by Anna Martin
Tristan had always thought he was one of them—the ones with big aspirations and a future in a roomy corner office.
But more than anything, he wanted to go home. And he didn’t mean home to his lovely but empty rented flat in the West Village, or even the smaller, much less lovely one he’d had in London before that, but home. Home to his family in Yorkshire and the quiet town he’d been desperate to escape from once upon a time. The big exciting world wasn’t quite what Tristan had expected.
“Oi. Jolly!”
Tristan nearly toppled over in his desk chair but managed to right the damn thing before he made a rather prodigious arse of himself. Again. He groaned once he’d managed to get his heart to stop racing.
Jordan. Jordan of the slicked-back quiff and perfectly tailored designer suits. He and his cronies hadn’t stopped torturing Tristan since he’d first been introduced at a staff meeting a little over three months ago. Blanchard and Starr had decided his skills were better utilized at the New York office instead of London, where he’d originally interviewed. At the time, Tristan had been fresh out of school and excited at the prospect of an adventure, but over the weeks, the adventure had been tarnished by snarky, competitive coworkers and loneliness like he’d never felt before. Even in London he’d had his mates from uni. He hadn’t had much time to see them, only a pub night every so often, but at least they’d been there. In New York there was nobody. Worse than nobody.
“What do you need, Jordan?” Tristan asked. Perhaps he’s come to tell me he’s quitting and I won’t have to be bothered by his obnoxious face anymore. His least favorite coworker had sidled up to Tristan’s desk with an oily smile Tristan now knew was completely fake. And dangerous. That had taken a few stinging setdowns to figure out. “And please stop calling me ‘Jolly.’ It’s not bloody funny.” He wasn’t sure if they were mocking his last name, his dialect, or his height. Probably all three.
“Bloody.” Jordan mimicked Tristan’s accent, then snorted. “Rob,” he called across the open, buzzing office. Rob of the ginger comb-over and unfortunate pleated pensioner trousers looked up, pencil frozen in his hand. “Is it funny when we call Tristan ‘Jolly’?”
Rob snickered.
“See?”
Not sure he’s got the right to be mocking anyone with those trousers. Tristan took a deep breath and tried to smile. It was hard when he knew most of the office resented him for coming from out of nowhere as an equal. He was probably five years younger than the next closest coworker. Ten years younger than most of them. It had to sting. Didn’t mean it was his fault.
“What do you need, Jordan? I’m trying to get these layouts done before I go home.”
“Oh. Nothing. A few of the boys were going to Watertown to get drinks later tonight.”
Tristan didn’t know what to say. “Were you coming to ask if I wanted to join you? ’Cause that would be a first,” he finally mumbled. He hated to hope they’d finally decided he was worth being friends with.
“No. Why would we do that?” Jordan turned and flounced back to his desk.
Tristan rolled his eyes. Dicks. Could’ve been worse, he supposed. Maybe.
* * *
It was dark by the time Tristan got home, which, seeing as though the city was still hanging onto the last of the late-summer evenings, was saying something. Someday, he hoped to get out at a decent hour and actually do something for once—if he found someone to do anything with.
The evening heat was still intense. It had mellowed only enough to be just about bearable. He’d nearly fallen asleep on the subway, which would’ve been a disaster when he first moved to the city. At least by now he could find his way back to where he belonged from a different stop.
He trudged up the stairs of his building—old, brick, full of character from the outside, dark and pokey from the inside. He lived on the top floor, in a flat Blanchard and Star rented out to their international transfers at a very—well, not so reasonable—rate.
At least it was in a neighborhood he liked. The rows of townhouses and canopy of leafy trees reminded him of home, in an odd way. He pulled his windows open to let in what little breeze there was. Mostly it was just humidity, thick and heavy, but the inside of his place was stifling. His curtains lifted encouragingly for a moment, but then fell flat. Well, there goes that brilliant idea.
Tristan flopped down on his settee and stared at the floor-to-ceiling bricks in front of him. The wall was still blank. He hadn’t really bothered to do much with the place, even when he’d thought moving to New York was the best idea in the world. Might have been a sign he didn’t want to stay. His flat was vaulted and airy, but it still felt tight somehow. Suffocating. He wanted to get out.
Tristan slipped off his loafers, pulled off his work shirt and trousers, and changed into jeans and an old T-shirt. That felt more like him. Better. Putting on his ratty old Converses he’d had since freshman year of uni helped too. Time for a walk. And dinner.
Tristan’s favorite part of living in New York so far was the Village at night. It had been the only good thing so far, if he was being quite honest. There was something special about the warm, velvety darkness and the glowy gilded sheen that seeped into every tree-cracked sidewalk and weathered-brick townhouse. It made him wonder about stars and fate and magic. Tristan figured he was due a bit of magic, especially after the week he’d had. Especially after the month he’d had.
Most of his neighborhood was quiet, just the stray dog walker and a few die-hard gym goers on their way home from whatever twenty-four-hour gym was close by. He’d not gotten as far as finding a go to doughnut stop or a favorite market yet. It was all Tristan could do to hold his head above water at work and survive on greasy pizza slices and the occasional curry from an Indian place on Christopher Street he’d been lucky to find. Tristan wasn’t in the mood for curry, and the thought of late-night spicy pizza made his gut clench. He just wanted to walk.
Block after block, street after street, Tristan walked. He’d been in the city for weeks, so there wasn’t much to look at anymore on the streets he already knew – not unless he wanted to get hopelessly lost searching for new crannies of the Village to explore in the middle of the night. Instead, he thought. He thought of home and his family and the rest of the village he came from, he thought of the knob squad at the office who seemed quite bent on making his life a bloody nightmare. He thought about what he could do to prove he belonged. He had a year left on his contract here. If he quit and ran home to mummy like a little boy, he might as well just admit he couldn’t hack it in the big world. Tristan refused to do that.
He pulled out his mobile and checked the time. Past midnight. Shit, shit, shit. He had to be at the office by six the next day to make sure he got his layouts and ad copy turned in to the supervisor of the sports drink account he’d been working on. Not exactly the glamorous existence he’d been dreaming of when he’d packed his bags for university and vowed never to return to village life for more than a visit.
Honeyfly Bakery’s Signature Shortbread
Tender and crumbly, perfect with jam and a warm cup of tea, our signature shortbread is sure to please.
* * *
2 cups butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon organic honey
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
* * *
Preheat oven to 325 °F. Cream butter and brown sugar. Add 3 to 3¾ cups flour. Mix well. Sprinkle board with the remaining flour. Knead for 5 minutes, adding enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll to ½ inch thickness. Cut into 3x1-inch strips. Prick with fork and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 325 °F for 20 to 25 minutes. Drizzle on the honey and sprinkle with cinnamon while still warm for tasty, sticky topping.
Chapter Two
Tristan kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe as he shuffled along in the prework crowd. He was early to catch his train into SoHo and he’d already stopped for a coffee, so there wasn’t any p
oint in hurrying. It was a lovely day, still balmy from summer but with a tiny hint of fall.
He got to the subway station early, like he did most days, despite only getting a few hours of sleep the night before. There wasn’t anything in his flat to make him want to stick around, and it was a fairly straightforward walk, or at least it had been when he’d managed to learn all the streets and landmarks. To a newbie, Eleventh had looked much like Fourth, with their rows of brick-and-stone townhouses and tiny shops, and Waverly didn’t really do anything to distinguish itself from Bank Street until he figured out all the little details.
Tristan used to whisper little directions to himself—Turn right at Marc Jacobs, cross the street near Starbucks, the station is behind the funny-looking building. But he knew it now. It might not feel like home, but at least the neighborhood was familiar. It was hot in the underground station, sticky and with a pervading faint stench of garbage and urine. Tristan had been in worse, but it wasn’t the most pleasant place to loiter. He stood with his coffee and tried not to breathe in too deeply.
The train came and Tristan slid on with the rest of the morning commuters. He only had a few stops and a short walk east. Sometimes he wished his commute was longer to give him time to think and relax, brace himself for the shark-infested waters of his office.
He didn’t get his wish. Before he knew it, he was back off the train and walking east down Spring toward the office. Just like the train ride, the walk was too short, and again, before he knew it, he was there. At work. He forced himself to smile.
Blanchard and Starr was pretty and vintage on the outside, architectural and impressive on the inside, exactly what one would expect from a firm who had branches in every major city. He’d been intimidated by the London office when he’d first begun and excited to move to the smaller New York office. His excitement had lasted as long as his coworkers’ goodwill. So, not long at all. Soon, he’d figured out half the floor had been gunning for his job, which was slightly higher paid and closer to a corner office than theirs, and as the outsider who’d landed that job, he wasn’t going to be anyone’s new best friend.
Tristan shouldered his vintage leather Mulberry messenger bag he’d been so in love with when he’d found it, freshman year of uni, in a consignment shop. It reminded him of home a little. Even when it was used to lug around layouts and presentation materials instead of books. Another day, another dollar, another round of useless insults. Fantastic. He started up the long flight of stairs to his second-floor desk. No use in taking the elevator. He didn’t want to be there anyway.
* * *
He’d only been at his desk a few minutes when his extension rang. Tristan picked it up, ready to grit his teeth and be polite despite how little whomever was on the other end deserved it.
“Tristan Green,” he said briskly into the receiver. Happy bloody Monday, he thought to himself. Wait for it….
“Tristan, this is Shatara Lewis, I’m the head of women’s fragrance and cosmetics.”
“Yes.” Tristan wracked his brain trying to remember a Shatara. He hadn’t had much contact with her department. So far most of his work had been on athleisure accounts.
“I requested you for my new team. I’ve seen some of your layouts. I think your aesthetic is perfect for this account and I need to land this. I think you can help me.”
New team? Tristan had been dying for something new to do. He couldn’t say yes fast enough. “That sounds great. What do you need me to do?”
“Aren’t you going to ask what the account is?”
“Fragrance or cosmetics, I’d imagine? I’m really quite up for a change, no matter what.”
Shatara chuckled. “I like listening to you talk,” she said. “Be in the third-floor conference room at ten.”
Tristan grinned—genuinely, this time. “I’ll be there.”
* * *
Tristan couldn’t lie; he was a little nervous when he walked into that conference room at ten, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was the new department, or maybe it was because he’d been handpicked because Shatara liked his work, and that hadn’t turned out so well for him socially in the past, at least in the New York office. Still, he had a notebook and a pencil, his laptop, and a head full of already-forming ideas.
Until he saw Jordan, who sat like a right posh twat, prim, entitled smile in place as always. There was another woman there whom Tristan had never seen before. She seemed nice enough, but so did everyone in his department until he found out they all hated him for “stealing” the position that should’ve gone to one of them. Still, he smiled. Hopefully, if she was picking allies, she’d pick him over Jordan. Fucking hell. Jordan. Every time Tristan so much as thought the name “Jordan,” he threw up a little in his mouth.
“Jolly!”
Tristan gritted his teeth. “Jordan,” he answered. Puke. In his mouth. Tristan forced a smile past his irritation, and he put his hand out to the other woman at the table. “Hi. I’m Tristan.”
“I’m Wendy,” she said. Her returning smile looked at least somewhat genuine. Tristan was getting much better at figuring out who was out for his blood. It was always best to assume the answer was “everybody.”
They sat there in the clean, modern conference room with framed prints of the department’s biggest coups, ad wise, and not much else in the way of distractions. After Tristan had looked at some Nike warm-ups, a wristwatch, and some fancy leather shoes for about thirty seconds each, there wasn’t any excuse not to turn his eyes back to Wendy and Jordan. Wendy smiled nervously again. Tristan started to think she might be all right. Jordan smiled his smarmy grin as well. And they sat. And sat.
Until ten minutes later, Shatara bustled in. She was tall and elegant, with very dark skin, a very pretty face, and very, very expensively dressed. She was one of the ones to impress. Tristan knew it was not a good idea to make a cock-up of things in front of her.
“Morning. I assume you’ve all made introductions? I’m Shatara,” she added, as though any of them needed to be reminded of that fact. “I wanted to bring each of you into this team for specific reasons. Jordan, your ad copy has been on point lately. I’ve been enjoying it, and I think it’ll work for our target. Wendy, I liked your creative vision on the Guess campaign. We’re going for a similar market here. Tristan, I want your layouts.”
She passed out thick folders to everyone at the table. “I think, between the four of us, we can land this account.” Shatara clicked a slide to open on the slide projector. A young girl’s face filled up the screen. “Charity Parker. She’s developed a new fragrance called Shooting Star to be sold worldwide in boutiques, department stores, Sephora, Ulta, and even drug stores. Everywhere you can buy a fragrance, Charity Parker’s face will be all over the shelves. Our job is to sell it. Or at least sell her team on the fact that we can sell it.”
Tristan was vaguely aware of Charity Parker. She was an American pop star, might have had a show on tv before she blew up everywhere. Her music wasn’t his cup of tea, but he knew her face: blond, sweet, generically pretty, a little bratty. Well, there’s the model done already. At least, if they got the campaign, they wouldn’t have the massive problem of finding a suitable recognizable celebrity to endorse the stuff and pay through the nose for them.
Shatara passed out bottles of the fragrance. It was pink, which seemed par for the course as far as youth fragrances went, and the bottle was suitably blinged up and shimmery for the same teen market. He opened it up to take a whiff, and managed to spray a big squirt of it right in his mouth straight away. Fucking shocker, that was. Tristan tried to get rid of it discreetly. He noticed Wendy smiling, but her smile looked more commiserating. Like she was laughing with him, not at him. Jordan, of course, was a different story.
“You like the pretty perfume, Jolly?” Jordan chuckled. “Seems like it would be right up your alley, you know, with your….” Jordan flapped at his wrist. Tristan was so shocked, he couldn’t even speak. In front of a boss?
“Ex
cuse me?” Shatara said sharply.
Jordan looked up, eyes wide with surprise. Apparently, he’d momentarily forgotten Shatara was in the room when he’d opened his mouth and acted like a complete dickhead, as per usual.
Shatara, whom Tristan had already come to like quite a bit over the course of the morning so far, gave Jordan a pensive look. “I thought you were going to work well on this team, but I believe I was wrong,” she murmured. Shatara never raised her voice; Tristan already knew that wasn’t her style. She didn’t have to. “Team members of mine don’t demean each other, in public or otherwise. For any reason.” Which, of course, was completely unrealistic for her to believe, but if she wanted to enforce that ruse in her presence, at least, Tristan was all for it.
Jordan looked taken aback for another moment, then schooled his face into a pleasant smile. “I apologize. I must still be waking up.” It was the nicest Tristan had ever heard him sound.
“No. I think I’m going to find someone else who will be a better fit with this account and this team. You can go, Jordan. Thank you. Perhaps another time.”
Holy shit, that was fast. Tristan looked down at the table. He didn’t want to make eye contact with Jordan and sure as bleeding hell didn’t want to smile. It wouldn’t do him any good to look smug, and smug was exactly the way he felt at the moment. He trained his face to be still until the swish of the conference room’s glass door signaled Jordan’s departure. He was sure to catch hell for it later, but at the moment, the victory felt sound.
“I’ll work on finding him a replacement, but for now, why don’t you take the dossiers home with you tonight and look through them. We’ll try this again tomorrow.”
Tristan and Wendy stood, took their thick files from Shatara, and made hasty exits.
