‘I’m not picking up your bloody tampons!’
‘They aren’t bloody. Not beforehand.’ Jorge appears to be turning a funny colour. ‘Anyway, periods aren’t catching, you know.’ She stands, pressing her palms against the surface of her Ikea desk, her silver tutu springing around her colt-like legs while drawing up the knotted hem of a white slogan T-shirt which reads:
Girls just want to have fun
damental rights.
She’s not the only fashion parody in this office. She wants to work in PR, following studying for a degree in social media. Which is three years spent scrolling through Instagram, I think.
‘I don’t get paid to shop for your feminine hygiene products.’
‘Well, I don’t get paid,’ she retorts, which isn’t strictly true. She wanted to get a little experience and was willing to work three days a weekjustfor the experience, which was the only reason I said she could—even the accountant said I couldn’t afford to take on anyone else—yet she’s now getting a hundred quid a week, off the books, so basically out of my pocket, plus her travel expenses. And I know for a fact she travels in with Miranda in the Mini Cooper her parents bought her for her twenty-first birthday. But Mir is worth her weight in gold, so I don’t make a fuss.
‘Guys, guys!’ Heedless, the trio continue to argue like a bunch of grade school kids. So I do what my mom would’ve done and bang my empty coffee cup on my desk. Unfortunately, it’s not completely empty, so my white blouse is now doused with cold coffee. ‘Mother fuck,’ I whisper viciously.
‘Oh, no!’ Heather immediately jumps to her feet. ‘Quick, give me your top. I’ll get the stain out before it sets.’
‘I’m not taking it off,’ I protest as she begins to untuck the hem from the back of my skirt. ‘I’ve only got on my bra underneath,’ I continue, wriggling away from her woman-handling.I really wasn’t cut out to have employees. Or plants. Or pets.
‘Heather, leave Olivia alone, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Oh, sorry. Did I, like, miss a social cue there?’ The young girl’s fingers loosen, her anxious gaze flicking back and forth between her cousin and me.
‘Generally, people don’t strip to the waist at work.’
‘Unless it’s blokes on a building site,’ Miranda offers with a kind smile. ‘Then it’s fair. Stuff the patriarchy.’ She half-heartedly fists the air.
‘No,’ I add, reaching for my purse because I don’t want to get into another one of the “gender discrimination in the workplace” conversations. ‘Let’s just stuff our faces with pastyarchy instead, eh?’ I pull out a twenty-pound note and hand it to Heather. ‘Do you want to do a bakery run? You can get yourself a peach melba?’
Heather nods and snatches the twenty from my hand. ‘Vanilla slice, Jorge?’ she asks sweetly without even a hint of teasing. He nods, and Miranda asks for a skinny cappuccino as she eyes her emptycup of crappy, as she likes to call the instant stuff, before sending a pointed glance my way. Apparently, Mir’s last start-up office had a European bean-to-cup coffee machine and croissants delivered every morning from a nearby patisserie. Meanwhile, I offer Nescafé and the occasional greasy treat from Greggs, which is, let’s face it, only a bakery if you squint. But little does she know she’s just lucky I have enough in the bank for this month’s salary run.
Next month is another matter altogether.
Heather trots off without asking me what I’d like to order because I’m always on the latest detox to hit the Internet. That’s the official line, anyway. The back channels will tell you I prefer to save my pennies for a bottle of wine at the weekend.
We all have our vices.
I head to our gender-neutral bathroom in a building that I’m pretty sure was once an East End slum. I’d opted to rent office space in the vibrant enclave of Hoxton for a number of reasons, but none of them were relevant right now. Particularly as we’re at the less desirable end where there seems to be a definite demarcation line for the gentrification of the suburb to end.
This end of Hoxton is less Café Society and more greasy spoon.
The warehouse-sized windows, bare brick walls, and old timber floors were quite seductive selling points. Now I see them as another sticking point because they’re impossible to heat in the winter and like a sauna at just a hint of sun.
I succeed in taking the coffee stain fromcafé au laitto sludge before I give up and resign myself to an afternoon of follow-up emails and pestering, begging phone calls. It’s been ten days since I stormed out of JBW’s offices, and since then, I haven’t had one bite as far as interest goes. I have until the end of next month before I lose everything. I have no collateral to borrow against, and no one to borrow from. I could ask my family, but I know what would happen before I even do. The Spanish Inquisition has nothing on my grandmother, Elsie, who is my stalwart supporter. But as far as she’s concerned, her darling granddaughter is the toast of London town. A businesswoman on the rise. There’s no way I can disappoint her. Confiding in her is out of the question.
I have a mom, too, but she’s more interested in the ranch in the San Fernando Valley that she bought after her divorce.Not her divorce from my father. He split before I was two.There, she’s quite content rescuing all manner of four-legged creatures. Which, as she likes to tell me, are far more reliable than the creatures with two.
‘How are things going with you today?’ I ask as I pass Miranda’s desk once more.
‘Yeah, pretty good. I’ve got a journalist at theStandardinterested in doing a piece for us, and I’m waiting on a call back from theEvening News.’
‘Newspapers?’ She nods happily, and I try to return her enthusiasm, but it’s hard. Articles in these would be awesome but not if we’re going to go bust before we can capitalise on the exposure.
‘Wow. That’s... well done.’ I lean my hip against the side of her desk as she taps her notebook point by point, giving me a rundown of her plans.
‘And I’ve loaded a new post to the blog this morning: Best Places to Meet Guys in London. The hits we’re getting already are fucking awesome!’ Her gaze slides to Jorge, who doesn’t approve of profanity, as she adds in a little glance that I like to callfuck you, too.
‘What kind of things have you got on there?’
