“So you’re either a soft touch or you’ve got a crush on me. Not sure why either of those are my problem.”
Thatalmoststung. Because there was a grim chance that yes this whole thing was one-sided. And she’d been in enough one-sided relationships to know that they stopped being fun long, long before they just stopped being. Although in this case “enough” was actually “one”.
But this did feel different. Sure, Jennifer was a horrible, driven, objectively gorgeous woman with a high-end media job, and that did look the tiniest bit like a pattern, but Natalie had always swept Audrey along, never pushed her back. Which meant towards the end she’d almost given up trying to work out what she wanted on her own account and what was just the echo of somebody more remarkable than she was.
Jennifer, she was bitterly, resentfully certain she wanted entirely on her own terms.
“You know what,” she said, “fine. Yeah. I’ll cop to that. I’ve got a weird, probably deeply ill-advised crush on you that somehow didn’t go away when you kicked me off a TV show for ethically dubious reasons.”
“If you didn’t want to get kicked off a TV show for ethically dubious reasons, you should have baked a better pie.”
“Right. And you didn’t in any way imply that part of the reason you got rid of me was that you secretly want to get all up on this.”
“In my defence, who wouldn’t?”
“Well…” Audrey looked down at herself. The thing was, you could have all the positive self-image you liked—and she worked hard to maintain a positive self-image—but that didn’t actually change what anyone else thought. Or mean that normative beauty standards weren’t, like, a thing. “Quite a few people honestly.”
Jennifer was giving her a flat stare.
“Oh come on. I look like a young Dawn French.”
“Fuck me.” Jennifer Hallet took a deep breath. “I knew you were a mess, Lane, but I didn’t realise you werethatmuch of a mess. Also, Dawn French is a very attractive woman.”
Audrey could put up with a lot of shit about a lot of things,but this was straying into areas where she had a no bullshit policy. “Don’t, that’s beneath you.”
Now it was Jennifer’s turn to step forwards. “Sorry, are you really suggesting that you think the only reason why you’re not over my desk with your legs in the air and my tongue where it counts is because you trend slightly more Penelope Featherington than Daphne Bridgerton?”
The wordslegsandtonguecircled Audrey’s head like cartoon birds. “Okay”—she opted to focus on the other half of the sentence—“that wasn’t the cultural touchstone I was expecting from you.”
“Because you think an important part of my job isnotknowing what key demographics are watching on television?”
Audrey shuffled, still very much caught in legs/tongue/desk space. “Just didn’t have you pegged for a fan.”
“I’ve got hidden depths.”
That seemed like as good a time as any to reset the conversation. “Nice to know. So…umm…I guess just forget that I made a colossal prat of myself if that’s okay?”
Jennifer Hallet probably wasn’t capable of looking kind, but for a moment she looked less like she actively wanted to disembowel everybody around her. “You didn’t make a prat of yourself.”
“Thanks, but—hang on, why are you being nice to me? Why aren’t you calling me a rancid sack of fox vomit or something?”
“I didn’t say youweren’ta rancid sack of fox vomit. Just that I didn’t think you’d made a prat of yourself. About this anyway.”
This was very slightly messing with Audrey’s head. “Is this just you being contrarian? Are you so stubborn that your first instinct to somebody talking themselves down is to tell them they’re wrong about thatas well?”
“Why do you think I get such good results out of Colin?”
This was feeling a lot like agahsituation. But Audrey was fresh out ofgah. “How do youeverget laid?”
“I’m hot, successful, and emotionally withholding. It’s not difficult.”
“Well,” Audrey pointed out in exasperation, “for someone who insists she doesn’t find me unattractive, you’re making it quite difficult at the moment.”
“You’re not unattractive. You’re just not my type.”
“That’s code for unattractive.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Jennifer turned her eyes skywards. “You’re not my type because you’re a quilt-making, nose-poking, heart-bleeding pile of feelings and teddy bears. You’ll want to talk about shit and snuggle afterwards.”
