The Note: An uplifting, life-affirming romance about finding love in an unexpected place

by Zoë Folbigg

  Five pairs of hands clap and bring Maya back into the moment. Lucy’s palms, straight and tanned and hopeful, clap the most vigorously, her neat bob even sways as she does so.

  Staff walk past the glass walls of the boardroom and pretend not to glance in. They glimpse in casually and look away, not realising how nerve-wracking and important these few minutes are to Maya.

  Now it is the part Maya is most dreading. Questions. Rich Robinson holds court in the middle of the five, sitting at the long table like a TV pundit in a white shirt and black blazer. Maya can’t see his legs but already knows that beneath the table he is wearing his uniform of faded denim jeans and stacked Cuban heels.

  ‘Great presentation, er, Maya,’ he says, looking down. ‘Well done.’ Rich Robinson oozes confidence and wealth. Maya made him a lot of money thanks to the FASHmas Fairies last Christmas, he really ought to be able to remember her name. ‘I can see your clear vision for how the site should look and read, but one thing you didn’t touch on is how you would manage the team to ensure they’re all working towards your vision, even if they’re not on board.’

  Maya looks at Lucy for reassurance. ‘Well I’m a team player, so I’d never want to ruffle feathers, but I’d just stress the importance of consistency and ask everyone to get behind it.’

  ‘And if they didn’t like it?’ asks head of customer experience, Geri, a pocket rocket who looks like her touchpaper has just been lit.

  Maya knows how Geri would react to people who didn’t agree with her, which is why she’s always been relieved to have Lucy for a boss.

  ‘Well I’d ask for their opinions and consider them, because they might come up with an even better idea, and we’re all a team, so I’d value what they had to say.’

  Head of womenswear, Zara, looks Maya up and down.

  Geri looks down at her notebook.

  Did she just shake her head?

  Rich Robinson has more.

  ‘Maya, how would you deal with difficult situations? Like, say, with the bonuses.’ He makes an exaggerated awkward face, as if to mock the disappointment the staff felt. ‘How would you have told staff they wouldn’t be getting a bonus this year?’

  The FASH models on rollerblades in South Beach, with all their effervescence and exuberance, seem a world away, as a party popper fails to go off and a tumbleweed rolls across the desk.

  Maya is stumped. She doesn’t understand why staff didn’t get bonuses this year, especially after all the back-slapping emails about sales booming… And she couldn’t help reading the story in the Evening Standard last week about Rich Robinson naming his new yacht Deedee after his wife Denise. Right now, with her clammy palms and dry mouth, Maya doesn’t know how to answer.

  ‘Well… to be honest… I don’t know why bonuses weren’t awarded. All the talk about great sales built up staff expectations. People started to plan their lives around it. Holidays. Helping out with deposits for flats. Buying a car…’

  Sarah, the head of international sales, leans forward slightly and shoots Lucy a look down the table. Now it’s Lucy looking down at her notebook and ever-so-slightly shaking her head. Maya realises she might have just shot herself in the foot and needs to backtrack.

  ‘It’s just that last year’s bonus was so generous, maybe it raised hopes and expectations.’

  ‘Well a bonus is just that. Never something to be expected,’ interjects Geri, toeing the party line and thinking about how Rich will like that one, how she might keep her bonus this year, because all the board are still in line for theirs.

  ‘Well if I were site editor I would take the team to one side, explain it’s for the greater good, and suggest some kind of group night out or lunch to raise morale.’

  Rich smiles at Maya, who can’t work out if it’s a smile of pity, but she suspects it’s a smile he’s forced many times in his career.

  ‘I think that’s all then, Maya, that was wonderful, thank you for taking the time to present.’

  Rich stands up to indicate that it’s time for Maya to skedaddle.

  ‘Oh, thanks for seeing me.’

  Maya clumsily collects her laptop, notebook and bottle of water, her face getting hotter with each scramble. As she shakes Rich Robinson’s proffered hand, she drops her shiny silver laptop on the floor. An apple dims.

  ‘Oh gosh!’

  Zara lets out a gravelly laugh.

  ‘Oops,’ cringes Rich. ‘I hope that wasn’t a FASH one,’ he half jokes, as he bends to pick it up. Maya bends down too and clonks her chin on Rich Robinson’s head as he rises.

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Uff.’

  ‘I’m so sorry!’

  Geri shakes her head again.

  Blushes abound, Maya makes her exit clutching a laptop as dented as her pride and strides out of the glass boardroom and back to the sanctuary of her desk.

  Sam swings around in his chair, leaning so far back Maya wonders how it doesn’t tip backwards.

  ‘How’d it go? Did my mix tape work its magic?’

  Maya’s face feels hot. ‘It was awful, Sam, I have to get out of here.’ Maya slings her things onto her desk and picks up her bag.

  ‘Wanna grab a bite?’

  Maya is so embarrassed she can’t speak in case she cries, so she looks at Sam through watery eyes and nods a yes. Besides, when Lucy comes back to her desk after the post-mortem she knows is happening right now, she’d rather not be there sitting at the opposite computer.

  Sam and Maya walk out together into the spring sunshine and across busy Baker Street to a little coffee-shop-cum-deli over the road, owned by a Venezuelan couple.

  ‘You get a table, I’ll get the drinks. Hot chocolate yeah?’

  Maya wonders how Sam knew.

  Sam walks up five rickety wooden steps to the counter, Maya walks down nine to the underground seating area and slinks towards the sofa at the back. The lunch rush hasn’t started yet so she gets them the comfiest seat and plays through the past forty-five minutes in her brain.

  Why did I say that about the bonuses?

  Maya puts one palm on her forehead.

  Sam skips down the stairs and little splashes of hot chocolate and cappuccino dance out of their cups. Sam sees Maya at the back, puts the drinks down on the wooden table and falls into the leather sofa next to her.

  ‘Oh Sam, it started so well! The presentation – your presentation – went really smoothly. Thank you so much for your help by the way. They seemed to like my new words and new direction, and they gave me a big clap at the end, BUT…’

  Crinkly eyes laugh in anticipation, even though he knows there’s a but.

  Maya tells him about the bonuses part.

  ‘Well it’s a true fact, My, they can’t deny that.’

  No one calls Maya ‘My’. Apart from Sam.

  ‘Yeah but it kinda killed the moment. After that, the whole vibe changed, the Q&A bit was cut short. They probably think I’m not on song, or brand, or whatever they call it.’

  As a head of department, Sam knows the executive team better than Maya.

  ‘Or Rich might just think you’re the mutt’s nuts for saying it like it is, for caring about how his staff might feel. I know he looks like a bit of a tool, but he’s an all right guy.’

  Maya’s left arm and Sam’s right arm mirror each other as their elbows lean on the top of the low leather sofa, palms supporting their heads. Sam looks at Maya’s face closely, trying to read her.

  ‘Arghhhh I can’t believe I messed up!’ Maya buries her head in her hands, and waves of chestnut fall forwards.

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t.’

  ‘Oh well,’ she says, emerging from her hands and tucking her hair behind one ear. ‘I’m not sure I wanted it anyway. I’d be a rubbish boss.’ Maya wonders if Sam can see through her breezy change of tune, she had rather warmed to the prospect of more responsibility. And a payrise, she could really do with a payrise since having a mortgage.

  ‘You wouldn’t.’ Smiling eyes turn serious. �
��You’d be great.’

  Maya lifts her drink to her face to break Sam’s lingering eye contact and changes the subject. ‘So, guess who was back on the train on Monday?’

  ‘Gee I dunno, Maya. Mother Teresa?’

  Maya places her cup back down and licks chocolate froth from the top of her rounded lips. Sweet comfort. Train Man is back. The job doesn’t matter.

  Sam’s heart breaks.

  Chapter Thirty

  April 2014

  ‘How many bedrooms would you like?’ asks the lady with a neckerchief and a Dr Seuss snout.

  Catherine looks at Simon, wanting to reassure him of their fun future ahead.

  ‘One?’

  He already has three children, she doesn’t want him to think she is desperate for another, which she most definitely isn’t.

  ‘I was thinking three at least, the kids will need to visit.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  The woman with the funny nose is surprised the couple standing in front of her didn’t discuss such a fundamental decision before stepping into her immaculate office, but then again she did notice He was wearing a wedding ring and She wasn’t.

  ‘Well I have this delightful four-bedroomed apartment on the picturesque banks of the River Cam, with the city centre and leafy Midsummer Common on your doorstep, which offers a unique – and exclusive – lifestyle, for just £3,500 a month.’

  Simon spits coffee back into a brown cardboard cup and Catherine shoots him a mock-disapproving look behind the estate agent’s back. Catherine can’t disapprove, or complain about the kids visiting. She is just happy to be with him, to tuck her nimble hands around his middle-aged washboard waist in public. This is a rare Saturday when they will spend a whole day and a whole night together after Simon told Laura he was going to a triathlon training camp. It is the first time they can truly test what their future will be like. This time they didn’t go abroad for a dirty weekend wrapped in hotel sheets, away from life and distractions. They’re shopping with the shoppers. They’re doing what people do at the weekend together, and doing it hand in hand. Simon is still anxious about being spotted, even though he’s in another town, but he’s more careless now their decision is made. They just have to get the building blocks in place.

  Catherine looks at the spec. It certainly looks exclusive, but she knows they won’t be able to afford it, especially not on top of Simon’s existing share of the mortgage and child maintenance.

  ‘It looks beautiful, but at £3,500 a month it’s not going to happen. And given that I know they’ve been empty for months, I think you know it’s not going to happen at that price too. So, what’s the best you can do for us, erm…?’ A charming pixie looks at the estate agent’s chest for a name tag but can’t find one.

  ‘Morag.’

  ‘What’s the best you can do for us, Morag? I’d love for us to come to an agreement.’

  Morag seems to have been placed in a trance by the tall but delicate woman standing in front of her who has elfin features but a huge sway.

  Catherine can be curt and demanding and aggressive and charming in equal measure, and it turns Simon on like crazy.

  *

  Maya jogs up the familiar windowless staircase to Velma’s apartment and knocks on the door. She hears a shuffle of slipper shoes on the other side and Velma opens it, sending the wind chimes by the window into a frenzy as she does.

  ‘Good afternoon Miss Oh Just Maya. Do come in.’

  A book on the coffee table whirls in the wind, like a flip book revealing a trick, and Maya brings it to safety in her hands as she walks into the apartment.

  ‘How are you, Velma?’

  Velma gives a mischievous smile and heads into the kitchen, ready for her big reveal.

  Maya looks at the cover of the book in her hand. Josephine Baker in pearls, a bra top and a banana skirt ready to do the danse banane. Maya thinks of Nena and misses her. They haven’t exchanged more than a couple of vague texts since Nena’s birthday last month, and Nena still hasn’t been to Hazelworth to see Maya’s new flat. Maya is wondering what happened to her friend. Why she’s gone off grid since falling in love. She knows she’s been busy with her new TV career but surely Tom would encourage her friendships?

  ‘I’m fine but are you OK, honey?’ Velma asks.

  Maya snaps back into the room and looks up at her new old friend.

  ‘Sure, I was just looking at this. Is it any good?’

  ‘Wow, what a woman, what a life! It’s the third biography I’ve read about her and every time I fall more and more in love. I saw her at Carnegie Hall you know, with the boys’ father.’

  Maya realises she knows nothing about Velma’s husband. She had kept wanting to ask about him, but she’s almost too scared to because she knows the answers will be sad. And Velma hasn’t ever volunteered the information, so interested is she in other people. But now, as the kettle boils, Maya feels she can be candid.

  ‘Who is Conrad and Christopher’s father?’

  ‘Was. Who was their father.’ Velma pours hot water into the chipped Royal Albert teapot and smiles. ‘He passed a long time ago, the boys were only nine and seven, they don’t remember much about him.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Me too. I’m sorry we only had twelve years together, we were so excited about our life ahead of us because it took us so long to find each other. But we crammed a lot into those twelve years.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘We met on the subway, would you believe…’ Velma gives Maya a knowing look. ‘On the 6. I was going from 116th down to Spring Street and he got on at 103rd. We had from East Harlem to the East Village for him to ask me out.’

  Maya looks at Velma with surprise, still standing in the middle of the room with her floral bomber jacket on.

  ‘You wouldn’t ask him?’

  Velma lowers her head and looks up over her thick milk bottle lenses conspiratorially at Maya. ‘I was quite traditional back then,’ she whispers.

  ‘But you’d lived all over the world!’

  ‘I know, I was a very modern thinking journalist, but in matters of the heart, I was a traditionalist. I’d just gotten back from the Paris bureau, Parisian women are always asked out.’

  Maya knew Velma was compassionate, but now she understands why Velma’s magnified eyes are quite so empathetic when it comes to falling for a stranger on a train, and she feels a glimmer of hope.

  It can happen.

  There’s so much she wants to know.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘He was small like me – I have no idea how we made two such tall and handsome beefcakes!’

  Maya laughs.

  ‘And so proper-looking! He had silver hair in a side parting and bright eyes, and he was always so well turned out. Polo necks and suit jackets, even when we were going to the grocery store. We were so different! He was neat and tidy, I… well, look around you, I’m a…’

  ‘Collector,’ says Maya with a polite smile, removing her jacket and throwing it onto the folds of velvet and boucle piled on the sofa.

  Velma brings a tea tray through the open doorway of the kitchen. The cake in the centre of it stands like a dome of deliciousness. Layers of vanilla sponge, jam, custard and custard cream all topped with a layer of pale green marzipan and a delicate pink rose perched on top. It doesn’t look like one of Velma’s usual rustic loaves or cobbled together cakes. It is precise and pretty.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yes Maya, I think your baking style might just be rubbing off on me. I saw it in one of last Sunday’s papers and thought it was very… You. Isn’t it darling?’

  ‘A prinsesstårta from Sweden! I’ve heard of them, but never had the fortune to try one.’

  Maya’s Excellent General Knowledge skills stretches to cakes and where they come from.

  ‘Oh Maya, you’re so clever, I’d never heard of it, but I thought you might like it.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. I can’t w
ait to try a slice!’

  Maya rubs her hands together in anticipation.

  ‘So tell me about how he spoke to you. What was his name?’

  ‘Duke Diamond.’

  ‘Duke Diamond? Wow.’

  ‘Well, when a handsome stranger extends his hand and says that name in such a gentlemanly fashion, you’re kinda hooked there and then.’

  A knife slices through a soft pink rose bud and into verdant marzipan. Both women stop to admire the cross-section shades of pink, green and white.

  ‘So pretty!’ marvels Maya.

  Velma continues, full of pride and excitement, for her cake and her story.

  ‘We talked all the way to the East Village, about how I had just gotten back from Paris, my time in Buenos Aires before that, about how he worked at the United Nations Secretariat, and he said he’d help me settle back into New York life. I didn’t dare tell him I knew those streets like the back of my hand, I was swept up along with it. And when we got off together at Spring, we stayed together from that moment.’

  ‘That’s amazing. And it explains a lot,’ Maya says, sinking teeth into custard, jam, sponge and whipped cream. ‘Heaven!’ a full mouth exclaims.

  ‘Isn’t it just?’

  Silence sweeps across the apartment, chasing out the wind, as Velma and Maya eat.

  There are so many questions Maya wants to ask, but one stands out more than all the others.