by Anna Bell
‘Me too. The sooner I quit the rat race, the better.’
‘I used to work in advertising up in London, I was a copywriter before I… before I joined McKinley’s, and I was going to try and move into marketing but then my Instagram started to take off and I thought I’d see where that went. It’s a lot easier to have the time and mental head space to run my feed without worrying about work and long hours like I used to.’
‘I can imagine. Let’s hope we’ll both be quitting our jobs before we know it, thanks to that talk,’ he says with a wink. ‘Did you live up in London too?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I say, thinking of the shiny flat I shared with Cameron and how quickly I left.
‘Isn’t it a bit of a comedown living in Reading?’
‘Actually, I live in Basingstoke.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s even worse.’
A surge of hometown pride ripples over me. ‘It’s actually got a lot going for it.’
He raises a sceptical eyebrow.
‘It does. There are couple of cool bars now and a few decent restaurants.’
‘Because London doesn’t have any of them.’
‘And it’s got good shops and we’ve got an ice rink.’
‘You’re really selling it. Although ice rinks are pretty good places to go on dates; if I take a woman who can’t skate she’ll be clinging onto me all night.’
‘Is that the only way to get a woman to touch you?’ I say, laughing.
‘Oh believe me, women are always touching me. I’m like one of those guys from the Lynx adverts.’
I think of the adverts with the guys dousing themselves in aftershave only to be surrounded by dozens of beautiful women pawing at them. The only thing that I can imagine Luke having in common with that scenario is the dousing himself in aftershave.
We’re edging closer to the front of the queue and my heart is starting to race. I’m thinking what I’m going to say to Lara. The queue moves forward every thirty seconds or so, which means I’ve got thirty seconds to convince her to become my new BFF.
‘Wow, look. That girl’s dressed in Lara white,’ says Luke, pointing at the woman at the front of the queue.
Lara’s always dressed top-to-toe in white and the young woman is following suit. She’s wearing a white summer dress, which was either an optimistic outfit choice on a cold day, or she wanted to colour co-ordinate with Lara and it was the only white thing she owned.
‘So try-hard,’ he says, slipping off his jacket to reveal a tight white T-shirt.
I look up and down the queue and I notice everyone is dressed in fifty shades of white.
I look over at Lara standing in her top, fluffy cardigan, stone-washed jeans and brogues, all of which are white. I’m going to totally clash. I’ve worn the trendiest thing I own which is a pretty, vintage-style tea dress that a local designer sent me, and I’ve teamed it with black biker boots and a leather jacket to hide the safety pins I use to hold the dress together as I can’t get the zip done up. I thought it would make me look super on-trend, but it’s so bright compared to her – I might as well be wearing neon. How did I not think about that?
‘Izzy? Are you OK? You’ve gone all pale.’
‘Have I?’ I say, pleased. At least my face might match her style.
‘OK, so are you two having your photo taken together or singularly?’ says a bored-looking PR woman as we reach the front.
‘Oh, I think—’
‘Together,’ says Luke.
‘Great. Gets us through quicker. So you’ll get two photos taken but with the same device. No touching Lara,’ she says in a stern voice, her eyes narrowing on mine as if she knows I’m a super-fan who won’t be able to control myself. ‘If you want to make it look like you’ve got your arm around her you can balance your hand on the table behind like so.’
She demonstrates with the same tired enthusiasm as cabin crew pointing out emergency exits.
The PR woman drifts off to prise away the girl having her photo taken with Lara and it’s our turn. I’m so excited. Luke has to give me a little nudge as my feet don’t appear to be working and we’re directed to stand on either side of Lara.
‘Hi,’ she says, beaming. ‘You two a couple?’
‘Oh, no, we’re colleagues,’ I say with a high-pitched squeal.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. You look like you’d make a cute couple and couples always do really well with brands on Insta,’ she says with a hint of sneer. ‘There’s always so much content for them – first they have the big wedding, then they do the house renovation, then they have babies. Anyway, are you ready for the photo?’
The PR woman stares at me so I make sure that I leave a safe distance between me and Lara when I balance my hand on the table. My hand makes contact with another hand and I immediately jump. At first I think in horror that it’s Lara and that I might get ejected before I get my selfie, but it’s only Luke. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when his hand tries to hold mine. I snatch my hand away, grazing Lara’s fluffy cardigan in the process.
‘Smile,’ says another PR woman, who snaps a photo on Luke’s phone.
‘Thanks for coming,’ says Lara. She moves forward, only I go with her. I look down in horror and see that my watch is stuck on her cardigan.
‘Come on, Izzy,’ says Luke, going to grab my other arm before he gasps.
‘What’s going on?’ asks the PR woman, surging forward.
Lara bends down to get a bottle of water off the floor and I go along for the ride, not wanting to rip her expensive-looking cardigan.
‘Oh my God. Is she touching me?’ she screams.
‘I’m not touching you,’ I say, flustered. I’m aware the whole room is watching me. ‘It’s just my watch. Look, my hand is here.’
I do a wave but it’s fruitless as Lara can’t actually see my hand behind her.
‘A watch? Who in this day and age wears a watch? Why would you when you have a phone!’ she shrieks.
‘I’ve always worn one,’ I stammer. ‘I’ve never got one stuck before.’
Of course the first time had to be now.
I turn to Luke for help, but he’s holding up his phone – he’s actually filming this.
‘Hey!’ I shriek in a tone to rival Lara’s.
He shrugs and puts his phone down.
‘Get her off me. I can feel her touching me,’ says Lara.
The two PR women push me out the way so that I’m as far away as I could be without dislocating my shoulder. They examine the stuck watch in such a way that anyone would think that they were performing open heart surgery.
‘There’s a thread that’s wrapped right around it. We could cut it,’ says the woman who took the photo.
Lara gasps in a way that lets them know that’s not an option.
‘If I could just—’ says one of the women twisting my arm round impossible angles, ‘aha, got it.’
My arm falls and I rub my aching shoulder.
Lara turns and glares at me, before her hand flies up to her forehead.
‘I need a moment,’ she says loudly. She storms up the stage stairs and into the wings.
‘I told you not to touch her,’ the PR woman hisses and I start to back away. ‘God knows how long she’ll be. Do you remember when the woman touched her arm in Birmingham? She didn’t come back for 40 minutes.’
The other PR woman nods her head and, along with all the people in the queue, gives me a frosty stare.
‘Thanks, sorry, I’ll leave,’ I stutter. I hurry out of the room in fear, only stopping to catch my breath when I reach the safety of the lobby.
‘That was intense,’ says Luke, who did his best to distance himself when Watchgate was going down.
‘Not quite to plan,’ I concede.
By now Lara was supposed to have followed me on Instagram and we’d be meeting after the event for cocktails to cement our new-found friendship. I fear the only reason she’d want to know my name right now would be to take out a restraining order
against me.
‘Photo looks good though,’ he says, showing me.
He clearly means of him and Lara, who look in perfect harmony in their white outfits and perfect smiles. I, on the other hand, stick out like a sore thumb with my bright dress and my goofy star-struck grin plastered on my face.
‘Hmm,’ I say, thinking that it doesn’t really matter what I look like, ‘I can’t post that now.’
‘Come on, she didn’t even look at you and I reckon after all those pictures she won’t even remember who the person with the watch was.’
‘You think?’ I ask, hopefully.
‘Of course. I’ll even promise I won’t put the footage on YouTube.’
‘You’ll delete it instead?’
‘OK, I barely got anything before you shouted at me anyway.’
We walk back out of the revolving doors and we stop on the pavement and I’m about to say goodbye when he leans close to me and holds up his camera. ‘Say, “Cheese”.’
I automatically smile before I realise what’s happening.
‘Huh,’ he says looking at it. ‘Look, she was right, we do make a good-looking couple.’
I look at the photo and whilst Luke is so far from my type, you’d never know that from that photo. We do look good together.
‘So this has been fun, we should meet up again,’ he says.
‘We should?’
‘Definitely,’ he says, fixing his eyes on mine. I almost get the impression that he’s coming on to me. Although my non-existent love life is testament to the fact that this isn’t really my area of expertise.
‘Right, well, I better go and catch a train,’ I say before I turn and hurry towards the station in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he shouts down the street and I turn and give him a half-hearted wave.
It takes until I get seated on the train until I feel brave enough to pull out my phone to check if Watchgate has gone viral, only to see a picture of Luke and me pop up on my feed. He must have posted whilst he was walking.
Lukeatmealways
What a night. Not only did I get to meet the gorgeous @small_bubbles but I got to meet the equally gorgeous @This_Izzy_Loves too. Our eyes met across a crowded room of Instagrammers #instalove #smallbubbles #instaconference
Hashtag Instalove? So he was being flirty.
I could not imagine a man that I’d want to date less. Let’s just hope he forgets me like the first time I met him. I don’t really have a whole heap of experience of letting men down gently and something tells me Luke and his giant ego doesn’t have a whole lot of experience of being on the receiving end of it.
Chapter 6
I scroll through a contract template on my computer, trying to ignore the fact that Mrs Harris has being trying to catch my eye for the last ten minutes. I start to fill in the details of the new client when Mrs Harris clears her throat loudly.
I notice Colin’s face is mere inches away from the paper on his desk as he tries to keep his head down, quite literally.
‘What do you need, Mrs Harris?’ asks Cleo.
‘Ah, Cleo love. What a poppet you are. I didn’t want to disturb you when you were so busy. Plus, I need Izzy and her skills for this job.’
‘What skills does she have that I don’t?’
Mrs Harris sighs. ‘The ability to not get too distracted. I need Izzy because she’ll stay mission-focused and won’t start flirting with the first stud muffin she sees.’
‘Stud muffin,’ says Cleo, giggling.
‘What would my mission be?’ I ask, looking up over my screen.
‘I just need you to pop down to Adjustments. I’ve heard some rumours that they’ve got muffins today.’
‘Stud ones?’ I say, setting Cleo off again and earning a tut from Mrs Harris. ‘There are biscuits over in Accounts; I could grab you one of those instead?’
That would save me a set of stairs to walk down.
‘No, no, I think the muffins downstairs are supposed to be very good. Be a poppet, get me one or two. I’m a bit hungry, forgot my lunch today.’
‘Right,’ I say, knowing she buys her lunch in the canteen. ‘So this has nothing to do with the rumour that Jason is testing out a recipe for the next stage in the competition?’
‘Izzy, however could you think that of me? That I could resort to such – such underhand espionage? All I want is to not waste away at my desk.’
‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we?’
I could probably do with stretching my legs, so I pick a folder out of my in-tray to give myself a cover story for my walk around.
‘And whilst you’re there, stop at the second floor and see if Mary in Billing has baked anything or Miles, he’s on that floor too?’
I mock-salute and head off on my mission. I walk down the stairs thinking of Luke posing here before and it makes me nervous that I’m going to bump into him. Not that he’d be here now: it’s raining, making the light in here terrible.
I still can’t get over that photo he posted the other night. We work in the same office block so the odds of bumping into each other are statistically quite high. I’ve started walking round the office with a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, reminding me of when I moved between lessons at school, hoping I’d bump into one of my crushes. Only this time, it’s the opposite. I’m trying not to bump into him. I’ve never been very good with unwanted advances from the opposite sex although luckily for me it doesn’t happen very often. I’m just hoping that I won’t see him for a few weeks and he forgets who I am, again.
I push the door open to Claims Adjustments. Their floor has got an identical layout to ours and I’m always freaked out seeing the wrong people sitting at the desks.
I spot Jason and make a discreet beeline for him, pretending I’m searching for someone else.
There are a couple of people at the end of his desk hovering over some tin foil containers and the scent of cinnamon is wafting through the air. But before I can reach it, Jason leaps into my path and folds his arm like a bouncer.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, looking down at my folder as if hoping it’ll give me some magical answers. ‘I’m looking for Sarah.’
Every department has a Sarah, right?
He looks at me suspiciously.
‘She’s not in today. She’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Right,’ I say relieved that my cover story has held up.
‘Do you want to leave a note?’
‘No, no, I’ll come back,’ I say, trying and failing to see over the side of the silver container. ‘Boy, something smells good.’
‘Tell Mrs Harris I said hello,’ he says, glaring at me.
‘Will do,’ I mutter sheepishly.
I hurry out of their floor. I’d make a terrible spy. I’m slightly scared of going back to Mrs Harris empty-handed, so I make my way to the next floor down to see if I can find Mary or Miles.
I push open the door, it’s so noisy. There are long rows of desks and everyone’s wearing headsets with microphones and it’s impossible to tell who’s talking on the phone and who’s talking to each other.
I try to look purposeful with my red folder as I walk briskly along, sniffing the air for baking scents. I notice a collection of biscuit tins on a central table and people seem to be swooping in and grabbing mini cupcakes on their way to and from the giant printer. I try and keep my heart rate steady whilst I make my way to the printer, reaching into the tin as I pass. And just like that, I’ve taken one brazenly. I’m chuffed I got away with it until I come face to face with a woman who I recognise from a health and safety training course I had to go on.
‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’ asks Brenda.
‘Oh, I was saving it for a cup of tea,’ I bluster.
‘We haven’t seen you on this floor before,’ she says, not taking her eyes off the cupcake I’m holding.
I suddenly feel like I’ve edged into the wrong side of town
and I hastily shove it into my mouth.
I’m hit with a burst of something boozy and citrusy and usually I’d savour every single second of it, but I’m too scared so instead I wolf it down.
‘I recognise you,’ says Brenda, ‘Don’t you work in Contracts?’
I watch her turn and wave at Mary – whose cupcakes they are – and her face looks like thunder.
‘I – er, I’m here to find someone,’ I lie.
‘She’s with me,’ says a voice and I look up and see Luke. I’d forgotten that Billing and Sales were on the same floor; so much for trying to avoid him.
He flashes Brenda, and Mary who’s joined us, one of his winning smiles and they relax.
‘Ah, Luke, have you had a mini cupcake? They’re mojito-flavoured,’ says Mary slipping into cougar mode.
‘Thanks, but I’m watching my figure,’ he says, patting his stomach.
Mary and Brenda titter with laughter and he grabs my elbow and guides me down to the other end of the office in case the spell he’s cast wears off.
‘What are you doing?’ he says. ‘It’s savage down here at the moment! This Bake Off is bringing out the worst in people.’
‘Thanks for rescuing me.’
‘You’re just lucky it wasn’t Miles,’ he says, nodding across to a man who almost snarls at us for looking in his direction. He must have witnessed the exchange with Brenda and Mary because he’s clutching his tin of baked goods close to his chest. ‘Now, open that folder and I’ll pretend to look at it. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.’
I hastily open the folder and he starts nodding.
‘I’ll point at this, and you nod.’
I play along.
‘I had fun the other night. Turn the page.’
‘Umm-hmm,’ I say, pretending I’m fascinated with the piece of paper in front of me.
‘I was going to send you a message using Link but I didn’t know your surname.’
‘Oh,’ I say, shutting the folder and then regretting it as my name is written in large letters on the front.
‘Izzy Brown, got it,’ he says with a firm nod. ‘I’ll send you a message when I resolve the situation.’
