by Nancy Barone
And even Connor was clever. There was nothing he couldn’t do, nothing he couldn’t fix. And he was an absolute child whisperer, as Amy and Zoe seemed to get along better when he was around.
‘You’re the bright one, Connor. And you’re good at DIY.’
He continued to study me. ‘Everyone is good at something, Nat. And besides the fact that you are a brilliantly funny writer, you’re an amazing cook. I have rarely eaten anything so good as the food you prepare. It’s restaurant quality.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not that good.’
‘Oh but you are, Nat! And what about how good you are with people? Look at the girls, and Sarah – look at your mum. You’re the perfect nurturer.’
My cheeks began to burn. ‘That’s very kind of you, Connor.’
He continued to look at me. ‘It’s the truth, Nat. You have an astonishing number of good qualities. I want you to believe in yourself. Will you promise me you will?’
Well, put that way… ‘Okay,’ I promised. ‘I’ll try to believe in myself more.’
‘Great,’ he said, squeezing my hand before he got up. ‘Back to work now. You go and write your next cracker of an article. There’s thousands of people all over the country waiting for it.’
‘No pressure, then,’ I retorted with a grin, my skin still tingling at the contact. Imagine if he actually caressed me!
He gave me a thumbs up and headed down to the bottom of the garden to resume his tasks. And for a while, it was as if my whole world had suddenly lifted from my shoulders. Maybe Connor was right. Maybe Octavia wouldn’t fire me after all.
But that evening at dinner, I couldn’t manage to eat a bite. If Connor had boosted my confidence earlier, now I wasn’t so sure anymore. He’d gone out somewhere, and I was glad he didn’t have to see me down again.
It went without saying that I didn’t sleep half a wink over the entire weekend, tossing and turning while conjuring up all sorts of scenarios where I got sacked just because I was getting long in the tooth compared to my boss.
What could I possibly say to save my neck when all of my colleagues, the very same ones whom I’d started out with, were getting the boot? What cat’s chance in hell could I possibly have?
*
On Monday morning, after one and a half showers – I’d had to go back in because I’d forgot to lather my ears – I raced back into my room where my outfit awaited me. Only I realised too late that it had a reddish oil splotch across the chest – probably from my previous lunch date with Maggie during which I’d spilled some penne all’arrabbiata down the front. Hadn’t I washed it out? That was karma getting back at me for my laziness.
It was way past the baby powder hack as that only worked with fresh stains, and only before washing, so I scythed my way through my wardrobe until I found something next to suitable, i.e. my infallible LBD. Which had, would you bloody believe it, a great big hole in the seam at the neckline. What now? Everything else was still in my toss pile, which I had already started in a bid to downsize and move.
It would just have to be my usual navy blue dress. But this time I jazzed it up with a gorgeous white gold necklace in the hope of mollifying Octavia as she was obviously obsessed with jewellery.
And it was then that I looked at my watch and panicked, grabbing my bag and throwing myself down the stairs.
‘Ooh, I’m late, late, late! Girls, please do hurry,’ I urged them, raking my hands through my hair as I faffed around looking for my keys and trying to steal a look at my reflection in the oven door in the hope that it would make me look younger and trendier than my real mirror upstairs, which was cut-throat accurate.
Connor looked up from his breakfast as the twins were still dunking the toasty soldiers into the eggs I had prepared for them at least twenty minutes ago.
‘I can run the girls to school if you want?’ he offered.
I stopped mid-faff. ‘Really? I couldn’t ask you to do that.’
‘Why not? I’m happy to help. It’s the one up the road, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I can’t possibly… Oh, Connor, are you sure?’
‘Natalia – I can take care of two eight-year-olds. Now go.’
He cleared the table and gently nudged the girls just with a gesture of his head, then slipped on a pair of marigolds which, rather than making him look girly, turned him into bloody Superman to me.
‘I don’t know how to thank you, Connor!’
He put the plates in the sink, which he’d already filled with hot water and washing-up liquid and as I was wringing my hands, he leaned forward and said, ‘You’re already late. You look great. Everything will be fine. Go get her.’
I blushed. ‘Okay. Thank you. I’ll make it up to you.’
He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to make up for. I’m happy to do it. Go!’
So I kissed the girls, made a huge effort not to do the same to Connor, and went. I had ahead of me a four and a half hour train journey into Paddington Station, hopefully enough time to come up with plenty of reasons why she shouldn’t sack me. When I could think of nothing, I tried to work on my next article, but there was a man opposite me who was talking very loudly into one of those earpiece phones so I gave it up as a bad idea and just resorted to people-watching in the end, my mind absolutely incapable of stringing two thoughts together.
By the time I got to HQ and was finally admitted into the new boss’s office, I was soaked in my own anxiety. And as it turned out, she was worse than I’d thought.
‘I see you’ve been here many years,’ she said, instantly diving into the purpose of her meeting without so much as shaking my hand or welcoming me or even thanking me for coming in at such short notice. ‘You’re one of the old ones. Literally.’
So now it was my turn to get the boot, apparently. Only she couldn’t risk being seen as ageist, so I was curious (and horrified) to see what kind of a spin she was going to put on this.
‘And you’ve been writing this column some time now,’ she said as if it was a genuine accusation.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve been writing That’s Amore! for thirteen years and haven’t missed a single month.’
‘Hm.’
I eyed her. It wasn’t looking good. The fact that she looked a lot like my perfect sibling Yolanda wasn’t doing her any favours either. If my instinctive antipathy for her was not obvious, hers for me definitely was.
She sat back, her thin, bejewelled arms and hands dangling over the armrests.
Compared to her I looked like a yeti. And this was me trying, because ever since Connor had moved in, I had suddenly stopped wearing tracksuits or, worse, pyjama bottoms and had even started wearing make-up again. But all my old tricks didn’t stick compared to this monument to fashion. In fact, Octavia could have given Anna Wintour a run for her money.
‘You see, Natalia, my agenda is to rejuvenate the magazine.’
Bingo. She wanted to give me the boot completely, just as Maggie had warned me. I was too old for them, apparently. Her new target audience didn’t want to read about HRT, or premenopausal mindlessness. They wanted to read about how to tell if their next date was The One, or how to start up your own online business. I knew nothing of either. I couldn’t even get my own finances into gear.
And I’d thought that after the divorce, my life would start all over again. Forty is the new twenty and all that, but now a real twenty-something-year-old was telling me that I was redundant in this brave new world. That I was over the hill. Octavia was young, and she wanted to read about young women, not dinosaurs like me.
‘Looking at your figurehead above the column, you do look much younger.’
‘That’s because I was,’ I answered. ‘Thirteen years younger.’
‘Yes, well.’
Next, she’d be summing up the reasons for my dismissal. I took a deep breath and bit the bullet. ‘Miss Hounslow, we seem to have a problem here. You can’t just fire people because of their age or looks. That’s discrimination – which is against the law.
And apart from the fact that my column is one of the backbones of this magazine, I write what women like to read.’ And at that, I recoiled in horror at my own words. When had I suddenly become confrontational? I had never spoken to anyone like that before in my life. Well, looking back now, perhaps I should have. Perhaps I should have never let Neil speak to me the way he did. Maybe it would have spared me tons of heartache.
‘Well, the target market has changed.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
She leaned forward, and I swear it was almost with glee that she said, ‘I told you I am rejuvenating the magazine. My target readers will be in their twenties, and it’ll be all about jobs, technology, relationships, cosmetics and fashion. Stuff for women in their twenties. Not their mothers. I hear you have a daughter in her twenties? You could even be my mum.’
I gave her my signature hairy eyeball. How dare she? ‘I have two daughters. Sarah is almost twenty and Lizzie is eighteen – much younger than you.’
‘Well, then, I need their point of view, not their mother’s.’
I was dead. Utterly dead in the water.
‘So what are you saying? That you’re going to fire me because I am almost forty?’
She assessed me. ‘Of course not,’ she lied. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you one chance. One article to show me you can write something like a woman in her twenties.’
‘But I’m not a woman in my twenties.’
‘Then write something that might interest them.’
‘Such as? How to Tell if He Likes You?’ I said before I could stop myself. I really had to do something about this new sarcastic streak of mine.
‘Exactly! I’m sure that as a mother, you’ve had these chats with your daughters. You’ve been through all that with them. Tell me what it was like. Maybe you could write this from a mother’s perspective. A woman trying to reach out to her would-be daughter readers.’
Oh my God in heaven.
‘Miss Hounslow, I need your assurance on one thing.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘There are many, many talented people who have been contributing to this magazine for years. You need to promise me you won’t let them go.’
She sat back and stared at me. How dare I speak to her like that? ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Miss – well, seeing that I could be your mother, I’ll call you Octavia,’ I said, enjoying the raising of her eyebrows. If she was going to fire me, at least I’d get a word in edgewise. ‘You just can’t afford to send these writers straight into the arms of your competitors. They’d wipe you out over the weekend, believe me.’
She sat up. ‘Excuse me?’
I got to my feet. ‘I know you’re new here. I was once new, too. But if you want to succeed in this job, you have to know it’s all about connections, and building a rapport of trust with everyone around you. And you’re not going to do that by threatening people the minute they turn forty.’
And before she could kick me out, I excused myself as I had a train to catch. Let her see that along with age came clout and intelligence.
*
When I got home, Connor and the kids were sitting around the kitchen table playing cards. Amy was so excited about winning that she couldn’t sit still.
‘Auntie Nat!’ Zoe cried and threw herself at me. ‘You missed dinner! Connor cooked steak and risotto with vegetables!’
‘Sounds yummy,’ I said, peeling my jacket off as Connor got up to pour me a glass of wine and turn the microwave oven on.
‘Thank you for taking such good care of my girls, but now—’ I turned to them ‘—it’s bedtime.’
‘But—’
‘It’s a school night, remember? No staying up late until Friday night.’
Amy’s shoulders slumped. ‘But I was just winning!’
‘You were cheating,’ Zoe corrected her.
‘Was not!’
‘Were too!’
‘Girls, girls,’ Connor cooed. ‘Let’s give Auntie Nat some peace, okay? Now go. She’ll come up to tuck you in in a minute.’
Moaning, Amy headed for the stairs, followed by Zoe.
I slumped into a chair as the microwave pinged and he sat down across from me to keep me company while I ate.
‘Hmm, Connor, this is really good. Thank you. And I can’t thank you enough for taking care of the girls. How’s my mum?’
He laughed. ‘We get on like a house on fire. She proposed Strip Poker again.’
I sat up. ‘Oh, Connor, I’m mortified. How’d you get out of that one?’
He grinned. ‘I told her not in front of the kids.’
I snorted wine through my nose and he burst into a laugh alongside me, hugging his knee, a gesture of his that I had become familiar with. It was also very endearing, just like when he put one foot on top of the other when seated, or my favourite, when he bit on his lower lip in concentration.
‘Oh, Connor, you are absolutely priceless. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I mean, what I’d have done without you. Today, I mean.’
He waved my thanks away. ‘So! How did it go?’
‘I kicked her ass today, Connor! I told her what I thought about her methods and it felt great!’
‘Good girl!’ he exclaimed, high-fiving me.
‘And before I left her office? I even told her how to do her job!’
Connor let out a hearty laugh, his dark eyes twinkling. ‘Good for you!’
‘You should have seen me, you wouldn’t have recognised me. I didn’t even recognise me! Even if I do get fired, it will have been worth it!’
‘You won’t get fired. I’m so proud of you, Nat. It’s so lovely to see you happy and full of confidence again.’
I blushed. ‘Thank you, for your pep talk, Connor…’
He waved my thanks away. ‘You deserve everything you want, Nat. And actually, if there’s anyone that needs anyone, Octavia needs you, and not vice versa.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I wish.’
‘Are you kidding me? You do know that your column is the main reason why people read Lady magazine, right?’
That made me laugh.
‘I’m not kidding! The whole country buys it for you – take it from me. It’s the first thing people go in for on a Monday morning. I can literally see them. Is it in yet, is it in yet? I can’t wait to read That’s Amore!’
‘Shut up…’
‘I’m telling you the truth, Nat. I have to wait in line at least ten minutes for my mam’s copy.’
And then that warm, fuzzy feeling washed over me again, like I could do nothing wrong. It had been a while since someone encouraged me to do something. Usually it was me cheering everyone else on, and I was grateful for the change.
‘Thank you, Connor.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re grand, Nat. I’m only happy to help.’
Ah, this miracle of a man who had popped into our lives, out of the blue. All thanks to a random ad. How lucky was I?
‘What?’ he said, grinning. ‘What are you smiling about?’
I realised that in effect, I was grinning like a loony. ‘You know all about us.’ Well, almost. He didn’t know that I was the sister of the famous Yolanda Amore, although Mum had blabbed her name out several times. I only hoped he hadn’t made the connection. ‘And I know nothing about you.’
He took a sip of his wine as he sat back, biting his lower lip in thought – there it was, another one of my favourites. ‘There’s not much to tell. I’m pretty boring. You know I’m a lawyer, and that I’m divorced.’
My eyes popped out of my head. ‘You’re a lawyer? I thought you were in IT?’
‘I am. Corporate IT law. But I also have a personal work project,’ he said sheepishly.
‘Which is, if you don’t mind my asking?’ What the heck, he knew practically everything about me.
‘Of course not. I want to start my own legal aid website.’
‘But that is amazing! You must be super-smart. And there was me thinking you were just a
young geek.’
He laughed, pushing back a curl that had escaped his man bun. ‘Not so young, Nat. I’m going on thirty-three.’
As if I didn’t know.
‘And now you’re opening your own online business – how does that work?’
‘It’s partly online, actually, connected to my blog.’
‘You have a blog?’
He laughed. ‘Sort of. It’s more of a legal aid site. I just want the law to be available even to those who can’t afford it, you know?’
I found myself beaming at him. ‘You have a heart the size of a cathedral, Connor! Your mum must be so proud of you, and I can’t understand how your ex-wife—’ I bit my lip. Trust me to ruin such a carefree moment. But he only cocked his head at me and smiled.
‘I mean, you even have time to cheer me on, humour Mum and play Twister with my nieces?’
‘That’s part of my down-time. Plus, I’ve actually taken some time out to dedicate myself to my real calling – the sea.’
‘Ah, the surfing, yes.’ I only hoped he wouldn’t offer me swimming lessons again.
‘Not just the surfing, but any sports related to it. I love being in it, under it, over it, by it. I love the flora and the fauna. My family makes fun of me – they call me Flipper.’
‘Sounds like you have spent more time in the sea than on dry land!’
He grinned. ‘I need to get rid of all the nervous energy I accumulate. At school I couldn’t learn anything because I couldn’t sit still long enough. My mam’s amazed I managed to get a degree at all!’
‘And what brought you to Cornwall? Didn’t you have enough beautiful villages in Ireland?’
‘I needed a fresh start. After the divorce, you know.’
I still couldn’t understand what woman in her right mind would want to leave Connor. He was everything a woman dreamed of. Looks of a god and the heart of an angel. I wondered what his faults were, because, for the life of me, I couldn’t see any yet.
He was silent, evidently thinking about her. Then he shook his head and looked up. ‘You think you’re building something, you know? And then you’re left with nothing.’
I sighed. ‘I know the feeling. Sometimes I think that maybe I should have concentrated on my career. If I hadn’t married Neil, I’d be my boss’s boss by now, and not vice versa. But in the end, I opted to have a family instead.’
