Page 114 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

‘And when I first got the job, David and Caroline both went on and on about how perfect you were. The best production co-ordinator ever. They both said it. So good at organising. They said I’d do well to emulate you, to learn from you.’

‘I don’t get why that made you so mean.’

‘It was irritating. I’d wanted to work in telly for so long so discovering that someone else was not only doing the exact same job as me, but she was very experienced and never made a single mistake. I thought you’d be bound to show me up.’

The article had been right, Jo thought. It was about Leona, not about her.

‘So you bitched about me,’ she said. ‘Spread gossip. Laughed at me behind my back. Turned my colleagues against me. Were you trying to make me leave?’

‘I dunno. Maybe. I didn’t think it through. It wasn’t a conscious thing.’

‘And deleting my spreadsheet from the hard drive? Was that a conscious thing?’

‘I wanted you to appear a bit less perfect.’

‘Well, you succeeded there. And then you stole my programme idea.’

Leona looked down at the floor, then said, ‘I didn’t know it was yours.’

Jo harrumphed. ‘Oh, come on. Who else round here plays Scrabble? And even if you didn’t know it was mine, you knew it was someone else’s. You could see how much thought and work had gone into that idea, and yet you just took it. Whoever it belonged to, that was a really low thing to do.’

Leona looked up. She was quite pale, Jo noticed. In fact, her whole demeanour had changed.

‘I… I just wanted to make a good impression on David,’ she said.

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘But he already thinks the sun shines out of your backside. He always has.’

‘Has he?’ Jo had never felt that her boss thought she was anything special. She’d just got on with her job, that was all, and never thought anything of it.

‘Yes, he has. And my whole life, I’ve always been the also-ran. Whatever I’ve tried to do, someone has always outshone me. At school, I came second at everything. Second in spelling tests. Second on sports day. Second in the art competition. I was good at gymnastics but my sister won the county championships.’ Leona wiped her cheeks on her sleeve. ‘And then I land my dream job, working in telly, and I turn up on my first day, determined to shine, and there you were, Little Miss Perfect, already shining. Doing the job so well, I could never live up to you, let alone do it better.’

‘Shining?’

Really? Shining? Jo had never shone in her life, not to her knowledge, anyway.

Tears were rolling down Leona’s cheeks now. Jo reached into her handbag and pulled out a pocket-sized packet of Kleenex. Leona tried to pull one out. ‘Take the whole packet,’ Jo said.

‘Thanks.’ Leona sniffed and blew her nose.

It dawned on Jo for the first time that she was not the only insecure person in the Pop! Productions office. Leona had always seemed so confident, so outgoing, but under the surface, that clearly wasn’t the case.

‘It was never a competition,’ said Jo softly. ‘We could have been friends. Worked together. I wasn’t trying to outshine anyone. I was just doing my job.’

‘I felt…’ Leona sniffed again. ‘I felt inferior.’

‘Inferior? To me?’

Odd. Jo had always thought that Leona looked down on her.

‘Yes, to you. I don’t think you know how good you are. And you’re right. I knew Love Letters was your idea. It had to be. I also knew you wouldn’t dare stand up for yourself in front of everyone and say so.’

Jo shook her head, at a loss for what to say. She should have stood up for herself in that meeting. Why did she always hold back?

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said Leona. ‘I’m genuinely sorry. I felt terrible about it as soon as I’d done it.’

‘Apology accepted,’ said Jo, and then she decided to be generous. ‘To be fair, you pitched it far better than I could have done. Speaking in meetings makes me nervous.’