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Even if I were willing to accept help, it’s a good reminder of why Lloyd is the last person I can ask for it.
The lift stops at the eleventh floor, and I get out.
‘That’s okay,’ I tell Lloyd. ‘I wouldn’t want to add to your reputation ofjustbeing the guy who “helps out” the interns.’
‘Annalise …’
I wait, but he doesn’t have an excuse to offer. He just sighs, dejected, and we part ways.
At my desk, I check my phone as I wait for my computer to come to life, and there’s another gut-punch moment when I see a text notification on my screen.
Hi sweetie! Saw your news about the internship. How’s it going?! Which company are you at? If ever need a little business advice, you know where to find me!
Scowling, I clear the notification off my screen.
It’s a bit rich that after all the years Mum dropped off the face of the earth,nowshe wants to talk – to give me business advice, imparting all the pearls of wisdom she learned while she was out there being a boss instead of being my mum. What a warm and fuzzy reunion I bet that’d be.
Well, I don’t need it. I don’t need her help, or Lloyd Fletcher’s help, or anybody’s. I can do this all by myself.
Correction: Iwilldo this all by myself, just like I’ve always done.
Sunlight streams through the windows in wide yellow stripes, casting a glare on computer monitors and a pall over the mood in the office as the day wanes on. People would rather be anywhere but shut up in the office, dashing between meetings in stuffy rooms or tap-tap-tapping away at their keyboards with a steaming cup of coffee beside them and sweat beading on the back of their necks. Somewhere, a few banks of desks away, someone has a playlist of pop songs murmuring out of their computer. It makes heads bob distractedly and feet tap lazily, and adds insult to injury that we’re not basking on picnic blankets enjoying cold ciders and ice creams somewhere.
It’s the end of June and almost a month into the Arrowmile internship.
Things have ramped upa lotin the last two weeks. I told Dad it was like riding a bike with the stabilizerson at first, but now it’s more like being pushed out of a plane with a thumbs up while trying to remember which cord deploys the parachute.
Some of that, I know, is my own fault. When someone asks if I can do something, the answer is always an unhesitating ‘yes’. Or sometimes I overhear things my team are working on and ask if I can help out, in an attempt to prove myself.
After all, I’m not here to coast through. If I’d wanted an easy summer, I would’ve stayed at home.
So the answer is always yes, I can do that. And the question is always, can I get involved in that?
This is nothing new, though. I’m used to pushing my limits, tiptoeing just along the edge of being too burnt-out to function. I make sure to put in the effort with the other interns, going out enough that they keep inviting me, missing enough dinners and drinks that I can catch up on sleep. Or work. Whichever needs my attention most at the time.
It’s a delicate balance, because they’re always making new plans – heading out to posh cocktail bars or chic Instagrammable restaurants they stumbled across on some influencer’s TikTok …
As much as the others are constantly hanging out together and enjoying themselves, whenever we all talk about work, it’s clear that everybody is trying tosuss out the competition. They all want one of those coveted full-time roles when they graduate; they need to know that they’re not just doingtheirbest, but doing better than everybody else. I wonder if I’m the only person downplaying how hard I’m working – although while I’m scared of them calling me ‘boring’, they might be doing it to lull everyone else into a false sense of security. More than once, someone has joked about outright sabotaging another intern over something so silly, it’s obviously a joke – but still. It adds to the pressure, a little more.
I honestly don’t know where they find the energy to socialize as much as they do – or the money. Clearly, they’re not too concerned with saving as much as they can ahead of their next term at uni, and would rather enjoy the moment.
Today is payday, and tonight, they’re going to the Shard for drinks. It’s eye-wateringly expensive, so I made some excuses to avoid joining them.
Distracted by the nagging worry that they’ll start excluding me if I don’t go out, and listless in the heat, I take a break from an email I’ve been trying to write for the last ten minutes and open up the internet browser instead. A brief respite before I get back to the grind, that’s all. One of the open tabs is the Zara website, where I have a basket full of pretty,office-appropriate outfits that I’ll never buy, but like daydreaming over.
There’s a sudden weight against the back of my chair, hands that startle me out of my daydream, and a voice too close that says, ‘Working hard or hardly working, Barbie?’
I click hastily to another tab – although that one’s not much less embarrassing: a step-by-step tutorial on VLOOKUP IF statements in Excel, which I still haven’t figured out. (I might have ultimately succeeded in my automated report for Michaela, but now the whole team seem to think I’m a whizz and keep asking me to rebuild their spreadsheets better.)
Near my ear, Lloyd laughs. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you.’
I crane my neck to look around just in time to see him wink, and scowl at him. ‘Can you let go of my chair, please? And did you just call meBarbie?’
He lets go, allowing me to swivel my chair to face him. His usual bright smile is spread across his face, and he seems undeterred by my frown or the way my arms are crossed, my spine stiff.
Instead, he just gestures at me with one hand. ‘Yeah. Because of the bright pink. Or were you going for more of aLegally Blondething?’
I cringe.
