It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  But a far bigger part had been like, Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.

  Josh and I had got a taxi home, too, but there had been no more snogging. He’d opened the car door for me, and when I thanked him he’d given me a little secret smile and brushed my hair back from my face, his touch like an electric shock. After that, I’d kept my eyes fixed on my phone, checking for updates from Pru, and Josh had chatted idly about the night and the sights that flashed past the cab’s windows, apparently entirely unconcerned about what we’d done. When we got home he offered me tea, but I said no, thanked him for a lovely evening and went up to bed, my head spinning from more than just the Veuve Clicquot we’d drunk, which I had no idea how I was going to reimburse Josh for.

  The next morning, I’d waited until I heard him leave for his morning run before getting out of bed myself, showering and dressing at warp speed and getting the Tube into town, where I spent the day wandering aimlessly around the shops, not buying anything and not even taking photos on my phone to remind myself of trends that had sold poorly and been discounted early.

  I treated myself to a salt beef sandwich at the counter in Selfridges, checking my phone anxiously for a reply from Felicity, or a message from Pru, or a sign from Renzo of what was going on in his mind, but there was nothing. There was a message from Josh, saying that he was heading into Camden for a gig that evening, and did I fancy coming along. I thought about saying yes, but there was no point in going somewhere with him where there was no chance of Renzo seeing us. If he tried to kiss me again, I had no idea what I would do. Let him? Lead him on? Kiss him back? Enjoy it? I didn’t know the answer to that – I didn’t even know what I wanted the answer to be. So I declined, saying I was too knackered to go out two nights in a row, with work the next day.

  Eventually, when the shops were shutting and I reckoned the coast would be clear, I headed home and went straight to bed.

  But Josh was my housemate; I couldn’t avoid him forever. At some point, the opportunity for another kiss would present itself, and I’d have to decide what to do about it. I could either carry on the pretence, whether at home so that Adam would see and hopefully report to Renzo, or when I was out with Felicity, or, ideally, in front of Renzo himself. But I couldn’t work out how I could make that happen, and anyway, a tiny voice in my head was scolding me. You’re using him. You snogged him just so Renzo could see, no matter how much you liked it. You’re letting him think you’re into him when you’re not. You’re no better he was, back at school…

  And even when I reminded myself that he had done exactly the same thing to me, eleven years before, the voice wasn’t letting me off the hook.

  You were kids, it insisted. It’s ancient history. Let it go. Tell him Saturday night was a mistake, and move on.

  But then I remembered the cold immobility on Renzo’s face, and how I’d thought, It’s working. He’s jealous.

  Maybe if he saw us together just one more time, that would be enough. He’d left early, while Felicity was in the bathroom with me. Maybe that disloyalty would be enough to make her dump him? Or maybe they’d already had some kind of falling-out, and that was why she’d got so drunk. She hadn’t been coherent enough to tell me. Why the hell wasn’t she answering my messages?

  And so my mind spun uselessly on and on, like wheels on an icy road, gaining no traction at all.

  I forced my attention back to my screen and saw the meeting invitation. Fuck. Barri wanted to see me in ten minutes. All at once, the queasy fear my other concerns had kept at bay came rushing back. I dashed to the loo, brushed my hair and put on some lipstick, although I didn’t bother topping up my eye make-up, because the victims of one-to-one ‘chats’ with Barri ended up in tears more often than not.

  I will not cry, I told my reflection firmly. Whatever he’s going to have a go at me for – poor sales figures, sloppy reporting, the potential last-minute addition of pockets screwing up my budget – I’d respond calmly, stating my case as well as I could. I’d put a brave face on it. At least I could take comfort from one thing: he wasn’t going to humiliate me about having put on weight, the way he had Lucy, forcing her to reveal that she was pregnant before she’d even told her mum.

  But my face, white and wide-eyed, didn’t look even a tiny bit brave.

  I returned to my desk, gathered up a notepad and pen and my phone, and made my way to the back of the office where Barri had his lair. Juanita, his PA, gave me a smile that was carefully, blandly sympathetic, and waved me in.

  I’d never actually been into Barri’s private office before, only glimpsed it from outside. As was fitting for the founder and CEO of a major (well, not major yet, but Barri was all about the image) online fashion retailer, it exuded high-camp fabulousness. The floor was dark, polished parquet, partly covered by an enormous shaggy white rug. A full-length cheval mirror stood in one corner. In another was a gilt chaise longue upholstered in shocking pink velvet; in another, a retro drinks trolley was laden with bottles that I noticed could do with dusting. Enlarged, framed prints of vintage fashion drawings crowded the walls, which were painted lime green. A black glass chandelier illuminated it all.

  Barri’s desk, a simple three-sided slab of glass holding nothing but his iMac, stood at the far end, and behind it was Barri himself. He was wearing pale pink jeans so skinny I feared for his manhood, a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt, a cream dinner jacket and tan brogues with Cuban heels that did little to help his lack of height. His hair, which I’d noticed before was thinning on top, was carefully coiffed and gelled so it almost, but not quite, covered his scalp.

  I don’t want to give the impression that I was perusing all this at my leisure. Far from it. I paused in the doorway for only a second or two, my knees literally trembling, before he said, ‘Close the door behind you.’

  I did.

  He strolled out from behind his desk and sat on the pink sofa, stretching one arm along its elaborately curved, gilded back, before giving the seat next to him a little pat to invite me to sit there.

  If I hadn’t known beyond any reasonable doubt that Barri was as gay as a rainbow, I’d have had a #MeToo moment, right there. But I did, so I didn’t. It was a different kind of fear that threatened to overwhelm me as I walked the few steps it took to take a seat next to him.

  ‘Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to meet with me, Tansy,’ he said.

  ‘That’s okay.’ I just managed to get the words out, my mouth so dry my tongue felt like an enormous lump of cotton wool.

  ‘I had a call from Guillermo Hernandez last week,’ Barri began conversationally.

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Now I knew what I was here for. Say anything, I urged myself desperately. Say whatever you think he wants to hear. Just keep your job, otherwise you’re screwed.

  ‘Guillermo is a very dear friend of mine, as well as a supplier,’ Barri went on, looking admiringly at the polished toe of his shoe as he rotated his ankle in leisurely circles. He wasn’t wearing any socks, I noticed. ‘As you know, trust is central to the relationships we build in this business. So when he told me he felt that trust had been betrayed, and wept – literally wept down the line to me, Tansy – I was devastated.’

  ‘Why does he feel that way?’ I asked, although, with an icy certainty that was spreading outwards from my stomach and making me start to shiver all over, I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  ‘One of Guillermo’s assistants here in London happened to notice, through a Google alert that she has, naturally, set up to monitor brand perception, a listing on eBay.’

  Shit. Shit just got real.

  ‘Yes?’ I just managed to say.

  ‘It was a garment from last year’s limited edition party collection, which we – which you – failed to deliver in time to list. A piece that would have retailed at two hundred and fifty pounds, advertised for sale to the best offer, or buy it now for one fifty. And specifying that it came brand new with tags. Not just Guillermo’s tags. Luxeforless tags, to
o.’

  I tried to take a deep, steadying breath and failed. Instead, I stammered out, ‘But Barri, you know this is a thing. Lots of our samples get sold online, and the remaindered stock, too. People think it’s, like, a perk of the job.’

  ‘They did,’ Barri said.

  He leaned back further against the padded velvet, having a little wiggle to make himself more comfortable, and then he went on, almost placidly, still not raising his voice.

  ‘I know how competitive this industry is, Tansy. I know how hard you girls and boys – and non-binary individuals, of course – work to secure a foothold in it. I know that sometimes we all have to make sacrifices – a shoe you adore, for instance, sold on after a couple of wears. The dress of your dreams, but you gift the sample to a friend. I know this happens. It’s fine. You’re all brand ambassadors. You love and wear our pieces, and then sometimes you pass them on for others to enjoy.’

  I knew where this was going, but still I tried to put my case to him. I did. I tried my best.

  ‘But there’s so much,’ I stammered. ‘The samples we get from outside the EU, which are cut or marked so they can’t be sold on as new. The remaindered stock – there’s always some, however hard we try to plan for minimal waste. It happens. People do sell things they don’t want.’

  ‘Not. Any. More,’ Barri spat. He no longer sounded serene; he sounded irate. ‘As of today, I’ll be introducing a new policy. All samples, and all unsold merchandise, will be destroyed. I can’t have our brand and our suppliers’ labels devalued in this fashion. There’s perks of the job and then there’s taking the piss.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, hoping this would be the end of it, but knowing that it wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, you do see? Then perhaps you can explain to me how Guillermo’s assistant managed to purchase a BNWT item on eBay for twenty-five pounds, which, if I’m not mistaken, equates to some ten per cent of its list price? Brand new, with tags?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I whispered.

  Fuck. Mum must have been desperate.

  ‘But I know. It was quite easy, with a bit of homework, to trace an eBay seller moving what I might call industrial quantities of Luxeforless merchandise from an address in Truro, Cornwall. A Mrs Belinda Barlow. She has a five-star seller rating, I’m told. Imagine how Guillermo feels about some call-centre worker from Essex turning up at the local karaoke night down the Slug and Slapper in a piece that’s meant to be high-fucking-end?’

  I felt like a badger whose number has come up in the badger cull, and now the sniper’s searchlight was blinding me, the bullet about to be fired. But instead of freezing and crouching, I broke cover.

  ‘Barri,’ I said. ‘I know a lot of the people who work here come from privileged backgrounds. I don’t. I know you don’t either. That’s why it’s so amazing that you’ve built this business up from nothing. It’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to work for you. It’s why I volunteered for the mentorship scheme. My mum struggles like mad, at home in Truro. The money she makes selling those clothes is often the difference between paying the rent and not being able to. I appreciate that you feel boundaries were crossed, and I’m sorry for that. But I don’t want to be the reason my colleagues can’t benefit from wearing and enjoying – and yes, making a bit of profit from – their own samples and returns any more. If there are guidelines you feel should be put in place, please tell me what they are and I’ll be the first to comply.’

  It was quite the speech, and I was all out of breath when I finished. I looked hopefully at Barri, and in return I received a sneer so despising I might as well have been shit on his croc-embossed shoe.

  ‘Do I look like I’m running a fucking Oxfam shop?’ he said. ‘Get out. Tell your chavvy family that if they ever sell a single item with my label on it again, I’ll have my lawyers on to them and you’ll be out of work. You’re on a final warning right now. Goodbye.’

  And he waved his buffed-nailed hand at me as I stumbled out in floods of tears.

  Nineteen

  I spent the rest of that day ricocheting like a ping-pong ball between my desk, where I attempted to work, and the loo, where I kept having to sneak off to cry in peace. Except there wasn’t much peace, even there – there was always someone doing her face at the mirror, or a couple of people who’d slipped in for a quiet chat, or Halle from Marketing being sick after eating her lunch. She thought she was being discreet, too, but everyone knew she had a problem, same as I’m sure they knew I’d been given a roasting by Barri, and kept weeping at my desk, but wasn’t telling anyone what it was about.

  I could have, obviously – Sally or Lisa would have been sympathetic. But being able to buy designer clothes cheaply when otherwise, on our salaries, they’d have been as far out of reach as the moon – and get samples for free – and either wear or sell them was a massive perk of the job. Now, thanks to me, everyone would be losing that privilege. I felt almost as bad about that as I did about the prospect of telling Mum that a significant source of her income was about to dwindle to nothing.

  I’d sent her a parcel just the previous week, I remembered. An adorable purple knitted rabbit for her to pass on to Perdita for the baby, and some clothes for her to sell. I wasn’t sure if she’d got around to photographing and listing them yet, but I was going to have to ring her and tell her not to, or to take them down if they were already on eBay. I wouldn’t – couldn’t – tell her the full magnitude of what had happened. I’d have to make something up, let her think that it was just a temporary blip until things got back to normal. But I knew that, for now at least, Barri would be keeping a watching brief on the site, and anything at all she offered for sale would get spotted and I’d lose my job. And if that happened, even the fifty quid or so a month I was able to scrape together once my normal living expenses were accounted for would be lost to Mum, too.

  Back at my desk, I automatically checked my phone. Nothing from Felicity. A quick note from Josh:

  You ok? Seems like that was some epic hangover – when I got in on Sunday you were already (still??) sparko.

  Sunday – and the night before – seemed like a lifetime ago now.

  I couldn’t think what I wanted to say to him, so I ignored the message for now, even though his concern made fresh tears well up in my eyes.

  My phone vibrated with another incoming message, this one from Adam.

  You free tonight? Beer at DG at 7?

  His words made me realise two things: first, that whatever awkwardness I’d worried about there being between us had passed. This was typical of Adam – he said what he thought with no filter whatsoever, but he’d never bear a grudge. He’d told me what he thought about Renzo; now, it was over to me to go ahead and do what I was going to do. He wouldn’t mind either way – and he’d promised to help me if he could, and if he could, he would. And that led me to realise the second thing – that Adam’s steady friendship was just what I needed right now. If I needed to confide in him, I could, and he’d listen without judgement. And if I decided to keep this current crisis to myself, he wouldn’t ask me over and over what was wrong.

  See you there, I replied.

  Another thing about Adam is that he’s fanatically punctual. Although it was only just after ten past seven when I arrived at the Daily Grind, he was already almost halfway down his beer, and there was a cold glass of chardonnay and a small tube of Pringles there on the table waiting for me.

  I could have kissed him, but I contented myself with giving his shoulder a squeeze and saying, ‘Thanks, you’re a hero,’ as I plonked myself down, took a big gulp of wine and ripped the foil off the crisps, shoving four of them in my mouth at once before offering them to him.

  ‘Carb crisis?’ Adam said, taking a Pringle and biting it carefully in half.

  ‘Word.’ I took four more and stuffed them in my mouth.

  ‘Want me to get more?’

  I looked regretfully at the tube. ‘Nah, I’m good with these.’

  Adam drank some beer and a
te the other half of his crisp.

  ‘So, your man was asking about you today,’ he said casually.

  ‘My – you mean Renzo?’

  ‘No, I mean Elon Musk,’ Adam teased. ‘Although it’s getting a bit hard to keep track, to be fair. I might need to write an app.’

  ‘Adam! Stop taking the piss or I won’t buy you another beer.’

  Adam made a contrite face at his empty glass, and I hurried over to the bar and got us another round.

  I considered feigning indifference when I returned to our table, where Adam was engrossed in his phone, a shard of sour-cream-and-onion-flavoured extruded potato forgotten in his fingers. But there really wasn’t any point. He’d see straight through me.

  ‘Right,’ I said, wiggling onto my bar stool. ‘Hit me with it.’

  ‘Okay, so you know how Colton Capital works,’ Adam began. ‘Everyone’s portfolio’s monitored, minute by minute, so the boss can track performance in real time. But it’s more about monitoring trends longer-term, on a day-to-day and week-by-week basis, and obviously monthly and quarterly too.’

  ‘Got you,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure what relevance Colton Capital’s performance management strategies had to me.

  ‘So at the beginning of the year, Renzo’s numbers dropped off a cliff, as I mentioned to you,’ Adam went on. ‘But in the interim, his record has stabilised. It’s not back to where it was in quarter four of last year, but it’s not been miles off.’

  Ridiculously, I felt both a glow of pleasure that it had been when Renzo was going out with me that he’d done best and after we broke up that he’d done worst, alongside a prickle of resentment that his relationship with Felicity had upped his game.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘So,’ Adam continued obediently, ‘I started to track trends. Because that’s what market analysis is all about, at its heart. Seeing how things adjust, and noticing patterns, and then working out what’s going on to make them move the way they do. I did a spreadsheet. Would you like to see it?’