Chapter 5 Becky
Becky
S he raised an eyebrow when she saw the car.
Sporty. Deep midnight blue. She tried to look casual and uninterested but inside she was as excited as a child waiting for Santa to pop down the chimney.
She wanted to crawl underneath its sleek, perfectly engineered body and take a closer look at the engine.
She wanted to find an open road and put it through its paces.
For the first time since she’d walked into the airport, she was relieved that nothing was flying.
But she kept her expression blank. “Midlife crisis, Will?”
He dealt with their luggage.
“It’s all about the engine. I love engines, you know that.”
She did know that. He and her brother had spent hours tinkering with cars when they were growing up and she’d hung around, handing them whatever they asked her to hand then, fascinated by the mechanics and wanting to be part of it all.
In that way, and in so many other ways, she was different to her sister.
When Rosie had been playing with dolls and going to ballet classes, Becky had been playing with train sets and racing cars.
When Rosie had gone to ballet camp, Becky had gone to coding camp.
She’d built her first game at the age of ten.
She’d been the only girl in a group of fifteen boys, but that hadn’t bothered her.
It had been good preparation for life. When she’d gone to university to study computer engineering, she’d been one of ten girls in an intake of a hundred and fifty, and that hadn’t bothered her either.
By the time she’d graduated it had been six girls because four of them had switched courses.
Becky hadn’t understood why they would do that.
Didn’t they love it? She loved it. Loved it too much to care what other people thought of her or her skills.
Programming was a way of solving complex problems, and she loved solving complex problems. And if she was surrounded by people who sneered and mocked her abilities, she ignored them just as she ignored the jibes that she’d only been given a place at what was considered one of the best universities in the world because she was a woman and they needed more women.
Let them think what they wanted to think.
Tell themselves what they needed to tell themselves.
From day one she’d focused on the work. She was insatiably curious.
She wasn’t afraid to ask questions, however stupid they might seem.
She studied. If she didn’t understand something she studied harder.
She learned. Her marks were the best in her group.
She had a natural talent, but there were other things she wasn’t so good at.
Small talk. Being sociable with strangers.
Making friends. None of that happened easily.
She didn’t have the knack and didn’t know how to develop those skills, probably because she hadn’t had to.
At school she’d had the same circle of friends as Rosie and her sister, sociable, friendly and good-natured, had done all the work. And Becky had let her.
In her first year of college she’d been on her own. She had a room on a long corridor and shared a kitchen with other students, but she usually grabbed sandwiches or ate cereal from a box that she kept under her bed so that she didn’t have to venture into that terrifying space.
In her second year she’d moved out of college accommodation and into a small apartment with Rosie.
Living with her twin was easy because it was familiar.
They understood and accommodated each other’s differences (although not without significant grumbling on occasion).
Rosie wore short skirts and makeup and loved parties.
Becky wore jeans and hoodies and clumpy boots and never understood the point of parties.
She didn’t like the noise, she didn’t have much interest in talking to strangers and she was hopeless at flirting.
She preferred being with people she knew.
People she was comfortable with. People like Will, although she was a lot less comfortable with him since the wedding.
Still, this car reminded her why she and Will were friends, and it wasn’t just because he was close to her brother.
She prowled around the car, trying not to drool on it.
She couldn’t criticize him for spending his money on it because she would have done the same if she hadn’t lived in London.
Traffic didn’t move much so it would have been cruel and frustrating on both her and the car.
And then there was the fact that she didn’t have the money. Neither seemed to be a problem for him.
She touched the paintwork reverentially. “Why were you flying up north?”
“You mean when I could have driven this?” The amusement on his face told her he knew exactly how much she loved the car.
“Same reason as you. I thought flying would be the fastest way to get home. I had to see a couple of patients first thing so I couldn’t make a quick getaway.
” He loaded the last of their luggage into the car.
“You’ve seen patients this morning?”
“A couple of complicated cases I wanted to check on before going away.” He slid into the car and she did the same, resisting the urge to ask if she could drive it.
She almost had to sit on her hands. “Jamie told me you’d got a new job. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. He told me you got a new job too.” He hesitated. “Do you want to drive? I know you hate being driven.”
She laughed. Was there anything he didn’t know about her? “That’s true, but oddly enough you’re the exception.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, but if you want to drive at any point just let me know.” He reversed out of the space and headed out of the car park. “So how’s that going? The job I mean. I haven’t seen so much of you this year so I assume it’s keeping you busy.”
“It’s great.”
“Mm.” He paused while the barrier lifted. “So which part specifically do you hate? Or do you hate all of it?”
She sighed. “Am I that bad an actor?”
“No, but I know you. I’ve known you since you were—I don’t know how old you were.
I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t know you.
” He emerged from the car park and joined the flow of traffic leaving the airport.
Snow swirled in front of them, reducing visibility.
“Let’s just say that I’ve known you long enough to be able to tell when you’re lying. ”
He was right. She loathed everything about her new job.
She missed her old colleagues and the fun they’d had together.
Missed the familiarity and ease of it all.
She’d been with the same company since college, and she was known and respected there.
Starting somewhere new had proved to be a massive culture shift.
And her boss was a problem. The fact that she was a woman should have been a positive in theory, but in practice it wasn’t turning out that way.
But the thing she found hardest of all was something she couldn’t talk about.
But Will was waiting for her to share details, so she gave him the only detail she was willing to share.
“My boss doesn’t seem to care about the quality of anyone’s work,” she said, “it’s all about who is present in the office. Who joined in the team lunch. Who went on the team awayday to an escape room. It’s just not me. I hate that kind of thing.”
He shot her a sympathetic look. “I don’t blame you. I’d hate it too.”
“I had my appraisal recently and she said there is no problem with Becky’s work, but she needs to join in more .
” She snuggled deeper into the seat. It was so comfortable she could have closed her eyes and slept for the whole journey.
It made her realise how tired she was. “It’s mandatory to work in the office three days a week, so I do that.
But I don’t see why it should be mandatory to do group activities outside work.
I loved going out with my colleagues in my last job, but that was different.
That was our choice, because we liked each other. It wasn’t compulsory.”
Will slowed down to allow a car to pull in front of him. “Sounds as if it’s time for you to find another job.”
“I haven’t even been there for a year.”
“So what? You have skills, Becks. You won’t have any difficulty finding another job.”
Maybe he was right. She had to be able to do better than this. But what if the next place was as bad?
“I probably should have picked it up in the interview, but I’m not great at understanding humans. They’re my least favourite animal.”
He laughed. “Your favourite animal being a lesser spotted laptop?”
“Something like that. But I also like dogs. And horses. And most cats. Red squirrels. I like red squirrels.” But he had her smiling too. And thinking. “So if you’re such an expert on the human condition, tell me how I can convince her that I don’t have to be partying until dawn to do my job well.”
“Not much you can do. It’s her problem.”
“Sadly that part isn’t true. It’s very much my problem.” The brief lift in her mood dissipated.
“Do you wish you’d never changed jobs?”
How did he always know exactly which questions to ask? And why did they always get her deep in her gut? Yes, she wished that. She wished she’d shoved all those complicated feelings into a box and ignored them.
But it was too late for regrets. There came a point where you just had to live with the decision you’d made. Remind yourself of the reasons you made that decision in the first place.
“I don’t wish that.”
He glanced at her. “I never thought you’d leave your old job. You loved it. Did you really have to?”
She felt her insides flip over.
“Yes.” This was it. This was the moment she’d been dreading. He was going to ask her the one question she didn’t want to answer. She dug her fingers hard into her leg and waited.
She wanted the car to somehow swallow her whole, but although it was a masterpiece of engineering she doubted that particular trick was within its specification.