by Rosa Temple
‘Can I get that one?’ he’d asked me. His lips were close to my ear and I could feel my skin begin to burn with excitement. I desperately needed the loo but there was no way I was going to walk away from him.
‘Actually I was about to buy a round of drinks for my friends,’ I’d replied, looking straight into his eyes. They were blue.
‘I can dump my friends in a matter of seconds,’ he’d said, nodding over to the other side of the bar. ‘How quickly could you ditch yours so we can get out of here?’
Without a word, I put the money back into my purse, closed it, shoved the purse into my bag and left the pub with Hugo following close behind me, his hand on the small of my back. A million thoughts came into my head before we reached the door. Gorgeous. Spontaneous. Sexy. Tall. Gorgeous. Serial killer? But by the time we’d walked the entire length of Portobello Road, light rain falling and flattening his spiky hair to his temples and making mine look like an enormous 1980s’ afro, I was in love with Hugo.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Anya. ‘I was only making a joke.’ Anya looked at the waitress who’d been waiting patiently for us to order. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said turning to me. ‘I could eat. Could you eat?’
‘I suppose I should have something to soak up the booze,’ I said sipping my mojito.
The waitress was poised with a pen above her notepad. Anya, reaching for the girl’s writing arm, clasped hold of it.
‘Tell the chef I vont a rare steak, steamed rice and seasoned vegetables and please bring me an empty side plate vith it.’ Anya turned to me and raised an eyebrow. Anya always did this. She never ordered anything from the actual menu. She was such a diva she could order anything anywhere and the restaurant felt obliged to comply. They all knew Anya Stankovic: supermodel, once connected to Matthew McConaughey, dated the drummer from Maroon Five and poster girl for Clinique.
‘I’ll have the same,’ I said looking at the waitress who was close to tears. She was obviously as terrified of the head chef as she was of Anya. ‘But without the empty side plate.’
‘Er, yes, straight away,’ the poor girl said. Anya removed her long fingers from the girl’s arm and let her go.
‘So,’ said Anya, who knew that my faraway look from a second ago was all to do with Hugo and not my failed singing career. She made it her business never to mention Hugo because she knew it was raw, even ten years later. ‘Tell me about your Clark Kent boss. Are you sure there is no chance you and he might …?’
‘No, no way. I shouldn’t let myself fancy him because I have an agenda – I have to last a year and not ruin everything by falling in love with the boss. I’ll have to do my damnedest to make sure I suppress my libido where he’s concerned, though,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ve stayed out of love for ages so far; I’m sure I’ve got this.’
‘Vell,’ said Anya. ‘You might not be in love, but I am.’
I took a sharp intake of breath. Again, like the polar opposite to me, Anya never did love. While I’d had my heart broken big time, Anya would have her way with a man and ditch him at the nearest kerb, where he’d fall and graze not only his chin but his pride, too. Now that I was the one who wanted to avoid commitment here was Anya looking dreamy-eyed.
‘Who the hell is this man?’ I asked. ‘It is a man, right?’
‘Of course it’s a man. A very big man.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Not big like that,’ she said batting her hand in the air. ‘Big as in important, accomplished, vell-to-do.’
‘Who is he? Come on, spill. Maybe I can live vicariously through you.’
‘No. I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Anya said, hurriedly, and for the first time in my life I thought I saw her blush.
‘Well you brought it up, Anya. You obviously want to talk about it. I mean, for goodness’ sake, you’ve never said you were in love, no matter how involved you were with someone.’
‘Look, it’s early days. I don’t vont to jinx it. Do you mind?’
Our food arrived at that very moment. The waitress was fussing around us. All the while my mind was working overtime, Anya just looked calmly at her plate. She usually told me everything and I wondered why she didn’t this time. In my head the only reason I could imagine Anya not wanting to say who this mystery man was, was because he must be married. What was she playing at? No matter who we dated, we never went for married men. It just wasn’t our thing.
Had Anya changed so much in this last year? A year when she’d been away from home for the most part for work. I’d missed her a lot but she’d kept me up to date with texts and long chats from her bath. While away, Anya had even been offered a part in a Hollywood film, which she was still considering. Anya had it all. Why would she want a married man? If he was married then it could only be love – the real thing. But I wished she could just tell me who it was and put me out of my misery.
She wasn’t budging and changed the subject as soon as the waitress left the table. She began telling me about the present she’d brought back from her travels for me. She never failed to buy me a souvenir, no matter how trivial or overly expensive. This time she kept insisting that my present was a surprise.
In the usual Anya way, she started cutting up her food and putting a small portion of everything onto the empty side plate. She pushed the larger plate away and began to eat the amount she’d set aside on the side plate.
‘Vot?’ she said to me with those staring, feline eyes of hers. ‘I’m twenty-eight and a model. How else can I keep my teenage vaistline if I don’t compromise?’ She put a tiny morsel of steak into her mouth and began to chew for about a minute before swallowing.
‘It’s not the food, Anya,’ I told her. ‘It’s the other thing. I’m dying to know who this man is.’
She waved me away with her fork.
‘Dying? Vye do you have to be so melodramatic, Madge?’ She cut the tip off an asparagus tip and chased it with her fork.
‘Look, before you go painting me as the drama queen around here,’ I said trying to suppress my annoyance. ‘Please just tell me you’re not breaking up a marriage.’
Anya gently put down her cutlery.
‘Madge, I am not anyone’s mistress. Now eat up and let’s go and see the present I brought back for you before I change my mind.’
We finished our meal in silence. Anya paid and we caught a taxi to her house in Hampstead. The taxi’s wheels crunched along the gravelled drive and dropped us in front of Anya’s impressively large, six-bedroom house and she led me towards her double garage. Anya’s house had been renovated by a top architect and the interior was designed by the same person who designed Gwyneth Paltrow’s UK residence.
I had no idea why she’d held on to such a large place in London. She’d originally bought it for her parents and they’d refused to live in it since a big falling out with their daughter several years ago. Anya had appeared semi-naked in what I thought was a very tasteful spread in a top Italian fashion publication. You could hardly make out her nipples but her mother, who came across as if she had dinner with the Pope once a week, practically disowned her daughter when Anya was nineteen. Anya’s mother refused to talk to her until she took up a respectable career. It broke my heart as it had Anya’s, though she never let it show. Since then Anya had become an honorary member of my family, and Mother adored her.
Anya clicked the remote on her key fob and the garage doors began to open. Inside was her sporty Audi something or other and beside it a new and shiny, red Ferrari 458 convertible.
‘You’ve got a new car,’ I exclaimed.
‘Correction. You have a new car. I had it shipped back for you.’
I rushed over and started stroking the paintwork.
‘This is too much, Anya. You can’t go on spending all this money on me. It’s ridiculous.’
‘I didn’t spend a penny. Vell, only shipping costs. I drove it in an advertisement and the company said I should keep it. Who am I to argue? Especially ven I h
ave a best friend whose dying ambition is to drive a red flashy sports car.’
I clasped my hands together with glee and started hopping up and down. I wriggled my fingers at Anya to bring her in for a hug. Anya, never good at showing affection, stood like an ironing board as I wrapped my arms around her thin frame and tried to swing her around.
‘I have the key.’ Her voice was muffled through my hair as I continued to hug her to me. ‘But it’s inside.’
I pulled away and looked deeply into Anya’s eyes.
‘It’s a fantastic present, darling. But I am worried about you. I hope you can talk to me about this man one day. You know? If you need to. I’m happy you’re in love and I want it to work out. Honestly I do.’
Her green eyes looked as though they might start to become glassy so I turned towards the house and linked her arm because I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her getting emotional.
‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘These are my last few days of freedom until my job starts on Monday morning. I’m sure you’ve got lots to tell me about your trip.’
Anya’s thin smile returned. She patted my hand. That would have to do as her gesture of gratitude for not probing her any further about the mystery man.
Chapter 5
At nine o’clock on Monday morning I was outside the two-storey office building of A Shearman Leather Designs. I’d seen Cassandra, the sullen receptionist, unlock the door and step inside as I approached so I’d run to catch her up. Her response was to ignore my friendly, ‘Hi there,’ from a few doors down and to close the door in my face when I caught her up.
‘Wait, it’s me, Magenta. I work here now,’ I said, pushing open the heavy door with its frosted glass panels.
Cassandra turned and looked me up and down the way she had done a few days previously and strode across the marble hallway into reception. I followed, all smiles. She grunted and pulled the silk scarf from her neck and dumped it and her handbag onto the reception desk.
‘Er, Anthony told me nine o’clock,’ I blathered on regardless. ‘He did tell you he’d hired me?’
‘I gathered as much. I suppose he did the best he could.’ She looked down at my Jimmy Choos. I’d wondered if I’d gone for too high a heel when I got dressed earlier but the Emilia Wickstead day dress I’d bought the week before in her Sloane Street boutique just cried out for height. Maybe I’d overdone it. I towered over the stocky Cassandra and her neat, red bob.
On closer inspection I saw that her skin was flawless. Her fringe was cut to perfection and her thick-framed glasses gave her a superior air. But one look at her thin lips, pursed as tightly as they were, and I knew I wasn’t going to be her favourite colleague by a long mile.
What was her deal anyway? Had she wanted the job as PA? Who could tell? All I knew was that this woman didn’t like me and 365 days of having to work was going to be even tougher if I had to look at that miserable face for all of them. I felt as if I’d walked into a war zone, ill-equipped and unprepared to do battle with a pro like Cassandra.
‘Should I just go to my office?’ I said, sounding far too wet behind the ears. Cassandra pounced.
‘Well you won’t be much good standing there, will you?’
‘It’s just that Anthony didn’t show me where –’
Cassandra dragged herself out of her seat and brushed past me and out of the door. Again I followed her. She heaved her shoulders up and down with a loud tut that echoed in the wide space of the hallway. I trotted up the stairs behind Cassandra and followed very closely. So close in fact that when she stopped outside the door of an office on the top floor, I bumped into her.
‘Sorry,’ I said. She tutted again, opened the door and stood back to let me in.
The office faced the front of the building. It was fairly large but couldn’t really be considered plush. The chair wasn’t as fancy as the one in Anthony’s office, or in reception come to that, but the desk was large and so highly polished I could see my reflection when I put my bag onto it.
Other than a desk tidy and filing tray (empty) the room was quite bare and screamed out for a revamp. Obviously the last PA had no taste and I’d have to address that as my first task. I made a mental note to order in some plants for the windowsill, perhaps a couple of black and white prints for the wall and the wooden floor could possibly do with a rug of some sort. I was very sure I’d seen just the thing last time I was browsing in John Lewis for a vase. Oh and flowers – the office needed them.
‘Who’s your florist?’ I asked Cassandra. She looked at me blankly and went to leave.
‘Just a minute,’ I called to her. She stopped, not bothering to face me. ‘Have I done something to annoy you?’ I said to the back of her smooth bob.
Cassandra turned around slowly. I expected her face to be bright red and angry but instead she arched an eyebrow above her glasses and stared hard at me.
‘For your information, I did everything for the old Mr Shearman. I worked as his secretary and PA for fifteen years. It was my first job after leaving school at eighteen. I’ve worked all of my adult life – hard. I know what hard work is. I didn’t come here with a silver spoon in my mouth, a rich mummy and daddy and a sister who more or less called in every favour she could to get me here. No. Like I said, I worked hard. Mr Shearman never had a worry or a care and he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for allowing that dolt of a son of his to try to take over. He doesn’t know a leather belt from a briefcase or a sales report from a marketing budget.’
‘But you do, I suppose?’
Immediately Cassandra parroted what I said in a pseudo-posh accent.
‘Is that how I sound to you?’ I said crossing my arms. ‘Well pardon my middle-class upbringing. It doesn’t define me. You don’t know if I’m a hard worker.’ I wasn’t. ‘And you don’t know if I had help getting this job.’ I did. ‘In fact, you know nothing about me so don’t be so quick to judge.’
‘All I know is that someone who comes to work dressed as if she’s just walked out of a designer clothes shop doesn’t need a job as a PA.’
I opened my mouth to respond but Cassandra had walked out and I could hear her stomping her way downstairs followed by a loud bang of something or other landing on her desk. Maybe her boxing gloves. But I wasn’t about to take this lying down, not without a cappuccino anyway, so I stormed down after her. Cassandra whipped her head over to stare at me as soon as my first Jimmy Choo toe touched the reception floor. Her eyes bulged through her glasses at me. I faltered.
‘Um, I wondered where you kept the coffee things,’ I said in a soft voice. She pointed a finger, with a nail that could do with a good manicure, towards a door down the corridor and I followed her glare towards it.
I was seething as I entered what turned out to be a small kitchen. Round one had gone to Cassandra but she wasn’t getting away with treating me like that for the rest of my time here. She was judging me by my cover: posh accent, designer clothes. But I had to show her there was more to me than that. I mean, there was – wasn’t there? So I hadn’t worked my fingers to the bone exactly but then again I’d never had to. Was that my fault?
Carrying a cup of coffee past reception and up to my new office, I decided to keep my head down and keep out of Cassandra’s way for a while. Maybe in time she might come to like me. Maybe she wouldn’t but I had to show her that I wasn’t as bad as she made me out to be.
By ten o’clock I had gone and introduced myself to the other office staff. Taking up two large offices at the back of the building was the finance and wages departments – a total of three other people who double and tripled up on whatever else needed to get done. I gathered that as well as being receptionist, general secretary and the old Mr Shearman’s PA, Cassandra also dealt with human resources and the office supplies.
By ten-thirty I had moved my desk around to be sideways on to the window, straightened out some files on a shelf, opened and closed the drawers of a tall filing cabinet in the co
rner and painted my fingernails Devil Red. There was no sign of Anthony and I’d been in and out of his office only to find it empty each time. There was a computer on a side table in my room and I’d managed to log into it and get the website for Ikea to see if I could source some reasonably priced office furnishings. I thought Cassandra would baulk at me considering Harrods so I’d already made the company a saving.
It got to eleven-thirty and I noticed online that Harvey Nichols were doing Mind Wellness Smoothies in their fifth-floor restaurant and wondered if I could take a long lunch break and meet Anya there. All of a sudden I heard a bit of a commotion on the ground floor. I went over to my door and leaned over the banister to listen. I heard Anthony’s voice. At last. I popped back into the office and got my compact mirror out. I scrunched my waves into life again, flicked up my eyelashes with my finger before rubbing it over my teeth to bring out the shine of the recent whitening job.
Then I began to look into various poses I should assume for when Anthony first saw me at work. I picked up a notepad and pencil and stood in front of my desk ready to take notes. No. I didn’t know shorthand and my spelling was atrocious. I sat at my desk with my chin on my hands, elbows on the table. No. I’d look like I was bored. I went over to the computer to look as if I’d been trying to get to grips with the systems but the computer screen had frozen on the lingerie section of Harvey Nichols website so I quickly hit ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ to leave the program. Next, I ran over to the filing cabinet and started looking through files but I broke a fingernail and slammed the drawer shut.
Maybe I should start by asking Anthony if he wanted coffee or tea. Perfect. You couldn’t get a better icebreaker for starting a strong PA/boss relationship.
I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for Anthony to walk up the stairs and when that didn’t happen I began to panic. Maybe Cassandra was holding him by the lapels and convincing him that I should be fired. No way was I going to let that uptight secretary lose me my job before the day was through.
I went downstairs and as I did I heard laughter. It was a woman’s laugh and I was convinced that Cassandra didn’t know how to laugh. Someone else was downstairs with Anthony so I skipped into reception merrily to find out who.
