‘Don’t worry, Amy. I’ll go. You get yourself home, I’ll retrieve the bag, and have it biked over to you.’
She sniffs, thankfully. ‘You’re an angel, Clara.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’ I’m a receptionist, pure and simple, but that won’t stop me from trying to sort this. ‘I’ll get that bag back to you.’
I stand, brush my hands across my smart, blue work skirt, trying to build up courage. Marco Delagado sounds truly terrifying, and what if he recognises me from yesterday? A million hideous scenarios dance through my brain. Say he laughs at me?
‘Are you okay?’ Amy asks through her tears.
‘Fine,’ I say, drawing myself up. ‘Absolutely fine.’
CHAPTER 4
CLARA
‘Don’t worry,’ Stan says, walking me to the lift. ‘I’ll hold the fort here.’
‘Amy’s in a terrible state.’
‘Hmm.’ He draws in his thin lips. ‘Not surprising. I hate being sacked.’
I glance at him curiously. ‘How many times have you been sacked?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Another story, Clara. This one’s not mine. You get yourself up to that top floor and get it sorted. Only…’ He reaches out and presses the golden button. The call light goes on. The lift is currently all the way up on the seventeenth floor. ‘Only maybe…’ Stan clears his throat. ‘Don’t get yourself sacked as well, eh?’
‘Not helpful.’
He laughs. But I can’t find it in me. This is not funny. In fact, I wish Stan would just keep it buttoned for a bit.
I can’t believe I’m standing waiting for the golden lift. Not quite in the way I dreamed of yesterday, but even though this is just a mercy mission, I have to admit that my knees are feeling more than a little weak. The smallest puff of wind could knock me over like a bowling pin. Let’s hope that monster of a man doesn’t bellow at me.
‘I’ll just get in and get back out again really quickly,’ I say more to myself than Stan as the lift doors draw back.
‘Going up,’ Stan says with a wink as I step into the mirrored cage.
‘Oh dear.’ I do not want to be doing this. ‘I look such a mess,’ I say, glancing at my image in the reflected mirrors and rubbing a trace of mascara from under my eyes. Well, maybe not a total mess, but certainly not like the people who inhabit the seventeenth floor.
Stan smirks. ‘You can wear the mask if it’ll make you feel more comfortable.’
I turn back towards him. The man is grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
‘Told you you were going places.’
‘Not funny,’ I say.
Stan laughs. ‘Try this.’ And he pretends to get his face stuck in the lift. The last image I see before the doors finally slide shut is a rectangle of reception with Stan’s wrinkled face, squeezing back out of the gap in the doors. The man is a health and safety liability.
I count the floors as the lift ascends, hoping someone from one of the other companies in the building might get in, might give me a smile, might say something regular and everyday, like talk about the weather. But no one gets in. When the lift doors finally slide back, I get the distinct feeling that, never mind Stan’s brain, it’s my legs which have jellified. I may be on the seventeenth floor. It may look as swanky as a hotel, but the place is mayhem. I get the feeling that even if I had been wearing the goblin mask, nobody would have noticed. There’s a man with a whole seventies thing going on: the hair, the flares, the glasses, and he’s chasing a shrieking woman who’s dressed as a horse. I let the lift doors close without getting out. I seriously can’t do this. But then I think of poor Amy, and I know I have to. When the lift doors open again, it’s a whole different scenario. A gaggle of dolled-up singers with the most perfect hairdos on the planet, dressed in sequins and pearls, are milling about, arms woven together as neat as corn dolls, chatting like true sisters. Sadly, one trips over the slumped horse woman, who appears to now be flat-out on the floor.
No, I seriously can’t do this. The doors start to close again. It’s then that I see Amy’s handbag. The green Gucci one with the gold clasp. Whatever the personal cost, I’ve got to get that bag back.
I step out onto the carpet of chaos. Somewhere, loud music is pumping. Not the melodic kind, but the kind guaranteed to drive anyone slowly but surely towards insanity. I push past two large women arguing about their proposed singing order. Somebody punches somebody else. Then there’s a kind of combined hair-pulling involving a significant loss of hairpieces and extensions. I duck out of the way, clutching my curls, and narrowly avoid the path of a bald man with a long goatee who is accusing a girl, who looks like she’s just stepped out of a Mamma Mia hologram, of stealing his vocals. I’m not sure how this is possible since they are all supposed to be singing cover songs, but I don’t wish to get involved.
There are child-sized unopened snack baskets, abandoned platters of sushi, something nasty happening with what I so hope is wasabi, and a multitude of half-consumed water bottles littered across a low-slung series of red leather couches. Above them is what can only be described as a red wine calamity spewed across the entirety of one once-white wall. I wonder if it’s art, then again, on closer inspection, the thing is still dripping, so that would seem unlikely.
In short, it’s all bad. All very bad, and standing there in the middle of the floor, waving his arms like a windmill with a screw loose, shouting vacuously in each and every direction, is the tall, thin, wavy-haired piece of hunk I met yesterday. Only now, he’s not looking quite so fresh. His brown eyes have lost that deep chestnut depth, switched up in favour of bloodshot spider’s webs. His hair is mussed rather than wavy, and his lips are stained in a dried scarlet kiss-of-death alcohol bruise. No wonder he keeps his hand over his face when the paparazzi are after him. If he drinks this much normally, I can see why he’d be shy. My mask could even come in handy. I should let him borrow it.
I stand there, looking aghast. This whole place has gone to pot. It’s such a contrast from the serenity of the marble hall downstairs, and it’s so not what I thought the seventeenth floor would be like. I mean, sure, there’s partying and fun, but this does not look like anyone’s idea of a fun party. Slowly, I step towards the Gucci bag, which is resting on a glass coffee table. The thing looks so out of place. Like Cinderella’s glass slipper displayed on a podium. An item of magical perfection from a different realm. I’m almost there; it’s practically within reach when an empty whisky bottle rolls under one of the couches, coming to rest against my foot.
