I missed him. I missed a genuine A-list celebrity. By trying to help someone who didn’t need help at all! That’s it—I’m never helping anyone again.
But at last the feeling returns to my face. At last Lissy persuades me that if Ewan came here once, he will again—and she promises we’ll return as many times as it takes to see him.
“And I think your idea is fantastic!” she adds encouragingly. “It’ll definitely work!”
This finally cheers me up enough to have another cocktail. In fact, the more I think about my plan, the more pleased I feel with myself. I’ll shag Connor at work tomorrow, and it will be the best sex we’ve ever had … and the sparkle will come back … and we’ll be madly in love again. Easy. And that will show Jack Harper.
No. This is nothing to do with Jack Harper. I don’t know why that slipped out.
There’s only one tiny hitch to my scheme. Which is that it’s not quite as easy to shag your boyfriend at work as you’d think. I hadn’t quite appreciated before how … open everything is in our office. And how many glass partitions there are. And how many people there are, walking around all the time.
By eleven o’clock the next morning, I still haven’t managed to put a game plan together. I think I’d kind of pictured doing it behind a potted plant somewhere. But now that I actually look at them, potted plants are tiny. And all frondy. There’s no way Connor and I would be able to hide behind one, let alone risk any … movement.
We can’t do it in the loos. The girls’ loos always have people in there, gossiping and putting on their makeup, and the men’s loos … yuck. No way.
We can’t do it in Connor’s office, because the walls are completely made of glass and there aren’t any blinds or anything.
Oh, this is ridiculous. People having affairs must have sex at the office all the time. Is there some special secret shagging room I don’t know about?
I can’t e-mail Connor and ask for suggestions, because it’s crucial that I surprise him. The shock element will be a huge turn-on and make it really sizzling hot and romantic. Plus, there’s a tiny risk that if I warn him, he’ll go all corporate on me and insist we take an hour’s unpaid leave for it, or something.
I’m just wondering whether we could creep out onto the fire escape, when Nick comes out of Paul’s office, talking about margins.
My head jerks up, and I feel a nervous twinge. There’s something I’ve been trying to pluck up courage to say to him since that big meeting yesterday.
“Hey, Nick,” I say as he walks by my desk. “Panther Bars are your product, aren’t they?”
“If you can call them a product.”
“Are they going to axe them?”
“More than likely.”
“Well, listen,” I say quickly. “Can I have a tiny bit of the marketing budget to put a coupon ad in a magazine?”
Nick swivels to face me. “Do what?”
“Put in an ad! It won’t be very expensive. I promise. No one will even notice.”
“Where?”
“Bowling Weekly,” I say, flushing slightly. “My grandpa gets it.”
“Bowling What?”
“Please! Look, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll sort it all out. It’ll be less than a thousand quid. It’s a drop in the ocean, compared to all the other ads you’ve run.…” I’m willing him to say yes. “Please … please …”
“Oh, all right!” he says impatiently.
“Thanks!” I beam at him, then, as he walks off, reach for the phone and dial Grandpa’s number.
“Hi, Grandpa!” I say as his answering machine beeps. “I’m putting a money-off coupon ad for Panther Bars in Bowling Weekly. So tell all your friends! You can stock up cheaply! I’ll see you soon, OK?”
“Emma?” Grandpa’s voice suddenly booms into my ear. “I’m here! Just screening.”
“Screening?” I echo. Grandpa screens?
“It’s my new hobby. Have you not heard of it? You listen to your friends leaving messages and laugh at them. Most amusing.”
“So you’ll buy Bowling Weekly?”
“I certainly will. And I’ll spread the word at the club. Now, Emma, I was meaning to ring you. I saw a very alarming piece on the news yesterday about muggings in central London.”
Not this again. “Grandpa—”
“Promise me you don’t take London transport, Emma!”
“I, er, promise,” I say, crossing my fingers. “Grandpa, I have to go, really. But I’ll call again soon. Love you.”
“Love you, too, darling girl.”
As I put the phone down I feel a tiny glow of satisfaction.
“I’ll just have to go and fish it out of the archives,” Caroline is saying to Fergus across the office.
Hang on.
The archive room. Of course. Of course! No one goes to the archive room unless they absolutely have to. It’s way down in the basement, and it’s all dark with no windows, and loads of old books and magazines.
It’s perfect!
“I’ll go,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. “If you like. What do you have to find?”
“Would you?” says Caroline gratefully. “Thanks, Emma! It’s an old ad in some defunct magazine. This is the reference.” She hands me a piece of paper, and as she walks away I pick up my phone and dial Connor’s number.
“Hey, Connor,” I say in a low, husky voice when he picks up. “Meet me in the archive room. I’ve got something I want to show you.”
“What?”
“Just … be there,” I say, feeling like Kim Cattrall.
I hurry down the corridor as quickly as I can, but as I pass Admin., I’m accosted by Wendy Smith, who wants to know if I’d like to play on the netball team. So I don’t actually get to the basement for a few minutes, and when I open the door, Connor is standing there, looking at his watch.
That’s rather annoying. I’d planned to be waiting for him. I was going to be sitting on a pile of books that I would have quickly constructed, one leg crossed over the other and my skirt hitched up seductively.
Oh, well.
“Hi,” I say, and push back my hair with a languorous gesture.
“Hi,” says Connor with a frown. “Emma, what is this? I’m really busy this morning.”
“I just wanted to see you. A lot of you.” I push the door shut and trail my finger down his chest, like an aftershave commercial. “We never make love spontaneously anymore.”
“What?” Connor seems stunned.
“Come on.” I start unbuttoning his pink shirt with what I hope is a sultry expression on my face. “Let’s do it. Right here, right now.”
To be honest, I’m not feeling that turned-on myself. But I’ll just have to do what I can. They say if you smile even when you don’t feel like it, you send happy thoughts to your brain and cheer yourself up. So if I behave as though I’m full of desire, then surely …
“Are you crazy?” says Connor, pushing my fingers out of the way and hastily rebuttoning his shirt. “Emma, we’re in the office!”
Of course, it would help if Connor joined in …
“We’re young. We’re supposed to be in love—” I trail a hand even farther down, and Connor’s eyes widen.
“Stop!” he hisses. “Stop right now! Emma, are you drunk or something?”
“I just want to have sex! Is that too much to ask?”
“Is it too much to ask to suggest we do it in bed like normal people?”
“But we don’t do it in bed! I mean, hardly ever!”
There’s a sharp silence.
“Emma,” says Connor at last. “This isn’t the time or the place—”
“It is! It could be! This is how we get the spark back! Lissy said—”
“You discussed our sex life with Lissy?” Connor looks appalled.
“Obviously I didn’t mention us,” I say, hastily backtracking. “We were just talking about … about couples in general … Come on, Connor!” I shimmy close to him and pull one of his hands ins
ide my bra. “Don’t you find this exciting? Just the thought that someone could be walking down the corridor right now, reaching toward the door …” I come to a halt as I hear a sound.
I think someone is walking down the corridor right now.
Oh, shit.
“I can hear footsteps!” Connor pulls sharply away from me, but his hand stays exactly where it is, inside my bra. He stares at it in shock. “I’m stuck! My bloody watch! It’s snagged on your jumper!” He yanks at it. “Fuck! I can’t move my arm!”
“Pull it!”
“I am pulling it!” He looks frantically around. “Where are some scissors?”
“You’re not cutting my jumper!” I say in horror.
“Do you have any other suggestions?” He yanks sharply again, and I give a muffled shriek. “Ow! Stop it! You’ll ruin it!”
“Oh, I’ll ruin it. And that’s our major concern, is it?”
“I’ve always hated that stupid watch! If you’d just worn the one I gave you—” I break off. There are definitely footsteps approaching. They’re nearly outside the door.
“Fuck!” Connor is desperate. “Fucking … fucking …” He gives an almighty wrench, and his watch comes free just as the door opens.
Jack Harper is standing in the doorway, holding a big bundle of old magazines. Behind him I can see Anthea Adams, who is Graham Hillingdon’s personal assistant and never, ever cracks a smile.
“Hello,” says Jack.
“Er, hi!” I say, forcing a natural tone. “I was … We were just having … I was researching …” I seize on the word in relief. “Researching something.”
“So was I,” puts in Connor.
“I see.” Jack’s voice is blank and unreadable. His gaze passes from Connor to me—and back again.
Suddenly a flash of color catches my eye. A strand of pink wool. Looped around Connor’s watch.
Pink wool from my jumper.
Oh … fuck.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” says Jack, putting the magazines down on a table. He pauses as though to say something more—then opens the door and leaves.
I just catch a glimpse of Anthea’s dismissive gaze as the door closes. We both stand frozen.
I wish … I don’t know what I wish.
“You’ve wrecked my jumper!” I say at last, suddenly feeling irritated beyond belief with Connor.
“You nearly wrecked both our careers!” Connor’s voice is high-pitched with outrage. “Do you realize what would have happened if—”
“Oh, shut up,” I snap, and stalk out of the room. Any desire I had for sex has vanished. I feel completely livid with myself. And Connor. And everybody.
Ten
It’s the following day. And Jack Harper is leaving. Thank God.
I really couldn’t cope with any more of … of him. If I can just keep my head down and avoid him until five o’clock and then run out the door, then everything will be fine. Life will be back to normal and I will stop feeling like my radar’s been skewed by some invisible magnetic force.
I don’t know why I’m in such a jumpy, irritable mood. Because although I nearly died of embarrassment yesterday, my brilliant plan worked. As soon as we got back to our desks, Connor started sending me apologetic e-mails. And then last night we had sex. Twice. With scented candles.
I think Connor must have read somewhere that girls like scented candles during sex. Maybe in Cosmo, which I know he sometimes flicks through to get hints. Because he always looks really pleased with himself when he lights them.
I mean, scented candles are lovely; don’t get me wrong. But it’s not like they actually do anything, is it?
Anyway. So we had sex.
And tonight we’re going to look at a flat together. It doesn’t have a wooden floor or shutters—but it has a Jacuzzi in the bathroom, which is pretty cool. So my life is coming together nicely. I don’t know why I’m feeling so pissed off. I don’t know what’s—
I don’t want to move in with Connor, says a tiny voice in my brain before I can stop it.
No. That can’t be right. That cannot possibly be right. Connor is perfect. Everyone knows that.
But I don’t want to—
Shut up. We’re the perfect couple. We have sex with scented candles. And we go for walks by the river. And we read the papers on Sundays with cups of coffee, in pajamas. That’s what perfect couples do.
I feel the prick of panic and swallow hard. Connor is the one good thing in my life. If I didn’t have Connor … what would I have?
The phone rings on my desk, interrupting my thoughts, and I pick it up.
“Hello, Emma?” comes a familiar dry voice. “This is Jack Harper.”
My heart gives a leap of fright and I nearly spill my coffee.
I should never have answered my phone.
In fact, I should never have come in to work today. “Oh,” I say. “Er, hi!”
“Would you mind coming up to my office for a moment?”
“What … me?”
“Yes, you.”
I clear my throat. “Should I … bring anything?”
“No, just yourself.”
I put my phone down, feeling nervous. Why does Jack Harper want to see me?
Is this going to be about what happened yesterday?
I take a deep breath, stand up, and make my way up to the eleventh floor. There’s a desk outside his suite, but no secretary, so I go straight up to the door and knock.
“Come in.”
I cautiously push the door open. The room is huge and bright and paneled in pale wood, with a view over the Thames all the way along to Tower Bridge. I never realized you could see so much from up here. Jack is sitting at a circular table, with six people gathered around on chairs. Six people I’ve never seen before, I suddenly realize, all with trendy haircuts and a kind of casual smartness. One guy has bleached, cropped hair and a nylon mesh shirt under his jacket. It looks like he was talking before I came in.
They all slowly turn toward me. I can feel the tension in the atmosphere.
“Hello,” I say, trying to keep as composed as possible. But my face is hot, and I know I look flustered.
“Hi.” Jack’s face crinkles in a smile. “Emma … relax. There’s nothing to worry about. I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Oh, right.” I’m totally confused. What on earth could he have to ask me?
Jack reaches for a piece of paper and holds it up so I can see it clearly. “What do you think this is a picture of?” he says.
Oh, fucketty fuck.
This is your worst nightmare. This is like when I went for that interview at Laines Bank and they showed me a squiggle and I said I thought it looked like a squiggle.
Everyone is focused on me. I so want to get it right. If only I knew what right was.
I stare at the picture, trying to stay calm. It’s a graphic of two round objects. Kind of irregular in shape. I have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to be. None at all. They look like … They look like …
Suddenly I see it. “It’s nuts! Two walnuts!”
Jack explodes with laughter, and a couple of people give muffled giggles, which they stifle.
“Well, I think that proves my point,” says Jack.
“Aren’t they walnuts?” I look around the table.
“They’re supposed to be ovaries,” says a man with rimless spectacles, in a tight voice.
“Ovaries?” I stare at the page. “Oh, right! Well, yes. Now that you say it, I can definitely see a … an ovary-like …”
“Walnuts.” Jack wipes his eyes.
“I’ve explained, the ovaries are simply part of a range of symbolic representations of womanhood,” says the bleached-blond guy defensively. “Ovaries to represent fertility, an eye for wisdom, this tree to signify the earth mother …”
“The point is, the images can be used across the entire range of products,” says a woman with black hair, leaning forward. “The health drink, clothing, a fragrance …
”
“The target market responds well to abstract images,” adds rimless-spectacle guy. “The research has shown—”
“Emma.” Jack looks at me again. “Would you buy a drink with ovaries on it?”
“Er …” I clear my throat, aware of a couple of hostile faces pointing my way. “Well … probably not.”
A few people exchange glances.
“This is so irrelevant,” someone is muttering.
“Jack, three creative teams have been at work at this,” the blond woman says earnestly. “We can’t start from scratch. We simply cannot.”
Jack takes a sip of water, wipes his mouth, and looks at her. “You know I came up with the slogan ‘Don’t Pause’ in two minutes on a bar napkin?”
“Yes, we know,” mutters the guy in rimless spectacles.
“We are not selling a drink with ovaries on it.” Jack exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair. Then he pushes his chair back. “OK, let’s take a break. Emma, would you be kind enough to assist me in carrying some of these folders down to Sven’s office?”
God, I wonder what all that was about. But I don’t quite dare ask. Jack marches me down the corridor in silence, and into a lift. He presses the ninth-floor button. After we’ve descended for about two seconds, he presses the emergency button, and we grind to a halt. Then, finally, he looks at me.
“Are you and I the only sane people in this building?”
“Um …”
“What happened to instincts?” His face is incredulous. “No one knows a good idea from a terrible one anymore. Ovaries.” He shakes his head. “Fucking ovaries!”
I can’t help it. He looks so outraged, and the way he says “ovaries!” seems the funniest thing in the world, and before I know it, I’ve started laughing. For an instant Jack looks astounded, and then his face kind of crumples, and suddenly he’s laughing, too. His nose screws right up when he laughs, just like a baby’s, and somehow this makes this moment seem about a million times funnier.
Oh, God. I really am laughing now. I’m giving tiny little snorts, and my ribs hurt, and every time I look at him, I gurgle again. My nose is running, and I haven’t got a tissue.… I’ll have to blow my nose on the picture of the ovaries …
“Emma … why are you with that guy?”
Can You Keep a Secret? Page 13