Chloe felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She knew the podcast had been effective for the readers, but to hear it was working in a financial sense, that people wanted advertising, it was more than she could have ever hoped for.
“I mean, the first one you did was clearly rubbish,” Wendy continued. “But whatever you did in this second one was much better.”
Chloe nodded in silent agreement. She decided it probably wasn’t worthwhile trying to explain the technicalities of podcasts to Wendy. She was already experiencing traumatic flashbacks of trying to explain it to her parents over the phone.
“Really?” she asked instead. “Already? People are actually subscribing?”
“Yes, I think the system crashed. That’s probably not good news for you, is it?”
“It’s not great news, but I don’t deal with that side of things,” Chloe admitted. “The system crash must be because so many people are trying to get onto the site at once. That’s incredible.”
Tess walked into reception from the office and screamed with excitement. She pulled Chloe and Wendy into a hug and started to jump up and down. Chloe jumped along with them, wondering if this was standard procedure any time anything went well. Or if perhaps the screaming and jumping was reserved only for really good news. She’d have to figure it out what was jump-worthy over the coming weeks and months.
“The phones are ringing off the hook!” Tess said.
“Oh yes,” Wendy said. She pulled away from them and rushed back to her desk. She put on her hands-free headset and started taking calls.
“She is the worst receptionist I’ve ever known,” Tess said. She shook her head and laughed. “Well done. Well, I know Helen said it all, but if you hadn’t gone that first time, she wouldn’t have needed to go and try to fix it.”
“Yeah, she was amazing,” Chloe admitted.
“Yes, I am,” Helen said she walked into reception.
Chloe coughed and looked away.
“Can I see you in my office, please, Chloe?” Helen asked.
“Yes, sure.” She walked through the bullpen, terrified of what she was about to hear. Maybe she was going to be fired? She hadn’t really saved the company. In fact, she had pushed it to the brink. And then Helen had to give up her evening to go and fix it.
Or maybe it was something to do with the relationship conversation. Maybe Helen was uncomfortable working with her after having had such a personal heart-to-heart. Maybe she was going to suggest they not speak of it again, to ensure Chloe was in no doubt as to who was the boss.
She passed Kim. She looked exhausted for some reason but offered her a friendly smile all the same.
In Helen’s office, Chloe took a chair whilst Helen closed the door. She was still too new to the organisation, and Helen’s management style, to know if closing the door was a good or a bad thing.
“As you probably heard, things are looking up,” Helen said as she sat down. “I’m very pleased with the results, but not with how we got there.”
Chloe inclined her head. Seemed that the door closing was a bad thing.
“I understand,” she said.
“I need you to come to me in the future before you act on anything like this,” Helen said. “We were lucky this time. We might not be next time.”
Chloe wiped her damp palms on her skirt. She quickly nodded her head. “I understand. I will never even consider doing anything like this again.”
“Well, you can consider it, but maybe come and see me first. I promise I’m very approachable.”
“Yes, I know that now. I’m sorry.”
“Fantastic. Well, I’ll let you get to work because I’m sure it’s going to be a busy day,” Helen said.
Chloe quickly got to her feet, thankful for the short nature of the telling off. She opened the door, but as she started across the threshold Helen called her name. She turned around.
“Just remember,” Helen said, “my door is always open.”
She smirked.
She remembered. Chloe rolled her eyes.
Helen laughed out loud. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”
“Don’t worry,” Chloe said, “I’m sure there will be plenty more of them.”
“I hope so, you’re a fine addition to the team.”
Chloe blushed and turned away, rushing to her desk. It wasn’t the most graceful of exits, but she didn’t care. At least Helen thought she was a good hire, even if it was mainly because of the added entertainment value she brought with her.
She was fairly sure the people at the accounting firm wouldn’t have been as appreciative of her strange ways.
Chapter Forty
Fiona’s morning had quickly gone to hell. As she was on her way out of the house, her iPhone had slipped from her fingers. It somehow managed to miss two carpeted rooms and instead hit the metal door bar in between the two.
Not only was the screen broken, she was also unable to make calls. And all of her text messages were dated 1 January 1970. Realising her phone was completely out of commission, she decided to stop at the Apple Store on the way into the office. The nine-year-old at the front door informed her that she wouldn’t be seen without appointment, though she had soon rectified that situation with a loud lecture on exactly how much she had spent on Apple products for her business that year alone.
She left her phone with the so-called geniuses and made her way to the office. It was such a strange sensation, being out of communication. Having no idea if anyone was calling, texting, or emailing her. She realised she hadn’t been uncontactable in such a way for at least the last fifteen years. It was like a part of her was missing.
But she didn’t entirely dislike it. It almost felt a little bit naughty, like she was acting out. She could get used to being off the grid.
Although she would have liked to be have been able to inform people that she was running late. She wondered if her team was worried about her. Hopefully she’d get to the office before they became too concerned.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Worrying about things wouldn’t make the walk to the office any faster.
As soon as she cleared her mind about being late, she started to think about the evening she was about to spend with Nicola. She still couldn’t quite fathom why Nicola had invited her to the community centre. She assumed it was some devious trap, some way to make her suffer in compensation for her terrible behaviour. Maybe the children were truly horrible. Or maybe she wouldn’t even be there, and Fiona would be left standing outside some community hall waiting for someone who would never show.
She sidestepped curious tourists as she walked through the heart of Leicester Square.
She had to take her mind off of the evening and focus on the day ahead.
Yesterday had been terrible. Probably one of the worst days she had experienced at Honey since she began. And she included the multiple miscommunications she’d had with Nicola in that assessment. That was saying something.
She was hoping for a brand-new day, putting all of yesterday’s disasters behind her. She knew it was unlikely. In actuality, she suspected today would be much worse. She idly wondered if she should start looking for a new job. She should certainly start looking for a replacement for Rose, who was always going to be the first one out of the door at the first sign of trouble.
She wondered if Nicola would take pity on her and understand that she had had two very terrible days and let her off whatever torture awaited her that evening. She doubted it. Whatever it was, she probably deserved it.
She was still beating herself up about what she had said and how she had reacted. It was ridiculous. She was a full-grown woman, supposedly an adult. And yet sometimes she really couldn’t recognise herself. She consoled herself by saying it was the extreme heat that had made her react so badly. She knew it was certainly a part of it.
At least the sun wasn’t quite as hot that morning. Apparently, the heatwave was soon to break, bringing glorious long-missed rain. She could
n’t wait. The idea of going to bed and actually being able to sleep was blissful.
She looked at her watch. Not her Apple Watch, it wasn’t happy with the whole broken iPhone situation. She’d had to go back to an old watch. She quite liked the look of it: a plain white face and a classic black leather band.
New technology was really getting in the way of some fashions. While she would no longer know how many steps she had taken, or how high her blood pressure would reach after an encounter with Pippa, there was something to be said for a nice classic timepiece.
She was forty-five minutes late. It wasn’t the end of the world, she was senior management after all. Her main concern was that no one would be worried about her being late and out of communication. She’d never been late, and she was fastidious about keeping her team updated on where she was.
She picked up the pace a little bit. She took the back roads, if such a thing existed in central London. They were still crammed with people. Maybe slightly quieter than the main streets, which often meant having to step off the pavement and into the road to get around people who dawdled.
London was not designed with busy people in mind. Or rather the city allowed too many people in. Maybe there should be a limit, she considered. No, sorry, not today, London is full.
She finally arrived at the Honey offices. She passed through the main lobby, into the elevator, and into reception as quickly as possible.
As she arrived, Wendy looked at her with a slightly curious expression.
“Are you okay, pet?”
Fiona breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously, her delayed arrival hadn’t caused too much drama. She didn’t know whether to be pleased, or sad that no one cared that she was so late.
“Yes, my phone chose to have a sudden interaction with the floor. Bad morning.”
It was then she noticed that Wendy was beaming, not that Wendy didn’t always smile. She was often happy, but this was a full-on smile. One that said that something unusual was happening.
“I take it I wasn’t missed?” Fiona asked.
Wendy shook head. “No, sorry, it’s been very busy here.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “So much for a quiet day.” She’d been expecting another bad day, but she’d held out hope until the last moment that it wouldn’t be the case.
Helen walked into reception with a stack of paperwork and handed it to Wendy. She turned and looked Fiona.
“Everything okay?” Helen asked.
“Yes, I had to take my phone to be repaired, sorry I couldn’t call,” Fiona replied.
Helen chuckled. “I don’t think you would’ve been able to get through anyway.”
“How so?”
Helen smiled enigmatically. “You might want to go speak to your team.” She turned smartly on her heel and walked into the main office.
Fiona looked at Wendy. “What’s going on?”
“Go and see for yourself,” the receptionist suggested.
Fiona entered the office and walked towards the marketing bank. Everyone was on the phone. Which was unusual. Of course, they all made calls, but it was rare for them to all be on the phone at the same time. And it was very rare that everyone was smiling as they seemed to be now. Darcy was the first to make eye contact with her. She grinned and nodded her head in greeting.
Something is going on, Fiona realised.
She sat at her desk and woke the computer up. She typed in her password and was stunned to see over one hundred unread emails that were new that morning. The red light from her phone indicated voicemails. She picked up her phone and pressed the button to access the messages. The mechanical female voice informed her that she had twenty-three voicemails waiting. She slammed the phone down again. She didn’t have time to listen to them, not before she worked out what was going on.
Rose hung up a call and turned to Fiona. “Did you hear the podcast?”
Fiona shook her head. “What podcast?”
She had sworn off the idea of podcasts following what had happened previously.
“Helen was on the podcast last night,” Rose explained. “The one Chloe had been on.”
A wave of fury washed over Fiona. Why did people keep going on podcasts? Had no one learnt their lesson? And why didn’t they tell her before they did? She was the head of marketing after all.
“She was incredible!” Rose continued. “Now everybody wants to advertise. Plus, the hashtag ‘save Honey’ is trending on Twitter. Social media in general has exploded. It started last night, I was up most of the night trying to deal with it. Digital are reporting huge numbers of sales of back issues, and new people signing up.”
Fiona didn’t know what to say. Within a couple of seconds, she had gone from angry at not knowing that Helen had gone on a podcast, to relieved that it seemed to have worked out. She glanced at the subject lines of her emails. Most of them seemed to be positive, a few congratulations, some requests for advertising press packs.
“I’m swamped,” Lucy commented as she came off the phone. “I hope it’s okay, I had to get Darcy and Rose to help me out.”
“Of course,” Fiona said. “Not a problem.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Pippa walking towards the marketing desks. She tried to keep her eye-rolling to a minimum. Pippa hated the very concept of marketing and wasn’t afraid to say so. Frequently. Her ambling over to the marketing team was rarely a good thing, even on a good-news day.
“So,” Pippa began as she sidled up to the desks. “I hear good old-fashioned grassroots activism is going to be what saves Honey.”
“Well, that and selling ad space, and copies of the magazine,” Fiona added. “You know, to make money. Dirty, corporate greed.”
“If you say so. I just think that it’s good to see our community getting back to its roots. There are so many things that we could fight back on. I miss a good march,” Pippa said.
“I bet you do,” Fiona said. “I really sorry, Pippa, unless there’s something you need, I’m afraid I have to crack on. There’s a lot of calls to take, as I’m sure you can see.”
“Of course, but if you need some words of wisdom to speak to the twittering masses, you know where I am. I don’t mind admitting that I can ignite a spark into a crowd.”
Pippa returned to her desk. Rose looked at Fiona with fear in her eyes.
“Please don’t let her on Twitter. I’ve worked hard to give Honey a voice, and I don’t want it to be replaced with hers. You can just imagine what she’d say.” Rose shuddered.
“Yes, I can imagine,” Fiona said. “I’m also well aware that the second she looks at Twitter, she’ll be quite overcome and decide against the whole thing.”
Lucy and Rose’s phones started to ring at the same time. They answered their calls at the same moment that Darcy was finishing up hers. Darcy lowered the phone and walked around the desks to stand by Fiona so she didn’t have to shout across them.
“I typed up a copy of the interview for you,” Darcy said. “I didn’t think you’d have a chance to listen to it this morning. It’s all quite basic stuff, but you probably need to know what Helen said.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Fiona said.
Darcy smiled. “Did you have a meeting this morning?”
“No, just dropping my phone off at the Apple Store. It had a meeting with a metal floor.”
“Ah,” Darcy said. “Well, if you need me to go get it for you later, just let me know.”
“I think I might take you up on that, it looks like I’m going to have a busy day.” Fiona scrolled through her emails, wondering where to begin.
“Very busy,” Darcy agreed. “But still better than yesterday.”
“Tess setting fire to the office again would still be better than yesterday,” Fiona mumbled, flexed her fingers, and got started.
Chapter Forty-One
When Darcy had delivered Fiona’s phone, fresh from repairs, a text from Nicola was waiting for her with a time and address for their meet-up that evening.
>
The day had been long and exhausting, but the good kind. There was something enormously satisfying about a productive day, especially one that followed such a gloomy day. Fiona had briefly toyed with the idea of calling Nicola and pleading for a rain check, but she’d quickly decided that it was probably best to get it over and done with.
She walked from the underground station to the community centre, just a five-minute walk according to Nicola’s instructions. Dark clouds loomed in the sky, and Fiona hoped that Nicola was accurate. She didn’t want to be caught out in what looked to be a heavy downpour.
She still wasn’t sure why she was there, what Nicola’s plan was. It wasn’t like Fiona could offer any help, she was useless with kids. Kids, like dogs, could sense fear. And Fiona feared them greatly. They were easy to break, cried on a whim, and required constant care and attention.
If Nicola was under the impression that Fiona would spend a couple of hours with some children and suddenly vow to devote all her free time to volunteering, she had another thing coming. Fiona believed in charity, of course. She knew she was extremely lucky to be born into the opportunities she had been given. Yes, she’d worked hard in university and later in her career, but she was also aware that hard work alone didn’t amount to success.
But Fiona’s idea of helping people was the donating kind. She wasn’t the kind of person who could serve food in a soup kitchen, or someone who could run a marathon in the name of cancer research. She, like many others, was one of the cheque-writing variety of do-gooders. Armchair charity work was as far as she could manage.
Not tonight, though. Tonight, she was going to be in the thick of things. She only hoped Nicola wasn’t intending to throw her into the deep end.
She entered the car park of the community centre. It was a run-down, old building, one she usually wouldn’t have given a second look.
“You actually came,” Nicola called out.
Climbing the Ladder Page 18
