Page 28 of Little Miss Fortune

‘Love your pins,’ I say on the first day.

‘Thank you.’ She nods in understanding and acknowledgement. ‘Fukoh, is it?’

‘Fuko, actually.’

‘Oh sorry, Steven said... Ah. Tall-man Steven.’ She sighs in realisation. ‘You should correct him. He used to call me Fawn-zia. Like Dawn.’

‘I could, but then I’d have no leverage when I need something from him.’

‘You need something from me? You know you only need to ask.’ Toby saunters in and stands right behind me.

His cologne embraces the air around me, gently caressing my skin, and suddenly that’s all I can think about.

Move away. Please.

‘We are talking about tall-man-Steven,’ Fawzia whispers to him. ‘Bad with names.’

‘Steven, what a typical man.’ Toby jokingly rolls his eyes at his own sex.

Wait, maybe I am just overthinking it. All those podcasts and magazines say that men don’t think in the same way women do. Maybe flirty is normal for him, and I am the weird one. Yes. This is fine. We have seen each other naked; we have a lot in common, but a boy and a girl can be friends.

Toby realises he is standing way too close for comfort and moves away.

See? Nothing weird, Fuko.

‘Right, thank you for joining our team. One member is on hospital leave with shingles.’ Bad luck. ‘Another is on annual leave in the Bahamas.’ Good luck.

We are given NDAs to sign, which would matter to anyone but me, as I genuinely do not know who that woman is or what she does. But Toby gasps with a shocked, ‘No way!’

Apparently, an actress and a comedian, whose name I’m not allowed to reveal, had posted a homophobic poem on her socials that she thought was about London’s traffic. Sure. Easy mistake to make.

‘We’ve all been there.’ Toby also saw the humour in the complete improbability and ridiculousness of the situation.

Fawzia snorts a laugh. ‘The comms plan has already been drafted, but the client wishes to throw a big motive,’—or an event, to the less hip of us—‘to highlight how unhomophobic they are. We need people liaising with the events team and keeping track of mentions to make sure the public’s perception is shifting. I have a hundred other things I need to work on, so I will send you a list of actions that need to happen over the next month, and a log of everything that has already been done.’

Straightforward and organised. She is so cool. I need to find a natural way to become her best friend.

‘The events team is... slightly behind on trends. So please try to talk them out of the rainbow theme for the I don’t hate gay people party.’

‘Oh no.’ I grimace.

‘Blimey,’ Toby concludes.

‘Right, I will leave you to it. E-mail or call if you have questions.’

‘Is there a list of contacts?’ Toby asks.

‘It’s in the folders.’ She smiles.

It wasn’t even a question in my mind. Of course she has everything. Even her font choice is unexpected but so appropriate. Abadi Extra Light, who would have thought? I am learning so much. Maybe I can ask her to be my mentor. Maybe I can become her.

‘You are staring.’ Toby waves a hand in front of my face.

‘I am in love,’ I say without missing a beat. ‘It’s nice to work with someone who takes me seriously.’

It startles him; a strange expression flies across his face, somewhere between when the bus driver keeps driving after you’ve waved him down, and smelling mildew but having no clue where it’s coming from. I just can’t place it.

‘Right, well, shall we get to work?’ He types something on his laptop, jaw clenched.