The Stand In

by Alam, Donna

  We take a seat under the bare trees and open our respective lunches. Archer takes a man-sized dent out of his baguette almost immediately while I struggle to swallow my first mouthful. I shouldn’t have come here with him. I should’ve ambushed him in the office before lunch because then I wouldn’t have seen this side to him, and I wouldn’t be feeling so awful.

  But it’s me or him. And at least I can now use my conversation with Allison. Share the blame, almost. Or so I’ll tell myself.

  ‘So I, erm, saw Allison in the kitchen this morning?’

  ‘Allison?’

  ‘From accounts? Hair the colour of burned paper and the personality of Maleficent, mistress of darkness?’

  Archer begins to choke on a lump of half masticated sandwich.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Is it weird that by your description I know exactly who you’re talking about? You just described her to a T.’ His words are still a little strangled, and he brings his hand to his mouth, coughing once into his fist. ‘Do you reckon she’s a witch, or is it just that she listens at keyholes? She’s scarily well informed, right?’

  Thanks for setting that up for me.

  ‘What keyholes? What doors, for that matter? Doors are anticommunity, remember?’

  ‘We can’t complain.’ Sandwich distress rectified, he grins like a schoolboy who’s just been told classes are cancelled today. ‘We both have offices.’

  ‘And doors.’

  ‘But no keyholes.’

  ‘Regardless, she’s been listening to you somewhere.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Archer tears a little bread from his baguette, throwing it in the direction of a couple of tiny sparrows pecking at the ground. We watch as the birds take flight momentarily before landing again to argue over the morsel.

  ‘She tells me you’re not going to Poppy’s wedding next week.’

  ‘Ah. Yeah. She’s right. Weddings aren’t really my scene.’

  Quelle surpris. ‘I thought everyone loved a wedding, marrieds, singles, and singles hoping not to be.’

  ‘You mean singles hoping not to be for the night?’

  I redden under the scrutiny of his gaze.

  ‘Yes, wedding hookups,’ I mumble, looking at my lap and poking my salad again.

  ‘Also, I wasn’t invited.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I haven’t been here very long.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose the invites did go out a while ago.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to go.’ I glance up mournfully and sigh, my shoulders rising and falling in a way he can’t fail to notice.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I already RSVP’d, and when I did, I was seeing someone.’ It’s not strictly a lie. I see people all the time, especially when my eyes are open.

  ‘And now you’re not? Seeing someone, I mean.’

  My gaze drops to my salad container, and I squish a little squash against the side of the plastic. I’m not what you’d call a proficient liar. I’m also not comfortable with lying, even more so as I sit in this quiet park with a man I think I’ve underestimated on several fronts.

  ‘I got dumped. But I’ve already prepaid for the hotel, so I’ll have to make an appearance.’

  ‘You don’t sound too cut up about it. More inconvenienced.’

  Should I say the split was months ago, or does that make me sound an even bigger loser? I go with something else entirely.

  ‘I’m a private sort of person.’ My eyes rise briefly again, but I can’t hold his gaze. ‘A private person who works in a goldfish bowl.’

  ‘What is it about that lot? I mean, gossip is a given for any office, but they are by far the nosiest bunch of bastards I’ve ever met.’

  ‘You’ll get no argument from me.’

  ‘So you’re going stag?’

  ‘I’d rather perform a frontal lobotomy on myself with nothing but this spork.’ I hold it up in front of me before stabbing it back into the container before managing to swallow a mouthful of watercress and onion.

  ‘But others will be there. From the office, I mean. You don’t like your teammates?’ he asks when I don’t answer.

  ‘I like some of them. I tolerate others. Some of them I can’t stand.’

  ‘That sounds pretty familiar. We can’t like and be liked by everyone.’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem to manage it okay.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m such an affable soul.’

  ‘Are you? Or is it that you’re just more adept at manipulating people?’ Was that too harsh? It sounds harsh, though he doesn’t deny it, and his posture stiffens a touch.

  ‘Maybe you don’t even realise you’re doing it. Honestly, I wish I could be a little more velvet glove myself.’ But I’m more likely to slip on the velvet gloves to strangle someone than be able to go out of my way to be nice to someone who doesn’t deserve it.

  ‘It’s not such a bad place to work,’ he replies mildly.

  ‘Apart from the gossip. And my boss.’

  ‘Haydn, isn’t it? He’s the head of marketing?’ I nod. ‘And a bit of a dick, I’m guessing?’

  ‘That is a vast understatement,’ I reply with a sigh. ‘He’s always had more dick in his personality than he has in his pants. I mean, not that I’d know, but I can surmise. Anyway,’ I add, hurrying on, ‘for some reason, he’s gotten worse lately.’

  ‘Something happened?’

  ‘Well, he’s always had a very high opinion of himself, but we had a bit of a bust up a few months ago, and let’s just say that he got a little personal.’

  ‘Ah.’ Archer places what’s left of his sandwich on the bench, turning to face me.

  Ah? Ah what? This is usually the point in the proceedings where people, upon being told my boss has is an awful prick, they pull their what the fuck face.

  Where is his what the fuck face? His understanding? His empathy?

  ‘You don’t seem surprised. Do you know about this already?’ And if so, who told you, so I can end them this afternoon in a tragic photocopier accident.

  No, officer. I have no idea how the photocopier came to land on his or her head. Or how it made its way from the stairwell down.

  Stretching out his long legs, he folds his arms across his chest. ‘It just answers a few questions. Remind me again,’ he says, tilting his head like a therapy dog, ‘why you feel like you have to go to this wedding?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ I almost growl.

  ‘But it’s somehow linked to falling out with your arsehole of a boss?’

  He’s astute. And I don’t like it.

  ‘Because Haydn will think I’ve stayed away to avoid him, and I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.’

  ‘What’s his beef?’

  ‘Who knows what goes on in that man’s mind. All I know is that I run the social media accounts for a couple of clients who are in the online dating market. One of them is app based and the target market is a young demographic, and the other is an introduction agency aimed at professionals over forty.’ I set my lunch down beside me, turning bodily to face him, my left foot linked behind my right calf. ‘He’d made some rambling comments before this about my posts not having enough poetry.’

  ‘Poetry for the Tinder generation?’ His mouth lifts in a slow grin.

  ‘Exactly. What the hell does that look like?’

  ‘Roses are red, ducks go quack, take off your knickers, and get on your back.’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t asked.’ My expression scrunches as his shoulders begin to shake with an attack of the giggles. No, that’s not right. Men like him don’t giggle, do they?

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. Go on.’

  I sigh and begin again. ‘That day, I don’t know if he’d fallen out with his therapist, or if someone peed in his bran flakes or something, but Emika, the intern—’

  ‘The young girl with a thing for Miku?’

  ‘Hence the aqua-coloured hair.’ I mime extravagant ponytails, flicking the air ma
jestically. I’m mildly amused how he knows the name of the Japanese synthetic pop that spills from her headphones most of the day. The stuff that makes it difficult to give her instructions. ‘Her name was Emmy when she first started, but now she insists Emmy was short for Emika from the start. Which, according to HR, Emika must be short for Emilia, because that’s her name for official tax purposes.’

  ‘Jay said she’s a weeb. Is that the term?’

  ‘It’s a term but not a very pretty one, as I understand, but more derogative. Em is a non-Japanese person obsessed with all thing’s anime, which she tells me makes her otaku. And us normies, apparently.’

  ‘As clear as mud. Thanks.’

  ‘I know. She makes me feel ancient. But she’s so sweet and she has the most adorable lisp. I love the way she says my name. But she’s seriously switched on, too. Most days.’

  ‘Except the day she cocked up, forcing Haydn to suffer a bout of temporary insanity, which was manifested in an attack of ridiculousness against you?’ He leans back, sort of satisfied. ‘It kind of all makes sense now.’

  At that oblique addendum, I find I’m now pulling my what the fuck face.

  ‘How could any of what that idiot said make sense?’ I splutter angrily.

  ‘Not him. What’s been said. In-house, I mean.’

  ‘What’s been said,’ I repeat, confused. And angry. I’m confangry, dammit!

  ‘Nothing worth repeating and not the sort of thing anyone with half a brain would take seriously.’

  Ohmygod. When someone says it’s not serious, it’s usually terminal. He knows that Haydn said I’d never been a relationship, and I’m going to tell him his part in my plan and he’s going to laugh. He’s going to say I’m like the end pieces of a loaf of bread. The bits that everyone touches but nobody wants. Except no one touches me because I don’t let them get near.

  Calm down. Deep breaths. Tears aren’t going to help anyone here.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ I shrug off the hand currently touching my shoulder. ‘I-I’ve just got something in my eye.’ Solve two issues with one excuse because what kind of freak doesn’t like to be touched by strangers?

  ‘Hey.’ He slides me a raffish half smile. ‘I wasn’t about to jump you. For one thing, it’s too cold on this bench. For another, I don’t get involved with the women I work with.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear.’ Oops!

  ‘Okay, I’ll bite.’ He turns, mirroring my position, though he hooks his elbow over the back of the bench. We’re face to face and a little too close, but lines have been drawn, and I’m not backing down.

  ‘We all know why you came to work here. We’ve heard about the woman at your last agency, the one you drove to nervous exhaustion. How she ended up in hospital and you got the sack.’

  I’d expected him to be offended or for him to rear back with indignation. What I didn’t expect was for him to draw closer still with a soft chuckle.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘The rumour mill. She didn’t end up in hospital, unless you count a weekend at a luxury spa, courtesy of her parents, as some sort of mental health treatment. It seems an afternoon spent cutting all the right arms off my shirts and the left legs off my pants was something that needed a weekend of celery juice, yoga, and massage to recover from.’

  ‘But you got the sack!’

  ‘You can’t be sacked for coming to a disagreement over the meaning of a casual shag. I wasn’t fired, and I wasn’t asked to leave. I left. I got a better offer at E11even. It really is as simple as that.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I reply, narrowing my gaze. ‘Because your reputation proceeds you. I don’t know about casual shagging, but you are so a serial shagger.’

  ‘You make that sound like it’s a bad thing. It also seems to me you’ve spent some time thinking about it. Let me know if you want to do something other than think. I might make an exception to my nonfraternization rule for you.’

  ‘Sorry, I gave up serial shaggers as part of my New Year’s resolution.’ The retort sounds more like something Vee would say, but he seems to find it funny. Which wasn’t my aim, but who does he think he is? Well, I’m about to take him down a peg or two. ‘Besides, you can’t afford another mistake like last time.’

  ‘Are you offering to lose your head over me, Heather?’

  My answer is a disparaging rush of air as I resolutely ignore the flare in his gaze, and the way it echoes the wild possessiveness of dream Archer and his desire for me.

  ‘So I’m not interested in being tied down?’ He makes a flippant gesture with his hand, which somehow reminds me of a shrug. ‘It doesn’t make me a bad man. Especially for the night.’

  I’m pretty sure Vee would agree with his sentiment, but it doesn’t make it right. Not for me.

  ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’ It’s fair to see he doesn’t look devastated, which needles me. ‘I’m not really interested in joining your court of cast-offs.’

  ‘Look,’ he answers, straightening, ‘it’s not as though it’s a case of me against them.’

  Note how he doesn’t include me in this scenario; it’s not a case of me against you, Heather. Me against you, pressed up against the wall, my lips on your neck, making jelly of your legs. My eyes widen with shock, the image of exactly this like the thrust of two fingers between my legs. My body clenches emptily, my cheeks burning and probably red. I force myself to sit straighter, only it feels like the opposite of what I want to do.

  ‘There are plenty of women who are only interested in a casual thing,’ he continues, unaware. ‘You make it sound like I’m some moustache-twirling villain, luring chaste maidens by nefarious means and tying them to train tracks. I mean, there might be a little light bondage but never without their consent.’

  I blink once, twice, and rather heavily, my mind stuck on the candid nature of his words. Bondage. A little light bondage. Who brings that up in passing conversation? Who is that comfortable in their own sexuality? In their own skin? And why has it sent all the blood in my body to my cheeks?

  But he did it. He admitted to being a bit of a man slut. It’s one thing to hear it whispered about him, but quite another to get it from the horse’s mouth. I’m pleased when it appears he hasn’t noticed my silence, the moments it has taken to process, to calm myself, as he carries on.

  ‘I’m straightforward. I’m up front about not wanting to get involved and honest with the women I sleep with in advance.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ I answer snidely because I really don’t get it. How can anyone want to get intimate with someone they don’t know? ‘Only, I’m sure lots of them say the right thing beforehand, dazzled by the Archer Powell effect, yet hoping against hope that they’ll be the special one to capture your heart.’

  ‘I think you’re doing your sex a disservice, babe. Do yourself a favour, don’t take on any feminist media gigs.’

  ‘Don’t call me that and don’t presume you know anything about me.’

  ‘But presume is all we do. It’s all we can do at work. Because cultivating an air of mystery only means people become curious. You wouldn’t believe the things people say about you trying to guess your angle.’

  ‘I also wouldn’t care. They can say what they like and think what they like because unlike you, I prefer to keep my life private.’

  ‘I don’t have a sign above my desk,’ he says with a low chuckle.

  ‘Maybe not, but I’ve seen you fluttering those luxurious lashes at your fan girls to get them to do your bidding.’ I raise my hand, my fingers wiggling ridiculously.

  ‘And now you’re complimenting my eyelashes. Thanks.’

  ‘You’re playing with fire.’

  ‘I can stand the heat.’

  ‘Not if you want to keep your job. I’m talking about Thursday of course.’

  ‘Not this again.’ His gaze slides away as though I’m boring him.

  ‘Yes, this again, because you’re not as clever as you think.’
>
  ‘I don’t take well to threats, Heather, even badly veiled ones. Seeing me with Clara neither means nor proves anything.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘Yeah, says me.’

  Maybe I’m being foolish, but I’m beginning to think he’s telling the truth. Not that I’ll share that with him just yet.

  ‘I’m not sure management would see the difference. Old Lambeth is very old fashioned. He’ll have heard all about the receptionist from your old place.’

  ‘And if he has, it didn’t put him off hiring me.’

  ‘But that was before he got wind of you getting your grubby hands on his daughter.’

  Maybe that was a little too mean, I wonder as his gaze narrows, a tiny muscle beginning to jump in his jaw.

  ‘I told you, nothing happened, but if you want to go running to him to say otherwise, go ahead. Make a fool of yourself.’ He leans away as though he’s hit on the close to our argument.

  ‘I’m not going to say anything.’ And I wouldn’t, but I’m willing to use it as a threat.

  It’s me or him, I repeat to myself. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, it’s not like I’ll be doing him any harm beyond the pleasure of my company.

  ‘Then why are we having this conversation? Again.’

  ‘Because of Allison.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he mumbles under his breath. ‘What has she got to do with any of this?’

  ‘I’d say she seems to have something of an interest because not only did she tell me you weren’t into weddings but also that I shouldn’t plan on dropping my knickers because you brought me a cupcake.’

  ‘She doesn’t miss a fucking trick,’ he mutters to himself. ‘She doesn’t even work on the same floor.’

  ‘Oh but wait, there’s more. She’s got a thing for you, hasn’t she?’

  Archer neither confirms nor denies. In fact, it seems as though not a muscle in his face moves this time.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not a question of you incriminating yourself. I can’t see yellow blonde forty-somethings being your type. I’d venture to guess you’ve let her down, oh, so very gently, of course.’

  ‘I’ve told you; I don’t get involved with anyone at work, regardless of what you think you’ve seen.’ This he answers with more sincerity than anything else he’s said since we sat down on this bench. And I believe him, mostly. But thanks to Allison cementing my plans, none of it matters.