8. Charlie
8
CHARLIE
Through the glass wall of the meeting room, I can see Nell talking to Talia.
I might be imagining it, but I swear at one point they both turn to look at me. I immediately look away, flustered, as my brain starts conjuring up ridiculous fantasies of what they might be saying.
NELL: That new intern, Charlie, seems really cool.
TALIA: He does, yeah.
NELL: And he’s super hot too.
TALIA: Also yes. You should totally ask him out.
NELL: That’s a good idea. I will definitely do that.
Jesus. I wince with embarrassment at my own thoughts. What the hell am I doing sitting in a writers’ room when this is the best dialogue my brain can come up with?
Talia walks in and shuts the door behind her just as Nate is finishing off a funny story about the stag do he was on last weekend. I see Nell walk off though – presumably back to her desk. Why isn’t she coming in too?
‘Ah, T-Double-J, so nice of you to finally join us,’ Nate says sarcastically.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Talia says, sitting down in the chair opposite me. ‘Just needed an extra caffeine hit.’
‘Okey-dokes.’ Nate claps his hands together. ‘So, everyone, if you’ve not met Charlie yet, this is Charlie – our intern.’
‘Our other intern,’ Talia says, smiling at me. ‘There’s Nell too.’ I smile back, wondering again what they were talking about outside.
Nate looks a little pissed off at being interrupted, but he manages to style it out. ‘Other intern, yes. Thanks, T-Double.’ I’m praying he’ll leave it there, but he turns back to me. ‘Charlie’s a ledge, and we’re very lucky to have him.’
‘Haha,’ I mumble awkwardly. ‘Cheers.’
Nate introduces me to the four other people in the room – the rest of the staff writing team on Punching Up. I smile and nod as he tells me their names, but my stomach is churning at all the attention. Truthfully, I’d rather swap places with Nell. I’m not massively chuffed about having to sit through a whole meeting with the same people who’ve just witnessed my arsehole of a father publicly humiliate me. I feel like I need some time to regroup after what happened with Nick. Even just a chance to sneak to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face and try to will some confidence back into my body. But apparently that’s not an option.
It strikes me suddenly that Nell is one of the few people on our team who didn’t see what happened with Nick. Maybe she doesn’t even know he’s my dad.
If that is the case, I am very keen on it staying that way.
Nate is standing at the front of the room, chewing the end of his Sharpie and frowning at the Post-it notes on the wall. ‘OK, so the wall is looking worryingly empty for a Tuesday morning,’ he says. ‘What have we got so far? Rich’s egotistical-scientists thing . . .’
‘I just sent you a new draft of that,’ Rich says.
‘Cool.’ Nate turns back to the wall. ‘We’ve got my Crufts bit, Anna’s repair-man thing . . .’ He looks at Talia. ‘T-Double, that Lina idea you just sent me – the sketch about her meeting her super-fans – that could definitely work, but I think we need to fiddle with the ending a bit.’
Talia nods. ‘I printed out copies.’
She passes the pages round the table. Even I get given a copy. I’m seriously hoping I will not have to contribute.
‘OK,’ Nate says. ‘Let’s get into this.’
The rest of the meeting is actually pretty cool.
The writers all break down Talia’s sketch and suggest ways to make it funnier – even though, to be honest, it seemed pretty funny to me already.
Luckily it becomes clear very quickly that I am not expected to chip in with joke suggestions, so I just sit there laughing along at the gags they come up with, and occasionally zoning out while I think about Nick.
That comment he made after telling them all about the Michael Barkley thing: You hopeless lump. That’s how I always seem to feel in his presence. Less than him, somehow. A spare part. Something that doesn’t quite fit.
I burn with the shame of it all over again.
The thought of going to lunch with him freaks me out too. We haven’t been alone, just the two of us, for . . . I honestly can’t even remember the last time. What will we even have to talk about? I suppose we won’t talk; I’ll just listen. That’s how it usually goes with Nick. He drones on about his job and his other kids and whatever ridiculously expensive building work he’s having done to their house at that moment. I’m not even sure why I still meet up with him on the rare occasions he suggests it. In the hope that he might have miraculously changed? In the hope that he’ll suddenly start showing some interest in me?
Today though it turns out I needn’t have worried.
When the writers’ meeting is over, I go back to my desk and wait for him to message me. But lunchtime comes and goes and nothing arrives. Weirdly, it makes me feel even more like a kid. It reminds me of those early years after he left, when I still yearned for a relationship with him. I was thirteen, fourteen, and making more of an effort than my own father. I’d call him up and he’d promise all sorts: days out at the football, trips to theme parks, holidays abroad. And there’d always be some excuse at the last minute. Too busy, so sorry, too many other things to deal with.
You hopeless lump.
Deep down, I know that’s how my father sees me. How he’s always seen me. He thinks I’m this useless, directionless screw-up. The exact opposite of him. I even remember, in my bleaker moods as a kid, wondering if that was the real reason he’d left us: because he’d seen something ‘hopeless’ in me right from the start. Oh well, the first kid turned out to be a dud, I’d better find someone else to make some new ones with.
I know it’s stupid. I know it’s probably not true. But it’s still there.
I look up at the writers. They’ve all got their earbuds in, frantically pounding away at their keyboards. I know it means a lot to Mum for me to be here, but I’m not sure I can cope with a whole month of this. Seeing Nick every day, being made to feel like I’m three feet tall in front of a whole office of people I’m working with . . . I’m not sure how much of my self-esteem will actually be left by the time these four weeks are over.
To be honest, I can only think of three good reasons for not chucking this internship in right now: that dark hair, those dark eyes and those deep-red lips.
Nell.