how much it still hurt. Nothing had ever hurt so much.

  They’d become friends all that time in the gym, she realised. They’d laughed and joked as he trained her. He’d been a part of her life as a friend and she’d fallen in love with him. Deeply, heart-wrenchingly. How was it that her heart ached in a way that no squat could ever make her thighs ache?

  ‘You should win,’ said Paula.

  ‘Oh come on, this is my first time being nominated, nobody wins on their first time,’ Ginger said, and then followed it up with the lie she’d been telling herself all evening: ‘This is fun, I’m having fun.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Paula, casting dark glances over at a guy from the sports department who was gorgeous, and clearly fancied her right back. In honour of this event, Paula was dressed in a knock-off version of a Hervé Léger bandage dress which was moulded to her body like a second skin. Paula had bought an incredible Victoria’s Secret push-up bra to help with the cleavage department.

  Ginger knew she didn’t need any help in the cleavage department, but she was still pretty pleased with her appearance. Thanks to the personal training, she looked different, incredibly different. Nobody was ever going to call her skinny, but she was standing up for bigger, curvier girls in the best way possible. Her sister-in-law, Zoe, had helped her pick out the dress and she wore the amethyst silky sheath with pride. It was strapless, therefore wildly dangerous.

  ‘Try this,’ Zoe had said in the shop, when Ginger was in the changing room flinging evening dresses on and off with great abandon.

  ‘Are you nuts?’ said Ginger, looking at the sheath dress. ‘I have boobs, Zoe, big boobs. When you have anything in that department, you cannot go strapless, because this dress would be down around my ankles in about four minutes, and this is not the sort of event where I can let that happen. I am up for an award.’ She did not mention that the man she’d once been crazy about was going to be there with a woman she hated.

  ‘I promise you that will not happen,’ said Zoe. ‘You just need the right strapless bra.’

  ‘You’re crazy; I can’t wear this. Look at it, it’s a sixteen and I can’t fit into a sixteen.’

  ‘Try it, it’s got an inner control panel.’

  ‘Designed by NASA?’

  Only because she wanted to please Zoe and because she thought it might be interesting to see if she could actually fit into the dress, Ginger had squeezed into it. ‘I can’t do the zip up the whole way,’ she said.

  Zoe popped her head into the changing room. ‘Ginger, you look incredible!’

  ‘I look like I’m about to go out on the game,’ said Ginger, grinning. Before she’d toned up, she could not have fitted into this. She liked feeling fit and Will – oh, Will – had been right about fitness making a person feel strong and healthy. She had to join another gym. She obviously hadn’t been back to his.

  ‘You look extremely sexy and soignée,’ said Zoe.

  ‘I can’t quite close the zip,’ said Ginger, ‘and I don’t know what sort of bra is going to hold my breasts up in this, but it better be industrial grade.’

  ‘Don’t worry, leave it with me. Lulu insists that undergarments are the key to all. There will be no wardrobe malfunctions.’

  Thanks to a really amazing strapless bra that must have been designed by NASA because it cost so much, Ginger fitted into the dress. She wore her beautiful hair up, her skin was porcelain pale and Jodie had done her eye make-up for her. She looked the best she had ever looked in her life and that included the original photo shoot for the fitness article. She hadn’t been toned then. Toning was the key, it was nothing to do with being fat or not being fat, as Will had said to her on many occasions.

  ‘It’s to do with fitness levels,’ he used to say. ‘There are many incredibly thin, skinny people and they’re totally unfit, Ginger. Being fit – that’s what matters. Fit, toned and strong. Gives you strength and confidence on the inside too.’

  Her heart certainly didn’t feel strong these days, but she’d recover, Ginger thought miserably, extending an arm and admiring the emergence of biceps
as she did so. She might have biceps but Carla had Will.

  Still, she’d get over him if it killed her. She’d become aware of a few of the guys from work watching her, and she’d even caught Zac looking her way in admiration once or twice this evening. But maybe she was imagining it. Zoe had told her she looked amazing: ‘You look fabulous, Ginger. I wish you’d believe it too.’

  The room was reasonably quiet as the MC made a few jokes and then started the countdown to the various awards. It really was a lovely night, thought Ginger, her mind going off into the ether. She wished she’d been able to bring someone from home: Mick and Zoe or Dad or Declan and Margaret. They’d have enjoyed it, enjoyed seeing her name written on the list of people who were nominated for the best feature writer.

  Even though there was just no way in hell she was going to win it, it was something to be nominated. It was like this big start to her career, saying she’d arrived. Therefore, in expectation of not winning, she wasn’t in the slightest bit nervous as the presenter read out the list of people nominated for her award. Carla sat at one of the top tables wearing a short metallic dress that had probably cost thousands – or would have if she’d actually paid for it. Paula said Carla was notorious around town for getting discounts out of designers and designer shops. Plus, if she wore something that was photographed, it was good publicity for the designer and tonight she looked quite amazing with that sleek blonde bob and her usual push-up bra. Beside her sat Will, looking so familiar and so handsome. Ginger’s heart ached.

  She was so busy in her contemplation of Will, Carla and her glossy beauty that she wasn’t listening and suddenly Paula was poking her painfully in her side with her elbow.

  ‘Get up,’ said Paula.

  ‘What,’ said Ginger. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ve won.’

  ‘Won what?’

  ‘You’ve won the award.’

  ‘You’ve won best feature writer, Ginger!’ said Brian, who was sitting at their table, smiling at her.

  Suddenly all eyes were on Ginger. Was this a joke? Was this like Liza’s wedding, everyone ganging up on her to make her look stupid? And then she saw the huge screen and saw her name on it. Ginger Reilly, Sunday News, Feature Writer of the Year. Her stomach swooped.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Really,’ hissed Paula. ‘Now get up there and say thank you to everyone. Remember to say thank you to the important people at the top, too, or you will never work in this town again. Don’t fall over anyone on the way up. I give you free leave to bring a glass of wine and throw it into Carla Mattheson’s face en route, if you want,’ added Paula, but a startled Ginger was gone, pushed happily along by other people.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said and people smiled as she passed, because it was quite clear that this tall, statuesque girl, with her fabulous piled-up hair and her beautiful warm face, genuinely hadn’t expected to win.

  She managed to get up on the stage without tripping even though her shoes were incredibly high. Because she was tall, she towered over the presenter.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said, looking around her. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  She took a deep breath. She would not make a fool out of herself. A man she was trying desperately to get over was down there looking up at her and he didn’t want her. He’d chosen someone else.

  But she was a warrior woman: she would not let his presence upset her. She had a career to think of.

  ‘This is my first time here and I do not have a handy speech tucked into this dress. Nothing else will fit.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘I wasn’t really a proper feature writer until a few months ago. Up until then, I was writing advertorials where, for the uninitiated, you have to write about peanuts and garages and make it all sound terribly thrilling but keep it under a thousand words.’

  Everyone laughed some more.

  ‘And suddenly I’m here, nominated for an award and I win. I wasn’t thinking about that. I was looking around the room and thinking how wonderful everyone looked and wondering how soon I could take my shoes off because they are so tight.’ She poked a shoe out from under the dress, a dress with a side split that showed off those amazing legs.

  Whoops accompanied the laughs this time.

  She went on to make a list of thank yous, carefully mentioning all the people she worked with, including her pals Paula, Fiona and Jodie, right down to the girls who cleaned up in the evening, whose life stories she knew.

  People were clapping, for her!

  ‘Finally, I’d like to thank my dad, my two brothers, Michael and Declan, my two sisters-in-law, Zoe and Margaret, and my Great-Aunt Grace for always being there, because they believed in me when nobody else did.’

  And then Ginger made her way down the steps holding her glass award.

  People tried to grab her and congratulate her.

  ‘You must come and work for us, you know,’ said one guy in a dark suit.

  ‘No, we saw her first,’ said his pal.

  ‘She could turn our magazine around,’ said a woman in fuchsia.

  ‘I’m happy where I am, but thank you, thank you,’ said Ginger, smiling at everyone with that great warm smile that captivated people.

  ‘You and I need to talk,’ said Alice Jeter, grabbing her. ‘I have a wonderful idea if you want to go along with it. I know your writing as Girlfriend is very personal—’

  Ginger blinked. ‘You knew that?’

  ‘Course I knew. It was written from the heart, all really moving, full of empathy. You can’t fake that. That’s why I didn’t think you’d want to be outed, so to speak. But you’re too good, Ginger, to hide behind a pseudonym. What do you think?’

  Ginger breathed in carefully. Too much breathing in and she might pop out of her dress. She’d been sure the Girlfriend thing was something Alice had constructed to hide Ginger behind. Not this – she had never foreseen this.

  ‘I’d love that,’ she said on the exhale. ‘Scary, but I’d love it.’

  Alice smiled. ‘See you Monday morning,’ she said.

  Beaming, Ginger finally made it down to their table, where Zac had suddenly materialised along with several bottles of champagne

  ‘Got to toast the winning writer,’ he said, a dangerous glitter to his eyes.

  In her heels, he was the only man apart from Will who was taller than her and he was a full two inches taller. In her bare feet, he’d be six inches taller and that dinner jacket was made for him. Some men wore suits as if they’d been forced into them at knifepoint, but Zac wore his as if he was born into it. He filled a glass and handed it to her, standing really close to her. He then picked up another glass.

  ‘For a proper toast,’ he murmured, ‘the tradition is that we wrap our hands around each other, to get closer.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ginger. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Paula making big thumbs up signs in the background, nearly bouncing out of her bandage dress.

  ‘Like this,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ said Ginger, on a buzz after both her win and her conversation with Alice.

  Zac moved closer and she was overwhelmed with the scent of his cologne. It was something woody and expensive, like him. His hair was short and slicked back, and oh, those eyes could almost see into her soul. He linked her wrist with his and then he said, ‘drink’, and she did, the whole glass, straight down.

  Ginger was not a big drinker and because she had very little to eat beforehand, it went straight to her head.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said and he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Do you know how sexy you are?’ he said, following it up with: ‘Would you like to celebrate later? With me. Alone?’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Will staring over at her, eyes boring into her. Blast you, Will, she thought.

  ‘I’d
love that,’ Ginger said defiantly. Why not?

  It was time to go. Ginger had partied, been congratulated and had far too much champagne. She was making one last dash for the loo, when suddenly, Will stood in front of her, handsome in his evening jacket.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, eyes roaming over her hopelessly overexcited face.

  Ginger longed to throw herself into his arms, but she knew, just knew, that somewhere in the background, Carla was there, watching.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, summoning up good cheer from somewhere. ‘Hope you’re having fun.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I keep watching you—’

  ‘Baby.’ Zac’s arm slid around her waist. He was quite drunk, she realised. ‘I’ve got your things: bag and award. Now let’s really party.’

  He shot Will a look of triumph.

  Will stepped back.

  ‘Is this wise?’ he asked Ginger, and she felt herself grow furiously angry.

  ‘That ceased to be any of your business some time ago,’ she said, steering Zac away from him. ‘Bye.’

  Ginger ordered a cab and when it arrived, she and the driver manhandled Zac in. He was definitely drunker than she’d thought. He must have thrown back some more champagne in the past few minutes. The gorgeous dark eyes were crossed now, but he was gazing at her breasts like it was Christmas and she had a stocking full of presents hidden in the front of her dress.

  ‘It’ll cost extra if he gets sick in the back of the cab,’ the driver warned.

  ‘I know,’ said Ginger.

  Slowly, she extracted Zac’s address from him. He kept trying to kiss her, but she held him off and gave him her award to hold.

  ‘His place first,’ she said, leaning forward to talk quietly to the driver. ‘Then can you wait till I get him into his place, and I’ll come out and go home.’