I stare up at him, wide-eyed and trembling. How can I admit it was me? I had doubled back to the office, worked late, used all of his million-dollar equipment to record myself singing, and then left the door open so a crack team of cat burglars could lift everything! He’ll sack me on the spot. I need this job. It was supposed to be my first step on the music production ladder. Besides, he also has the power to sack me from my reception job. I have rent to pay and a brother to clear up after, and…
‘Clara!’ Marco gives my hand a light shake.
Why are we still holding hands? I’m not sure.
‘The recordings…’ he says softly. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘I-I’m sorry, Mr Delagado,’ I stammer. ‘I didn’t see anything. I got here just now, same as you.’
The lie slips out before I can stop it. But I refuse to correct myself. I’m simply not brave enough. I have no intention of telling him about my late-night visit. My heart hammers so loud against my ribs I swear it’ll give me away. Marco searches my face and for one long, hard moment, I’m convinced he is absolutely going to see through me. What is it that liars do? Avoid eye contact? I think so. I think that’s it. I stare straight back at him, unflinching, feeling my body cave with relief as he releases me with a snort.
‘Useless,’ he mutters, kicking a chair aside. ‘All of you, useless!’
I breathe a quiet sigh of thankfulness. If there is a God, believe me, I am praying. Even though my hands are shaking and I’m feeling wrecked by my panicked surge of adrenalin. I’ve bought myself a little more time to fudge myself out of this situation, but if I don’t find those audition tapes, I know I’m done for.
MARCO
An hour later and we’re still all huffing and puffing around the office. ‘This is unbelievable,’ I vent. ‘All that work, all that hassle, all those people.’
Betsy raises one eyebrow. ‘All that smiling?’
‘I managed to prop up my smile just fine,’ I say, emptying the drawers in reception, all of them.
‘It’s that girl,’ Betsy mutters under her breath. There’s no need for the thinly veiled passive-aggressive attitude, though a lower tone might have been handy – Clara is in the studio, looking under all the equipment.
Betsy glances in Clara’s direction. ‘The other one was fine.’
I don’t need to look at Betsy to know she’s scowling. Nothing and no one will ever be good enough for Betsy.
‘I leave you for five minutes,’ she barks.
She’s doing her usual and getting right under my skin. I decide to toss the blame back. ‘Why do you have to have such a complicated way of storing stuff? Who even uses USBs anymore?’
Betsy shoots me a withering look. ‘I’ve had stuff crash on me many times. Even the cloud’s not totally reliable. Not after the last incident they had here. Call me old-fashioned, but a hard drive is safer.’
I can’t say anything to that. Nothing. It is so clearly not safer. ‘So, what do we do, start from scratch? Weeks of work, wasted. Because it’s not just the audition, it’s calling the buggers in, setting times. Stroking egos.’ I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m not good with people. The audition season is about as bad as it gets for me. ‘Not to mention getting the musicians on call!’
I kick an empty coffee cup, deliberately, sending it skittering across the floor, dregs of coffee slopping out onto the carpet in a curiously irritating pattern. Sod’s law, just my luck, Clara chooses that very moment to come back into the reception area. I must look like a grade-A arrogant idiot. She flinches. I don’t blame her. The poor woman has already narrowly missed a stapler this morning. No way is she going to want to be hosed down with cold coffee. I have to get a grip. But every inch of my body is taut as a wire about to snap. Any other year, this kind of admin mess-up wouldn’t have mattered. It would have been a pain, but I would have been able to work my way out of it. When Dad dropped out of the picture, I just had to please myself. But this year, I have shareholders watching my every move. Shareholders in the dragon lady forms of Betsy and Fitz. Fitz, I can handle. Probably. Only sometimes, I can’t help but get the feeling that everyone would dearly love for me to fail. Isn’t that the story people can’t get enough of? Inherited everything and blew it away in next to no time. Don’t people love that old chestnut?
One by one, the others are filtering into the studio. Terry and Jeff are exchanging wary looks. They’ve been on the wrong side of my temper before, but I refuse to pull back; this situation is a mess.
‘Did any of you see the SDs last night?’ I practically bite their heads off.
Terry shrugs. ‘Hey, not my department.’
Jeff shoots the new girl a look. Sometimes, Jeff is such a sneak.
‘And?’ I say, giving him my mean eyes, the ones I perfected at boarding school. The ones that say, don’t mess with me. Spit any accusations you have out on the table. If words could kill, Jeff would be a pile of ashes now. He shrugs.
‘I logged everyone in,’ Clara says, so quietly I can barely hear her. ‘If we need to re-audition. I’ve got all their names on the front desk. Well, most of them. And maybe, if you can remember who you thought was good that would help. Even if you can’t remember names, what they were singing, wearing, I could possibly trace them through that.’
I sink back onto the leather couch. Feeling thankful as hell that at least someone has some kind of solution. But I’m not one to show any sign of gratefulness. Gratefulness is for the weak, that was one of my dad’s mantras. There’s no need to be grateful when you pay people. My dad may have been the worst person in the world, but somehow, those mantras of his, they just kind of stuck. ‘Go on then,’ I grunt, pulling my phone from my pocket. ‘Get busy.’
CLARA
Marco leans back in a leather swing chair so large it looks like it belongs to some kind of Masters of the Universe cartoon character. His muscled arms are clasped casually behind his head as he tells us all to get busy. I’m not totally convinced that anything he’s saying right now is helpful, but it seems like when Marco says jump, we all have to do just that.
‘What the f-ing hell.’ A new voice cuts into my thoughts.
