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‘I just want to look professional… and intelligent.’
‘There’s more to being smart than having a sensible hairstyle,’ Hannah said with a grin, running a hand through the pink-tipped ends of her spiky haircut. With a Mensa-level IQ, Hannah had no trouble being taken seriously, despite a hairstyle that rivalled the plumage of a bird of paradise.
‘You make a good point,’ I conceded, ‘but there’s too much riding on this interview to blow it because I don’t look the part.’
‘Isn’t it supposed to be the quality of your writing that gets you the job, rather than your resemblance to a 1950s librarian?’ she teased, reaching for a slice of toast and demolishing it in two enormous bites. For a very small person, Hannah had a huge appetite. I wasn’t sure where the calories she consumed actually went, but very few appeared to linger on her petite frame. ‘And Iloveyour writing style,’ she declared loyally.
I flashed her a grateful smile as I reached hopefully for the coffee pot. I managed to squeeze out a cup and sipped it slowly as I once again ran my eye down the articles bearing my byline that I’d uploaded to my iPad. ‘It’s hard to know which one will impress them the most: the kitten that had to be rescued from the tree or the furore at the WI jam-making contest.’
‘The kitten one, obviously,’ Hannah said, pressing a clenched fist to her heart. ‘It has “Pulitzer” written all over it.’
I snorted, and for a moment it was touch and go as to whether I’d swallow my mouthful of coffee or spray it all over myself and the kitchen.
‘It’s going to be seriously dull around here when you move out,’ I said, which sounded more woeful out loud than it had done in my head. I wasn’t trying to make her feel sad or guilty, although I saw both emotions flicker briefly in her violet eyes. After years of renting a succession of grotty flats, Hannah and I had taken the plunge and bought a place together, somehow forgetting to consider what might happen if one of us wanted to move out and the other didn’t.
I could vividly remember the night she’d come home early from her date with William, who she’d been seeing for the last six months. She’d walked into the lounge with worried eyes and a look of torment on her face, and I’d automatically reached for a bottle of wine, two glasses and a box of tissues, fearing the worst. But I was wrong; William hadn’t broken up with her – just the opposite, in fact.
‘He’s asked me to move in with him,’ she said, sounding as though she was being coerced into something illegal.
‘Bastard,’ I deadpanned. I was so relieved he wasn’t breaking her heart, it took a few moments for me to realise that it was actuallyminethat might end up getting hurt here. ‘And you said…?’
She bit her lip as though trying to stop the smile, but it found a way out anyway; it was right there in her eyes.
‘I said yes.’
I spilled the wine, and we both cried and hugged and quotedFriendsby saying it was ‘the end of an era’. But the cold, hard reality of the situation only hit me later. Not only was I going to lose my flatmate, I could end up losing the flat too.
‘Maybe I could just carry on paying my half – I’m sure William would understand,’ Hannah suggested gamely.
‘Absolutely not. That would be totally unfair,’ I insisted. ‘Besides, there’s this magazine feature writer job coming up that I’ve been thinking of going for. If I get it, I’d be able to cover the repayments for this place by myself.’As long as I cut out all unnecessary expenses, like eating, I silently added.
Getting this job was actually an enormous ‘if’, because I’d be leapfrogging up a great many rungs on the career ladder, going from humble reporter on a local newspaper to feature writer for a well-known glossy magazine. But I had to give it a shot.
*
Although the morning rush hour should have been and gone by then, the roads were still surprisingly busy. The forty-five-minute contingency I’d built into my journey was swallowed up with delays, faulty traffic lights and a jackknifed lorry. And to cap it all, my car’s air con didn’t seem to appreciate that this was an extremely bad day to decide to finally die. ‘It’s a September scorcher,’ the radio announcer crowed delightedly. I switched him off mid-sentence.
By the time I spotted the first sign for the business park, a thin film of sweat had beaded on my forehead and was busily dissolving my foundation. I swung into the car park, panicking when I noticed the time on the dashboard clock. My interview was in fifteen minutes.
Glow’s offices were in a towering blue glass-clad building, which made it look like a gigantic glacier that had somehow taken a wrong turn and mistakenly ended up in an urban setting.
I should still be okay as long as I can find a parking space quickly, I told myself as I began the first of several unsuccessful circuits of the car park. And then suddenly I spotted a car just up ahead, pulling out. I braked to a stop and flicked on my indicator. The driver took ages to reverse out of the bay, and my court-shoed foot was already hovering above the accelerator when out of nowhere another car shot into the space. Not only had they stolen the spot I’d been patiently waiting for, but they’d also driven the wrong way around the car park to do so.
I didn’t do road rage, or at least I never had before, but I didn’t even stop to think. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I cried out as I leant the flat of my hand on my car’s horn, splitting the quiet morning with its strident scream. I saw the driver stop and do a quick 360-degree scan of the car park. As I was the only other vehicle searching for a space, it didn’t take a genius to work out who had made the noise. The driver’s gaze locked on to mine through our respective windscreens and I threw my hands up in the unofficial Highway Code sign language for ‘What the fuck?’
Through the red mist of my anger, I saw a flash of white teeth. Was this man actuallysmilingat me? I was pretty sure I saw his lips mouthing a word that might possibly have been ‘Sorry’. If so, he was wasting his time as I was in no mood to accept his apology. And then, to add further insult, he proceeded to roll down his window.
‘Sorry about that, but I’m really late for an appointment.’ He flashed me another hundred-kilowatt smile, the sort I suspected usually allowed him to get away with all manner of transgressions. But not today, and certainly not with me.
I too wound down my window.
‘That was my space,’ I yelled, sticking my head out like a dog on a long drive.
His voice carried better than mine; he didn’t have to resort to such contortions to make himself heard.
‘Well, technically it’s not your space until you’re actually in it,’ he argued equably, as though he wasn’t just about to ruin my chances of getting the job I desperately needed. ‘Like I said, I apologise, but I’m running late, and’ – he glanced down at his watch and then back towards me – ‘as pleasant as this is, yelling at each other across the width of the car park, I reallydohave to get going.’
My mouth couldn’t decide whether to drop open at his gall or snap shut in fury. I was still deliberating as he climbed out of his car and headed towards the glass-panelled building. His path took him almost directly in front of me, and it required more restraint than it should have done not to rev my engine menacingly. I wasn’t so enraged as toactuallymow him down, but it would have been good to startle him just enough to wipe that smug look off his face.
