“Well,” Simone said, throwing me a much-needed lifeline, “have you ever thought about moving into events?”
I somehow managed to keep my nose from actually turning up at that comment. I’d helped on the autumn gala last year, and it had been the worst three months of my life. “Not specifically,” I said.
“Well, Aaron from the events team is going on parental leave at some point soon,” she said. “And between you and me, he’s let me know that he’s unlikely to come back. So there could be a promotion up for grabs.”
I didn’t like where she was headed, and my leg bounced nervously in front of me.
“Now, you helped Aaron with last year’s gala, did you not?”
I nodded, swallowing hard.
“Well, I’d like you to cover it this year, in addition to your usual work. And assuming it goes well, as soon as Aaron makes his departure official, his job would be yours.”
I knew she was expecting some gratitude from me here; the Event Coordinators made almost ten grand a year more than I did in my current role. And who actually liked being a glorified telemarketer? So I saw disappointment settle over her when I didn’t immediately begin thanking her.
But then I remembered my current predicament. I’d be moving out soon, whether I liked it or not. With any luck, the gala would come and go without a moving date, and I could save enough to tide me over in a more expensive place until the promotion became available. This could be a game-changer for me in terms of what I could afford on my own. Maybe I could even get a dog-friendly place…
So I smiled.
“I’m in,” I said, trying to project the confidence I thought she was looking for.
“Brilliant,” she said, bringing her hands down on the stack of folders on her desk. She grabbed one of them, clearly placed conveniently on top for this conversation, and handed it to me. “Here’s all the collateral from last year: the invites, the programme, the menu. Aaron will have everything else. I’ll have him put a meeting in your calendar for next week to get started.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing up to go.
“You’re the right person for the job,” she said from her seat as I left the room. “I know you can do this.”
I smiled and nodded thankfully as I left the room, but the smile dropped as soon as I shut the door behind me. Because I knew she was right; I could do this. But I also wasn’t being given a choice, as was the case with most things in my life, it seemed.
* * *
By the timethe weekend rolled around, I couldn’t ignore the cleaning any longer. The estate agent was officially coming round in a couple of days, and I figured I’d better get started. So I put my headphones on, put on the audiobook of a new rom-com, and got to work.
I started by throwing a load of whites into the washing machine, which meant changing my bedsheets. Then, riding the wave of momentum that created, I boxed half the throw pillows and stashed them in the gross storage cellar; I hated to admit it, but the lounge looked significantly less cluttered as a result. I scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom, and even dusted the skirting board, which was so dusty that I wondered if it had ever been dusted at all.
Then I took a step back, looked at the downstairs through the eyes of a prospective buyer, decided most prospective buyers were probably boring, and decided we probably didn’t need all three rugs. I tried to get the most garish one out from under the sofa, but I couldn’t do it alone, so I changed my mind and decided the boring buyers would just have to deal.
I was just putting another load of washing on when a text message came through, the ding of the notification so loud in my headphones that it made me jump. I pulled my phone out of the chest pocket of my dungarees and saw that it was from Chloe:
Really glad you came with us this weekend! And now we’ve got the ren faire to plan, yay! Xx
I tapped out a reply:
It was so fun! And yeah, lots to plan! Let me know when I need to send you money for the flights and stuff
This was new; Chloe and I had never messaged outside of work before. I hadn’t had a texting buddy other than Cara in forever. Not that one text constituted a texting buddy, but still … it was a start.
I smiled a few moments later when another notification pinged, letting me know I’d been added to a group chat called “Wench Please”.
I sat down on the sofa for a break, and the second I did, I felt all the motivation drain out of me. So instead of doing the half dozen other things on my list, I grabbed my tablet and went over to my window seat.
Instead of resuming the character portraits though, I opened up a new file and just started drawing as lines and colours flashed in my mind: some grey shapes, some green grass, and finally some squiggles that could be water. It was the river. Now that I knew what I was doing, I went back and refined some of the shapes, then debated how to approach drawing the water, which had been so crystal clear; I’d never tried to draw anything quite like it. But eventually I got there, focusing on creating reflections and refractions instead of the water itself.
And before I realised what I was doing, I was adding more shapes to the scene: one taller and more golden, the other paler and smaller, as close as they could be to one another in the water without touching. The negative space between them was almost more conspicuous than contact would have been. Looking at it, I could remember what it felt like to have the current moving around me, pushing me towards him, his eyes on my face, his body heat at my front…
Nope, okay, that was enough of that. I turned off my tablet and chucked it away from me faster than if it had burned me.
I shook off the memory, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something important had happened. Jack was right: it had awakened a desire to do something more. Something interesting. Whatever had come over me that morning that had made me want to go swimming, that didn’t seem to be going away.
