Who’s That Girl? by Celia Hayes (12)

The Good Girl’s Guide to Dirty Messaging

I’ll be honest, I’ve had better days.

I was two hours late to work, and when I got there I was out of breath. Is there anything more demoralising than being in your boss’s office without having had a chance to change your clothes from the previous night and with very obvious symptoms of a terrible hangover only to find that he’s in an even worse state than you are?

I don’t know, maybe it’s worse to know that you’re not the cause of his messy appearance, which is presumably a consequence of the recent visit he received from Ms Hunt, whom I just saw walking down the corridor in a very expensive yellow outfit with a co-ordinated handbag. Here we are in his office: me – someone who’s not exactly a shining example of elegance and efficiency – and, on the other side, him, who has just shamelessly been getting it on with Madeleine behind the closed blinds of his office windows. I am guessing she stopped by for a quick chat before going back to whatever it is that models do.

The disastrous comparison between the morning appearance of Madeleine and my own makes me immediately decide to abandon the plan to convert fat into muscle that I’d scheduled for the coming month: the feeling of manifest inferiority is just too much. Terry was right, I can’t compete, so there’s no point even trying. Even if I actually did manage to lose ten pounds in three weeks – which, let’s face it, is highly unlikely – I would still lack all the rest: posture, self-confidence, charm, fame and money. How could I have been stupid enough to lie to myself again? Seriously, how can someone be so ridiculously naïve?

“Good morning, Dave,” I say, flashing him an embarrassed smile and trying to force myself into believing that starting from today he’s only going to be Dave ‘it was a wonderful dream but still just a dream’ Callaghan for me.

He stares at me for quite a long time with an astonished look on his face and then says, “Sam.” He puts the phone back to his ear, says, “I’ll call you later, Brian, something came up, bye,” and hangs up.

“They told me that you were looking for me,” I say in confusion, unsuccessfully trying to imagine the reason why he might have summoned me.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asks me, frowning.

If he was looking somewhat lost a moment ago his face is now absolutely sullen.

“Er, yeah, look…”

“Because as far as I’m aware, the office hours haven’t changed,” he continues. I try to reply but he holds up his finger and cuts me off with an authoritarian, “Don’t say anything,” and then calls his assistant editor on the intercom.

She answers with an apathetic “Yes, Dave.”

“Good morning, Jane. Do you happen to know what time Sam Preston is supposed to start work?” he asks, as though it were a perfectly normal question. I raise my eyes up to the ceiling in annoyance and pray for a sudden bolt of summer lightning to strike me before I can start swearing. Does he really think this stupid little pantomime is necessary?

“She starts at eight,” Jane answers efficiently, seemingly not noticing anything strange about his question.

“Does she now?” replies Dave, then glares at me and holds his hands out sarcastically. I look somewhere else.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you, Jane,” he says, his eyes never leaving me. “So what’s your excuse, then?”

“I had a… problem this morning,” I mumble, “and…”

“Couldn’t you have called to let us know about it?”

“Well, yes, I should have, I know,” I admit. “But when I realised what time it was, I didn’t want to waste any more time and…”

It’s horrible. He keeps staring at me with blazing eyes while I mumble one stupid excuse after another. What the hell is the matter with him anyway? He has never behaved like this before. And anyway this must be only the fourth – or maybe fifth, tops – time I’ve been late in the last three years! “Dave, believe me, I’m sorry,” I say eventually, almost without breathing, “it really wasn’t intentional. Something unexpected came up, but it won’t happen again.” For the first time since I entered the room, I dare to look him in the face. “I promise,” I say, and try to calm him down with a timid smile. There’s no response. “Err… Dave?” I ask, trying to get his attention, but I realise he’s more interested in my clothes at the moment. Okay, this time he really is going to send me to work in obituaries with Nicholas. I knew I should have changed, but I didn’t want to end up being even later than I already was. I didn’t hear the alarm go off and I had to swallow my coffee down in a single gulp and then run to catch the bus, and I even managed to trip over Miss Murple’s damn handbag on my way in. The damn woman retired at least six years ago, by the way, so why the hell did she have to choose today to come in and say hi?

“Dave?” I say again, hoping that he will manage to stop looking at my neckline this time. He shakes his head, as if trying to rid himself of some very important thought.

“What?” he mumbles. “Oh, yeah…” He starts rapidly moving pieces of paper, folders and pens about and then he orders me to sit down. I obey immediately, hoping that he’s not going to fire me. “Right,” he mutters after a few more moments, “as I told you already, we ought to get down to scheduling the interviews we want to do during fashion week.”

“During San Francisco Fashion Week,” I correct him instinctively.

“Yes,” he replies, lifting his eyes up from the folders that he’s trying to pile up by his keyboard just long enough to give me an irritated scowl. “And…”

“And?” I say, to try and encourage him from this new worrying silence.

Dave doesn’t answer immediately but starts massaging his face, seemingly undecided on what to do. He looks exhausted. I’d pay any amount of money to understand how a man can get himself into such a state. God alone knows what the problem can be – maybe his little escapade with Madeleine this morning has short-circuited his brain or something.

I’m starting to feel pretty disheartened.

“As I was saying…” he says, holding out a list to me. “Here is the official programme of the event and the complete timetable for all the runway shows, interviews, parties, presentations and press conferences.” I take the piece of paper for a closer look.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“First of all…” he begins, sitting up straight on his chair and folding his arms, “you should make sure that all the interviewees are actually available for the interviews. I want a complete photographic report and at least a couple of comments from the organisers, so you’ll have to make an appointment with them.”

I take a pencil from his desk and start to make some notes. Dave starts telling me what to write, and things seem to go back to something resembling normality. I feel more confident now that we’re back to our usual fake camaraderie and empty work small talk.

“Okay. So Sam…”

“Yes?”

“Is everything clear for now?”

“Yes, of course,” I nod, and he continues as if the previous awkward moment had never happened and continues to reel off names, times, people, and places, and I keep writing everything down. In the meantime, I try very hard not to think of those pictures of Miss Goddamn Universe that I printed out, but unfortunately don’t seem to be able to. She’s all I can think about, but I try to hide it from him. I wonder just how long I’m going to have to pretend not to have any feelings for him, and the thought provokes an unintentional sigh from me, as I tilt my head slightly to the side. It’s a casual gesture, just like when I blow the lock of hair that falls over my eye out of the way so that I can remain concentrating on the schedule. I don’t even notice the slight variation in Dave’s voice.

It didn’t seem to be anything important, really, and I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it if all of a sudden he hadn’t suddenly snapped, “Sam, why the hell are you all dressed up like that?”

“Li… Like what?” I say, raising my head and staring at him with my eyes open wide.

“Do you really think that is an appropriate way to dress to the office?” He is really scolding me, and I’m reacting like a teenager: I blush, go quiet and feel like I’m getting smaller and smaller in my chair, not knowing where to look.

“I… didn’t…” Can I just faint or disappear or something?

Something in my expression must make him understand I can’t take much more, so he manages to rein in his outburst and not add anything else. He relaxes, then mutters, “So have you taken note of everything?” as though trying to pretend that nothing has happened.

I nod.

“Ok…” he mumbles, “you can go back to your desk then. I’m busy now. You’re going to need to organise everything in the next couple of days, tops. Can you manage that?”

I nod again and try my best to appear normal, but I can’t look him in the face any more. Dave notices and changes his tone – you’d almost think that he felt guilty, even though he doesn’t come out and say it. He breathes heavily and indicates the door to me with his eyes. “If you have any problems, ask Jane for some help. So I’ll see you on Thursday, ok?”

“Ok,” I answer and when I stand up I have the impression that my skirt is too shirt, my neckline too low and my hair too damn big. I slouch away to the door aware that he’s watching my back – or at least, I hope it’s my back.

When I get to my cubicle, what I’d really like to do is be left alone to have a bit of a cry, but unfortunately Terry is there. She’s sitting in my chair and is frenetically typing something on my keyboard. She’s going through my files and images as though this was her desk. All the frustration and upset I’ve been holding in suddenly explodes.

“Terry, that is my desk!”

She raises her head and gives me a bored look, but when she notices that I’m wearing a small black dress instead of my usual jeans she opens her mouth in surprise.

“Yes, I know,” I say, before she has time to say anything, “I’m wearing an evening dress. Yes, I know it’s too small for me and that I look like a stuffed chicken, and yes, I have a lot of hair and, yes, these are army boots. Yes, that means that this morning I was in a rush and I had to put on yesterday’s clothes. Are you happy now? Can you go back to your own desk? I need to be left alone for twenty minutes so I can work through my despair, and I can’t do it if you’re around.”

I’m trying to be as honest as I can. Terry looks confused by my reaction and gets to her feet awkwardly, like a robot, allowing me to finally take a seat at my computer and sigh deeply in relief.

I close my eyes and rub my temples while I wait for her to go away, but she leans on a corner of the desk instead and asks, “So what the hell happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, right. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened, I told you already.”

“Sam, what the hell is going on?” she says quietly. “Come on, spit it out.”

I turn to look at her with a frown and reply, “I didn’t hear the alarm and I had to rush here when I was already two hours late. I knocked over Miss Murple by the lift and probably broke her leg. Plus I’m pretty sure I saw Madeleine leaving Dave’s office, where I then had to spend about half an hour being scolded about the outfit that I’d dared to wear for work. Is that enough for you?”

“Ok,” she says, pulling over a chair and sitting down beside me, seemingly unable to stop staring at my hair and at the dark rings under my eyes – too dark for me to hide them with concealer. Especially at the dark rings. “So, who is it? How was it? What’s his name? How old is he? What does he do? Did you meet him at the party?” She starts interrogating me, ignoring how upset I am to focus on the one stupid detail.

I don’t answer any of her question, and that annoys Terry. She starts biting her nails and poking me in the arm. “Come on, what happened? I want the details.”

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” I say, getting increasingly irked. “Nothing happened.”

“I don’t believe you,” she replies, looking at my dress. “And I am going to find out one way or another. It’s up to you to choose if you want to be tortured or if you’d rather start talking right now.”

How can I not give up? “Okay then, what is it that you want to know?” I ask, leaning back in my chair in a vain attempt to relax.

“Every goddamn detail.”

“I met a guy, and we ended up on the terrace of the Ritz drinking champagne until three in the morning. I haven’t got a clue about who he is or what he does, all I know is that his name’s Al and he’s one of the staff at Curvy. Don’t ask me anything else about him, because that is honestly all I know.”

“Al…” she mumbles.

“Don’t. I’ve already searched Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr with no success,” I admit exhaustedly.

“And did you two…”

“No!” I say, with a glare that stops her dirty mind in its tracks.

She looks disappointed, then thinks of something else.

“Not even…?”

“Err, yeah, we did do that,” I confess with embarrassment.

She smirks. “And…?”

“Yes,” I admit, shaking my head.

“Good!” she says with a satisfied smile.

“Is that all?”

“Al…” she murmurs.

I burst into laughter. “I swear that I am not making all this up!”

“Of course not, I completely believe you,” she says to reassure me. “And I must say that ending up on the terrace of a five-star hotel drinking champagne with a stranger sounds pretty fricking amazing! Maybe I should start your diet too…”

“Remember to drink vodka then – it’s essential,” I joke while picking up my mobile. I open it and check the screen. There’s a new message.

“Is it from him?” asks Terry, trying to get a look at my phone.

“Yes,” I mumble while I open the message.

“What does he say?”

“He’s asking if I slept well,” I inform her.

Terry almost jumps out of her chair. “Well, what are you waiting for? Answer him!”

“What should I answer?”

“Tell him the truth, of course.”

“Ok…” And I am about to reply when Terry grabs hold of my hand.

“No, hang on,” she says, “if you tell him that you didn’t sleep, it might sound like you’re too interested.”

“So what the hell should I say?” I snap in annoyance.

“Just be vague and ask him how he slept.”

“How can I be vague? It’s not an open question: I either slept well or I didn’t!” I reply abruptly. I hate all this flirty messages nonsense, especially in the morning.

“Let’s see… tell him…”

“Enough,” I stop her before she can finish her sentence. “I have no intention of driving myself crazy trying to think of what he will be wanting me to say.”

I send it and look at Terry with a guilty expression on my face. I gave in to the dark side in the end… I’m expecting her to mock me somehow, but a second message saves me from Terry’s sarcasm.

“So what did he say?” demands Terry when she sees me sitting there immobile, unable to react. “Sam, what did he say? Sam… come on!” She grabs my shoulder and shakes it, presumably worried by the colour my face has gone.

“Oh. My. God!” are the only words I manage to pronounce.