by Niamh Greene
I had never been happier. I adored David and I wasn’t the only one. Tanya and Alastair loved him too – and so did Mum and Dad. Everyone did. He was kind and generous and so sweet natured that he never had a bad word to say about anyone. I often came home from work prattling on about some silly drama I’d had to deal with that day and he’d just nod calmly and ask if I wanted a cup of tea and then he’d listen to all my woes until I felt better, which sometimes took a very long time.
And he was brilliantly talented – he’d already written three critically acclaimed thrillers and he wasn’t even thirty yet. Of course he liked to joke that being critically acclaimed didn’t pay the electricity bill and that he’d have to give up the starving writer gig if the books didn’t start selling in big numbers, but he didn’t mean it, we both knew that. Writing was his passion. Sometimes he would become so engrossed in front of the screen that I would leave for work and come back again and he would still be there, tapping away at the keyboard, having not moved the entire day. It was one of the things I loved most about him – his commitment to his craft. And that commitment had paid off because his last novel had been a massive success and he was tipped for very big things.
And now he has a new book on the shelves and I’m going to have to see him again. I feel myself start to shake at the thought. How am I going to interview him? What on earth will I say?
‘Well, get a move on then,’ Minty snaps, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I need it, like, yesterday.’
‘OK.’ I pretend to write something very important in my jotter. I really spell out ‘HELP’ in big capital letters. And then I underline it at least six times.
‘Um, can I make a suggestion before we go?’ Samantha is speaking.
Minty raises an eyebrow. Samantha is going to be running up and down the stairs for days, just like that poor intern, if she says anything even remotely stupid.
‘Seeing as you want to take a traditional look at true love for this issue,’ Samantha says, ‘which I think is a very sweet approach by the way –’
Minty raises her other eyebrow.
‘– do you think we should do something on marriage?’ She pauses and smiles playfully at Minty.
‘Marriage?’ Minty’s voice raises a decibel. I can tell she’s not sure if Samantha is having a sly dig at her. After all, her latest marriage is her third attempt at wedded bliss.
‘Yes.’ Samantha is still talking. ‘You know, why people marry now when there’s no real pressure from society for them to do it any more. What drives them to walk up the aisle – it must be true love, right? Um, capital T, capital L.’ Samantha glances at her jotter to make sure she’s got that bit right, and then smiles again and shakes her hair back.
Minty’s eyes narrow and her unusually large nostrils start to flare. I can spot a bogey inching its way down and dangling enticingly just inside her nasal cavity. If we’re really unlucky, Minty will wrench that one out of its hiding place and give us all a good look at it any minute now.
‘Why people marry…’ She pauses, whirling her specially commissioned hand-made pen in her fingers, the one with her name engraved on it in gold lettering. ‘I like it.’
I gasp. Minty liking anything is unheard of.
Samantha smiles as if she knew she was on to something.
‘Molly?’ Minty looks straight at me.
‘Yes?’ I can feel my lips say the word, but my voice sounds very far away.
‘You got married recently. Why?’
‘I, um…’ I can’t think of anything to say. ‘Why?’ I squeak, hoping she won’t notice that I’ve just repeated her question back to her. My head floods with possible answers.
Because I wanted a nice dress?
Because I wanted a big party?
Because I never got over David and this was the only way I could be certain to forget him?
Before I can answer, Minty interrupts.
‘Look, it doesn’t fucking matter – I couldn’t care less.’
She bares her teeth at me. I can see she’s had some sort of omelette for breakfast – the remains of it are still on her veneers.
‘I want 700 words from you on why you walked up the aisle. And, by the way, I’ve emailed Eve what’s-her-name for more of her quizzes – they’re not bad. Now get out.’
I scramble from the room behind Samantha, my head spinning. How can this be happening? Not only do I have to interview David about true love, but I have to come up with 700 words of my own on why marriage is still a relevant institution, when I can’t even track down my own husband. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. How am I going to do either? I’ll never pluck up the courage to speak to David, not after the way I ended it. And how can I write about a happy marriage when my own marriage is a disaster zone? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
‘Shall I organize the David Rendell interview?’ Samantha says, her face hopeful. ‘Would that help?’
‘Sure,’ I croak. ‘Good idea.’
The less I have to do with this whole process the better. I’ll let Samantha speak to the publicist and set up an interview location. I have no idea who David’s publicist is now anyway – his publishers have merged and re-merged so many times since we broke up that I’ve lost track. If Samantha does the legwork then all I have to do is the interview itself. That won’t be so bad. But even as I try to convince myself, I know it’s not true. Seeing David again will be bad. In fact, it’ll be worse than bad, it’ll be awful, but I have no choice. I have to do it.
Julie’s Blog
9.01 a.m.
Email from R:
Long time no hear. How are things? Are you OK since you ditched Mr X?
Crap. Can’t come clean with R. She’ll never speak to me again if she finds out that not only am I still seeing Mr X but that he’s moved in with me. If only she wasn’t such a good, wholesome person she might understand how complicated everything is. I’ll have to lie to her. Just a little lie. Just until I can tell her the truth. Not sure when that will be, but hopefully it’ll be soon. Tomorrow. Well, maybe not tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Or next week. I’ll just tell her a little white lie now and then fix it later. On some unspecified date in the future. The last thing I need is for her to find out that Mr X has moved in and taken control of the remote. I’m still in shock that he likes the Discovery Channel! Who, under the age of ninety, likes the Discovery Channel? I couldn’t believe it! It was bad enough that I had to pretend to eat some God-awful organic stir-fry that was only half cooked (eating vegetables almost raw keeps the nutrients intact apparently), but then we had to watch some boring documentary about a primitive tribe living in the jungle – who wants to know about that? Not me. Not when I need to watch E! to find out the latest celeb gossip. Didn’t say anything to him though. Pretended that learning how to catch a fish with just a rock and a stick was fascinating viewing, even though I was really itching to find out the news about Brad and Ange. Maybe I should get another TV for the bedroom. Mind you, there’s nowhere to put it any more, not now that he has covered every surface with his anthropology books. At least we had sex I suppose. Of course, it wasn’t as hot and steamy as it used to be in the stationery cupboard, but maybe that’s because we’re both a bit uptight. We probably need time to ease into this new arrangement, settle into our new roles as cohabiting partners, then things’ll heat up again.
Anyway, I’ll just send R a quick email to throw her off the scent for a bit.
9.06 a.m.
Email to R:
Hi there, sorry, just really busy at work! Will catch up with you soon for a night out. Xx
God, I feel awful lying to her like this. But I can’t tell her the truth, she’d think really badly of me. And if she knew she might tell someone else, and if she did that then what would other people think of me? That I’m a marriage wrecker, that’s what. That I’m a really bad person with no morals.
In fairness, it’s not like I asked Mr X to leave his wife. I wasn’t even sure I was going to continue t
he affair once he got back from his honeymoon, but he’s in love with me now – what can I do? I can’t tell him that I don’t want him in my flat. Not that I don’t want him there. Of course I do. It’s amazing to think that he loves me so much that he’s willing to throw away his marriage so we can be together. It’s just… it’s just that I wish he had talked to me about it first. Asked me if I agreed. Asked me if I minded. But I can’t think about that now. I’ll think about it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe next week. Just not right now.
9.10 a.m.
Email from R:
Great – a girls’ night out would be fab!
She’s right… a girls’ night out would be fab. But I better let Mr X settle in before I go out clubbing with the girls. I’m not sure I ever told him about my passion for clubbing – he might be surprised I like to dance till dawn as often as possible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr X dance. I’m not even sure that he can. I can’t imagine him shaking his stuff under strobe lights, although he must have danced at his wedding. Probably something really naff like a waltz with his wife.
9.12 a.m.
I wonder how his wife is. She must be devastated. She’s probably not sleeping. Or eating. God, I hope she hasn’t done anything stupid.
9.15 a.m.
But it’s not my fault if she has. I can’t be blamed. I didn’t ask him to leave her. I didn’t expect him to. Thank God I don’t know her – that would be awful. I know nothing about her – what she looks like, where she works, nothing. That was always understood between Mr X and me. I was very careful not to bring up her existence and so was he. Anyway, there was never time – we were always too busy getting physical to ever talk that much. The only thing I know is her name – Molly – and that’s only because I had to sign the over-the-top flowery wedding card that UC One presented to Mr X before his big day.
10.29 a.m.
Email from Mr X:
Meet me in the boardroom at 11 a.m.
Hmmm… what’s that about? Why does he want to see me in the boardroom?
10.32 a.m.
Just thought… maybe it’s a coded message. We’ve pledged not to write saucy emails to each other any more, so maybe this is his way of saying he wants to get up to no good with me! He wants to make love to me on the boardroom table!!
10.34 a.m.
Hang on. If Mr X wants to meet me at 11 a.m. that means he’s suggesting we have sex in the boardroom in broad daylight. That’s very risky – we could get caught. Anyone could walk by and see us – there’s no way we can do that.
10.35 a.m.
Just thought: maybe he’s suggesting the boardroom because he wants to make the sex even more exciting by increasing the danger factor. This is more like it! Last night was soooooo dull in bed. Maybe he thought so too and now he wants to spice things up again between us! This is just like old times. Thank God I wore my best leopard-skin thong today. It’s been cutting off circulation to my bottom, but that’s all worth it now!
10.36 a.m.
Not sure I’d like co-workers to catch me in sex act though – could be very embarrassing. Maybe it would be safer to have hot, sweaty sex with Mr X in the failsafe stationery cupboard, where it’s always pitch dark and no one ever goes.
10.37 a.m.
Then again, sex on the boardroom table could be good.
10.38 a.m.
Could be better than good – could be best sex ever. Could be mind-blowing.
10.42 a.m.
Email from UC One:
Have you seen my press clippings this morning? You should take a look. How’s your latest campaign going, by the way? If you need any tips on maximizing publicity, let me know!
Can see UC One smiling smugly at me from here. It’s all I can do to stop myself from leaping across the desk and hitting her with my laptop.
10.49 a.m.
May nip to Ladies, just to tidy up and make sure I look my best before I meet Mr X. Will reapply cherry lip balm and brush highlighting powder across cleavage area to ‘delicately accentuate bosom’, like it says on the box. It’s crucial that Mr X sees my chest looking all glowy and sparkly and finds me utterly irresistible. We can’t start taking each other for granted just because we’ve moved in together. Keeping a spark alive is crucial.
11.41 a.m.
Back at desk.
Did not have mind-blowing sex with Mr X on the boardroom table. When I sashayed in, three of my top buttons undone to highlight my sparkly cleavage, all the UCs were there, shuffling papers and sharpening their pencils. Was a bit shocked at first – surely Mr X hadn’t turned into an orgy-loving weirdo? But then it transpired he had sent that email to everyone, not just me, requesting them to attend a meeting to discuss media strategies for new signings. He didn’t want to ravish me at all. He wanted me to tell everyone my detailed media plan for Mr Dick Lit right there and then. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he’d ambushed me.
Thankfully, Her magazine had just called to request an interview, so I sexed that up a bit. Well, what I actually said was that Elle was very interested in doing a two-page feature on him. Strictly speaking, Elle hasn’t expressed any interest in Mr Dick Lit at all, but no one else needs to know that. Her isn’t exactly the most prestigious title, so I had to exaggerate a bit. Could hear UC One sniggering loudly as I spoke, like she didn’t believe me, but everyone else seemed really impressed, especially Mr X. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Elle gets on board as well. Maybe I could send a fruit basket to the editor to butter her up. That’s what PR is all about after all: building relationships and sucking up to people as much as humanly possible.
11.45 a.m.
Just thought: I’ll tell Her that Elle are interested in Dick Lit when I call back to confirm. No harm spreading the word that he’s in demand and they’re lucky to have him.
11.47 a.m.
Email from N:
Hey there, sneaky girl, you’ve been very quiet… let me guess… you’re so busy shagging your boss you’re too busy to email?
11.48 a.m.
Crap. Can never hide anything from N. She can always tell in a millisecond if I’m lying, even online.
11.50 a.m.
Email to N:
Something like that, but don’t tell R. Will catch up with you soon and fill you in. x
11.56 a.m.
Email from N:
Sounds juicy! Chat soon x
12.01 p.m.
Email from UC One:
Congrats on the Elle interview – look forward to seeing it. What date is that running?
Cow. She knows I’m bluffing.
12.03 p.m.
Email from Mr X:
Well done on your little presentation – it sounded great. Sorry if it seemed like I sprang it on you, but like I said I have to be careful to treat you just like everyone else, so I couldn’t forewarn you. What date is the Elle feature running BTW?
Crap. Don’t tell me he believed that as well. I’ll have to tell him the truth. Then again, he did say he can’t treat me any differently from anyone else, so if I own up I could be in big trouble. Maybe I should keep that information to myself for a while and see how it plays out. He’ll probably forget all about it anyway, especially if I seduce him properly tonight.
Open Forum
From Broken Hearted: You see, you see? Julie, wake up and smell the coffee – he’s trying to assert his control in the bedroom and the office! This is a disaster!
From Hot Stuff: I’m so disappointed they didn’t have sex on the boardroom table – that would have been like something out of a movie!
From Broken Hearted: Well, it isn’t a movie, Hot Stuff. This is the real world and if Julie doesn’t get rid of this guy soon he’s going to ruin her life.
From Devil Woman: Hey, are you speaking from experience?
From Broken Hearted: I might be.
From Devil Woman: Go on, spill, we’re all friends here.
From Broken Hearted: Well… OK. I had an affair with my ma
rried boss too. He used me, promised me the world – then he went back to his wife.
From Devil Woman: Bastard.
From Shaz: Hey, Broken Hearted, if you need legal advice, click on this link.
From Devil Woman: Leave her alone, you creep. The girl’s in real pain.
From Broken Hearted: That’s OK – thanks.
From Hot Stuff: But maybe this is different? Maybe Mr X and Julie are meant to be together?
From Sexy Girl: Yeah, it’s only a bit of fun!
From Broken Hearted: It’s fun until she downs five bottles of pills and a litre of vodka in despair.
From Hot Stuff: Oh no, Broken Hearted – did that happen to you?
From Devil Woman: Well, of course it did, Hot Stuff. Otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up! Are you dense or what?
From Broken Hearted: It’s OK, I’m over him now.
From Angel: It doesn’t sound like that to me.
From Hot Stuff: Yeah, I agree. You really do sound heart-broken, just like your name.
From Sexy Girl: Well, I for one am so disappointed they didn’t do it on the boardroom table. This is getting a bit boring. I don’t think I’m going to read Julie’s blog any more. There are loads of other blogs out there – ones with real drama.
From Hot Stuff: I think you should stick with it. You never know what’s going to happen next. It could get really exciting!
From Sexy Girl: Like what?
From Hot Stuff: Who knows? Maybe his wife will storm the office and try to get him back!
