‘Are you sure?’ Lipi asks, much gentler than she normally would, which is saying something since she’salwaysgentle.
‘Please.’
Shirin pounces as soon as I give the go-ahead. ‘He cannot shut up about you, and it would be cute if it wasn’t for two hours straight. Remember when we went to Khaleda Auntie’s? Well, no matter how many times we tried to change the conversation, and trust me we tried, that boy would not stop bringing it back to you. Honestly, he was like a broken record.’
My mouth falls open, pretzel crumbs falling onto the table.
‘Even unprompted, he would bring you up.’ Shirin does a slow, disbelieving headshake. ‘Like, it would be dead quiet, and he wouldstillbring you up.’
‘What would he say?’ I ask.
‘He couldn’t stop singing your praises.’ Lipi wipes her hands on her napkin, leaving remnants of chocolate smeared across it. ‘He kept saying how brilliant you were. Something about all your attention to detail.’
‘He must have been talking about the date proposals we worked on together,’ I mumble.
‘Don’t even get me started on those.’ Shirin rolls her eyes. ‘He couldn’t help himself from pulling up the documents and showing us your “banter”.’
‘But I resolved the comments,’ I respond, confused. How could he even show them?
‘He’d downloaded them, he said, so maybe he did it before you deleted all the comments? I don’t know. All I remember was him saying it felt like old times.’
I draw in a deep breath. So I’m not the only one who feels that way.
‘Dude, why do you have to out our boy like that?’ Amit tuts with a head shake.
‘He really said that?’ My voice is low, frail with scepticism.
Shirin nods as she stuffs her face with pretzel, her cheeks filling up like a chipmunk. ‘He did.’
A heaviness builds in my body as I think about what this could mean. Does he want me back? Or is he just playing the long game and buttering up Shirin and Lipi, knowing it will feed back to me, for the sake of pulling the rug from underneath my feet again, the way he did by making himself look good in front of Sadia with his magical date idea?
As my friends argue about how they’ve spilled all Salman’s secrets, the thud of my heart drowns them out. There’s one thing for certain: I need to get Ma on Eternally Yours’s client list ASAP.
The sooner I leave, the better.
19
‘Hey, Poppy, do you have a moment?’
I’m in the middle of scouring Eternally Yours’s internal servers again for the criteria Ma will need on her application in order to get accepted to the agency when Sadia stops by my desk, a cup of tea in her hand.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say hurriedly, minimising my tabs. Fortunately, the only thing she might have caught a glimpse of is some old intake forms I’ve been looking at, trying to see how successful clients answered the questions versus those who were rejected. ‘What can I help you with?’
‘Well, I’ve got a client waiting to meet me in the conference room. I think it could be a valuable learning opportunity for you to sit in on and listen to.’
‘Do you want me to grab Salman?’
He’s got his big headphones on, looking deep in thought as he clicks away at something on the screen. A few hours ago, I heard Sadia ask him to create a couple of reels for our socials using footage from previous dates. He’s been taking notes on the style of photos Eternally Yours tends to capture, and planning what type of photos he’ll need to take on the upcoming dates.
‘I think we’ll leave him for now. It may be more useful knowledge for you than him,’ she says kindly.
I barely keep my jaw from dropping. Though we have different tasks most of the time, Salman and I have had a lot of overlap when it comes to the client-facing side of it all, soit surprises me that Sadia doesn’t want him in on the meeting. Does this mean something? Does it mean that Sadia trusts me more than him?
Ha, suck it, Salman!
I grab my notebook and a pen before following Sadia down the hall. I’m already scribbling things down as we walk the short distance, and I feel like I’m in one of those films from the noughties where the assistant is always on the heels of their boss, awaiting their instructions.
‘To prepare you, this client is thinking about leaving the agency,’ Sadia says, checking her phone as she forges ahead, her heels clicking loudly against the floor.
