by Foster, Zoe
‘So you’ll tell him?’ Lily asked, because it wasn’t a given with Simone. Despite her waxing lyrical about being true to yourself and honesty setting you free and acai being the answer to everything, she took a slightly different tack when it came to her own life.
‘Jack is such a good guy. This would kill him.’
That was a no, then.
Lily fought the temptation to yell that Jack deserved the truth, and furthermore, unlike Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, he could handle it. She took a deep breath and said nothing.
‘How are things with Jack anyway?’ Lily asked, clearing her throat as she did. As far as she could ascertain, the shiny gleam of their relationship had become more matte of late. But for Simone to even be chatting to and hanging out with Michael, let alone sleeping with him, showed evidence of big cracks. Huge.
‘Yeah, fine. I mean, obviously we’ve both been away lately, but we’ve texted heaps . . . He’s just so . . . decent, babe. So good and nice and kind to me.’
‘It kind of sounds like you’re saying those like they’re negatives,’ Lily said, thinking back to her conversations about ‘nice’ Byron with Alice.
Simone looked at Lily, thinking. She roughly wiped her nose with the back of her wrist and thought some more.
‘I don’t think I’m used to it. The more perfect he is, the worse I feel about myself. Does that make sense? I’m not on his level, babe. I’m not who he needs. Maybe that’s why I’ve been acting up lately; it’s having this weird reverse effect on me, because I think deep down he knows he can do better, so why try to prove him wrong? Why should I change who I am when he won’t stick around once he gets to know the real me anyway?’
Simone looked at Lily with her swollen, red eyes and Lily’s heart broke. Here was a beautiful young woman, a genetically flawless, smart, spiritual, positive, kind, successful, generous, fun woman, who had no clue just how rare she was, and what a good person she was. Lily’s eyes welled with sorrow for her friend, for the demons that continued to plague her.
‘Sim, no more, “I’m not good enough” talk. There is no one like you. No one. You have it all, anything you want to be, have or do; it’s yours. You gotta start practising that self-help shit you spout. And as for Jack, or any man, of course you are good enough for him! He is lucky to have you. So lucky. He knows that. I know that. Do you know that? I fear you really don’t, Sim.’
Sim sniffed and tucked some hair behind her ear, and seemed to process what her friend was saying. Lily knew Simone had tried to bluff her way into self-confidence a million times, but the truth was she would never feel good enough. Never feel as pretty as people said she was. Never be as successful or young or fit as the next girl. Never be the ‘perfect girlfriend’. She had to work hard, harder than the others to stay afloat, and she always would. It was crushing, this pressure, and it was what propelled her need to escape so often.
‘I have to go back on my antidepressants, I think. Can’t sleep or relax without a few barbs and I can’t feel good without something helping me up.’
Lily was quiet. Simone hadn’t been on antidepressants for years.
‘Have you, would you talk to Jack about this stuff?’ Lily thought Jack would be the perfect ear for this, Michael stuff notwithstanding. He’d been down his own path of addiction after all.
Simone laughed. It was a bitter, unhappy, sarcastic laugh.
‘Oh yeah, cos confiding in boyfriends worked a treat with Michael!’
‘Oh, come on. They’re incomparable, gender aside. What about that therapist you had? Mrs Whatsername, with the big nose?’
‘Do you know Michael hasn’t even called or texted since last night?’
It was becoming obvious that while Simone was upset, she wasn’t exactly remorseful. She seemed to view the whole episode as inevitable. And it pissed Lily off. She wasn’t going to enable this any more. She stood up and walked around to the other side of the bed. She snatched the foil packets from the beside table, and then, yanking open the drawer underneath, found a few more telltale white pharmacy boxes and packets, and small plastic bottles, and snatched them up, too.
‘What are you doing!’ Simone shrieked, a mother having her baby stripped from her.
‘Don’t take those! I need them to sleep – they’re nothing, those ones, people use them all the time, on planes and whatever, babe, what are you doing!’
Lily cradled the packets in close to her chest, lest Simone lunge at her.
‘I can’t change the way you think about yourself, Sim, but I can tell you that I no longer support this. It’s dangerous. I won’t stand by and watch it any more. I support you, I love you, but you need to sort your shit out.’
With one last look at Simone – a small, shell of herself, outrage and disbelief flashing in her puffy eyes – Lily sighed and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
31
Lily stood in the shower, slowly massaging the shampoo through her hair. Her day loomed ominously in front of her. She planned to tell Sasha she was leaving today, and on top of that she would be forced to work with poor Jack, whose girlfriend she knew had cheated on him.
She hadn’t heard or seen from Sim since last night; her bedroom door remained closed, but the sound of thumping to the bathroom and back earlier this morning reassured Lily that her housemate wasn’t in the wrong/tragic/eternal kind of slumber. Lily was pissed off that she had to think like that at all, before remembering she needed to be there for her friend, not judge and admonish her. She’d said her piece last night; Simone knew where she stood.
On set an hour later, Jack was making pork belly, and for some reason, even though it was a meal Lily loved, and one often used in her and Alice’s game of Death Row Meal, today it was making her nauseous. The syrupy caramel scent of the sauce was burning her nostrils, and the look of the uncooked pig was turning her stomach. The segment was sliced in half for an ad break, and Mel and Rob started chatting to Jack as he prepared the cabbage and chilli side dish. They were in remarkably good spirits despite being ‘let go’, but rumour was it they were being paid out handsomely for the remainder of their contract. Mel winked at Lily playfully as she was wont to do, and Lily realised just how much she’d miss them. She’d miss all of them. Especially Jack.
At that very moment Jack looked up at her, and they locked eyes. The knowledge of Simone’s misdemeanour felt like an enormous clown nose on Lily’s face, and she immediately looked away. She was being a shitty producer this morning, absent and distracted, but she couldn’t seem to normalise. There was far – truckloads – too much going on in her head to hang around the kitchen bench and chinwag with the talent today. They’d all understand once the news got out.
‘Lily?’
Lily spun around to see Sasha, a picture of layered, ruffled perfection with emerald-green earrings and vibrant red-orange lipstick.
‘I got your email, what’s up?’
‘Oh, um, I just, I needed to speak with you about something.’
‘Can we speak now?’ Lily couldn’t tell if Sasha knew what was going on and was being deliberately nonchalant, or if she genuinely thought Lily wanted to discuss something insignificant, such as Jack’s need for more fancy Le Creuset casserole dishes, which the budget, like everything fancy he asked for, wouldn’t permit.
Lily flashed a look at the set, which was due to light up with live, porky magic in sixty seconds. Sasha knew better than to interrupt mid-segment. She clearly hadn’t put two and two together yet.
‘Um, is it okay if I come and see you after the show?’
‘I’m around til eleven. Come by my office.’ She nodded towards the set. ‘And if there’s any of that pork belly left, do bring it with you.’
Lily smiled. ‘Of course.’ She would miss Sasha, she realised with regret and a stab of fear about making the wrong decision. She’d wanted so desperately to impress her and advance and advance and advance, and she’d failed. She’d come to The Daily full of hubris and entitlement,
expecting a promotion in six months, and to be on her track to EP within two years, and she hadn’t even been able to beat a twit to series producer.
Lily tried to smile, focus and enjoy the remainder of the segment, but all she saw was a blazing red FAIL sign. At least she had Greece. Greece would be exciting, inspiring, sunny, invigorating. Maybe she would even have a summer fling . . . Mimi was always banging on about how gorgeous the Greek boys were. The less blonde-haired and blue-eyed the better, frankly. She checked her phone for the time; Mimi would already be at the airport, soaking up the cheese and champagne in the business-class lounge, all decked out in her finest travel cashmere tracksuit. Good for her. She knew how to live.
A text buzzed in her hand as she was replacing her phone.
Hun, I’m so sorry about last night. And everything I know I have work to do. xoxo
She was still alive, Lily thought, releasing a breath she didn’t even realise she’d been holding. Thank fuck for that.
She wondered when Sim and Jack would speak, and whether Simone would tell him what she’d done. She figured she might feel compelled to since Lily knew, and might just pull the moral-crusader, I’ll-tell-him-if-you-don’t card.
I love you, Sim city. Always here for you. Xx
Lily walked back down the hallway, past the kitchen, to check her emails before meeting with Sasha, pork in hand, and taking a guillotine to her job.
‘Woodward!’
Jack’s voice rang out from the kitchen. Shit. She really didn’t want to face him right now. Fuck fuck fuck.
He was casually sipping on a coffee from the gleaming new coffee machine Nikkii had insisted on, and looked exactly like the kind of guy you wanted to take you to a movie and then snuggle on a lounge with. Especially on this kind of disgusting day.
‘Hey,’ she said, popping her head back into the kitchen and smiling in what she hoped was a convincing manner.
‘Everything okay? You seemed a bit . . . distracted this morning?’
‘Oh, yeah, totally, no, everything is fine, totally.’ She stayed outside the kitchen to signal she wasn’t up for a chat. No light chats with Jack today. No, thank you.
He frowned slightly.
‘You’re quitting, aren’t you? I saw you chatting to Sasha.’
Why today, why everything today! Lily exploded internally. And how could he tell from that tiny moment she and Sasha shared this morning. It was nothing! Pork belly chat! Lily’s unnaturally fake chirpy demeanour buckled, and her chest slumped. She looked down. He was disappointed in her and it felt horrible.
‘I wanted to tell you, but I, well, I needed to tell Sasha first, which I’m about to do now. And then I was going to tell you. I’ve thought about it a lot, Jack, and it’s the right thing for me to do at this time. I know you don’t agree with it bu—’
He smiled and chuckled, his eyes softening.
‘What I think doesn’t matter. What you’re doing is brave in its own way.’
‘Well, you’ve changed your bloody tune.’ She exhaled in surprise and relief, but couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed he no longer felt compelled to fight for her to stay.
‘I’m starting to understand your reasoning, I guess you could say.’
Aha! Perhaps he was starting to feel the squeeze of Nikkii’s vulgar tentacles. Maybe he would even leave too . . . Lily couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing; at least if he was here she could still stalk him easily. She looked down, suddenly remembering what awaited this poor guy when he next caught up with his girlfriend. As if reading her mind, Jack spoke up.
‘I know you need to go, but just quickly, is Simone okay? She’s sent some very . . . odd texts over the past couple of days, but then her phone rings out. I was thinking of going over to yours tonight – if she’s home, that is?’
A tiny gulp involuntarily slid down Lily’s neck. She might have to hijack whatever Alice was doing tonight, freezer yoga or erotic book club or whatever it might be.
‘Yes, I think she’ll be there. Um, maybe give her some notice though.’
Jack’s eyes searched Lily’s for what that might mean, but she wasn’t giving away a thing.
‘ ’Kay, well, see you Monday, I guess . . . Wish me luck,’ Lily said, and ducked off to her desk. She had to get her game face on. And she definitely had to stop her mind from skating over to the fact that Jack might well be single again soon. It was irrelevant. No-go zone. Enough.
32
Sasha was openly appalled by Lily’s decision. She’d immediately questioned whether it was a reaction to being passed over for the promotion, which Lily had adamantly denied, but Sasha seemed to have made up her mind. Given Lily’s lack of immediate prospects, Sasha felt she was being a quitter, and in Sasha’s eyes, there was nothing worse, except perhaps nude lips.
Reluctantly holding Lily’s exit-interview form, Sasha looked at Lily, not saying anything for a few seconds.
‘Lily, I’d like for you to stay.’
Lily wasn’t quite sure she was hearing correctly.
‘I’m not going to piss in anyone’s pocket, but you are by far our top segment producer. Lord knows what I’m going to do with your shadow of a co-worker. And as for Jack, he clearly adores working with you. The food segment is a genuine Daily highlight. Lily, what I’m saying is the show needs you. Now, I know you’d still like to work in TV, and I’m not saying I have something specific in mind to offer just now, but don’t think you’ll be stuck producing gnocchi and chitchat in a fake kitchen forever if you stick around.’
Lily, unused to hearing praise from Sasha, flushed with awkwardness. Did this mean Sasha was finally going to promote her? Or was she just saying that to keep her on? Lily knew better than to fall for gilded boss talk, the type that promised whatever it took when faced with an unsavoury turn of events. Even Sasha wasn’t immune to this, she realised, slightly dismayed.
Her brain started hurling glorious possibilities at her before a) remembering who the new sheriff in town was, and b) becoming angry that it took Lily’s resigning before Sasha told her she was an asset.
‘I’m sorry, Sasha, and thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. I just, I really do need a fresh start right now.’
Sasha nodded, disheartened. Oh well, thought Lily, annoyed. Too little, too late. Lily wasn’t just some puppet Sasha could manipulate as she pleased. As she watched Sasha sign the form, Lily felt something rise within her. Pride? Self-assurance? Sure, she was now jobless and had refused a fictional but potentially better position from the woman she admired most in her industry, but it was on her terms, and somewhere deep in that part of the soul or gut or symbolic golden butterfly chamber that existed in self-help books, it felt right.
Sasha took off her glasses and handed the form back to Lily, peering at her in a puzzled fashion.
‘Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Lily?’
‘Yes,’ Lily said softly, hoping to Heston Blumenthal she was right.
‘Very well. I assume there will be formal goodbyes soon, so we won’t entertain that portion of this particular ritual just now.’
A small smile, and the glasses were back on, her sleek computer screen again her focus.
Lily nodded and smiled, feeling like a slave who’d upset her master. A common feeling when it came to Sasha. No! Actually, suck it, Sasha, she thought defiantly. I tried my best and you never noticed until now. Next time maybe value your staff more, Lily thought as she walked out of Sasha’s office and back to her desk.
Running her eyes over her leaving papers, Lily discovered that contractually she was only required to give one week’s notice. Which she had just given. That left her a full week at home to organise her hairy, pale body, and buy a decent bikini before she flew out to Greece in a fortnight. Perfect. At a slight loss as to what to do next, Lily sat in her chair and started compiling a handover document for whoever would be taking her role. She stuck her head up over the partition and looked at Dale, who was busy picking something
out of his teeth with one of the laminated fire-safety cards that were stuck onto everyone’s desk.
It seemed highly unlikely he would be the next in line, even if technically he was the most knowledgeable and competent. Jack seemed to like him well enough, but Jack was now so confident in his role, he barely required anything more than his brief and some help making space in the set fridge.
A text from Alice interrupted Lily’s thoughts.
Yes!! Would love to see your head tonight. Going with Carlos to see a band at the Nash, see you out back at 7 for a schnitz first x
Lily smiled with relief. She was so glad Alice was free tonight, and that there would be ample alcohol available for consumption. She missed Alice so much; her energy was such a positive, playful force in the office. She couldn’t wait to work with her again and be in a judgement-free environment of daily M&Ms and Fanta once more. She had no idea who Carlos was – he could be a trapeze artist Alice had met on set that week, or he could be her new fiancé, it was hard to say.
Just quit . . . Sasha was not happy. But I AM! And we are going to celebrate tonight Xx
Lily realised she should text Sim so she knew she had the house to herself. And text in a way that didn’t imply Lily knew Jack would be going over.
I’m going to The National tonight seeing one of Alice’s ridiculous bands, you are so welcome to join Xx
Pleased with her gentle deception and knowing full well Simone would never come to the inner west, Lily stood up and went to tell Dale her news.
‘They are gonna be the new big thing, for real,’ cried Alice, whose hair was now peroxide-blonde, evolving roots notwithstanding, and cut into a wispy, elfin bob that seemed to make her eyes bigger and her cheekbones even more extraordinary. With her red mini tunic dress and knee-high flat boots she looked like she should be on stage, possibly sometime during the Beatles’ reign, but she was a sight to behold on the filthy beer-slippery dance floor nonetheless. Men brave enough to dance tried to sidle up next to her, and others content with nursing their lagers by the wall watched her dance joyously to the music; this strange, beautiful nutbag who didn’t seem to quite fit the ‘from Earth’ brief.
