Confessions of a Shopaholic

“Hi!” I say. “Jill!”

“No, I’m Amy,” she smiles. “Jill’s assistant.”

Wow. That’s pretty cool. Sending your assistant to pick up your visitors, as if you’re too grand and busy to do it yourself. Maybe that’s what I’ll get my assistant to do when I’m an important futures broker and Elly comes over for lunch. Or maybe I’ll have a male assistant — and we’ll fall in love! God, it would be just like a movie. The high-flying woman and the cute but sensitive. .

“Rebecca?” I come to and see Amy staring at me curiously. “Are you ready?”

“Of course!” I say gaily, and pick up my briefcase. As we stride off over the glossy floor, I surreptitiously run my gaze over Amy’s trouser suit again — and find my eye landing on an Emporio Armani label. I can’t quite believe it. The assistants wear Emporio Armani! So what’s Jill herself going to be in? Couture Dior? God, I love this place already.

We go up to the sixth floor and begin to walk along endless carpeted corridors.

“So you want to be a futures broker,” says Amy after a while.

“Yes,” I say. “That’s the idea.”

“And you already know a bit about it.”

“Well, you know.” I give a modest smile. “I’ve written extensively on most areas of finance, so I do feel quite well equipped.”

“That’s good,” says Amy, and gives me a smile. “Some people turn up with no idea. Then Jill asks them a few standard questions, and. .” She makes a gesture with her hand. I don’t know what it means, but it doesn’t look good.

“Right!” I say, forcing myself to speak in an easy tone. “So — what sort of questions?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about!” says Amy. “She’ll probably ask you. . oh, I don’t know. Something like ‘How do you trade a butterfly?’ or, ‘What’s the difference between open outlay and OR?’ Or, ‘How would you calculate the expiry date of a futures instrument?’ Really basic stuff.”

“Right,” I say, and swallow. “Great.”

Something in me is telling me to turn and run — but we’ve already arrived at a pale blond-wood door.

“Here we are,” says Amy, and smiles at me. “Would you like tea or coffee?”

“Coffee, please,” I say, wishing I could say “A stiff gin, please.” Amy knocks on the door, opens it and ushers me in, and says, “Rebecca Bloomwood.”

“Rebecca!” says a dark-haired woman behind the desk, and gets up to shake my hand.

To my slight surprise, Jill is not nearly as well dressed as Amy. She’s wearing a blue, rather mumsy-looking suit, and boring court shoes. But still, never mind, she’s the boss. And her office is pretty amazing.

“It’s very good to meet you,” she says, gesturing to a chair in front of her desk. “And let me say straight away, I was extremely impressed by your CV.”

“Really?” I say, feeling relief creep over me. That can’t be bad, can it? Extremely impressed. Maybe it won’t matter I don’t know the answers to those questions.

“Particularly by your languages,” adds Jill. “Very good. You do seem to be one of those rare breeds, an all-rounder.”

“Well, my French is really only conversational,” I say modestly. “Voici la plume de ma tante, and all that!”

Jill gives an appreciative laugh, and I beam back at her.

“But Finnish!” she says, reaching for the cup of coffee on her desk. “That’s quite unusual.”

I keep smiling and hope we move off the subject of languages. To be honest, “fluent in Finnish” went in because I thought “conversational French” looked a bit bare on its own. And after all, who speaks Finnish, for God’s sake? No one.

“And your financial knowledge,” she says, pulling my CV toward her. “You seemed to have covered a lot of different areas during your years in financial journalism.” She looks up. “What attracts you to derivatives in particular?”

What? What’s she talking about? Oh yes. Derivatives. They’re futures, aren’t they? And they have something to do with the price of a security. Or a commodity. Something like that.

“Well,” I begin confidently — and am interrupted as Amy comes in with a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I say, and look up, hoping we’ve moved onto something else. But she’s still waiting for an answer. “I think the excitement of futures is the. . um, their speculative nature, combined with the ability to control risk with hedge positions,” I hear myself saying.