From Here to Madeleine Hunt
“Would you like to come with me to the opening ceremony of San Francisco Fashion Week?”
How long does it take for a hangover to wear off? I’m not really an expert.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” he continues, since my eyes can only stare at him emotionlessly. “There’ll be runway shows, conferences, VIPs…”
Should I splash some cold water on my face to try and wake up? It is actually quite a warm day.
“Sam, it’s about next year’s autumn and winter collections. I know, it’s not the Oscars night, but it is still pretty important. Think of all the people who are going to be there, and of all the celebrities who will be roaming the San Francisco streets.”
I massage my temples, close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then I open them again and… nothing. I’m apparently not hallucinating. Dave is standing in front of my desk, looking amazing in black jeans under a white shirt.
“What?” I ask him, astounded.
Is he actually asking me out? And if he is… have I said ‘yes’ yet? And if I haven’t, why the hell not? Oh, riiiiight – no more Dave. No more Dave. No more Dave.
“I know it’s probably still too early to plan it all out,” he mutters, scratching his head, “but I need you to let me know immediately. I’ve got a really busy month coming up, so I need to know if you can help me out with this.”
“How would I help you?”
“It’s nothing complicated really, just participating in the event would be enough. You need to make sure that the interviews go smoothly, and I need someone I can trust.”
Now it’s clearer. He wasn’t asking me out on a date, he was just trying to give me some extra work. He wants me to do his research, make phone calls, write messages and manage his agenda. But nothing that will actually help my career. Quite the contrary, in fact – this way I’ll end up writing the weather news in a couple of months.
“Can’t you get someone else to do it?” I ask, hoping he can come up with an alternative.
“Someone else?!” My reaction seems to surprise him, which doesn’t surprise me, since it’s the first time that I have actually stood up to him since they hired me. “Er, yeah… I suppose I could,” he says, trying to play for time and casting confused glances around. “The truth is, though, that I’d really prefer you to do it,” he confesses as though the planet’s destiny depended on my reply. He’s never looked at me like that before. “Sam, listen…” he says, trying again, “I know it’s not the best assignment ever. We’ll have to spend whole days together and you’ll have to come with me to all the runway shows. I wish I didn’t have to go either, but unfortunately I have to. But I can promise that we won’t attend more than two meetings, and that we’ll do the rest of the work from here. There’s also a dinner party of course, but that’s just a formality. You’ll be home by ten or eleven at the latest.”
A whole week with Dave. Lunch with Dave, dinner with Dave, work with Dave. Am I hallucinating? A whole week, all spent with him? If I manage to survive this without having a heart attack I guess I can consider myself immune to him. And if I do have one, I already know what Nicholas is going to write in my obituary: Sam Preston, struck down in her prime after being asked to work with her boss. She leaves behind her a cat, a goldfish and a complete collection of Grey’s Anatomy DVDs.
“Sam, trust me, I can’t put up with any of the others in here for more than a couple hours. Please don’t abandon me, you’re the only one I can work with.” Okay, that was the coup de grâce. And as if his words weren’t enough, he’s also making a sad puppy face. Damn it! I really wasn’t expecting anything like this. I get that it’s not a date, and that’s why I’m believing that it’s really happening, but a request like this is going to totally jeopardise my plans of becoming indifferent to him: how can I ever forget Dave if I have to follow him everywhere for a week? He can’t ask that of me, it’s not fair. I only just threw away the napkin he gave me two years ago to clean up the coke I’d spilt on my desk!
“So, Sam?” he says, holding out his hands for an answer.
“Okay.”
Complete surrender.
“Good,” he smiles.
I’d like to make him eat that dumb grin of his, damn it! How long did I manage to resist him, in the end? I check the time and… Great job, Sam, you stuck to your plan of steering clear of Dave for a whole six hours. That’s what I call progress – even better than that time you decided to become a vegetarian.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” I am forced to ask when I realise I haven’t been listening to what he’s telling me.
“I said,” he repeats, “that the Fashion Week starts in less than three weeks. We have more than enough time, but I want every single thing to be ready by then, starting with deciding which reporters are going to be at which conferences. And, by the way…” he adds as if he’d forgotten about it, “I’m not sure if we have a couple of free photographers, I should talk to George about it. Can you organise the shifts?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Great, please let me know ASAP. Do you have the organisers’ numbers?”
“I’ll go and look for them right now.”
“I’ll be going, then,” he says and disappears, already thinking about something else.
“Have a nice day, Dave,” I say to his back before he disappears behind the door.
“Yeah. No, wait. One more thing,” he comes back. “Listen… do you have a minute to do this…” He takes a parking ticket out of his wallet and gives it to me. “Could you pay this for me?” he asks, already knowing my answer.
“No problem,” I reply. ‘No problem’ seems to have become my philosophy nowadays.
“Great – what would I do without you?”
“I have no idea,” I answer, trying not to sound sarcastic and to remain polite for a few more minutes. I’m not sure I managed, but Dave doesn’t seem to care anyway, and a few seconds later he’s already off talking to Ben.
Three weeks… great, this is going to be damn hard work.
I immediately call Terry to ask her for some friendly advice.
“Hey Sam, what’s up? I hope you don’t have a problem doing the interview.”
“No, don’t worry, I’ll do it. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Cool,” she says, relaxing immediately. “So what happened?”
“Guess who just paid me a visit?” I ask, secretly trembling.
“Dave,” she answers, killing the surprise.
“Exactly – Dave,” I say. “But guess what he asked me, though,” I continue, starting to tremble again.
“To review some articles he wrote.”
“Okay, yeah, that. But what else?” I hiss down the phone while staring desperately at the ceiling.
“I don’t know, what else?”
“I love the way you can’t wait to hear what I’m about to say.”
“Come on, just spit it out,” she snorts. “What did Mr Tight-Ass Callaghan want from you?”
I hate her when she’s in this mood.
“He invited me to the opening ceremony of San Francisco Fashion Week,” I tell her proudly. I’ve been waiting to brag about something like this for so long!
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do you honestly think I would kid about something that serious?”
“Did he really ask you to go out with him?” she asks again in disbelief.
I’m not sure whether I should be offended by her tone or not. “Does that sound so impossible to you?”
“No, no! That wasn’t what I meant,” she says, mortified, as she tries to make up for her gaffe, “it’s just that… you know Dave, and you’ve seen the types of women he usually dates…”
“Yes, I’ve seen them,” I confirm in a low voice. “But this is nothing like a ‘first date’. It’s just work.” I recap everything Dave told me about the job I’m going to be doing with him.
“Right, I get it now,” she sighs in relief, like someone who has managed to sort out a chaotic situation.
“I guess I’m lucky to have friends who think so highly of me.”
Terry bursts out laughing and then murmurs, “Come on, Sam, you know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately I do, and I can’t even really say that you’re wrong.”
“Anyway, you’ll be going out and about with Dave Callaghan. How do you feel about it?” she asks.
“How am I supposed to feel?” I whisper, peering around to make sure that nobody can hear.
“It could be your chance to put a ring on his finger,” she teases me.
“With or without spiking his drink?”
“You idiot!”
“Look who’s talking! Anyway, seriously, help me get out of this situation. I need another very important event to attend, something I can’t really avoid. It must be something so important that I just can’t accept his job.”
“So something that forces you to not accept this job… That’s what you need…” she mumbles – not, however, coming up with anything useful.
“Don’t you have anything for me to do? I don’t know, an interview in Kazakhstan maybe? Maybe someone’s giving birth to quintuplets in Burundi and you want me to go and follow the story?”
“To be honest, Sam, I can’t think of anything that doesn’t include orcs and dragons. And that’s not going to work.”
“I’m seriously thinking of unfriending you on Facebook.”
“Oh, what the hell,” her tone turns serious. “You’ve spent the last few years dreaming of organising his underwear drawer by colour and texture and now you finally have a good excuse to spend some time with him. Why the heck would you run away?”
“Because it will only make me dream about him even more,” I reply, leaning back in my chair, suddenly exhausted.
“Or you might get to know him better and understand that he’s just a human being like all of us. You might even realise that he has some defects… Hey, maybe he even picks his nose when he’s alone!”
“Yuk.”
“I met a guy who used to do it while he was driving. He could get almost his whole index finger up his nostril. Although…” she ponders, “Dave has bigger hands than that guy, so maybe it would be harder for him. Unless he really went for it, I mean…”
“Will you cut it out?” I scold her in disgust.
“Why? What did I say?” she sniggers, pretending not to understand. “Come on, maybe a mental image like that will finally kill your crush on him.”
“Nothing is going to kill it.”
“Right,” she sighs.
“And he does not pick his nose!”
“Absolutely not, he would never do that, how could I even think such a thing?” she replies sarcastically, before going back to the main subject of our conversation, which is Dave’s proposal. “Why don’t you simply take it for what it is?”
“You mean suicide?”
“No, a way to spend some time together and get a better idea of what he’s actually like.”
“I don’t know, Terry. I had just decided to put an end to all this. Do you think it’s fair that he just shows up and asks me to help him the day after I had decided to steer clear of him?”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s not the end of the world. Think of it as a job opportunity – a chance to boost your career,” she says, trying to make me think straight. “It’s only a week, and you’ll have the chance to prove your talents to him.”
“Or to make a fool of myself.”
“A week to show him what you’re capable of,” she counters.
“A week to watch him be surrounded by models from all over the world.”
“Sam, if he had half a brain he’d have no use at all for a bunch of dumb celebrity hunters, and if we give him the benefit of the doubt and admit that he might have a whole one – and we must take this possibility into account – this might be a chance for you to show him what a wonderful, awesome girl you are. Who knows what might happen? He might dump that stick insect of a woman he’s dating for you!”
“Haven’t you always told me that I should stop having ridiculous dreams about him? What’s changed now?” I say, maybe slightly too loudly.
“Don’t misunderstand me, please,” she corrects me. “I’ve never for a moment thought that you weren’t good enough for Dave. I just thought he was always too busy with… other stuff,” she says, choosing her words carefully, “to notice a girl like you. But that doesn’t mean that things can’t change.”
“Oh yeah, sure, of course,” I mutter sceptically, while I play with the phone cable.
“And anyway, what have you got to lose?”
“My dignity, for example?” While we speak, I google ‘Madeleine Hunt’ on my computer, hoping that yesterday I was too drunk to notice how similar we are. Millions of pictures of her most recent public appearances and modelling shoots immediately appear, all of which make it very clear just how unalike we actually are. We’re from two completely different realities – two planets in two distant galaxies.
“God, quit being such a loser! If I haven’t managed to convince you, fine, forget everything I said, but be sure to go to that damn appointment!”
“Why, huh? Why? I’m asking you to give me one good reason I should go!”
“I can give you three good reasons: Murphy. And. Son,” she shouts, almost piercing my eardrum. “If you stay at that desk for too long, that’s what’s waiting for you. You know that, right? Today it’s the latest exhibition of developments in permanent make-up for corpses…”
“Okay, I hear you…”
“… tomorrow you’ll be assigned to report on the biggest donut in Minnesota…”
“Okay, I said, I hear you!”
“And in a year’s time, you’ll get your big scoop: the man who can swallow the most eggs in three minutes. Shells included!”
“Terry, I get it, I get it. I hear what you’re saying and I’ll go to that damn…”
“What? What’s the matter?” she asks when she hears me fall completely silent.
“Margaret in the area,” I explain, while monitoring the corridor. I spot her at Nicholas’ desk – she’s checking something on her smartphone and straightening her hair with her hands. “I have to go – I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, but you are going to that appointment!”
“Yes, I’m going, don’t worry!” I say to try and get rid of her before I get busted.
“Okay, see you tonight. I’ll bring some wine, so please make something edible.” My surrender seems to have convinced her, and she says goodbye.
“See you later,” I say, before anxiously hanging up. There’s a question that’s bugging me, one that I really can’t come up with an answer to that makes sense. The question is: why the hell did I even call her? Terry is incapable of indulging my victim complex. If the only purpose of my call was to get some sympathy in the hope that it would make my sadness magically go away, she wasn’t the right person.
“Hey, Sam,” says Jane, appearing at my desk while keeping an eye on the corridor. “Do you happen to have a couple of spare minutes to help me find the number of that cosy Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant?” she whispers, trying not to let anyone overhear her. “You know, it’s Jake’s birthday…”
“Ok, I’ll try,” I promise her, but for some strange reason I can’t take my eyes off Madeleine.
“Oh, look at her…” I murmur, half hypnotised and half contemplating suicide by overdosing on M&Ms. “And Terry says Dave might want someone like me when he has her. Right…” I instinctively look up at the ceiling. “Please, God, if you’re planning to eventually change my life, can you please do it in the next three weeks?” I beg and wait, but, as usual, I get no answer. “Well that was predictable,” I mumble, feeling discouraged, and then go back to staring at the monitor, hoping that somewhere in those pictures lies the solution to my problems. Madeleine looks back at me from a Caribbean beach, wearing only sand and tanning oil. Her face is sullen and her gaze is immobile, distant and almost empty. She looks like she has no emotions at all, and I ask myself for the zillionth time what it could be that this woman has that I don’t. I mean, apart from money, clothes, a promising career and a lovely mole next to her lip. She doesn’t look like she’d be much fun, and from these pictures it doesn’t look like she’d be particularly interesting company either.
What she does have is that she’s thin. That’s all. She’s just thinner than me. I wonder what would happen if for once Terry was right. What if this really is the chance of a lifetime? What if it’s some sort of… destiny, something that has to happen, one way or another? And let’s be serious: when will I get another opportunity like this? Never. Now I have a whole week to convince Dave that I, Sam Preston, Sam ‘girl with a thousand stories to tell’ Preston, am the woman of his dreams. All I have to do is make sure he notices me.
How much thinner than me can Madeleine Hunt be? A stone? Three stone?
Okay, how much time do I have?
Today’s the sixteenth, and Fashion Week opens on the first weekend of next month. I have twenty days to turn this around, I think, and to turn myself into that. Or into something close enough to that. It’s always better to set realistic goals. And as Terry would say: what the hell have I got to lose?
And that’s how I make my second solemn decision in eight hours: I’m going to make Dave fall madly in love with me.
Creepy, right? Yeah, I know…