Say Hello and Wave Goodbye

by Marina Johnson

  Which is going to be on Saturday night; because something else I did last night was text Jonathan to accept his invitation to dinner.

  Because obviously it seemed like a really fantastic idea after a huge amount of red wine.

  I pull the top drawer of my desk out and put my hand in and check through the messages on my phone again to reassure myself that I didn’t make a blunder last night when I texted him.

  Hey Jonathan, How about dinner on Saturday night? ☺

  Brief, but that was after several attempts and deletions because Jonathan doesn’t know that Flynn is coming and I had to keep rechecking that I wasn’t giving my plan away.

  I’m feeling it’s a bad idea now; I’m a crap liar and I have a horrible feeling that Jonathan will see right through me and the evening will end in utter humiliation. I just can’t wait for it to be over and I keep telling myself that this time next week the evening will just be a distant memory. Flynn, on the other hand, is chomping at the bit to try out his acting skills and is looking forward to it far too much for my liking. He keeps saying what a laugh it’s going to be and I haven’t the heart to tell him I’m dreading it.

  ‘Halloo.’

  Trina appears in a flurry of perfume and glamour and looks at me meaningfully as she sits down at her desk. She’s late but I notice she’s not bothered in the slightest and the youngsters are still in a giggling huddle and have now moved to Kieron’s desk. I seriously need to chill and take this job less seriously. And my life; I need to take that less seriously too.

  ‘So?’ Trina looks at me with a raised eyebrow and a quizzical expression.

  ‘All sorted,’ I say cryptically. ‘I’ll fill you in on the details later.’

  Trina claps her hands in delight.

  ‘Fab...my plan is so going to work.’

  I hold both my hands up with crossed fingers and smile but inside I’m thinking that it’s so not .

  I click onto my emails and the day suddenly gets a whole lot worse; an email from Em sent at seven thirty this morning – seven thirty? For God’s sake what is wrong with that woman, who gets into the office at seven thirty?

  Rebecca

  Please come to my office at 10:30 as I have matters to discuss with you.

  Emily

  Is this where she asks why I lied to her about leaving Frogham? Is she going to have her revenge because I didn’t take the room in her flat?

  Breathe in, hold that breath, breathe out. I do this several times until I feel calmer.

  Stop panicking.

  Seriously, get a grip, I can’t be sacked for lying and not renting her spare room, it’s simply not possible. As for work, since I’ve been here I’ve had no problems at all work wise, in fact I’ve found it all a bit of a doddle because I don’t do half as much as I used to at the Westchester branch. From what I’ve seen no one in this office exactly overexerts themselves and I’m having to slow right down to try and make my work last the day. So realistically I can’t see that Em can have any issues.

  Yeah, keep telling yourself that , snipes the Beccabird.

  So why do I feel like a naughty school kid who’s being summoned to the headmistress? And she used my full name which is annoying because no one calls me Rebecca.

  Tell her then, snorts the Beccabird. You don’t have a problem telling everyone else.

  I can’t tell her because I’m a coward and I’m frightened of her, so there. She’s scary and when she directs that icy stare at me, I feel my legs turn to jelly which is why I said I’d take the room in the first place even though I was certain that I didn’t want it.

  It could just be a routine meeting because I’ve been working here for a month so maybe she needs to check that I’m settling in okay. Yes, that must be it.

  Definitely.

  I quickly fire an email to Trina, double checking that I’ve clicked on her email address and not Em’s because it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d sent an email to the wrong person. Or a text.

  Trina

  I’ve just had an email from Em telling me I have to see her at 10.30 – I’m guessing this is normal routine because I’ve been here for a month??

  Becca

  I catch Trina’s eye as looks up from rummaging through her handbag and mouth, ‘Sent you an email,’ to her .

  She swings round to her PC and I wait as she navigates her way to her inbox.

  I impatiently watch as she types and then refresh my screen.

  Ouch, poor you. I’ve never known her do this before but you never know, perhaps it’s a new thing. It’s either that or a telling off or maybe you’re getting a project, lol. Maybe she wants Jonathan’s phone number ha ha!! ☺

  A telling off then. Maybe she’s spotted me pretending to work when I’ve got nothing to do, although thinking about it I don’t think she’s even been this far down the office since I’ve been here. It’s an omen; today is just the start of something awful happening which will culminate in something truly horrific tomorrow night.

  Stop being so melodramatic, says the Beccabird. As usual you’re totally overreacting.

  I can’t help it. If anything goes the slightest bit wrong, I blow it up in my mind to the very worst scenario that could possibly be imagined and it usually turns out to be something trivial and I’ve needlessly expended all of that energy worrying myself to death.

  That’s not quite true is it? the Beccabird butts in, totally contradicting itself, Because when you thought Jonathan was cheating on you it turned out to be much, much worse than you ever imagined, didn’t it?

  True.

  This could be another occasion when it’s not something trivial or if I don’t worry about it enough the fact that I haven’t worried might make the outcome even worse. I can’t win, if I don’t worry enough I might make something bad happen or I could be getting myself in a state for nothing.

  My head hurts.

  Someone walks past my desk and I jump, expecting it to be Em. It’s not, it’s Taylor from the other end of the office with a coffee in one hand and a bacon bap in the other. He’s blatantly going to eat it right here in full view in the office and doesn’t give a jot whether Em or anyone else sees him; he’s not a quivering wreck.

  The cluster gathered around Kieron’s desk erupts into laughter and my stomach turns over and I jump again.

  Get a grip! the Beccabird shouts.

  I can’t bear sitting here anymore. I pick up my handbag and head out of the office and up the stairs. Trina looks up at me as I stomp by and I give her a shaky smile.

  I’ve decided that I’m going to be really grown up about it and go and hide in the toilets until the meeting.

  I get a text from Trina at ten o’clock asking me where I am. I eventually text her back and the next thing I know she’s knocking on the cubicle door asking if I’m okay.

  I tell her I’m alright but just needed a bit of space before the dreaded meeting; she says it’ll be fine but she doesn’t sound too convincing to me. We chat for a while and she persuades me to come back downstairs and sit at my desk; as Trina points out, it’s pretty casual here but if I’m not in the office for nearly an hour someone might notice.

  And it turns out that the toilets aren’t really such a good place to hide anyway because I’d hardly put the seat lid down and sat on it before someone came in and started slopping a mop around. This occurrence ignited another dilemma; do I sit and wait until they’ve gone or go out and wash my hands now and pretend I’ve just been to the toilet and I’m not hiding like a big baby? I reasoned that it wouldn’t take long to slosh a mop around so I decided to wait it out until they’d gone but they were taking so long that I eventually felt forced to come out in case they wondered what I was doing in there. The minute I was out of the cubicle the miserable looking cleaner swished the mop straight past me and into the cubicle so I was obviously disrupting her cleaning routine. The wet straggly ropey bits of the mop caught me on the side of my shoe and I stepped back smartly and she gave me such a look. So
rry I said and she sort of smirked then and I thought, why the hell am I apologising? Seriously, someone needs to shoot me and put me out of my misery because I’m just a complete waste of space .

  For once the Beccabird agreed with me.

  I thought that by the time I’d slowly washed my hands she’d be gone and I could go and sit back in the cubicle. I stood at the sink and laboriously lathered my hands and washed them as if I were preparing to perform open heart surgery and then rinsed them as slowly as I possibly could but she was still there.

  For God’s sake go , I willed her. I then held my hands under the hand dryer for so long that they were practically on fire by the time she eventually dragged her mop and bucket out of the door and I was able to go back in the cubicle and resume my worrying.

  I think she did it on purpose.

  Paranoid!

  Probably. So my plan for a bit of peace before I face Em’s firing squad didn’t work and here I am back at my desk twiddling my thumbs. I could always do some work I suppose but I can’t concentrate when I have to worry; it interrupts the flow of fretting, if you get my drift. I glance at my watch to see that while I’ve been daydreaming horrific scenarios as to why Em wants to see me, time has marched on and it’s now 10:29. Great, so by the time I walk the hundred miles to Em’s office I’m actually going to be late .

  I jump up, grab my notebook and pen and stride purposefully down the office towards Em’s office. If I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling over I won’t have to think about what’s going to happen when I get there. When I arrive I rap smartly on the closed door but before I can open it the door is opened from inside by none other than Jonathan. He winks at me before turning to Em and giving her a little wave.

  He steps to one side to let me through the door and I do the same; we then do an awkward little dance before Jonathan stands still and with an exaggerated arm movement waves me into the office. I can’t help noticing that he’s looking very handsome as I sidle by him and he winks at me again. He’s wearing a dark grey suit and it suits him, makes him look all dark and interesting; dark colours looked good on him. I feel my face starting to flush and my heart starts to race and I have to look at the floor to compose myself. I watch him as he struts through the office and wonder if he’s asked Em about me, would he be so unprofessional? Are he and Em really that friendly?

  More to the point, how am I going to stand an entire evening in his company when the mere sight of him launches me into a panic? Is it going to be possible for Flynn and I to convince him that we’re a couple?

  Do you really want to convince him? whispers the Beccabird in my ear.

  I ignore her mischievous whispering and take a deep breath before walking into Em’s office and standing in front of her desk.

  ‘Hi Em, you wanted to see me?’ Ed’s desk is empty so there’ll be no help from that quarter if she starts bullying me.

  Listen to yourself! Man up you wimp! the Beccabird is quite rightly disgusted with me. I’m disgusted with me.

  ‘Rebecca, take a seat.’ Em looks up at me and almost smiles, or it may have been wind; whatever it is it looks painful. I sit down gingerly on the chair in front of her desk and either the chair is very small or my legs have grown in the few minutes it took me to walk up the office because my knees are almost touching my chin. I fight the urge to grip the edges of the desk as I peer over it at her.

  ‘Sorry about the chair, they’re in short supply and that’s the only spare one. I think it was made for a midget.’ She covers her mouth with her hand. ‘Oops, that wasn’t very PC, was it?’

  I stare at her in disbelief; she’s actually apologising and also making a sort of joke. Maybe I’ve misjudged her. Or maybe she’s lulling me into a false sense of security before she sacks me.

  ‘So, how have you been settling in? You’ve been here nearly a month now, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, a month tomorrow.’

  Em continues to look at me.

  ‘Everyone’s been very helpful and I feel quite settled in now,’ I say in a robotic voice.

  ‘Good,’ she says in a way that doesn’t sound good at all. She looks down at her desk and turns a sheet of paper over.

  She looks up again.

  ‘Do you feel you’re coping with your workload? No problems? Not too much for you?’

  Is this a trick question? Has she noticed me stretching my work out to make it last the day or has she seen me on the internet? No. Realistically she never comes down my end of the office and I’m very sly when I’m doing my surfing; I move the mouse around a bit and scribble the odd bit of rubbish on my notebook as if I’m working. I don’t just stare blankly at the screen like everyone else seems to.

  Oh, aren’t you clever , mocks you know who.

  ‘Rebecca?’

  ‘No, no problems at all,’ I say, ‘That I know of,’ I add, hedging my bets.

  She picks up the sheet of paper and scrutinises it and puts it back down again.

  ‘You have a very low error rate, in fact,’ she gives a tight-lipped smile, ‘From my reporting software you have the lowest error rate in the office. By far.’ She looks at me expectantly and because I can’t think of anything to say I nod.

  Reporting software? This is news to me; no wonder she never bothers walking around the office, she doesn’t need to. I feel absurdly pleased with myself but also a bit nervous; does it show everything? No, it can’t; Trina spends most of her life on the Next and Marks and Spencer website and when she’s not on them she’s on Amazon.

  ‘I know you’ve only been here for a short while,’ she gives another tight-lipped smile, ‘But in view of your previous experience with our Westchester branch I think you’d be very suitable for a new project that I have in mind.’

  Stunned, I stare at her in shock.

  Shut your mouth! hisses the Beccabird, you look like the village idiot!

  I quickly close my mouth and arrange my features into a semblance of normality.

  ‘And,’ Em goes on, ‘If after three months I’m satisfied with your progress, there will of course, be an appropriate salary increase.’

  I bite hard on my tongue to make sure I’m not dreaming .

  Ouch! No, it’s definitely not a dream.

  I just hope I can do whatever this project is; I hope I’m capable.

  Oh ffs , says the Beccabird. Is there any pleasing you?

  Chapter Thirteen

  T here are three discarded dresses on the bed and after much deliberation I’ve finally settled on a cornflower blue dress which is quite old but has always been one of my favourites. It’s fitted around the top with a scooped neckline but the bodice isn’t too tight – I’m going to be eating a meal and I don’t want to be feeling like a sausage bursting out of its skin. It has a nice little swishy pelmet type skirt which sits on the knee and shows off my legs but doesn’t ride right up to my backside when I’m sitting down. I’ve teamed it with my favourite black heels and left my hair down this time.

  I don’t want to make too much effort because I don’t want Jonathan thinking that I’ve done it for him. I ignore the sound of the Beccabird’s cackling laughter in my ear; she can laugh all she wants but believe me I could have made way more effort if I’d really tried but on the other hand I want to look decent; I have to show Jonathan what he’s been missing simply for my own pride.

  I look at my watch and frown, I thought Flynn would have been home by now. I know he can be ready in ten minutes but it’s nearly quarter to seven and we’re supposed to be meeting Jonathan at the restaurant at seven thirty .

  Or rather I am.

  I feel really nervous about pulling this pretence off and have to keep reminding myself that it’s for my own good because I’m just too weak to resist Jonathan on my own. Take yesterday for instance; I bump into him and what’s my first thought? Oh, that dark grey suits you, I always liked you in that colour – I so need saving from myself.

  I keep reminding myself that my
life is looking very positive and Jonathan is ancient history and the only way he can have any impact on my life is if I let him. Even my work life is looking up; Trina couldn’t believe it when I told her about Em and the project. I told Trina I felt a bit awkward because Em asked me and not her but she just burst out laughing. No thanks , she’d said, I’m quite happy with the amount of work I have and I definitely don’t want one of Em’s projects . I actually feel a bit of a cheat about it because the ‘project’ is actually just the part of the job that I used to do anyway when I worked at Westchester which for some reason no one does here. Well they do, but as a special project.

  Although obviously I didn’t tell Em that.

  So while she told me the ins and outs of the spreadsheet that I’ll need to set up I just nodded and made a few notes in my notebook and tried to look intelligent. I didn’t really need to make any notes because I could probably do it with my eyes shut. To be honest I’m quite pleased to have a bit more to do; there’s only so much surfing and internet shopping I can do in a day. Em never mentioned my visit to her flat so hopefully that’s in the past, I certainly won’t be mentioning it, that’s for sure.

  I also won’t be mentioning that I’m going out for dinner with Jonathan tonight because I think she definitely has a crush on him. Her cheeks were all pink when I first got into her office and Jonathan had just left so putting two and two together there’s no doubt he’d been flirting with her and turning on the charm; he can’t help himself. Jonathan doesn’t have a type of woman that he goes for; as long as they’re solvent and have a pulse his automatic reflex is to go into flirt and charm mode.

  I look at my watch again, where is Flynn? I hope he hasn’t changed his mind and thought better of our plan now that he’s sobered up. Surely he wouldn’t let me down? I don’t think he’s the unreliable type but how would I know because I haven’t known him for very long even though it feels as if I have. I pick up my phone to ring him and it trills in my hand and Flynn flashes up on the display. My heart sinks. He’s going to cancel on me and I’m going to have to go on my own.