6. HOWEVER, do not (!!!) speak to Mum when suffering PMT. Set phone alerts for likely spells based on period tracker intel.
7. Try to address ‘hardly any savings’ situation. (If promoted, set aside extra earnings for future house deposit instead of spaffing it all on ASOS.) (Do not spend entire pay rise on ‘cheer up’ treats to distract from heinous ex-boyfriend mess.) hot new outfits for work – see 3c.)
8. Try to eat my five-a-day. (Remember horrid rule that potatoes do not count.)
9. Start using proper night cream with retinol. SERIOUSLY.
10. Do the best possible job helping Tom with exhibition. Be supportive and discreet re Oscar. Avoid arguing with Tom about Jack.
11. Be a good friend (and bridesmaid) to Anna. Help with wedding organisation and keep selfish, sad worries about how much I’ll miss her to myself.
22
Olivia Mason was almost half an hour early for the Lighthouse UK pitch meeting. It was 9.48 a.m. on the first Tuesday in April and she wasn’t due until 10.15 – but she was already sitting in one of the armchairs next to Donna’s desk, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she looked around the room.
‘Damn,’ Jack said. ‘I bet she’s done this deliberately. I hate being caught on the hop. I’ll go and get the laptop set up in the meeting room. You go and chat her up for a few minutes while I sort it.’
‘Me? You want me to go over there and talk to her?’
He looked at her like she was an idiot. ‘Yes, Rachel. Isaac’s on a call, so one of us has to go and pretend it’s absolutely fine that Olivia’s turned up way ahead of schedule. This is a test. It’s an attempt to see how easy we are to fluster, how ready we are to jump to it and present her with our plans.’
She gaped at him, still not understanding.
Jack sighed. ‘Whoever isn’t cosying up to her and making coffee needs to handle the technical stuff: getting the right cables into the correct sockets so our presentation displays properly on the big screen … And while I’m generally better at both cosying and computers, even a man of my talents can’t be in two places at once. You’re challenged by anything electronic, Ryan, so I’m afraid it falls to you to be winsome and witty with the client for a few minutes. I know you can do it.’
He nodded his head in Olivia’s direction as if to say: Off you go, then.
Rachel huffed at him, decided that introducing herself to Olivia was probably the lesser of two evils, then turned on her heel and marched away.
She wasn’t looking forward to meeting Olivia or talking to her for an hour about bereaved families, and the sight of the woman herself did nothing to quell Rachel’s nerves. The Lighthouse UK CEO was dressed in a mint-green skirt suit – the kind that Rachel remembered her school headmistress wearing in the late 1990s. Beneath it was a crisp white cotton shirt, buttoned all the way up to her pointed chin. She had salt-and-pepper hair cut in a sharp bob that fell just to her jawline – a strong, defined slope that put Rachel in mind of someone she’d met before. She had no idea who.
Olivia wasn’t unattractive, but she looked as though she gave no consideration whatsoever to whether she looked nice – as if such musings might be beneath her. Her aim, Rachel guessed, was to appear tidy – competent and respectable rather than appealing. If she hadn’t been so thrown by Olivia’s general air of austerity, Rachel would have liked that about her.
Her thin lips didn’t so much as twitch at Rachel’s approach. God, this was going to be painful …
‘Hi, Olivia – thank you for coming to us this morning. It’s lovely to meet you,’ Rachel said. Somehow it all came out sounding like a question: as if she wasn’t sure who Olivia was, let alone whether she was happy to be making her acquaintance.
‘Likewise,’ Olivia said, her voice clipped and her mouth jerking almost imperceptibly in what Rachel assumed must pass for a smile.
Olivia extended a hand for Rachel to shake – cool, slender fingers with a sandpapery palm.
‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ Rachel asked her. ‘Tea? Coffee? Water?’
‘Nothing, thank you,’ Olivia replied, settling back into her armchair again. Rachel perched on the neighbouring seat, oppressed by the silence Olivia seemed determined to maintain.
‘Have you had far to come this morning?’ Ugh – fail.
‘No.’
Rachel suppressed a sigh. She should have tried an open-ended question.
They sat side by side for minutes that seemed to stretch into months. Rachel kept looking over towards the meeting room, shuffling in her seat to try to work out whether Jack was ready for them. What the hell was taking so long?
Then he was striding across the room, his face bright and confident, smiling so warmly at Olivia that Rachel felt sure her chilly veneer would melt.
‘Olivia! I’m so sorry we’ve kept you waiting,’ Jack said, as if it was their fault and not hers that she’d been twiddling her thumbs for twenty minutes. He was great at this, Rachel thought, for about the thousandth time since January. If she hadn’t already known that Jack was annoyed by Olivia’s early arrival, she’d definitely have believed his apology was sincere.
Olivia stood up and shook his hand, as she had done Rachel’s, and gave him the same anaemic smile. ‘Jack. Nice to see you.’
‘Let me show you to the meeting room,’ Jack said. ‘Rachel, would you mind giving Isaac the nod that we’re about to begin? And perhaps letting Greg know? I’m sure that as our overall head of client services he’d like to meet you, Olivia – though of course it would be me or someone else here on the pro-social side of the business handling your account, should we be so lucky.’
Rachel didn’t appreciate being sent off on this errand. Jack wasn’t her boss; he didn’t tell her what to do. She glared at him but did as he’d asked for the sake of appearances, watching him lead Olivia in the opposite direction. As she loitered by Isaac’s desk, she noticed Jack and Olivia were suddenly chatting quite comfortably. ‘How the bloody hell did he manage that?’ she muttered.
Isaac was beside her before she could make sense of it, waving his arms at Greg as they headed towards the meeting room. Greg rolled his eyes in understanding at the situation and started walking over.
‘Sorry, what was that, Rachel?’ Isaac asked, turning his face a little.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Let’s get in there and get this done.’
While Olivia’s face betrayed no reaction during Rachel and Jack’s presentation, the Lighthouse UK pitch went well. Rachel felt like she was an actress playing the part of a disinterested professional: someone who was capable of treating this as just another project, rather than a woman with first-hand experience of losing a family member too young.
She knew the stage choreography – which chair she should sit in to make sure co-presenting with Jack went seamlessly. She arranged her face just so, softening her mouth and eyes so she looked calm and obliging.
Rachel knew her lines, and how she needed to say them in order to convince Olivia that R/C could deliver her vision for the new Lighthouse website, enhancing the platform she’d imagined without deviating too far from her ideas.
In a way, Rachel realised, this was really nothing new. She’d been pretending for years that she wasn’t exactly the kind of person Lighthouse sought to help – lying by omission whenever she was asked if she had any brothers and sisters.
It wasn’t exactly untruthful to say no, was it? And it was easier – so much easier – not to open the door in her head that led to Lizzy. Better not to think about the things she’d felt, done and said during her sister’s long illness, and the nagging sense that she’d got so many things wrong. Better not to dwell on the knowledge that she’d never be able to fix it all now.
Olivia struck out the extra editorial ideas Rachel had included in the content plan – literally put lines through them on the paper copy of the presentation that lay on the table in front of her. She might not know it, Rachel thought, but she was crossing out people’s pain; scribbling
over their messiest, least convenient emotions as if she didn’t believe they were real. As if they didn’t matter. Frustration flared in Rachel’s chest – a flame threatening to lick up her throat and out of her mouth.
Rachel knew the advice guides she’d suggested would have been useful – vital reading, even – for some of the people Lighthouse was supposed to support. What was more, the charity’s own research confirmed the need for them. Rachel wanted to snatch Olivia’s Montblanc pen out of her thin, parched fingers; to stop its progress across the printout she was carelessly defacing.
At the very least Rachel wanted to argue – but she was afraid to make a scene. Somehow Olivia’s coolness guaranteed that gainsaying her would seem dramatic. Rachel would look like she was ranting even if she stuck to discussing the data and kept her personal feelings locked up. She sealed her lips, pressing them into a tight, straight line.
Jack didn’t react at all to Olivia’s brusque dismissal of the points Rachel had tacked on to the strategy. He’d told her when they test-ran the pitch that he didn’t expect they’d make it onto the final site map – so she shouldn’t have been surprised that he didn’t defend them. He caught Rachel’s eye and nodded his head at her, so slightly that nobody else would notice. It wasn’t an I told you so look – more an acknowledgement that she’d tried, and commiseration that she’d failed. A gesture that meant Now we move on.
Isaac and Greg congratulated the two of them on a job well done after Olivia had left. Greg hadn’t stuck around for the whole meeting, and joked that as an Aussie he couldn’t cope with the sub-zero temperature in the room. ‘You didn’t need me,’ he said, ‘and that woman is cold. It’s like she has her own personal weather system: if I’d stuck around for the whole hour I’d have needed two weeks on Bondi Beach just to warm back up.’
Olivia had said she’d be in touch once she’d made a final decision on which agency to instruct. Isaac and Jack were confident, but Rachel mostly felt indifferent – relieved that the pitch was done and glad that, even if it went their way, her part in the Lighthouse project was now over.
‘Lunch?’ Jack said as Isaac walked away from them, already on his phone.
‘It’s only half past eleven,’ Rachel answered. ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
‘Not if you’re hungry. Which, as you know, I always am.’
This was true. Jack could eat for England, yet stayed slender – almost skinny – in the way top fashion designers seemed to like. He wasn’t manly at all, when Rachel thought about it: not solid or muscular or outlandishly tall – particularly in comparison with Will or Tom. Jack’s appeal was in how he held himself: how he moved and dressed. And in his face, which was all eyes and cheekbones and perfectly proportioned lips.
‘Come on, Ryan,’ he said. ‘Let me take you out to brunch, if that’s what you’d prefer to call it. Let’s go back to that charming place with the eighties decor and heart attack sandwiches. You did well with Olivia this morning, and I know it was hard. Allow me to buy you a mug of builder’s tea in celebration.’
‘Fine,’ Rachel said, knowing it was a bad idea but powerless to resist the promise of a crispy, ketchup-smothered bacon butty. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
By the end of the afternoon, the tight ball of anxiety that had been sitting in Rachel’s stomach had begun to unwind. Brunch with Jack had been good fun. Too much fun. They’d talked about work but also books, politics, films they’d seen and people they’d known at university. Trying to keep her distance from him felt more and more like swimming upstream: exhausting, and ultimately pointless. Being swept away in some manner was probably inevitable, she knew; the only question now was whether or not she’d drown.
He’d asked about her faux beau again: How had they met? How long had they been together? Panicked, Rachel had mumbled that they started out as friends four years ago, only becoming something else more recently. She felt strange and uneasy about misrepresenting her relationship with Tom – because it was him, now, that she thought of when Jack tried to wheedle information out of her. Tom wouldn’t like being drawn into a lie, and she couldn’t bear to think of him finding out she’d been fibbing about what they were to each other. The very idea made her toes curl up inside her boots.
At around 4.30 Jack announced he was going to Pret to pick up a proper coffee. ‘Want me to bring you one back?’
‘Oh, yes – that would be great. Cappuccino?’
‘Done.’
He shrugged his jacket on and wandered away as Rachel heard her laptop chime, announcing the arrival of new emails.
Several messages had downloaded to her inbox – a few CCs on projects she was consulting on, an all-staff message from Donna that Rachel suspected would be a (justified) rant about the state of the communal fridges … But there was also an email from Isaac, with the subject line Lighthouse – we did it!
She didn’t open it. Her attention had been caught by a message from Laurence.Myles@clarencefairbankfutures.com.
No, no, NO. What could he want now?
Rachel dragged the message to her trash folder without opening it. She crossed her arms over her chest.
It was a long while since she’d heard from Laurence. Maybe he’d simmered down and realised what an arsehole he’d been. Perhaps he was sorry. Maybe this was an apology email … In which case, it wouldn’t hurt her to read it.
Rachel opened the trash folder and then the message, which was simply titled Hi.
Her jaw dropped. This was not an apology email – in fact it was the furthest thing from an apology email Rachel could imagine.
This was a gloating missive about some new woman Laurence was seeing; a smug announcement that Rachel had missed her chance with him, as he’d predicted that night in the wine bar.
Given that the email made clear he’d only been seeing his new girlfriend for a few weeks, Rachel couldn’t help feeling Laurence’s tone might be prematurely triumphant.
Last time we met I told you I wouldn’t be on the market for long – so in the interest of being straight with you, as of halfway through last month I am taken. Cassandra is amazing. She’s an accountant at one of our sister firms – super-bright, well educated and successful. Gorgeous too: tall and blonde … My usual type. You were a bit of an anomaly, to be honest.
An anomaly?! Rachel let out an angry breath. What an uber-twat this man was. How had she ever let him anywhere near her?
She read on.
Cass seems like she might be the jealous sort, so I’m telling you this in order to avoid any incidents. My suspicion is she won’t take kindly to competition, so don’t be tempted to call or text me. Cass and I are spending a lot of time together, and she’d almost certainly find out if you started sniffing around.
This was too much. Rachel hadn’t initiated any contact with Laurence since December. The man was delusional. And the phrase ‘sniffing around’ made her so mad she could punch her laptop screen.
Laurence’s parting shot was as inflammatory as the rest of his message:
In spite of how badly you hurt me, I wish you a happy future. I hope you won’t be lonely for too long.
Rgds, L.
Rachel had to hand it to him: Laurence took passive aggression to a brand-new low. This email could probably be studied by psychology students; it was a masterclass in how to be highly offensive while claiming to be offended. It was the literary equivalent of stabbing someone in the back and then complaining that their blood had stained your knife. It was unbelievable.
Rachel clicked Reply. She was raging, and she wanted to have her say – not least because (as if to conclusively prove his idiocy) he had abbreviated the word regards. What a tosser.
‘Laurence,’ she wrote.
I don’t know what you’ve been smoking but it has clearly caused hallucinations. You appear to believe I’m desperate to go out with you, when in actual fact I finished with you LAST YEAR because I didn’t want to see you any more. Given your new lady friend is apparently a possessive psycho, perha
ps it’s you who should stop contacting me.
Rachel.
Her finger hovered over her mouse, which was positioned right next to the Send button.
God, it was tempting to click it. But what would that really achieve? Rachel took a deep breath and drew her hand back towards the edge of her desk. She knew that even acknowledging receipt of this email would, in Laurence’s mind, reopen their dialogue; it might make things worse rather than better. Laurence was certainly arrogant enough to convince himself that any response to his diatribe must imply she still cared – even a response that pointed out he was demented and demanded he never bother her again.
She deleted what she’d written, watching every word disappear from the screen with faint disappointment. Then she moved Laurence’s email to her junk folder, put her head in her hands and took a few yoga-style breaths to try to calm down. She was livid, but she knew she’d done the right thing.
‘Are you all right there? Have you seen Isaac’s email?’
Jack put a takeaway cappuccino down next to Rachel’s left elbow, then lingered. Too close. And he had that Don Draper-y fragrance on again. She tried not to breathe it in.
She looked up at him. ‘No. I saw it come in but I haven’t read it yet. How have you read it already?’
He waved an oversized, expensive-looking rectangle at her. ‘Rachel Ryan, the smartphone. Have you met? I was bored in the coffee queue.’
She rolled her eyes, then opened Isaac’s message.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she breathed.
‘I thought you might say that. Or something along those lines.’
‘She wants us to stay on the account? You said this would work just like BHGH – like with Horrible Humphrey. You said we’d end up staffing this with juniors and overseeing from a distance. This sounds like she wants us on the project all the time – three or four days a week!’
Rachel was aware that the pitch of her voice was rising; every word she uttered sounded more frantic than the last.
Rachel Ryan's Resolutions Page 24
