The Note: An uplifting, life-affirming romance about finding love in an unexpected place

by Zoë Folbigg

  Sam and Maya pull up a patchwork bale and perch on it. Maya wonders if Lucy ought to have warned her in case she has to prep a speech. Why leave it to a big reveal in front of most of the department heads? She looks around the room. It’s a daunting collection of FASH’s most senior people. Maya’s legs feel weak for the second time today. In the two years Maya has worked at FASH she has come to recognise these powerful faces, even if they wouldn’t recognise hers. There’s the executive team, five of whom she presented to last week: the CEO Rich Robinson, dressed like Bobby Ewing in a blazer, white shirt and jeans; CFO Rich True who is tall and stringy like a green bean, but he does actually count beans for a living; editorial director Lucy; head of customer experience, Geri, a pint-sized powerhouse of a woman; head of legal, Andy, with a high dome-shaped bald head, reminiscent of the Planetarium Maya walks past twice a day; head of the international sites, Sarah, who always looks like she’s asleep, probably because she crosses the International Date Line at least once a week; head of womenswear, Zara, whose jet-black hair and gap-toothed smile make her look like a seventies rock chick, and head of tech Sam. They’re joined by the other six members of Maya’s editorial team, who have all been invited to find out who their new boss is.

  At the front sit Rich and Rich, who founded FASH as the Fast Accessible Style Hub at the dawn of a new millennium, when everyone said online shopping wouldn’t take off. Within ten years FASH was selling all over the world. Mums might have stuck to the high street so they could see, feel and try on clothes in poorly lit dressing rooms, but their style-savvy daughters cottoned on fast and now twenty-somethings from Milan to Paris, Madrid to Moscow, New York to Sydney turn to FASH for their outfits. Women’s clothes have made Rich and Rich very rich.

  Lucy got on board soon after FASH launched, when Rich and Rich realised that forty-something men dressed as oil tycoons know more about retailing than they do about style. And Lucy is the most stylish woman at FASH.

  She stands up ready for the big reveal; her black halter top exposes Pilates-perfect arms on a sinewy, powerful body. Her shiny butter-blonde bob falls into place to frame brown eyes, and she dusts down her immaculately ironed silk palazzo pants. You would never guess Lucy has two preschoolers.

  ‘Thanks for coming, I’ll keep it brief because you’re all super busy,’ says Lucy, north-west lilt still there despite years of living in London. That’s what Maya admires about Lucy. She could so easily have got caught up in an overblown fashion bubble that comes with her style nous and her salary, but she’s a fiercely proud Lancashire girl at heart. ‘But I’m delighted and honoured to reveal our new site editor to you this morning and want you to congratulate her on this amazing role.’ Eyes dart around the room. ‘We interviewed some of fashion’s editorial elite but when it came to the crunch, this person stood out for her brilliant word wizardry, her knack for spotting the next big trend, and her ability to translate that to millions of customers around the world – while also having the people skills to keep an overworked team working happily and passionately.’

  Maya’s face flushes. Sam gives her a gentle nudge with his forearm as he leans into her ribs.

  ‘She is such a bright spark, I couldn’t resist poaching her from Walk In Wardrobe…’

  Oh my god.

  Maya pictures replacement double-glazed wooden sash windows shining bright in the gleaming sunlight on her first-floor maisonette.

  ‘So please put your hands together for Cressida Blaise-Snellman!’ Lucy cranes her head towards the door. ‘We’re so happy to welcome you to the FASH fold, Cressida, come on in!’ Hands clap. Cressida, a blushing willow of a woman, walks in with a coquettish pout. Razor-cut cheekbones, long, thin honey-blonde hair tucked behind her ears, and the exact same outfit the model in the smart black dungarees and bandeau bra top wears on the big screen behind reception, only Cressida styles hers up with a neat black blazer resting on her shoulders like a cape.

  ‘Cressida?’ Maya says, aghast, a faintly freckled nose crumpling. Fortunately no one hears among the applause because FASH is a place where triumphs are to be celebrated. Maya worked with Cressida at Walk In Wardrobe and she definitely doesn’t remember her for her people skills.

  ‘Bad luck mate,’ says Sam apologetically, although his crinkled eyes make him look like he’s laughing. ‘Back to work.’

  Chapter Four

  Maya and the rest of the editorial team snake back through reception and up the stairs with a little less vim than their descent, as they head to their two islands of desks.

  ‘Well that sucks,’ says picture editor Olivia flatly, as she slumps into her window seat in the chair next to Maya’s. Olivia is as loud as she is big and her wild orange corkscrew-curled hair is like a sunburst of sunshine and warmth whatever the weather.

  Social media manager Emma sits facing Olivia on the other side of the desk next to the window. Blue, Flower Fairy eyes sparkle in the sunshine and jump out against darkest brown shoulder-length hair. She is Maya’s oldest friend at FASH and is online day and night, responding to tweets, searching for what’s trending, advising the team on what the customers are rating and hating, and is too lovely to work in fashion. She sits next to Lucy, who is opposite Maya, making up the fourth terminal, so she can keep Lucy up to date on breaking fashion news. When Lucy’s at her desk that is. She’s been so busy lately. For months, she’s needed a new site editor to support her and take a load of work off her hands while she moves into her more strategic role.

  On the bank of desks behind Lucy and Emma sit the other four members of the FASH editorial team. Senior writer Alex and his junior Liz. Between them they translate the looks into shareable, clickable and – most importantly – shoppable articles, so that the FASH visitor will see exactly why she must have the new must-have bomber. And then buy it. Liz is a meek and mousey girl with an encyclopaedic knowledge of every item of clothing every major fashion house ever sent down the runway. Liz is so nice, even Lucy feels guilty asking her to get her a bread-free sandwich from the deli café over the road at lunchtime. Alex is a carefully coiffed, softly spoken fashion powerhouse. His experience in fashion writing is vast and he has tried every trend going since he was clumsily clipping Grolsch beer bottles to his shoes in the eighties.

  Opposite Liz and Alex giggle Chloe and Holly, the youngest and most fun members of the team. If you want to know who snogged who at the summer party, Chloe and Holly will tell you. All those fancy graphics flashing on the home page? They’re designed by Chloe, and Holly is a picture researcher, who, when she’s not scrolling through Instagram or braiding her long dip-dyed hair, is focused on the shots from the hundreds taken in the FASH studio every day.

  So, these are Maya’s eight-hour friends, but she is also their confidante. Most of the team at some point have asked Maya for ‘a quick word in the canteen’ and usually it’s about a family dilemma, boyfriend issue or party outfit advice. All of them, apart from Lucy evidently, wish Maya had got the site editor job rather than the willowy woman they were just presented with downstairs.

  *

  Maya sits at her computer in the big open-plan office. Refresh refresh refresh. Not a single email from anyone who could be Train Man. Maya ponders Cressida Blaise-Snellman but doesn’t glance up at her as she takes to her new desk opposite, filling Lucy’s empty magazine box files with her copies of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Maya knows that Cressida recognises her; they crossed over at Walk In Wardrobe for a year before Lucy poached Maya. But as Cressida introduces herself to the editorial team, she pretends she doesn’t.

  ‘Gather round my desk everyone!’ she beckons. Chloe and Holly walk over while Liz, Alex and Emma swing their chairs around. Maya and Olivia stand at their desks. ‘Super excited to be here obvs,’ she says in a cut-glass Chelsea accent. ‘I will learn your names in due course, promise. But let’s just say that I’m better with faces than names,’ she says, holding up a Models 1 directory and filing it alongside her magazines.

  There are onl
y seven of us to remember.

  Perhaps Cressida doesn’t remember Maya, perhaps Maya is that insignificant. Train Man has barely noticed her in almost a year of sitting almost opposite him, every single morning. Maybe Cressida is embarrassed. She is now working with someone who might remember how she bullied an intern so badly that one lunchtime the intern left her desk and didn’t come back. When Cressida finally got through to her mobile and demanded she come back from lunch, the intern pretended she’d been run over by a bus and couldn’t return. Ever. Maya saw the intern in a pub in Soho the next night, not a single bone broken nor a limb in plaster. Sheepishly the intern confessed she had to get away from Cressida. Maya didn’t tell Cressida about it at the time, she didn’t want to embarrass her, but the whole team suspected that Cressida had pushed a young and once enthusiastic intern to make up such a drastic lie.

  ‘I will of course arrange one-to-ones with each of you, my BF owns a chi-chi bar on Marylebone High Street, so we can do them there.’ A pause for effect. ‘For now, back to work, chop chop.’

  Olivia sits back down in her chair and sends Maya and Emma an email.

  Did she just say ‘chop chop’?!

  Before Emma has a chance to read Olivia’s message, Cressida asks her if she would kindly switch desks so she can have Emma’s window seat.

  ‘Cressie is just a nightmare if she doesn’t have optimum daylight,’ she says in the third person.

  Maya tries to get lost in ‘Varsity Chic’, a new trend from the autumn/winter lookbook that is all about collegiate jackets, PE socks and prep-school stripes, and it’s all a bit nauseatingly reminiscent of Cressida’s style. Refresh refresh refresh. She can’t concentrate. Cressida Blaise-Snellman’s arrival is making Maya’s freckles wilt. But more upsettingly, Train Man is making Maya’s heart crumple. It is gone 11 a.m. and she hasn’t heard anything.

  Chapter Five

  As the spring afternoon draws to a close and the sun on Marylebone’s rooftops bathes London in a magical glow, the communication Maya craved since the first moment she saw Train Man almost a year ago finally appears on her screen, sitting in her email inbox like a hand grenade. 5.08 p.m. Subject matter: The Guy From The Train.

  ‘God, he’s emailed me,’ Maya says flatly, betraying the flip, kick, stab, she can feel in her stomach. After Cressida’s appointment this morning heralded a new, quiet office order, Maya didn’t feel it was the right time to blurt out to Emma and Olivia, or anyone else for that matter, how she’d finally given Train Man the note.

  ‘Who’s emailed you?’ asks Emma, her canny intuition knowing this blurting might be something important.

  ‘Hush, I’m on a call,’ waves Cressida dismissively.

  ‘Did Train Man reply?’ Sam swings around in his chair.

  ‘Train Man?’ shouts Olivia gleefully, clapping her hands together.

  Damn.

  If Maya had just stayed quiet, opened the email, read it and digested it in silence, she could have coped with whatever was written with gentle dignity. Now she’s blown it. At least Chloe and Holly didn’t hear, lost as they are in instagossip.

  Alex stands up, smooths his hand delicately up his ice-cream-perfect quiff of hair and pushes circular horn-rimmed glasses down his nose inquisitively.

  ‘Erm, Maya, do we have news?’ he asks over his spectacles.

  Cressida, phone in one hand, furrows a fair brow and puts an index finger to her pout with the other hand, to tell the team to shush again.

  ‘Shit man,’ whispers Sam. ‘What does he say?’

  Maya,

  Thanks for the note – sorry if I seemed dazed on the train, I was battling hay fever.

  It was really sweet of you but unfortunately I have a girlfriend, and I don’t think she’d be impressed if I went for a drink with you.

  What you did wasn’t silly though, it takes a lot of guts – I’d never have the courage to do something like that.

  Happy birthday!

  James

  He’s called James. James, Maya thinks to herself. Nice reliable name. Three sentences and a friendly sign-off. Underneath, it says James Miller, Account Director, MFDD – whatever that means.

  Four eager faces look at Maya hopefully. She reads it again, surrounded by people she wants to disappear but feeling bad that she’s about to let them down. Maya’s like that you see, worried about disappointing her friends, even though she is devastated herself.

  I have a girlfriend.

  ‘What does he say?’ badgers Sam, pretending not to read the screen.

  I don’t think she’d be impressed.

  Maya wants to cry. There’s another woman Train Man wants to impress. A woman he loves. Maya’s face is hot. She knew this would happen. Life never works out as it should.

  I have a girlfriend.

  It would have been too good to be true otherwise.

  I don’t think she’d be impressed.

  ‘He has a girlfriend,’ Maya casually waves.

  A collective moan rises up into the strip lighting of the fading day, but Emma is silent, she can tell how much the email is hurting Maya.

  ‘Fuck him,’ says Olivia, bringing her brash brilliance to diffuse a clearly awkward situation. ‘You’re gorgeous, his loss.’

  Cressida puts her palm over the mouthpiece of the phone that’s still clamped to her ear and looks across the desk at Olivia crossly.

  ‘Guys, can you keep it down please? I’m on the phone to HR for my staff discount code.’

  Everyone gets back to work. Maya rises out of her chair and walks through the glass doors to the canteen and straight past the food stations that long stopped serving cooked breakfasts, lunches and snacks. Her face is burning hot, her heart shrinks with every step she takes. As Maya crosses the canteen, the low silver pipes of a hip industrial ceiling make her feel like she can’t breathe. She swipes her pass and goes through the identical glass doors on the other side and walks in a daze until she gets to the ladies’ toilet. Maya opens the door and walks in. She looks down at her feet so people won’t notice her eyes welling up, even though the bathroom is empty. They are nice shoes, her favourite pair in fact. Maya made an extra effort today, as she has for the past eleven days. She should feel as gorgeous now as she did when she bought the shoes three weeks ago, with her forty per cent staff discount, but every step that distances her from Train Man’s words makes Maya feel smaller, weaker, more hopeless. Maya turned twenty-eight eleven days ago. It’s not even her birthday.

  Maya looks in the mirror and puts a damp paper towel over her red face to calm it. Her friends probably think she’s crying, so she fights it. Maya is always the calm one. The controlled one. And really, no one died. Not today anyway.

  I suspected this might be the outcome.

  Although Maya can’t explain why, she’s still surprised by it. Maybe it serves her right for thinking she had a chance.

  Of course Train Man has a girlfriend, he’s too beautiful.

  But part of Maya is surprised because she could see herself with Train Man, together in a happy future. Not a Hollywood future either. A real one, where hair greys, smiles thin, but lovers still hold hands, despite having seen the worst of each other. Her intuition was wrong, it has failed her.

  Maya used to have great intuition and Seeing The Future skills. Like the time in her early twenties when she won a weekend trip to Paris. As Maya took the coin out of her purse to buy the raffle ticket, she had a vision, a flash of her sister Clara giggling with her along the edge of the Seine, smiles smattered with ice cream, as they were just six weeks later. Or the time someone burst into the back garden of the Flowers’ family home when Maya was eight. She was making perfume under the old elder tree, grinding rose petals with water. The perfume would never smell like the beautiful rose-shaped soap on her mother’s dressing table, but Maya tried for a whole summer to nail the elixir, and sometimes splashed it on her face while she sat looking in Dolores Flowers’ triptych mirror. Maya ground rose petals in solitude as the skinny man
with the beard ran down the side of the house and burst through the garden gate at the back of their Georgian house on the hill. Before the man opened his mouth to speak, Maya knew that Clara was lying in a heap in the middle of a road three streets away.

  I must have got this one wrong.

  Maya concludes that her Seeing The Future skills can only fully function where Clara is concerned. After all, Maya’s Seeing The Future skills had already failed her catastrophically in her twenties, the time her hair turned wavy.

  Part Two

  Chapter Six

  July 2013

  Maya stands on the steaming tarmac of the London-bound platform. Bumpy grey paving is trimmed by a bright yellow safety line, giving her the uncomfortable sensation of walking on Lego. It is Platform 2 and Maya had to dash from Platform 1, down some stairs and through the tunnel that smells of urine to get there. Every time Maya walks the subterranean gauntlet, she worries that this twenty-second necessity will coincide with a high-speed train passing on the tracks above, and that today will be the day the rickety tunnel roof finally gives in.

  It’s an overcast, oppressively warm kind of day but Maya isn’t sad to be waiting for her train again. Soon she will be with her friends and they will have fun. They’ll talk about ideas for autumn/winter even though it is high summer, they’ll laugh about last night’s TV and they’ll help frame the future of affordable fashion (while also having a good laugh about the Christmas tree onesie that just arrived in the office).