‘You can’t leave, you shit.’
‘I told him the same, but then he’s never really listened to me,’ Dominic deadpans, briefly raising stubby eyebrows to the ceiling.
James and Dominic are sitting in the office of Jeremy Laws, chief creative officer of MFDD. The room is painted grey from carpet-to-ceiling, apart from the fresco-style canvas rolled out above their heads, a sunny blue skyscape looking down on them to inspire all of Jeremy’s blue-sky thinking.
‘You bloody bastards are the star partnership here. I’ve got Fisher + Whyman phoning me up licking my balls over your Femme images from Jamaica, and they want to throw even more business our way. Why would you possibly want to leave? Where the fuck are you going? And why aren’t you going too?’ Jeremy shoots to Dominic. Jeremy’s ginger waves and ginger beard meet at his pockmarked cheeks, his thick neck bursts out of a black V-neck top, red and irritated by the morning’s news.
‘I wasn’t invited,’ says Dominic, trying to make light of the thorny atmosphere.
James coughs awkwardly and pushes black rectangles back up his nose. ‘I’m not going to a rival agency. I want to be a photographer.’
‘He’s been doing freelance shoots on the weekends,’ says Dominic, like a proud big brother. Often speaking up for his friend who always takes more time to answer.
‘Freelance shoots on the weekend? What, eighty quid plus expenses to shoot a fucking wedding in Wrexham? I don’t care if you’re shooting the Queen’s fucking Christmas card, it’s not much good to this agency and our clients. You’re not going.’
Dominic laughs.
James blushes. He’s never been so highly – or so rudely – praised.
This could work to my advantage.
‘Give me three months then. Unpaid. If I’m only shooting weddings in Wrexham in three months’ time, I’ll come back. But I’m aiming for a travel portfolio, reportage, news even…’
‘Oh I bet you bloody are. Sauntering off to Barbados for the winter and pretending it’s for work. Jesus Miller.’
The room goes quiet. Dominic, arms folded, looks out of the window at the leaves blowing down Charlotte Street. Jeremy Laws scratches his jaw until red stubble looks like a rash. James sits in the chair facing his desk. Relaxed. Knowing that he is doing the right thing.
‘Right you bastard. You’ve got my balls in a vice. If I give you three months off, every fucker here is gonna want three months off.’
‘Not unpaid. Most of the creatives who work here have families. I’m single. I don’t have a mortgage. I have no dependents.’
‘Jesus Miller, didn’t you get the memo about growing up?’ Jeremy drinks a ristretto from the smallest of paper cups, winces, and makes a grumbling murmur as he smooths back his hair through open fingers. ‘Just do it. I hope you enjoy your little A Level art project, but I’ll see you back here at the end of January. We’ll tell Fisher + Whyman you’re owed leave. I’m not telling them you want out.’
‘What about me?’ asks Dominic, petulantly.
‘You can work with Karen. I need to get her off I Should Cocoa. She’s not keeping the client sweet.’
‘Karen Burns? Thanks Jeremy,’ says Dominic flatly, giving James a hard stare.
James supresses his smile so as not to anger Jeremy and Dominic – a smile so small his dimple doesn’t dent. He has three months to make a living from photography. It might not happen, but a few months ago a girl on the train showed him that taking a risk for your happiness wasn’t such a crazy thing to do.
*
Sam walks through the glass double doors clutching a newspaper.
‘You only just went for lunch!’ says Maya, wolfing down a home-made ham and cheese sandwich at her desk. Even the canteen’s offering has gone a bit flat lately.
‘You have to see this, Maya,’ he says, shaking the paper. ‘Have you got time for a hot chocolate?’
Actually, since Cressida took FASHmas off her, Maya’s workload has been a bit less overwhelming. Maybe she can leave her desk for lunch today, although Sam’s urgency is unsettling her. Her first column as Fifi Fashion Insider isn’t meant to debut until tomorrow.
‘Erm, yeah, what’s up?’
‘Let’s get out of here, I’ll show you over the road.’
Maya puts down her half-eaten sandwich, grabs her wallet and slings her floral bomber over her shoulders. On the walk out it occurs to Maya that Sam hasn’t asked her to go for lunch or a hot chocolate or a quick chat at the Venezuelan cafe over the road in a long time. Maybe he stopped asking because she was too busy. Maybe she’s upset him. He has seemed less chummy with her in the past few months. Maya embraces the chance to put things right and gives Sam a jokey little nudge with her arm as she ushers him through the open door first.
Sam looks around with a paranoid dart, as if they’re doing something they shouldn’t. As if she shouldn’t have touched him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Let’s get the hell out of dodge. It’ll be all over the place in a few minutes.’
It’s Wednesday. I wasn’t supposed to feel shady until tomorrow.
‘I’ll get these,’ says Maya at the upstairs coffee counter over the road.
‘OK I’ll grab a seat.’
Sam walks down the rickety staircase, heading to the basement seating area. Their favourite sofa is the only available space to sit.
‘Boom,’ Sam whispers to himself, the drama of what he’s just read outweighing the heavy heart he’s had for the past few months.
Maya follows with a cappuccino for Sam and a hot chocolate for herself. Two girls wearing lanyards with the FASH logo around their neck, passes dangling between proud breasts, whisper to each other as Maya passes.
‘There goes the Christmas party if it is someone from FASH,’ says the blonde to the redhead.
Shit.
Maya sees Sam on the sofa at the back; he’s still clutching his newspaper. It has to be about the column.
Do I tell him? Surely I can trust Sam?
Then Maya remembers they’ve barely spoken lately, maybe she can’t any more.
‘Still a cappuccino right?’ Maya says as she hands Sam a low curvaceous cup and saucer.
‘That’ll do,’ he says, he too realising it’s been a long time.
‘So what’s new?’ Maya asks casually, brushing a wave of hair from her face as if to act natural.
‘This, man. Check it out.’ Sam thrusts an already weathered newspaper at Maya even though it’s hot off the press. ‘Read it. It’s got to be about FASH. I reckon that’s Cressida they’re talking about too.’
Blood rushes to Maya’s face in the dark of the subterranean cafe as she pretends to read text she already read a hundred times. A silhouette sits at the top. A black illustration of a faceless girl in a full skirt, one hand on a small waist, pencil and tape measure in another. Wavy hair whisked back in a bun.
She looks a bit like me!
‘Shit, Sam.’ Maya doesn’t know if she’s meant to act outraged or amused.
‘Who wrote it, Maya? And why have they got it in for FASH?’
Maya measures her face. She wants to remind Sam about Rich Robinson buying a yacht so soon after he cancelled staff bonuses and froze salaries. About the indulgence of the executive board’s summer and Christmas parties when warehouse staff are squeezed on minimum wage. About everyone feeling pushed into working longer hours so FASH sells more parkas this year than last. Then Maya realises, if she said it out loud, it would sound petty. That’s business. Deep down Maya knows Fifi Fashion Insider is a personal swipe at Cressida, and she’s not feeling as proud of herself or as victorious as she thought she might.
‘Well some of the points resonate, Sam,’ says Maya, teasing the foam of the hot chocolate with her spoon. ‘FASH is as ludicrous a place to work as wherever this girl works. Or guy, the picture could be a red herring…’
‘Yeah but why go to the papers about it? Who can be that pissed about working here?’
‘Oh I don’t know, Sam. If Cressida is the nightmare boss this Fifi Fashion Insider is talking about, she’s been rude to lots of people in the past few months, it could be anyone.’
‘She’s not been rude to me.’ Narrow, defensive eyes don’t look like they’re smiling now.
‘Gee, Sam, do you think it might be because you’re a guy? It’s standard bitch-boss behaviour. Piss on the sisterhood but flatter the guys. It’s the only way she got to be site editor. I saw it happen at Walk In Wardrobe.’
‘Hang on, My, you didn’t write this did you?’ says Sam, eyes breaking into a crinkle as he hits Maya’s knee with the rolled-up paper.
‘Me? I can only write three or four words at a time, Sam, you know me. “Pastel-poppin prom dresses” and “Jaw-droppin’ jeans”? I know my limits…’
‘I know, just winding you up.’ Sam winks.
Maya inhales hot cocoa and sugar scents, relieved that Sam seems to have thawed.
Three tech guys walk down the stairs and survey the room for a seat. They wave at Sam and raise their newspapers. Sam raises his back.
‘Man it is gonna go off.’
Maya needs to change the subject fast. ‘Hey guess what?’
‘What?’
‘I’m over Train Man.’
‘Train Man!’ Sam slaps his forehead with an exasperated palm.
Maya looks mock-affronted to cover up the fact she is actually quite affronted.
‘Sorry. I know I was boring. But you stopped asking since I gave him the note, just thought I’d give you a little follow-up.’
‘I stopped caring, Maya.’
‘Oh.’ Maya shifts in her seat on the brown leather sofa. ‘Well I’ve started seeing someone, a guy I went to primary school with.’
‘That’s nice.’
Maya waits for questions that don’t come.
‘What about you, Sam? Seeing anyone lately?’
Sam runs his hand up the peak of his 45-degree fringe. ‘Yeah I’ve been seeing someone since the spring actually.’
‘Oh. How did I not know that?’ Maya feels like a bad friend. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘You might. Hayley from PR.’
‘Oh wow!’
Sam seems prickly again, Maya feels awkward, and she wonders if it might have been easier to keep talking about Fifi Fashion Insider after all.
*
Lucy stands tall at the head of the oval table, hands on hips jutting through a black leather pencil skirt. At the opposite end, the monitor usually reserved for looking at pictures of FASH-forward celebrities is switched off. Cressida, Maya, Alex, Chloe, Holly, Olivia, Liz and Gaby, the new social media manager covering Emma, sit nervously around the table, waiting to hear Lucy’s take on Fifi Fashion Insider, who, in four short hours, has become the talk of Baker Street. Maya didn’t expect the piece to be picked up on this quickly, and especially not for it to be traceable to this small corner of a fashion empire. She makes a mental note to herself: if she makes it to a second column, throw in a few red herrings to put FASH off the scent.
‘Have any of you not seen this?’ Lucy asks sternly. Razor-sharp butter-coloured bob sitting atop glossy dark eyebrows.
‘I haven’t,’ squeaks Liz, who was probably too busy beavering away at her desk to read it.
Alex slides the newspaper across the table so she can see.
Cressida’s cheeks flush obstinately.
Chloe’s red lips hang open, quietly and triumphantly, anticipating the reaction on Liz’s face when she gets to the bit that must be about Cressida, the ‘languid, vacuous, and most unsisterly female boss Fifi Fashion Insider has ever had the displeasure to work with’.
Olivia tosses corkscrew curls like a flamethrower.
‘The PR team work so hard to build the FASH brand so that we’re relevant and reliable in the eyes of our shoppers. What this does is belittle the company and everything we try to do for fashion-conscious women. Rich is livid.’
Alex shakes his head and the soft whip atop it bounces a little.
‘Can I play devil’s advocate without it looking like it was me?’ he asks with charm only Alex can get away with.
Lucy softens a little and takes her hand off her hip. ‘Of course Alex, go ahead.’
‘Well couldn’t Fifi Fashion Insider be talking about Walk In Wardrobe? Or Wicked Style? Or Garment Guru? Or any of the fashion big guns who have websites and in-house models and big offices in London?’
Maya tries not to exhale a sigh of relief.
I love you Alex. And I need to speak up fast so I don’t look guilty.
‘We both worked there, Cressida, it does sound pretty much like Walk In Wardrobe to me,’ says Maya, clutching at straws.
Lucy looks at Alex, whose ice cream quiff has wilted a little with the heat of tension.
‘It could, Alex, but in this column Fifi Fashion Insider takes the piss out of someone in her office saying, “Once she confessed to having eaten pizza and panini in the same day as if such a disgusting feat of greed and gluttony had never been attempted before...”’
‘And…?’ asks Alex.
A tear rolls down Cressida’s chiselled cheek.
Lucy takes the deep breath of someone who knows what they are about to say will sound ridiculous.
‘Cressida told me she mentioned to the team that… that she once ate pizza and a panini in the same day.’
Olivia tries not to laugh. She doesn’t know who wrote the column, but she’s bloody glad they did. Her lips stay pursed, her eyes look ignited. She’s enjoying every minute of this meeting.
‘Well haven’t we all?’ says Maya, trying to make light of the situation.
Cressida looks across the table at her with disgust.
Chloe and Holly smirk.
‘Well I’d like you all to keep your eyes and ears open; this kind of treachery needs to be ratted out,’ says Cressida.
Lucy interrupts, preferring a gentler approach.
‘If there’s an insider writing a column for a newspaper, there could just as easily be an insider sending sensitive sales figures, data or strategy plans to our competitors. It’s a sackable offence. Rich Robinson will be sending a company-wide email to reiterate that, but I just wanted to talk to you all first, given the link to what Cressida remembers saying. As far as I’m concerned, if you sit within earshot of Cressida, it could have been you.’ Lucy looks at Maya and Maya’s throat suddenly feels very dry. She did discuss her concerns about Cressida with Lucy only days ago, but she did say that Cressida has ruffled everyone’s feathers. And Maya knows Lucy doesn’t play games. If she thought Maya was Fifi Fashion Insider, she would have spoken to her direct.
Cressida sniffs while Lucy continues.
‘I won’t be going to Rich with that intel yet, it might be coincidence, let’s just hope it was a one-off.’
Gaby looks bewildered, wondering what she’s got herself into with this maternity cover.
Holly and Chloe look at each other and put on their best serious faces.
A text flashes up on Maya’s phone, which she manages to flip over before she or anyone else could see it.
Editor loves it. Loads of traction on Twitter, more of the same please. TD.