Nobody at the interview warned me that it would be this hot. Unless we’ve flown to Death Valley by mistake? My acid-washed jeans are literally evaporating away. ‘I thought the average temperature for April in this region of Turkey was supposed to be a comfortable twenty degrees?’
‘Name?’ he asks, ignoring me.
‘Maddie Summers.’
He hums to himself while he roams the list. ‘Oh, right. The new Bodrum rep. You’re one of us. Coach K.’ He looks me up and down in such an obvious way that I’m immediately narked. ‘Niiiiice.’ He drags out the word as though I should feel complimented. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you around, Maddie.’ Then I jump a mile as he bellows, ‘Shabba!’ an inch from my face.What is wrong with these men?
‘I’ll be working at head office,’ I snap. ‘So I doubt I’llsee you around.’ I grab the handle of my suitcase and heave it along the line of waiting buses until I spot Coach K. The driver is outside smoking. There’s a queue of wilting passengers, fanning themselves, waiting to board the bus.
‘Why can’t we get on?’ I ask the driver.
He shrugs.
Deplorable. Customer service at its worst.
A large woman with a Manchester accent and a bright red, sweaty face, at the front of the queue, complains loudly. ‘It’s because he’s busy smoking. His cigarette is more important than his passengers.’
That doesn’t sound right. The extreme, skin-melting heat and the driver’s addiction to nicotine is no reason for standards to slip. I might as well start as I mean to go on. ‘I’ll find the LoveIt rep and see what’s going on,’ I say.
‘She’s over there. Flirting with the other rep while we holidaymakers all boil alive.’ The woman points to a couple of reps across the road. They too are smoking and laughing and shoving each other gently.
It reminds me of when me and Dillon would jape around in the early days and use any excuse to touch each other. A hand on the lower back as we crossed the bar. The bumping of shoulders at a joke. My heart shrinks at the humiliating memory of how abruptly he ended things with me. The breakup literally came out of nowhere. The maths didn’t even add up when you think about it. Which I obviously did. A lot. In fact, half the population engage in some sort of work-based fling with a colleague and on average, office romances last for at least ten months before coming to an end, yet ours ended after only five.
A sweaty woman dressed in a jumper and jeans hollers down the line. ‘I paid good money to have the premium package and yet here I am queuing up outside with no shade and no air-conditioning.’ She waves an arm around as though there should be air-conditioning units floating above our heads. ‘AndI’m having to stand with this economy lot. What’s the point in paying extra?’ She tuts loudly. ‘I’m going to complain to head office.’
It snaps me back to attention. Head office. My new job. My new exciting, important role. My new, glamorous, high-up management role with my shiny new degree. Far from Dillon.
‘I’ll sort this out,’ I say firmly to the sweaty woman. After all, LoveIt Holidays is founded on charging people a fortune for these stingy extras. Queue-jumping, extra luggage allowance and complimentary peanuts on board contribute to a surprising chunk of the profits. There’s no better time than the present to assert myself. I will lean into one of my core strengths as an unbearable pedant (a much-hurled accusation often levelled at me during the final stages of debating tournaments).
‘I work at head office. And it’s premium-style,not actual premium. And it’s economy ultra. But nonetheless, you’re right, madam. This is simply not good enough. You!’ I bark at the driver. ‘Get these people and their cases onto this bus immediately! Before they burn to a crisp.’
The driver jumps out of his skin, dropping his cigarette. He looks at it forlornly before giving me a questioning look which makes me feel instantly guilty. He speaks to me softly in Turkish and points over to the reps, shrugging sadly as though he has no authority and must wait to be told what to do.
‘These people,’ I say, keeping up the forceful persona. ‘On bus now!’ I point to myself and speak very slowly. ‘Me. Head. Office. Work.’
He looks at me blankly. The queue of disgruntled passengers complain loudly that they have been waiting in the blistering sun for what seems like hours. I stand with my hands on my hips as the driver tries to understand what we are saying. I’m nothing if not an expert problem-solver and quick thinker, thanks to sharing the nation’s addiction to the TV seriesBlockbusters. I wave my arm over to the line of steaming holidaymakers, evaporating alive in their shiny shell suits, unflattering three-quarter length baggy shorts and Kangol hats.
With a resigned grumble he jumps up onto the coach, presses some buttons and the coach hisses to life, the doors slide open, and the side panels lift up to enable the passengers to throw their cases into the baggage area underneath. The passengers give me a huge cheer which instantly lifts my spirits. Their joyful cries and the frenzy to scramble onto the coach alert the LoveIt reps, who immediately make their way over with thunderous looks on their faces.
I hold my hands up. ‘It’s okay. I work for head office. No need to thank me. Just doing my job.’As a responsible, highly organised and efficient member of the organisation.
One of the reps waves a clipboard at me. ‘It’s notyourjob, though, is it?’
‘These people were dying out here. They were in danger of sunstroke and dehydration. And worse… they were threatening to complain to head office. How hard can getting them onto a coach out of the sun be?’It isn’t exactly rocket science. I’m not one to judge but I doubt these two reps have a GCSE between them.
The rep narrows her eyes. ‘And how do you expect me to know who we have on board and in which order to pack the cases? The driver has a set route to follow. If the cases aren’t in the right order, we have to unload all of them at every hotel. And what if some of the passengers are on the wrong coach? What then? We leave them by the roadside in the wrong resort to fend for themselves? And did you even stop to think for a minute to let the premium-style passengers on first?’
Ah.She is making a very valid andloudpoint. I glance up at the passengers peering down with worried expressions from the coach windows, and gulp.
‘The driver could have at least said something,’ I say in a small voice. ‘And it would have helped if you’d been here doing your job instead of flirting withhim.’
‘What?’ She gasps, her eyes flitting to the group of reps congregating nearby at the terminal. ‘I was just being friendly,’ she says, her voice loud enough to carry. ‘Everyoneknows Shaun is with Tiffany now.’
Shaun clears his throat. ‘We might have broken up.’
‘Again?’ she says, immediately calming. ‘When was that?’
‘Last night,’ he says sheepishly as he tugs at his bucket hat.
