Page 51

Click, click, click. Ava shows me her post – nine likes already!

I walk out of the bedroom and calmly through to the living room. It’s got his and hers sinks. I grab my car keys from inside the microwave as I walk through the open-plan kitchen. It has a huge, lit, full-length mirror in the dressing room. I catch my reflection in the shiny glass of the microwave door. My smiling face looks like a slightly melted mannequin.

It has stunning patio furniture, perfect for entertaining. I open the fridge and pull out my purse and a Nutella sandwich that I made yesterday for breakfast and forgot to eat.

I close the fridge door gently and quietly leave the house. I walk over to the car and get in.

It has an eye-wateringly expensive designer bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath.

I grab the wheel tightly and do some breathing exercises before I set off.

It should have been mine. Why did I not move straight into it? What the shitting hell was I thinking?

Breathe… two, three… in, two, three… out, two, three… in, two, feck!

It’s no use. I let out a jealous roar the likes of which no human has ever made. I simply can’t help myself. She’s taken a fundamental, basic human right away from me, and I am beyond furious.

‘I wanted the big rooooom!’ I bellow with the lungs of an overweight opera singer, violently thumping the steering wheel. ‘I wanted it! I wanted it!’

After taking a moment to compose myself, I turn on the ignition, but just as I reverse the car out of the driveway, I see my sister in the rear-view mirror, standing in the driveway, looking at me with wide, shocked eyes.

21

I drive, in a bit of a daze, to the office. This morning has been more than a little weird, so what I need is the familiarity of sitting at my desk, the comfort of googling Ryan Reynolds to see what he’s appalled about today, and to be assertive and in control. More importantly, I need to catch Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen in the act of not working. I creep into reception. Indeed, as predicted, I find her chatting on the phone.

‘Put that phone down!’ I bark.

As she looks up, startled, I realise she may be booking in a client or changing an appointment for someone. She is surrounded by notepads and bits of paper and has a pen in her hand. Come to think of it, that does also look like our shared diary open on her desk.

‘Never mind!’ I quickly shout, ‘Carry on!’ I stomp past her to my office, leaving her open-mouthed and gaping at me. I sit at my desk and let my head drop onto it.

I can’t do this. I can’t.

My desk phone ringing minutes later jolts me out of my trance. It is Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen warning me that I have two minutes before a new Zoom client, Wendy, comes online. She asks if it is okay to give me her notes.

What new client? How? Why? When?

‘Can’t you change the website to stop clients from making new bookings?’ I ask as soon as she walks in.

She shakes her head. ‘Nidi has not trained me how. I do not have access to website log-in.’

‘You run the website but… you don’t have access to it?’

This does not seem like the sort of oversight that Nidi would be guilty of. There has to be more. I wait it out.

Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen looks incredibly guilty. ‘There is a training file she gave me, but I think I took it home and leave it there.’

I shall try to remain serene. Fair but firm in my role as her new boss. ‘I must say, Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen, that this is very disorganised of you.’

She seems to take the hump at this. ‘But I have printed notes for you. Information you need. For to pretend to be life coach.’

Thank God Nidi is not here to witness this shameful display of disrespect.

Before I can tackle her cheek, my computer screen pings to life with an incoming video call. I click accept and see myself flash up onto the computer screen before shrinking into a box in the top right-hand corner.

‘Hello, Wendy.’ I smile brightly. The client is in her mid-twenties and wants to learn some tools and techniques to manage the stress she is under at work. The time seems to fly by and we are getting on like a house on fire.

‘I know all about stress,’ I tell her with a sympathetic sigh. ‘And it seems clear that the difficulties you’re having are related to managing your colleagues.’ Turns out that she is the only female in an all-male environment. She feels left out at times because these men are treading on eggshells in case they offend her in any way. They fear she might yell ‘Hashtag-me-too!’ at them and they get sacked.