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“If this is luck, you’re welcome to it,” I said, and gave his arm a friendly slap.
I was making a coffee when Verity clacked her way into the kitchen behind me. My skin prickled. Wondering what she knew. Wondering what she’d heard. Wondering if she knew anything at all.
She appeared at my side, reached up for a coffee mug, and she was stewing, I could tell.
“Hey, Katie,” she said, like she ever made casual conversation. She turned around, leaned against the counter, looking anywhere but at me. “I know we don’t… speak.”
No shit.
“…but I just wanted to…” She sighed. “Good leads today. So many of them.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ve been meaning to say. For a while. You, uh, you sure know how to make those calls.”
I didn’t even know how to reply.
Her earrings sparkled under the florescent light, and so did her lip gloss. She was so preened, so perfect, so stylish and groomed and well-fucking-educated.
But she was nervous, a little bit hollow. She felt like glass. I could tell.
“Look, Katie, I, um…”
“You,um?”
She shot me a half smile, like she was crazy and she knew it.
“Ruth and Sharon and I are meeting up at Cheltenham Chase, before the event kicks off. I was wondering if you would… if you wanted to… I dunno… meet us? I have a spare trailer, if you…”
“I have my own trailer,” I said.
And she looked disappointed, like I’d lashed out and stamped on her olive branch. It felt so surreal.
She pinked up, and shrugged. But she wasn’t hostile. She didn’t attack.
“Ok,” she said. “Well, I guess we’ll see you there. Dad’s coming. Seb and Dommie, too. And Mum.”
I watched in silence as she made her coffee, dumbfounded beyond coherent speech. She dropped the teaspoon in the sink and shot me a final look before she walked away.
“Hey, Verity,” I managed, as she reached the open door.
She turned, stared right back at me.
“Thanks,” I said. “For the offer.”
She shrugged, offered me a small smile. “No problem,” she said.
Bagels were off the lunch menu today. I felt uncharacteristically nervous as I gave the training suite a final onceover.
It had come around so quickly, the end of the telemarketing phase of the internship programme. As of Monday, my group of twenty would be fractured into smaller teams, assigned to different departments of their own choosing. Some into the account management teams, some into back office support, Ryan was heading for the field sales division, shadowing one of our Northern Territory sales managers.
Katie and Verity had both opted for the marketing team, and there would be just four of them heading in that direction.
Maybe it was their shot to find some common ground, without the background noise of a busy calling regime.
I hoped so. As much as Verity Faverley had been a self-righteous, bitchy little pain in the ass for the vast majority of the time I’d known her, I still hoped they’d find some way to forge a relationship of sorts. Verity had surprised me, and as much as Katie hated to admit it, she was surprising her, too.
I’d seen it for myself, the little olive branches Verity was holding out. Little comments in the team meetings, a genuine smile as Katie claimed the leaderboard for the day, an offer of a trailer for the Cheltenham Chase by all accounts.
