Sushi for Beginners

by Marian Keyes

  ‘When are you going to start buying smokes again?’ Trix demanded, now that her own were briefly safe. ‘You obviously can’t give them up. And it’s not fair, you must earn millions more than Ashling but you’ve been bumming loads of cigarettes off her.’

  ‘Have I?’ He looked startled.

  ‘Have I?’ He turned his gaze on to Ashling and she seemed to wither away from him in her seat. ‘Sorry, I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘’s OK,’ she mumbled.

  Jack disappeared back into his office and Kelvin observed drily, ‘Betcha he’s inside there kicking himself for exploiting the workers by nicking their smokes. Jack Devine, Working-Class Hero.’

  ‘Wannabe Working-Class Hero, more like,’ Trix scorned.

  ‘How so?’ Ashling couldn’t hide her curiosity.

  ‘He’d love to be a humble craftsman, and do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.’ Trix’s contempt for such modest aspirations was almost tangible.

  ‘Problem was,’ Kelvin expounded, ‘he was born middle-class and burdened with all kinds of advantages. Like an education. Then he gets an MA in communications. Next,’ he lowered his voice ominously, ‘he begins to display excellent managerial skills.’

  ‘Fair broke his heart,’ Trix sighed. ‘I reckon he’s riddled with middle-class guilt. That’s why he’s always offering to fix things. And why he has all those macho hobbies.’

  ‘Which macho hobbies?’

  ‘Well, he goes sailing, that’s macho,’ Trix offered.

  ‘Not very working-class though, is it? Drinking pints, now that’s macho,’ said Kelvin. ‘And riding sexy half-Vietnamese women,’ he added, ‘that’s very macho too.’

  Ashling sidled tentatively up to Lisa. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Lisa sang, not even looking up from her desk. ‘I don’t want to come for a drink with you and Trix or your friend Joy or anyone else this evening. Or any evening.’

  Everyone sniggered, to Lisa’s gratification.

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask you that.’ An embarrassed liver-coloured patch crawled up Ashling’s neck. She’d only been trying to be nice to a stranger in Dublin, but Lisa made it sound like she fancied her. ‘It’s a work-related question. Why don’t we have a problem page with a difference?’

  ‘What’s the difference, Einstein?’

  ‘We get a psychic to do the anwers, instead of a counsellor.’

  Lisa was thoughtful. Not a bad idea. Very zeitgeisty, what with everyone on the hunt for a spiritual element to fix their lives. She believed none of it herself – taking the line that her happiness was very much in her own hands – but that was no reason not to peddle it to the masses. ‘Maybe.’

  Relief soothed the sting of Lisa’s innuendo. In the short time Ashling had been working at Colleen, constant anxiety about her lack of ideas had gnawed at her. Then Ted suggested that she think about what she’d like from a magazine and suddenly avenues opened up. Anything to do with tarot, reiki, feng shui, affirmations, angels, white witches and spells piqued her interest.

  Jack’s door opened again and everyone flung themselves protectively on their cigarettes.

  ‘Lisa?’ Jack called. ‘Can I have a word?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Elegantly she got up from her desk, wondering what he wanted to talk to her about. Could it be that he was going to ask her out?

  When he instructed her to shut the door her excitement mounted. And instantly disappeared when he said apologetically, ‘There’s no easy way of saying this.’

  He paused, his handsome face shuttered by discomfort.

  Lisa said coolly, ‘Go on.’

  ‘We’re not making the advertising,’ he said, baldly. ‘Nobody’s biting. We’re only up to –’ He checked the memo on his desk, ‘– twelve per cent of what we’d projected.’

  Lisa twitched with fear. This had never happened before. Though they’d always negotiated off ratecard, designers and cosmetic companies had been falling over themselves to take out full-page ads when she’d been editor of Femme. And as everyone in magazines knows, the income generated from selling ads is far in excess of that garnered from cover-price sales. At least it should be. If companies can’t be persuaded that a particular publication is the right vehicle in which to advertise their product, it goes under. Panic swept up Lisa in a prickly wave. How would she ever live down the failure of a stillborn magazine?

  ‘It’s early days,’ she tried.

  Reluctantly he had to shake his head. It wasn’t, they both knew that. Before Colleens editorial staff had arrived, Margie had been doing pre-production work for over a month: interested advertisers had had plenty of time to bite. Lisa burned with humiliation. She wanted this man to respect and desire her and instead he was bound to think she was a failure.

  ‘But don’t they know… ?’ she couldn’t stop herself from blurting.

  ‘Know what?’

  She tried to reformulate and couldn’t. ‘Know that I’m the editor?’

  ‘Your name carries a lot of weight,’ Jack said, tactfully, and when she saw how unpleasant he too was finding this, it soothed the sting. ‘But new marketplace, new audience, no track record…’

  ‘I thought you said that Margie was a Rottweiler. That she could persuade God to place an ad.’ When in doubt, blame someone else. A motto that had served Lisa well thus far in her career.

  Margie’s great at getting ads from Irish companies,’ Jack explained. ‘But the London office is handling the international cosmetic and fashion houses.

  ‘Where are we at?’ he asked. ‘What kind of definite features have we? We need to throw a couple of bones to the London office, for them to show the potential ad-placers.’

  Lisa’s face was a white mask as she searched around in her head. Definite features! She’d been in this fucking job less than two weeks, thrown in at the deep end, in a strange country. She’d been knocking herself out trying to get a handle on things, and already they wanted to know definite features!

  ‘Just a rough idea,’ Jack said, with heartbreaking gentleness. ‘Sorry to do this to you.’

  ‘Why don’t we all go to the boardroom for a progress meeting?’ Lisa suggested, an unresponsive wobbliness about her knees. And to think that everyone thought editing a magazine was glamorous. It was the most terrifying, sleepless-night-inducing job, with no certainty, no respite. Just trying to make the figures every month. And as soon as you’d strained and sweated yourself to the limit to do so, you had to turn around and start all over again. All you were was a glorified salesman. In an attempt at dynamism she swept from Jack’s office, but her leg muscles were pulpy and she had a sheen of perspiration above her lip. ‘Boardroom, everyone, now!’

  All the people who didn’t work on Colleen sniggered, delighted that they weren’t being bollocked.

  ‘Right then.’ Lisa played for time by giving a terrifying smile around the boardroom table. ‘Perhaps you’d all like to tell Jack and me what you’ve been doing for the past two weeks. Ashling?’

  ‘I’ve sent out press releases to all the fashion houses and –’

  ‘Press releases?’ Lisa asked, sarcastically. ‘Is there no beginning to your talents?’

  Dutiful sniggers issued from Trix, Gerry and Bernard.

  ‘So punters are going to pay £2.50 to read Colleen’s press releases? Features, Ashling, I’m talking features! What have you?’

  Bewildered by her aggression, Ashling gave her salsa report. As she described the lesson, the teacher and the other pupils Lisa relaxed slightly. This was good. Encouraged by Lisa’s nodding, Ashling enthused about the club that had been on after the lesson. ‘It was great. Proper old-fashioned dancing with lots of body contact. It was actually very –’ For some reason she hesitated over using the word with Jack Devine in the room. He made her so uncomfortable. ‘Very sexy’

  ‘And the romance factor?’ Lisa asked, cutting to the chase. ‘Did you meet any blokes?’

  Ashling squirmed. ‘I, um,
had a dance with a man,’ she admitted.

  As everyone squealed and fell over themselves to get details, Jack Devine watched her through half-closed eyes.

  ‘It was only a dance,’ Ashling protested. ‘He didn’t even ask me my name.’

  ‘You got photos of the club,’ Lisa said. It wasn’t a question. At Ashling’s nod, she went on, ‘We’ll do a four-page spread on it. Two thousand words, asap. Make it entertaining.’

  Clammy dread flushed down Ashling and she would have given anything to still be working at Woman’s Place. She couldn’t write. Toiling hard at the boring stuff was her forte, she was really, really marvellous at it, and that had been the basis Colleen had hired her on. Couldn’t Mercedes write it, or one of the freelancers?

  ‘Problem?’ Lisa twisted her mouth sarcastically.

  ‘No,’ Ashling whispered. But her guts seized in fear as she realized she was in over her head. Joy would have to help her. Or perhaps Ted – he had to draft lots of reports for his job in the Department of Agriculture.

  Next on the agenda was Trix’s column on an ordinary girl’s life. The first one was on the perils of two-timing. On what a pain it was to be in bed with one boyfriend and for another to call to the house and for your mother to let him in. It was funny, outrageous and entirely true.

  ‘Good Lord, Patricia Quinn,’ Jack shook his head in amusement. ‘I’ve been living a very sheltered life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Trix exclaimed. ‘Him and me Ma in the lounge watching Heartbeat, and me trapped in the bedroom with the other one, making excuses not to leave. I aged ten years.’

  ‘And that’d make you what? Twenty-five?’ Jack’s eyes crinkled with laughter.

  Ashling looked at him in a type of sour wonder. Why is he always so horrible to me? Why isn’t he ever amused by me? Just as she concluded that perhaps she simply wasn’t amusing, she caught sight of Lisa’s face. A lambent determination and hard admiration. She fancies him, Ashling realized, and her stomach flip-flopped. If anyone could lure Jack Devine away from the exotic Mai, Lisa could. What must it be like to have that kind of power?

  Then Lisa outlined a ‘fun’ feature that she’d thought of that very minute. A review of the sexiest hotel beds in Ireland. Graded according to crispness of bed linen, firmness of mattress, size of bonking space, and ‘the handcuff factor’ – wrought iron bedheads or the limbs of four-poster canopies were ideal.

  ‘God, whatever they’re paying you, you’re worth it!’ Trix overflowed with admiration.

  ‘Mercedes?’ Lisa challenged.

  ‘We’re going to Donegal on Friday to shoot an exclusive of Frieda Kiely’s Winter collection,’ Mercedes said smugly. ‘We should get a twelve-page spread from it.’

  Frieda Kiely was an Irish designer who sold very well abroad. She made wild, gorgeous confections; rough Irish tweed matched with feather-light chiffon; sheeny Ulster linen married with squares of crocheted silk; knitted sleeves that reached the floor. The whole effect was romantic and untamed. A bit too untamed for Lisa, actually. If you were paying those kind of prices – not that she ever would, of course – she’d prefer the sleek tailoring of Mr Gucci.

  ‘How about an interview with her?’ Lisa suggested.

  Mercedes laughed. ‘Oh no, she’s bonkers. You wouldn’t get a word of sense from her.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lisa barked. ‘It would make for interesting reading.’

  ‘You don’t know what she’s like…’

  ‘We’re showcasing her Winter collection, the least she can do is tell us what she has for breakfast.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Impress me,’ Lisa glinted, in a parody of Calvin Carter. Which might have amused Mercedes had she known what Lisa was doing. But she didn’t, so her only option was to flash Lisa a nasty glare.

  Jack turned his attention to Gerry. ‘How are we getting on with the cover?’

  Lisa watched anxiously. Gerry was so quiet that she paid him no attention and consequently she hadn’t a clue if he was any good at his job. But Gerry whipped out several cover prototypes – three different girls overlaid with a selection of typefaces and text. The mood he’d created was remarkably sexy and fun.

  ‘Excellent,’ Jack enthused.

  Then he turned to Lisa. ‘And how are we getting on with the celebrity column?’

  ‘Working on it,’ Lisa smiled smoothly. Bono and the Corrs were refusing to return her calls. ‘But more interestingly, even though we’re a women’s magazine and our audience will be ninety-five per cent women, I think there’s a real case for having a column by a man in Colleen.’

  Just a minute, Ashling thought, her brain bruising with shock, that was my idea…

  Her mouth worked, making silent ‘Oh’s and ‘Ah’s, as Lisa continued blithely, ‘There’s a stand-up comedian and my sources tell me he’s about to go stellar. Thing is he won’t do anything for a women’s magazine, but I’m going to convince him otherwise.’

  You bitch, Ashling thought. You fucking, fucking bitch. And didn’t anyone else remember? Hadn’t anyone else noticed… ?

  ‘I…’ Ashling managed.

  ‘What?’ Lisa shot, her golden face terrifying, her grey eyes as hard and cold as marbles.

  Ashling, never the best at standing up for herself, mumbled, ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’ll be a great coup,’ Lisa smiled at Jack.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Marcus Valentine.’

  ‘Are you serious!’ Jack was genuinely animated.

  ‘Wh – who?’ Ashling asked, shock heaped upon shock.

  ‘Marcus Valentine,’ Lisa said impatiently. ‘Have you heard of him?’

  Ashling nodded mutely. That freckly bloke hadn’t looked like a man ‘about to go stellar’. Lisa must be mistaken. But she seemed so sure of her facts…

  ‘He’s on on Saturday night in a place called the River Club,’ Lisa said. ‘You and I will go, Ashling.’

  ‘The River Club?’ Ashling had gone nearly as hoarse as Trix. ‘Saturday night?’

  ‘Yesss.’ Lisa writhed in impatience.

  ‘My friend Ted is on too,’ Ashling heard herself say.

  Lisa narrowed her eyes appraisingly. ‘Oh yeah? Great. We can get a backstage introduction.’

  ‘Good job I haven’t any plans for Saturday night,’ Ashling heard spilling from her normally meek mouth.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lisa agreed, coolly. ‘Good job.’

  As everyone filed out of the boardroom, Lisa turned to Jack. ‘Happy?’ she challenged.

  ‘You’re amazing,’ he said, with simple sincerity. ‘Quite amazing. Thank you. I’ll talk to them in London.’

  ‘How soon will we know?’

  ‘Probably not until next week. Don’t worry, you’ve come up with some great ideas, I suspect it’ll be fine. Six o’clock OK with you to go and see the house?’

  Raw and raging with injustice, Ashling returned to her desk. She was never going to be nice to that bitch again. To think she’d felt sorry for her, friendless in an unfamiliar country. She’d tried to forgive Lisa her constant bitchy put-downs on the basis that she must be unhappy and frightened. Sometimes to Ashling’s shame she’d even half-laughed when Lisa had implied that Dervla was fat, Mercedes hairy, Shauna Griffin in-bred, herself pathetically clingy. But now, Lisa Edwards could die of loneliness for all she, Ashling Kennedy, cared.

  Slapped on her George Clooney screen-saver was a yellow Post-it, saying that ‘Dillon’ had rung. She peeled it off, the screen crackling with static. Surely it wasn’t October already? Dylan rang Ashling twice a year. In October and December. To ask what he should get Clodagh for her birthday and for Christmas.

  She rang him back.

  ‘Hi Ashling. Time for a quick drink tomorrow after work?’

  ‘Can’t. I’ve got a horrible article to write – maybe later in the week, OK? Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. Maybe. I’ll be away at a conference. I’ll give you a shout when I get back.’

>   15

  ‘Ready, Lisa?’ Jack asked, appearing at her desk at ten past six.

  Watched silently by their gossip-hungry colleagues, they left the office and got the lift down to the car-park.

  The second they were in the car, Jack ripped his tie from his neck and flung it into the back seat, then tore open the first two buttons on his shirt.

  ‘That’s better,’ he sighed. ‘And go for it yourself,’ he invited. ‘Take off whatever you want –’ He broke off the end of the sentence abruptly and a mortified hiatus followed. The heat of his discomfort reached Lisa. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered grimly. ‘That came out wrong.’

  Agitatedly he ran his hand through his messy hair, so that the front stood up in silky peaks before flopping back down on to his forehead.

  ‘No problem.’ Lisa smiled politely, but the tiny downy hairs on the nape on her neck rose sharply. Shocked and excited at the image of undressing for Jack in his car, feeling those dark eyes on her naked body, the cool of the leather seats against the heat of her skin. Nipping her lip in determination, she vowed to make it happen.

  After a suitable recovery period Jack spoke again. ‘Let me tell you about the house.’ He steered into the Dublin evening traffic. ‘The deal is, Brendan is going to work in the States. He’s got an eighteen-month contract, which might be extended, but it would mean that you’d have the place for a year and a half, anyway. After that we’d have to see.’

  Lisa shifted noncommitally. It didn’t matter because she didn’t intend to be here in a year and a half’s time.

  ‘It’s off the South Circular Road, which is very central,’ Jack promised. ‘It’s an area of Dublin that still has a lot of character. It hasn’t been yuppified to fuck.’

  Lisa’s spirits started a slow slither. She was desperate to live in a place that had been yuppified to fuck.

  ‘There’s a strong sense of community. Lots of families live here.’

  Lisa wanted nothing to do with families. She wanted to be surrounded by other singles and to bump into attractive men at her local Tesco Metro buying Kettle Chips and Chardonnay. Dully, she watched Jack’s hands on the steering wheel, her churning misery calmed by the confidence with which they glanced off and guided the leather.