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My hand runs over the firm planes of his chest and down to his hip, settling there. Lloyd’s other hand finds its way to the small of my back to anchor me close against him and I’m hit once more by the spiced, earthy smell of his cologne as it mingles with the mild, smoggy summer air. I swear he’s so close I can feel his heart thundering, or maybe that’s mine. Maybe both.
We kiss for seconds, for aeons, and finally, all too soon, draw apart to catch our breath. He lifts his head, lips grazing against my temple, and my breath catches in my throat again.
My heart hammers against my chest, beating a tattoo oftake him home, take him home, but I know I can’t do that. Much as I’d like to. Much as it feels likehe’dlike to, too. This is as far as it goes.
I can’t afford to get swept up in some fleeting romance, or even just a one-night stand. My brainweighs up the cost of short-term fun against my long-term ambitions, and comes to the conclusion it always does:It’s not worth it.
I’ll just be the girl he fell for this week. He’ll just be a fun story, a sweet memory.
I take a step back before I can forget why it isn’t worth it and be too tempted to ask him to come home with me. Lloyd is breathing heavily, his hands falling to his sides as I move away.
‘I should be getting home,’ I say, and then clarify in a very deliberate, exaggerated tone, ‘alone.’
‘Yeah.’ He clears his throat, though stutters a little when he continues to speak. ‘Yeah. Me, too. I’ll, um … I’ll wait with you, while you call an Uber?’
‘Thanks,’ I say, not rejecting the offer because it’s late and I don’t know this city well. I can tell he’s offering because it’s the polite thing to do, not because he’s angling for an invitation to join me.
We wait quietly, two feet apart, for my driver to show up. I try not to pay too much attention to the fare back to Clapham, writing it off as a one-time necessity.
Before long, a Prius idles on the kerb at my pick-up point and Lloyd stands with his hands in his pockets again.
‘Well, it was nice to meet you, Annalise.’
‘It was nice to meet you too, Lloyd.’
He seems to chew over his next words, but eventually flashes me a quicksilver smile and says, ‘I’ll see you around, maybe.’
‘Yeah. See you around.’
He closes the car door behind me, all chivalry and charm. My lips tingle with the imprint of his kiss. I almost feel a little sorry that I never got his number, and that I’ll never see him again.
The first Monday of June rolls around after months of anticipation, bringing with it the first official day of the Arrowmile internship. After all the build-up, the entire morning is so overwhelming it becomes a blur. Somehow, I get from sharing a commute with a group of equally nervous interns to the large, clinical reception of a shared office building in Victoria. We huddle together like lost ducklings, trying not to get swept up in the tide of people swiping key cards and striding through waist-high glass barriers.
I hadn’t been sure what to expect of the other interns, but most everyone seems to have formed a quick camaraderie. I’d been terrified to meet my new flatmates in the accommodation Arrowmile had organized for us all, worried they might be like the girls from my uni halls. I’d been terrified to meeteveryone.
I guess I also had the idea that they’d be … better than me, somehow. Cooler, more worldly. High-flying achievers that put allmyefforts to shame. Intimidating.
But our collective anxiety about what to do now we’re actuallyherereminds me that they’re all … normal. Just doing our best, with varying levels of self-confidence. I’m not a huge fan of Monty, an Exeter student with a very ‘rah’ sort of posh accent, who spent the icebreaker dinner talking almost exclusively about himself – very loudly, very brashly – and implying that he was entitled, somehow, to this spot on the internship. But I won’t hold it against him; there’s a good chance it was just nerves.
In spite of the fact I hardly know these people, the uncertain glances we give each other right now helps me feel hopeful about the rest of the summer. Like we’ll have each other’s backs, help each other out. Not shun each other if someone hits ‘reply all’ on a mass email by mistake.
Oh, God, I think suddenly. How do you even write an email? Can you start ‘hi’, or is that too informal? What’s the most appropriate sign-off? How many exclamation marks are too many?????
While I stand paralysed with the knowledge that I’ve forgotten how to do something so basic, one of thegirls, Tasha, takes the lead and goes up to the reception desk. The rest of us follow, and soon enough have signed ourselves in at a guest book and collected bright red lanyards with temporary guest passes hanging from them, with instructions to take the lift up to the twelfth floor and wait in the boardroom.
For a moment, as I wait for someone to swipe their way through the glass barriers before I can follow, an intense paranoia seizes me. What if my pass doesn’t work? What if some security guard comes over to stop me because there’s been a mistake and I’mnoton the internship because they’ve decided I’m not cut out for it after all? I desperately want to go back in time and ask Annalise from five months ago what the ever-loving fuck she thought she was doing applying for this internship.
It’ll be too tough. Too demanding. I won’t keep up. I’ll be bad at that water-cooler small talk and for the rest of the summer everyone will ask, ‘Who’s that weird ginger girl who can barely string a sentence together?’ I’ll do everything wrong or not know what I’m doing at all, and they’ll find out I’m a fraud …
The barrier makes a cheerful littleblip!sound when I press my pass against the sensor, and opens for me to go through. I remember to breathe, and try to shake off the irrational, intrusive thoughts of failure.
Waiting for the lift, I smooth my hands over my dress. It’s a bubblegum-pink, knee-length wrap dress with a modest neckline in a flattering-but-professional cut. When I first tried it on, it made me feel like I was channelling fictional feminist icon Elle Woods – and I could definitely do with her kind of energy and self-belief today.
Up on the twelfth floor, the boardroom is everything I expected: a large, rectangular table, a projector set up at one end, and along the back wall, canisters of tea and coffee we all help ourselves to before finding seats. Windows on one side offer a view of the street and on the other, a wall made up entirely of glass panels emblazoned with the cobalt-blue Arrowmile logo looks onto an open-plan office teeming with people who peer in on us like animals at the zoo, all curious about this new exhibit. I mean, cohort of interns.
Some of them wave, when they see us catching them looking.
One woman strides right up to the room, hand outstretched, staring at us so brazenly I think she’s about to tap on the glass wall and see if she can make us move, but instead she opens the door and steps into the room, and our murmured conversations are swallowed all at once by silence.
