I Heart Forever

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘Worst. Liar. Ever,’ Megan replied.

  ‘Fine, I should know what’s going on by the end of next week,’ I semi-admitted. ‘I don’t want you to panic. The best thing you can do right now is carry on as usual, don’t give anyone any reason to doubt how great we are.’

  ‘We are pretty great,’ Jason acknowledged. ‘And we know you’ve got our back.’

  ‘Always,’ I promised, relieved to see smiles on their faces. Smiles that promptly vanished as Cici appeared at my side.

  ‘What are we talking about?’ she asked, with a strained attempt at a smile.

  ‘Angela was just telling us how we shouldn’t worry about losing our jobs because she’s got our backs,’ Jason said, shooting me an OK sign. ‘Right, chief?’

  ‘Right,’ I said, shooting one right back.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Cici laughed, her hand fluttering over her chest. ‘That’s cute. Can I speak to you for a moment?’

  ‘In my office,’ I replied, drawing her away from my crestfallen staff and closing the door behind us.

  ‘What’s with this piece of crap?’ Cici asked, prodding the desk with the toe of her Gucci loafer. ‘Are you already ordering furniture for the nursery?’

  ‘Why would I be ordering a hot pink desk for a nursery?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, pulling a face. ‘Looks like the kind of tat you’d be into.’

  ‘Well, you’re right, it is,’ I said, leaning my bum on the edge of my desk. ‘But I don’t know why it’s in here and I’d appreciate it if you could find out.’

  ‘I guess I could,’ she shrugged. ‘But I probably won’t. I’m gonna be leaving today.’

  ‘Leaving early?’ I asked.

  ‘No, leaving,’ she replied, dropping her head to one side. ‘I quit.’

  There had been days when I had sat at my desk and dreamed of this moment. For the first few years of our acquaintance, Cici Spencer had made my life miserable. Even after she gave up trying to get me fired, destroy my relationship, and generally sabotage my life, the best we’d ever managed was an uneasy truce where I didn’t fire her and she didn’t spit in my coffee. To the best of my knowledge. But now things really had changed.

  ‘I just talked to HR and I’m out,’ she announced, her perfectly oval face entirely decided. ‘My contract says I have to work a fourteen-day notice, but they didn’t seem to care, said I could leave at the end of the day.’

  I bet they did. I could only imagine how many champagne corks were popping in HR at that second. Cici had, for the most part, been a terrible assistant, but she’d been an actual terror of an employee. I’d had more emails from HR asking whether or not there was any truth in the reports people had filed against her than I’d had from Facebook asking whether or not I remembered taking a drunk selfie seven years ago.

  ‘I was thinking about what you said yesterday and you’re right,’ Cici said. ‘I don’t want to be here any more. As long as I’m working at Spencer, I’m always going to be Bob’s granddaughter or Delia’s sister, and that sucks. I want to be taken seriously.’

  ‘And you decided this overnight?’ I asked, still slightly stunned.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And you’re sure?’

  ‘Totally,’ she insisted and I could see that she was. Gone was the trademark smirk and the ever-present you’re-boring-me-to-death-by-breathing expression and in its place, there was a smile. A simple, genuine smile.

  ‘Wow.’ I couldn’t quite believe it but I was truly sad. Honestly, utterly, end-of-The Notebook-level gutted.

  ‘I want to love what I do and I want it to be mine,’ she explained. ‘I don’t want to live with something I had handed to me, I want to create something that is all me.’

  ‘I get it, I really do,’ I told her, so confused by how incredibly upset I was. It was the baby’s fault, it had to be. My unborn child had imprinted on Cici Spencer and there was nothing I could do about it. ‘You want to make something for yourself. What happens when you give a man a fish and all that.’

  ‘If you give a man a fish, he has a fish.’ She reached out to press her palm against my forehead. ‘Have you eaten this afternoon? Do you have low blood sugar?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I felt my eyes prickle and pinched the inside of my arm, determined not to scare Cici with outward emotion. ‘So, is this you officially handing in your notice?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said, throwing up her arms and looking around the office. ‘You’re getting a temp tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Obviously, I’m not going to cry,’ I said, immediately bursting into tears. ‘But I’ll be really, really sad to see you go.’

  ‘Quit it,’ she snapped, snatching two tissues out of the box on my desk and pressing them into my hands. ‘And I think you mean jealous, not sad.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I sniffed, dabbing at my cheeks.

  ‘Please, Angela.’ She rolled her enormous eyes and cackled. ‘I’m like the least observant human on earth when it comes to feelings and even I can see how stressed you’ve been lately. This isn’t the same place it used to be. Just because Delia is your buddy doesn’t mean she’s creating an Angela-friendly utopia for you to work in. Things are only going to get worse for you and you know it.’

  ‘You’re just saying that because you’re leaving,’ I replied, unsure as to whether I was trying to convince her or myself. ‘Things are going to be rough for a while but then it’s going to go right back to how it was.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as how it was,’ Cici argued. ‘You know what? You’re the worst editor ever.’

  A gasp caught in the back of my throat and choked its way into the world like a baby seal with whooping cough.

  ‘Not the worst editor,’ she corrected herself as I fought to regain the power of speech. ‘You’re a good editor, but you suck at being in charge. It’s like, you saw The Devil Wears Prada and said, “I guess I’ll do the opposite of that.” Anna Wintour would weep if she saw the way you break your back to have everyone like you. She would cry genuine human tears – and you know the rumour is she wears those sunglasses all the time because she had her tear ducts removed and it permanently damaged her eyesight and now she can only be exposed to sunlight for two hours a day.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I sniffed, biting the inside of my cheek.

  ‘No, it’s totally true,’ Cici said, examining her cuticles. ‘I went to school with her kid and my nanny heard it from her nanny.’

  ‘Not that part,’ I argued, crossing my arms in a huff. ‘The part about me only caring about people liking me. Although I also refuse to believe the Anna Wintour story until I have it verified by a doctor or see it on E! News.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said for the first time ever. ‘I figured you already knew. I think you’re going to be a great mom, Angela. You sacrifice everything for everyone else, all the time. You stay late so other people can go home early, you work on weekends so the team doesn’t have to, and I know the reason this restructure is freaking you out is because you’re worried about everyone else.’

  ‘I’m worried about myself as well,’ I said. ‘It is possible to care about yourself and other people at the same time, you know.’

  ‘Not in this job,’ Cici replied. ‘You’ve got to be ruthless to win at this.’

  It was an eye-opening experience, getting life advice from Cici Spencer. I did not care for it.

  ‘Joe is an asshole,’ she declared. ‘He was an asshole when we dated in college and he’s an asshole now. It’s not something I like to brag about, but he cheated on me and then told everyone I was the one who cheated and of course, everyone believed him.’

  ‘That’s what people do,’ I replied with a pang of guilt. It hadn’t even occurred to me to get Cici’s side of the story before believing Joe’s secondhand. What a massive shitbag I was, damn my internalized misogyny. What would Beyoncé think?

  ‘But assholes are good at this job, that’s why Dee De
e hired him and I’ll let you in on a secret, she’s kind of an asshole too.’ Cici looked over her shoulder at the buzzing office outside my door. ‘I know you love the magazine, but will you still love it when it’s ten o’clock at night on a Monday, Sophie’s pages still need proofreading, and you haven’t seen your baby in fifteen hours?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, sticking out my chin defiantly.

  ‘And will Alex love that?’ she asked.

  ‘Might not love it,’ I said quietly. ‘But he’d understand.’

  I looked down at my jumper and dried my eyes on a pink pompom. When did she get so insightful? Was it actually Delia doing an amazing Cici impression? Or was I tripping from caffeine withdrawals?

  ‘To be honest, I’m kind of amazed he hasn’t cheated on you already,’ she said with what she thought was a supportive smile. ‘You’re always here and he’s super hot. You got knocked up at just the right time, that was smart.’

  ‘OK, so you’re leaving.’ I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and cleared my throat. ‘Should we hug?’

  ‘I quit, I’m not dying,’ she replied, recoiling at the thought. ‘Don’t be mad at me, you made me think about stuff and now I’m returning the favour.’

  Just what I needed, more things to think about.

  ‘Much appreciated,’ I said graciously. ‘As insane as it sounds, I am going to miss you. Do you have any ideas about what you want to do?’

  ‘I know exactly what I’m going to do,’ she said. ‘I never would have seen it if you hadn’t given me the push. If there’s something else out there for me, there’s something else out there for you.’

  She took an uncomfortable step towards me and closed her arms around my shoulders in a stiff, boxy hug.

  ‘You’ll figure it out,’ she said, pulling away and patting me on the shoulder. ‘Or you won’t, whatever.’

  With that, she walked through the door, slipped on her coat and grabbed her Givenchy handbag from underneath her desk.

  ‘Office announcement,’ she shouted as she strode across the room to summon the lift. It dutifully appeared on command. ‘I’m leaving. Peace out, bitches.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Jason panted as he sprinted through my door. ‘Is she gone? You fired her?’

  ‘I didn’t fire her, but yes, she’s gone,’ I confirmed.

  ‘She’s gone!’ Jason screamed around the door as the entire office burst into rapturous applause. ‘Sophie, you go get the cupcakes and I’ll grab the champagne.’

  Lowering my blinds on the celebrations, I ran my hand over the cuckoo of a bright pink desk that had invaded my space. I hadn’t really changed anything since I moved into the office, just added to my nest. My wedding photo sat on top of one of the filing cabinets, pictures of me and Jenny at Erin’s wedding, dancing in Las Vegas, posing in front of the Thames with Louisa, and then another of me and Alex under the Eiffel Tower at sunset. The one thing I’d always had, the whole time I’d been in New York, was my job at Spencer Media. Even when Jenny disappeared to LA, even when me and Alex were working things out, I’d always had this. I’d just assumed I always would.

  The giant teddy bear James had sent over sat in the corner next to my Alexander Skarsgård poster. How old was that now? How long had it been there? The edges curled and the white parts had turned yellow.

  ‘Et tu, Alexander?’ I whispered, taking a seat behind my desk before tapping the words ‘Anna Wintour tear duct surgery’ into a google search.

  Enquiring minds had to know.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Of course, I’m incredibly happy that the wedding is back on,’ I said, kicking my front door open to let Jenny and her endless bags into my apartment after me. ‘And I’m always down for a crafternoon, but are you sure you’ve got enough time to organize an entire wedding in one week?’

  Jenny dumped an armload of brown paper bags onto my sofa, revealing her grinning face.

  ‘Have you met me?’ she replied. ‘Of course I have. And the sooner you quit talking and start stuffing, the sooner we’ll be ready for the bachelorette.’

  It really was my own fault. In the week and a half that had passed between Jenny and Mason patching up their differences, Jenny had decided she simply couldn’t wait one more second to become Mrs Jennifer Lopez Cawston. Not that she was planning on taking his name, but she liked to say it for effect.

  ‘It makes perfect sense,’ Jenny said, licking the whipped cream off the top of her coffee cup. ‘Break for the holidays on Friday, get married on Saturday and head off on honeymoon on Sunday. Ring in the New Year with mojitos in Maui. Boom.’

  Somehow, I managed to stop myself from asking why she hadn’t thought of this in the first place and saved everyone a lot of bother. I was truly growing as a person.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ she asked, making herself at home in my living room. ‘Is he around? Is he going to help?’

  ‘Alex is downstairs in the studio, recording demos with Graham,’ I said, shaking my head at the panic in her eyes. ‘It’s fine, Craig isn’t here.’

  ‘Kind of sucks that I’ll never be able to see a Stills show again,’ she sighed, checking all her bags. Party City, Dylan’s Candy Bar, Mood Fabrics, Blick Art Materials. We’d been everywhere. ‘Do you think he’ll get over it?’

  ‘In time,’ I promised. She didn’t need to know Craig had stopped by the night before with his third new girlfriend of the month. If there was one thing New York was not running low on, it was hot girls who wanted to go out with cute musicians. Craig would survive, one way or another.

  ‘I can’t believe this time next week, I’ll be getting married,’ she said, fishing a handful of craft paper place cards out of one of the bags and throwing me a calligraphy pen. ‘We’re doing a walk-through at The Union tomorrow evening and confirming the menu Monday, and then that’s it. Hey, how’s your handwriting?’

  ‘Terrible,’ I replied, throwing it back. My living room was already covered in wedmin detritus, tear sheets from The Knot, printouts from Pinterest, rubber stamps, miniature mason jars, and every colour ribbon under the sun. ‘You write, I’ll stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think to do the wedding there in the first place.’ Jenny plonked herself on the living room rug next to the coffee table, a huge Starbucks cup in front of her. ‘What’s more me than a super-luxe boutique hotel in the middle of Manhattan?’

  ‘Especially when you used to work there and they let you use their events space for next to nothing,’ I agreed, picking her coat up off the floor and hanging it on the coatrack. ‘So, what’s the deal then?’

  ‘We have the penthouse suite with panoramic views of Manhattan for the ceremony,’ she explained, capturing her curls in a topknot. ‘Which they’ve refurbished since I left, it’s so nice now. It’ll be super intimate, just twenty people. Then it’s dinner for fifty in the restaurant, and we’ve hired out the basement bar for the evening for everyone else. They tried to stiff me on that, but I offered to hold the next AJB after party there over fashion week and suddenly the price became much more affordable.’

  ‘And you’ve got everything else sorted?’ I asked. ‘Flowers, photographer, hair, make-up?’

  ‘Invitations have all been emailed, Erin is taking care of the flowers, Tess Brookes is going to do the photographs,’ she replied, ticking each item off on her fingers, ‘Gina is doing my hair, Razor is doing my make-up. All that’s left is my dress.’

  ‘Oh.’ I pulled out an enormous sack of gummy bears and what seemed like hundreds of black, glittery favour bags. ‘Just the dress.’

  ‘I’ve called in every favour I was ever owed,’ she said, the cap of her pen in between her teeth. ‘And some I really didn’t deserve. I’ll have a dress by Monday for sure. You and Erin are figured out, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Mason took care of the photo booth, the cars, the cake and the rings, and he swears he’s getting his suit and shoes today.’ She took a deep swallow and smacked her lips together.
When you didn’t have time for a wedding diet, there was no wedding diet. ‘I’m telling you, Angie, this is the way to do it. No muss, no fuss.’

  ‘If I ever get married again, I’ll bear that in mind,’ I replied as I opened the sack of gummy bears. A rush of fake rosé scent escaped from the bag and hit me right in the face. ‘Gross.’

  ‘Are you gonna puke?’ Jenny asked, suddenly alert. ‘How are you still getting morning sickness? Aren’t you past twelve weeks now?’

  ‘Some lucky people get it all day, all the way through their pregnancy,’ I said in between slow, calming breaths. ‘It’s getting difficult to hide it at work.’

  ‘You still haven’t told them?’ She gave me a sympathetic frown. ‘Because of the restructure?’

  ‘I still have no idea what’s happening,’ I nodded. ‘Every day I sit at my desk, waiting for the guillotine to fall, and nothing happens. I haven’t laid eyes on Joe or Delia in days. Until I know what’s going on, I’d rather keep my news to myself.’

  ‘You won’t be able to much longer,’ she said, reaching out to pat my neat little bump. ‘Sure, you can tell people you just got fat right now, but if he keeps growing the way he is, they’re gonna know.’

  ‘What makes you think it’s a he?’ I asked, considering my belly. ‘I think it’s a girl.’

  ‘Definitely a boy,’ Jenny said. ‘A girl would have had more considerate timing.’

  The instant I reached into the bag of rosé gummy bears to fill my first favour bag, the swell of sickness was back. I jumped to my feet, hand clapped over my mouth, and ran down to the basement toilet. It was roomier than the upstairs bathroom when it came to puking and, thanks to the bump, I’d had plenty of opportunity to try them both out. Clawfoot, roll-top bathtubs looked amazing, but they didn’t half take up a lot of space.

  When I first met Alex, he was an uber hipster, living the life in a cool Williamsburg loft that overlooked Manhattan. It was the most amazing place I had ever seen, huge open spaces and high ceilings with windows where the walls should be, and a neverending view of New York City. Now, here we were, married with a baby on the way, living in a two-bedroom apartment in a gorgeous townhouse in Park Slope. I missed the loft and its inherent cool factor but I loved our home. Rolling off the L train and traipsing through hipsterville had been fun, even if I’d always felt more like I was visiting the zoo than moving in for good.