The Cinderella Reflex

by Buchanan, Johanna

Jack closed the briefcase and hoisted its strap over one shoulder. He gave her a lopsided smile and Tess felt a powerful, magnetic pull towards him. For a second she felt as if she’d met him before somewhere, in another life even.

  “Good luck with everything,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said shyly.

  She walked over to her bay window and watched him drive away. Funny, he hadn’t seemed like the psycho-stalker she’d thought he was, after all. He had been perfectly pleasant today. Funny even. She found herself wishing she could get to know him better. But he was bound to have a partner already, probably a go-getter like himself. He’d hardly be interested in a hippy drifter like her.

  She switched on her mobile and rang Andrea who was all agog with the news that Jack had bought the station.

  “You should have been there when the woman ... Paulina her name is ... I think she and Jack might be an item actually. Anyway, when she said they were launching the contest to find a new star Ollie went mental! I think he might have been drunk. Now, it seems Atlantic will definitely go national later this year. Tess, you have to ring Helene and get back in here before you leave it too late!”

  Tess glanced at the framed caricature of herself, still in its brown paper wrapping. She already felt ridiculous for spinning such a web of lies to Jack.

  “I think I already have, Andrea.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “So what are you going to do now?” Andrea asked anxiously.

  “Get another job?” Tess shrugged. They were chatting over a coffee and Tess had filled Andrea in on Jack’s astonishing visit.

  “Where, though?” Andrea persisted.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. Atlantic 1 FM isn’t the only employer in the world, you know. Look at Chris Conroy and how well he’s doing for himself.”

  “Chris?” Andrea couldn’t hide her surprise. “You’re hoping you’ll get a job like his?”

  “Hey, I got better results than he did in college!” Tess said defensively.

  “And then you went rambling around the world,” Andrea reminded her, “while he devoted himself to his career!”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Tess didn’t need reminding of the ten-year gap on her CV just now.

  “I’m just saying that maybe you should have more realistic expectations. What about that reunion he emailed us about – it’s next week, in Dublin? I can’t make it, but you should go. It would be a good place to start networking. When is it?”

  “I’m a bit reluctant though because well, you remember what happened between myself and Chris.”

  “You and Chris broke up years ago,” Andrea reminded her.

  “I know. But I wasn’t planning on meeting up with him again in this lifetime.”

  She and Andrea had been friends at college, so she was well aware of how badly Tess had taken the break-up. What she didn’t know though was that Tess had developed a habit of checking up on Chris afterwards. Devouring his newspaper articles online, reading his blog – and since she’d been home, analysing his performances on radio and television in a mildly compulsive way. In fact, she had been telling herself she needed to stop when she had received his email about the reunion.

  “Look, there’ll be other people at the reunion besides Chris Conroy,” Andrea pointed out. “People who might help you to find another job. And meeting Chris again might mean you’ll finally get over him – leave you free to meet someone else.”

  “I am over him. So, what if everyone at the reunion has heard about the agony aunt fiasco?”

  “Come on! This is Killty we’re living in. And if Helene Harper’s histrionics are anything to go by, we must only have about ten listeners by now.”

  “That’s true.” Tess started to relax.

  “So, that’s it then.” Andrea was matter of fact. “You’re going to go to the reunion and network like crazy and I’m going to pitch for my own show.”

  “I can help with that if you like,” Tess offered. “Now that I’m at a loose end.”

  “Would you? It would be a great help. Thanks!” Andrea smiled. “So can you tell me any more about Jack McCabe?”

  “Only that he seemed really keen to get started and that he had big plans for Atlantic.” Tess said. She didn’t want to talk about Jack McCabe. She didn’t want to let slip that she’d felt so attracted to him. It wasn’t as if anything could ever come of it, since he was with his glamorous PR woman.

  A week later, Tess was standing in a dressing room in a shop off Grafton Street wearing a red, short shift dress and skyscraper heels. The reunion had seemed like a good idea when she and Andrea had been talking about networking and re-inventing yourself and yadda yadda ya. But now that she was in Dublin, in an over-bright changing room, it felt different. Wrong somehow.

  “It’s perfect.” The sales assistant was nodding approvingly.

  The venue for the reunion was a five-star hotel and Tess simply didn’t have anything suitable to wear in her wardrobe. She wasn’t sure about this outfit, but then she always felt awkward out of her jeans. The dress looked vaguely glamorous and she wouldn’t have to wear it after tonight. She paid with her credit card and made her way back to the hotel, where she’d checked in overnight. She felt slightly paranoid that she might run into Chris if she stayed in the main shopping thoroughfare, so she spent the best part of the afternoon in the hotel’s swimming pool, doing fast lengths to work off some of her nervous energy.

  By the time she got back to her room she was feeling a lot calmer and more optimistic. Wrapped in the complimentary white robe she’d found in the bathroom, she sat on the bed and pulled out a photograph. It had been snapped in London, shortly before she and Chris had broken up. Tess remembered it as a golden weekend, where they had done shamelessly touristy things, getting on the London Eye and even taking a city bus tour, which seemed to mortify Chris but he’d gone along with it because Tess had been so insistent. She had given her camera to an obliging passer-by in Hyde Park. She still looked like the hippie student she had been way back then – same untamed frizzy hair, same casual wardrobe of jeans and jumpers. Chris, she knew from watching him on TV, looked even better now. He had filled out, looked more mature. Wore way better suits.

  Maybe Andrea was right. Maybe she needed to get Chris out of her system once and for all so she could stop obsessing about what might have been? In her years of monitoring him, his Facebook status had changed with startling regularity – from Single to In a relationship to Still looking. Once he’d even written In an open relationship, but Tess assumed that was a joke. Now he’d updated it again – this time to It’s complicated.

  Since they had broken up, she’d had plenty of romances, but they had been short-lived relationships, which she ended whenever she thought they were in danger of becoming something more.

  Maybe that was because Chris had hurt her all those years ago, as Andrea had been hinting. And maybe meeting him tonight might lead to closure for her, after all? Tess got ready in a flurry. She didn’t want to spend any more time soul-searching and she headed down to the reunion early and chose a seat which gave her a vantage spot to keep an eye on the door.

  She wriggled onto the bar stool, trying to get comfortable. The dress felt a little too tight and a little too short now. And if she attempted to walk far in her sky-high heels, she mused, she’d probably go flying across the floor. Still, there was probably no need to venture far from the bar.

  She ordered a vodka and tonic, and tried to stop worrying. She had lost touch with practically everyone from college and felt a bit guilty now that the only reason she was here was because she had lost her job. She spotted her reflection in the mirror running below the long row of upended spirit bottles opposite her. She’d spent yesterday afternoon at Veronica’s Cuts in Killty’s main street. The salon was most definitely not at the cutting edge of hair design. Tess’s hair was still brown and still frizzy, just a little shorter. In fact, after spending so long in the swimming pool this afternoon, it was
frizzier than ever. Tess pushed her hand through her shorn locks, trying to get it to sit straight.

  “Tess Morgan! Look at you!”

  Startled out of her reverie by a familiar voice, Tess swirled around.

  “Katie Lawlor!” Smiling widely, Tess stood up to greet her old friend. She needn’t have worried that she mightn’t recognise people after all. Katie looked much like she did when she’d last seen her, only a bit older. The same straw-blonde hair whipped around her freckled face, her wide green eyes crinkled when she smiled. She even had the same dress style. Tonight she was wearing a floral maxi and skyscraper platforms. Within minutes Tess discovered that Katie was now a divorced detective.

  “A detective? How did that happen?” Tess asked amazed.

  “I went on to study criminology and that became my passion.” Katie shrugged.

  Elaine Seymour was next to arrive – she was working as a medical journalist. And then a whole batch of people arrived together and they were all swept up with the excitement of hearing each other’s news. Jerry Healy was now a balding book publisher; Shay Murphy had put on at least two stone, worked as a news editor and had two children.

  Everyone seemed well established in their careers and Tess was feeling bad about her own jobless status when Elaine suddenly said, “And you’re an agony aunt, Tess.” She smiled at the expression on Tess’s face. “My aunt lives in Killty – and she remembered we were friends back in the day.”

  Tess’s fingers tightened on her glass.

  Katie gave her a sidelong glance. “You’ve an agony aunt? Remind me to tell you about a few of my problems when we get a chance.” She threw back her head and laughed and Tess had to smile, despite the tension building up inside her.

  She cleared her throat to explain how she didn’t work in Atlantic 1 FM any more but the collective attention of the group was suddenly diverted elsewhere. Tess followed their gaze and her pulse quickened. Chris Conroy had arrived. She watched as people shifted slightly as he passed, moving automatically to allow him through. He’d always had that quality, she thought. Something intangible which marked him out as different. Something people recognised and responded to.

  Tess had often wondered how she’d feel when she finally saw him again in the flesh. He was certainly as good looking as ever. His blondish hair was thinner than she remembered, with a few streaks of grey already showing around his temples, but he was tanned and fit looking, and had a certain joie de vivre etched into his craggy features.

  “Sorry I’m late, folks!” He grabbed a seat and ordered a beer. “I got called in at the last minute to do a live TV link. That’s why I’m so overdressed.” He looked down at his formal navy suit and sharp white shirt with self-deprecation.

  “It must be great being a celebrity, Chris,” Katie said slyly, but any irony was entirely lost on Chris. Within minutes he had become the centre of attention, regaling their small group with tales of his derring-do. They sat riveted, their own achievements dwarfed by his tales of assignments in war-torn countries, the big political stories he’d broken, even a near-death experience he’d allegedly had at the hands of the Taliban. Tess felt certain he was embellishing events, but no one seemed to mind. Another effect Chris had on people.

  “Tess Morgan.” Finally he seemed to notice her. “Agony Aunt of the Airwaves. I tuned in to Atlantic 1 FM on the internet and there was our Tess, solving the problems of the nation,” Chris unfurled himself from the bar stool he was straddling and moved closer to Tess. Katie, knowing their history, turned to talk to Elaine.

  “So, tell me, what’s this Jack McCabe really like?”

  “I hardly know Jack McCabe,” Tess said primly.

  He leaned in closer, and lowered his voice, “I often wondered about you, Tess, and how life had treated you after we split up.” His voice was soft. “I always harboured a vague hope that we might be friends again someday, but you seemed to go off the radar after college completely. Did you ever think of me?”

  “Not that you’d notice.” Tess gave a small shrug.

  Chris gave a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t mind, Naomi and I barely lasted five minutes after I broke up with you.”

  “Naomi? Her name was Claire.”

  “It was?” He looked perplexed. “Well, anyway. We don’t want to waste time on that old story. Let’s talk about you, Tess. So how did you get into radio then?”

  For a moment, he looked so genuinely interested that Tess toyed with the idea of telling him the long version. About arriving home after years of travelling, desperate to put down some roots. About Andrea getting her into Atlantic 1 FM but that it hadn’t exactly worked out and about how she was sacked and ... but she guessed Chris would be bored with all the details.

  “I’ve, er ... moved on from Atlantic now.”

  “Moved on?” Chris frowned. “But I heard you just recently.”

  “Yes, well that was my last day actually.”

  “It was?” He was puzzled. “I thought the presenter said it was your debut slot?”

  “It was. It was my first and last slot.” She swallowed a large mouthful of vodka.

  “Oh! So what happened?” Chris looked at her intently. “You got a better slot? A better time? What?”

  Tess smiled. “None of those things. I’ve just told you. I’ve moved on from Atlantic.”

  “But moved on to where?” he asked patiently.

  “Well, to nowhere in particular ... I haven’t got another job yet. I’m examining my options.”

  “You’ve got options? In these times?” Chris raised an eyebrow and she felt a stab of resentment. How many times had he switched jobs to get to where he was now, she wanted to ask him? Plenty of times, according to the stories of adventure and success he’d just been regaling them all with.

  “I felt I had gone as far as I could go there, really.” That sounds right, Tess thought, pleased. It was the sort of comment that an ambitious go-getter would make, not someone who had let the grass grow under her feet for the last ten years.

  “Tell him about your other projects,” Elaine piped up.

  Tess swung around and realised that Elaine had been listening intently to their conversation. Elaine misread her panicked expression. “Don’t be modest now! My aunt lives in Killty and she read all about it in the paper. She remembered we went to college together and told me all about it.” She frowned, trying to remember the details. “Wasn’t there some controversy about you walking out of studio or something?”

  Tess’s head was starting to swim. She couldn’t believe a tiny story in a tiny local paper had spread this far.

  “No, that really is enough about me. Tell us about your life, Elaine.”

  “Well ...” Elaine began, flattered to be asked.

  But Chris interrupted her. “Is that true? That you walked out? I only heard the start of that item and I had to go and do an interview myself.”

  “Sort of ...” Tess wracked her brain wondering how she could change the subject.

  “But you must have heard that Atlantic might have been going national?” Chris looked at her appraisingly. “Come on! And the real reason you left is?”

  Tess finally broke. “Okay! I had a row with my boss over ... well, it doesn’t matter what it was about now. The thing is, she sacked me. But,” Tess added quickly as there was a collective intake of breath, “then my boss’s boss, Jack McCabe, the entrepreneur who is buying the station?” She nodded at Chris, “He called to see me and said he really liked the agony aunt slot. But by that stage I had already told him that I was ... er ... writing a book. Which I am. Of course. But I do need a new job as well so if anybody knows of any openings ...”

  Tess looked around. She was the centre of attention now. For all the wrong reasons. She twisted her hands together, praying for someone to break the silence. Make a joke. Anything.

  Chris rested his chin on his steepled fingers. “My advice is to go back to Atlantic.”

  Tess stared at him. Hadn’t he listened to a word she�
�d said? That she had been sacked and was supposed to be writing a book and exploring her options?

  “Tess, they are going national and you said Jack McCabe wants you back,” Chris pointed out. “An opportunity like that doesn’t come around every day, you know. You can’t just let it slip through your fingers.”

  “Er ... I think I already have,” Tess reminded him.

  Chris looked at her, his forehead creased in thought. “Haven’t they just announced a nationwide contest – where the winner gets their own show?”

  “I’m sure I’m disqualified on the grounds of being fired from there already!” Tess joked.

  “But you just said Jack liked your agony aunt slot. Tell him you’ve changed your mind, that you want to come back. That would give you a fantastic advantage over external contestants – you’ll have insider information.”

  “I’ve already turned down his offer.” Tess lifted her chin defiantly. “I’m afraid that particular ship has sailed without me, Chris.”

  “Persuade McCabe to take you back!” Chris was insistent.

  “How?” Tess asked.

  “Go and find him. Hit him with your elevator speech.”

  Tess looked at him uncomprehendingly. “My what speech?”

  “Your elevator speech. People use them in Hollywood to pitch ideas for a movie. They only have a short window to sell their ideas to the movers and shakers. So they encapsulate their story right down to a forty-five second speech. The idea is if you’re ever in an elevator with someone who can help you to progress your career, your pitch is powerful enough and short enough to grab their attention, while you have them as a captive audience.”

  “Right,” Tess said slowly. “And how does that relate to me getting my job back, exactly?”

  “Lots of people have adapted the idea to use in their careers,” he said.

  She stifled a giggle. “And do you actually have to be in an elevator with the very important person?” She drank more vodka, beginning to enjoy the mad twist the conversation had just taken. This was what she’d liked about being with Chris – you never knew what he was going to come out with next. She scanned his features for signs of a smile. “You are joking, aren’t you?”