Maya walks through the imposing façade of FASH HQ for the final time. She got the 7.21 a.m. today, to come in early in the hope of catching Sam and telling him privately first, then clearing her emails and handing in her letter of resignation to Lucy before the paper drops mid-morning. Yesterday’s encounter with James is no longer the most important thing on her mind, not while she deals with extracting herself from FASH anyway.
Needles spike through her belly button but she savours each of the lasts she will be doing on this, her shortest day at work. Her last walk through the columns. Her last nod at the receptionist. Her last pain au chocolat. Her last goodbye to Sam, who she still feels the need to clear the air with.
The receptionist with the headpiece that curls around her ear refuses to answer the phone until she puts down her coffee, even though she doesn’t need her hands. A private stand-off only Maya is party to as she climbs the stairs to the canteen, nodding a hello as she disappears out of the receptionist’s sight. Maya drinks in the images projected on the giant screen that runs from the ground all the way up to the top of the building for one last time. A model with wild hair and killer red lips to match her killer red stilettos. A blonde wrapped up in a khaki parka that Rich Robinson hopes will keep the yacht and its staff running for another year.
Maya stops to pick up a two-day-old pain au chocolat and looks around at the few early risers in the canteen. How many times did Maya sit at those wooden tables next to the glass balustrade that overlooks reception way down below and counsel her teammates? How many times did she and Emma eat falafel and tabbouleh or Asian noodles piled high from the best salad bar in London? How many times did she see young interns climb the stairs wearing the Marnie or the Swift or the Woodstock dress, excited and proud to be working at FASH? That seems so long ago now that getting out feels right.
Maya walks through the glass double doors and is surprised to see Lucy and Cressida both standing at Cressida’s desk, talking conspiratorially.
‘Speak of the devil,’ says Cressida with an arched eyebrow, chewing gum clumsily in a way not befitting a Chelsea girl.
This isn’t good.
The rest of the office is empty, apart from the background chatter of two tech guys getting watery coffee from a machine with plastic cups in the breakout kitchen further down the quad.
Lucy looks up and gives a measured smile.
‘Morning, Maya, you’re in early. Can we have a word please?’
Maya nods.
‘I think it’s best we go to the meeting room. For privacy.’ Lucy is clutching a box file, a pen, and her phone.
Maya looks at the empty office around her, they don’t need privacy. She has a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
This isn’t how it was meant to be.
‘Sure.’
Before Maya has a chance to remove her coat, she is walking back to the meeting room next to the glass double doors.
Cressida marches with triumph, smiling to herself because she’s just handed a mighty juicy apple to the teacher.
‘Gorgeous pants, Lucy. Are they Stella?’
Lucy doesn’t feel the need to pepper the silence with chit-chat so she just doesn’t answer. Instead she stands in the doorway with authority and ushers in Cressida and Maya, closing the door behind her with a seal of doom as Maya sits down, knowing what is coming. She unbelts her coat but doesn’t take it off.
‘We know it’s you, Maya,’ says Lucy, in an almost conciliatory tone. A harsh blonde fringe over dark, disappointed eyes.
Before Maya has the chance to ask how, Cressida sits up in her seat like head girl.
‘Penelope from Walk In Wardrobe is now fashion assistant at the Standard. She saw the layout last night and called me. We need your passwords and login for everything, and you need to clear your desk and go.’ A pout projects. ‘I just knew it was you,’ Cressida adds with a hiss.
‘You thought it was Olivia.’
Lucy raises her palms to signal silence. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is you have let me down, Maya. You bit the hand that fed you and went behind our backs to spill all those FASH secrets. That’s highly sensitive intel.’
‘Not to mention highly illegal,’ adds Cressida with a shake of her head.
Maya’s shoulders shrink into her chair. She feels ridiculous. To have been caught out; that it isn’t going to end the way she planned.
What would Velma do?
‘But FASH was never mentioned up to now. And I didn’t say anything libellous, lawyers went over everything. Names were changed…’
‘It’s pretty bloody obvious who you’re talking about, Maya,’ shouts Lucy.
She’d stand up for herself, that’s what.
Maya hears Velma’s words ring in her ears.
Just be yourself.
‘Only if you work here, and then maybe there’s a reason it resonated.’
‘Well it’s a good job for you that Rich, Rich and Andy are all on the exec board ski trip this week. Going quietly will be less messy and less embarrassing all round. Not that a bloody double-page spread in the Evening Standard is going quietly. I’m gutted, Maya.’
Maya looks down and sees her fists clenched tightly on her lap. ‘I’m not the bully here, Lucy. And if it’s worth anything, I had my resignation letter in my bag, I was going to leave, I just wanted to clear my desk.’
Lucy looks back with round, disappointed eyes as she slides a pendant from side to side on the chain around her neck. ‘It’s not worth anything, Maya.’
‘You don’t have the luxury of clearing your desk,’ snaps Cressida, sliding a notepad and pen across the table at Maya. ‘Passwords!’
Maya scribbles, wanting to cry, but also wanting to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
‘Where do you think you’re going anyway? A career in newspapers?’
‘I’m leaving to pursue new opportunities,’ Maya tries to smile, although her mouth feels too shaky to.
‘Good luck with that,’ Cressida retorts through a snort.
‘Actually, Cressida, I’m leaving to be anywhere but near you. Lucy, you built a brilliant and enthusiastic team, but somewhere in the past year it has turned sour, bitter and mean.’ Tiny beads of perspiration dance on faint freckles.
Lucy studies Maya’s face and doesn’t say anything.
Cressida looks between her and Maya, waiting for a reaction from their boss.
‘Oh puh-lease! This is sour grapes because I got the job you so wanted.’
Maya stands and belts her coat again.
‘Ask anyone in the team if they’re happy, Lucy. Ask Rich if he thinks this FASHmas is as good as last year. Think about it in January when the sales figures are tallied up.’
Lucy raises an eyebrow as if to say Maya has a point. FASHmas has been panned inside HQ this year. Cressida made it look like the pages of a society magazine. Jutting bones; the few high-end high-fashion pieces FASH stocks; unwearable looks; miserable-looking models. Rich Robinson slammed Lucy last Friday, just before he headed off skiing, because FASHmas this year didn’t look very, well, fun. But that’s another conversation Lucy will have with Cressida, who already looks aghast.
‘And if sales do go through the roof again, which I doubt, be sure to ask Rich to pay his staff their bonus before he upgrades his yacht.’
Maya walks out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving Lucy and Cressida to their bleak exchange.
Back at her desk, Maya unsticks the photo of Henry, Jack and Oscar from the edge of her monitor, pulls a second coat from the coat stand that she’d discarded on a warm day way back whenever, picks up her notebook and favourite pen, and crawls under her desk to scoop out the three pairs of shoes that have been sitting there with the mice for so long.
They’re my things, I’m taking them.
Sam walks in whistling to the music in his ears. He sees Maya scramble out from under her desk.
‘My…’
‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ she says, standing, smoothing soft waves away from her face. ‘It was me.’
‘Eh?’
‘I was Fifi Fashion Insider. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’
‘What?’
Maya bursts into tears, crams her belongings into a spotty FASH delivery bag and walks out, through the glass double doors, as Sam watches her. She heads down the stairs and out of FASH HQ for the final time, without any intention of buying the newspaper on her way back to the train station. She doesn’t want to see how stupid she looks from James Miller’s point of view.
*
Cressida hammers letters and numbers at Maya’s keyboard under the guise of ratting out further treachery and spilt secrets.
‘Ah, here we go. Email.’
As a gleeful finger scrolls down through the inbox, she reads out loud to no one in particular, unselfconscious that people are starting to trickle into work and don’t yet know Maya has been told to leave, that she was Fifi Fashion Insider. Tact and subtlety were never Cressida’s strong points.
‘Hmmm, OK. IT support, round robin from womenswear, work experience request, charity donation request, no-doubt dull email from her mum… Oh hang on. This looks interesting… Subject matter: The Guy From The Train.’
Cressida reads silently, suspecting this might be juicy, licking her lips as she does.
Maya,
I’m so very sorry you left suddenly tonight, I thought the shoot was going well – luckily I got some great pictures, you photograph beautifully.
Although it might not matter to you now, I have to let you know that the girl who came into the studio, she’s not my girlfriend – she was, but I hadn’t seen her for six months, and I don’t want to see her again.
I want to see you, because I saw you properly for the first time today, so if you’re still free for that drink, let me know.
If not, I’ll leave you in peace and wish you happy travels.
James
x
Three sentences and a friendly sign-off. And a kiss.
Cressida swings around in Maya’s chair.
‘Sam, do you have Maya’s personal email address?’ Cressida has no intention of forwarding the message on, but knowing that she could have fills her with smug satisfaction.
‘Yeah why?’
‘Urgh, check this out,’ she says, gesturing two fingers down her throat.
Sam leans over Cressida’s shoulder and reads the email. He ponders for a second, thinking about the girl who was so blind about this idiot from the train, she couldn’t even see that Sam had fallen for her; and every time they went for a coffee Maya dug in the knife, throwing his feelings back in his face.
‘Fuck it Cressida, I think I lost her personal email the last time I lost my phone.’
‘Oh you are naughty!’ Cressida giggles, joyfully leaning into Sam’s arm as she glides a small black arrow to a dustbin icon and presses delete.