Chapter 17
Chapter 17
TODAY WAS THE DAY of the interview with Nettco Electricity “Madi with an i ” O’Donnell thought I would “L. O. V. E. love.” Or was it that they would love me? I had forgotten amidst all the “super” and “fabulous” and other over-the-top adjectives Madi had used to describe me and the company. I would classify myself as an enthusiastic person, positive thinking, and happy—or at least, I used to be a lot more than I had been lately—but some people took it just too far, like they swallowed a pep rally for breakfast, or something.
As I sized myself up in my bedroom mirror—the same brown and orange checked wrap dress I had worn on my last day at AGD—I took a deep breath. That famous nuns’ song from The Sound of Music popped into my head. “How do you solve a problem like Marcus . . .” I chewed the inside of my lip. How indeed? “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?” Was Marcus a cloud? An image of a fluffy white cloud with Marcus’s face floated through my mind.
Even though I knew it was imperative he contact me first after Saturday night, I’d cracked under the sheer pressure, texting him late last night. I had aimed for a light and breezy tone and had spent at least an hour agonizing over what to say. In the end, all my deliberations and pacing around my room had resulted in “Serious dish abuse occurring. Call immediately,” which I had thought was totally cute and I was certain would bring a smile to his face.
But had he texted me back? Had he shown any appreciation for the work that went into composing those six words, of hitting the right balance between being cheeky and playful and showing I was still interested in him? That would be a big fat “no.”
I swept my hair up into a loose ponytail, allowing my dark hair to fall about my face. No, I had to ignore those pesky singing nuns and push the problem that was Marcus out of my mind, at least for the next few hours.
A quick glance at my phone as I slipped it into my purse showed me there was still no response from him. I locked my jaw. I’d deal with that later, once I’d nailed this job interview and got my life back on track.
After saying farewell to my happy, loved-up, anti-carb dad, checking my phone at least another hundred times on my way into the city, despite my resolution not to do so, I arrived at Nettco five minutes before my allotted interview time.
I approached the white, glossy reception desk, where a woman was talking into an earpiece with a clipped, efficient voice that had a very nasal quality to it. She had severe black tattooed eyebrows and dark hair, which was pulled back into such a tight bun her eyes had taken on a cat-like appearance. That had to hurt.
Her voice reminded me of Janice from Friends . I only hoped she didn’t have a sinus attack while I was here. That would be a sound to behold. I waited for “Janice” to finish her call, perusing the framed photographs on the walls. There were photos of happy families playing in fields, of pretty women laughing together as they shopped, of a group of workers in hard hats smiling as they looked at plans on a large sheet of paper laid out on a table. They were all lovely, positive images, but what they had to do with electricity was a complete mystery to me. Maybe they were all happy their microwaves worked or they got to watch MasterChef on TV?
I thought of the Cozy Cottage website. We had happy, smiley people on it, enjoying their coffee and food, but the images were completely relevant to the business. After all, a café is a place where happy, smiley people are likely to go, not an electricity company. And the Cozy Cottage had been full to the brim since we’d gone live, with no time to even think, a steady stream of customers toting their coffee coupons.
Bailey had run the numbers and told me how successful the coupon promo had been and how she was now thinking of employing not one, but two new members of staff to replace me when I left. I’d beamed with pride, knowing what I’d done for her and her special café.
“Welcome to Nettco Electricity, Auckland’s favorite electricity company. How may I help you today?” “Janice” the receptionist said in her foghorn voice behind me.
I turned and smiled at her, not one hundred percent certain she was talking to me or into her earpiece. She was smiling back at me in such a way as it looked almost painful for her, like arranging her facial features like that was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
Still not clear she was talking to me, I took a step closer to the counter. I put my hand on my chest and mouthed “me?” She nodded at me, and I think she knitted her eyebrows together, but it was hard to tell. “Hi there,” I began, putting my hands on the counter in front of her. “I’m Paige Miller. I have an interview with Roger Barnett.”
“Janice” stood up and pushed an electronic device toward me. She was so skeletal she could be mistaken for a toothpick, the leopard-print shirt and skirt combo she was wearing making her look like a stick insect at a costume party. If I’d had a Cozy Cottage cake in my purse, I’d have pulled it out and made her eat it, there and then. “Write your name here.”
“Sure.” I picked up the stylus and wrote on the screen. In an instant, a name tag popped out of the device. I ripped it off, peeled it away from the backing, and stuck it to my top.
With an audible sniff, “Janice” picked up the paper backing, screwed it up in her hand, and pointed to an uncomfortable-looking red sofa by a glass table. “Take a seat.” It was an instruction, not a request.
“Sure. Thanks, Ja—” I stopped before I said the name, turned, and did as I was told. The sofa was as uncomfortable as it looked.
“Roger, I have your ten o’clock here,” I heard her say into her headset. “Yes . . . No . . . She might be.” She peered at me from her seat. I couldn’t help but listen in. What could they have been talking about? “I’m quite sure. Yes.”
“Janice” finished up their conversation, pressing her earpiece with her finger, like Uhura from Star Trek . She turned her feline eyes on me. “Mr. Barnett will be out shortly.”
“Oh, right. Thanks a lot.”
Almost before I’d had a chance to finish my sentence, someone burst through the glass doors to my right. “Paige Miller! How fantastic to meet you!” a booming voice said.
I stood up and turned to meet him and my hands were instantly grabbed by a short, wide man with a big grin and rosy cheeks. He looked like a bald Santa, and I felt a ping of disappointment that he wasn’t dressed in head-to-toe red.
“Hi. You’re Mr. Barnett?”
“I surely am! But you have to call me Roger, or else!” He shook both my hands with such vigor I was in serious fear for my rotator cuffs.
“Well, it’s great to meet you, too . . . Roger.” My voice reverberated with the hand shaking. I wondered if any of my organs could get dislodged.
“Madi said such great things, great things!” He still had both my hands in his, still shaking. My palms were starting to sweat, clamped between his warm mitts, my head bobbing up and down with his firm shake.
To my relief, he let go of my hands. I almost staggered back, righting myself just in time.
“Whoa, there! Looks like you need a sit-you-down in old Roger Rabbit’s office.”
Roger Rabbit ? I smiled at the bald, tubby man in front of me. He did not look anything like Roger Rabbit. Stick a hunting hat on his head and rifle in his hands, however, and he’d be the spitting image of Elmer Fudd.
“Come with me.” He put his hand on the small of my back. “Thank you for your continued excellent work, Janet,” he said to the receptionist as we passed by.
Almost Janice. It suited her. She either smiled at us or grimaced. I still couldn’t tell which.
Roger-Rabbit-slash-Elmer-Fudd walked me through the doors and down the corridor into an office with a large oak door. I glanced around the room, taking in the big Nettco logo and photographs of yachts on the walls. He had one of those adjustable desks you could stand at. He’d clearly got the “sitting is the new smoking” message.
“Take a seat, Paigey,” he said, indicating red leather chairs that matched the sofa in the reception area.
I tried not to curse Madi for adding the y to my name. Why did people do that? Paige is a perfectly good name. It’s one syllable, it doesn’t require a nickname. Although Will had called me “Millsey,” after my last name, Miller, and I’d loved that. Why am I thinking about Will?
Roger sat down opposite me, my CV in his big, warm hands. “Now, let me have a look-see here.” He ran one of his pudgy fingers down the page until he found what he was looking for. “Aha! You worked at AGD for a long time. Good for you!”
I didn’t know quite what to say. “Err, thanks?”
“I’ve heard it’s a really demanding company. For you to have survived that long, you must have been an awesome employee.”
I thought about my frequent trips to the Cozy Cottage, my counting the minutes to the end of the day. “I don’t like to brag, Roger, but I did okay there.”
He raised his fingers in quotation marks. “‘Okay’? Ha! Madi said you’d be humble and I love that, love that!”
I smiled at him. He was so upbeat, he rivaled Madi in the perkiness stakes. In an attempt to be professional, I tried to steer the conversation back to my work achievements. “Let me tell you a little bit about my responsibilities at AGD. As you see, I worked there for a long time, and I achieved a lot there. I was involved in many, many email marketing campaigns. One that sticks out clearly in my mind is the one . . . we . . .” I stopped when I noticed Roger shaking his head at me, his grin still firmly in place.
“I don’t need to hear about that, Paigey. I’ve got that all in here.” He waved my CV around in front of my face. “And you know what? I don’t need any more of the work stuff. What I need to know is what Paigey Miller is made of.”
I swallowed. “What I’m made of?” This was beginning to feel a little familiar.
“Yes. Is she the type of person to join a posse and go after the bad guy, or would she stay at home and tend to the cattle?”
Posse? Cattle? What was Roger Rabbit on ? “I . . . err . . .”
“Would she get that golden ticket, go to that factory, and dance with the Oompa Loompas?”
I thought of the little orange men from that movie. Paint Roger orange, shrink him down to size, and we’d have a party on our hands. “Well, I don’t really . . .”
He bounced out of his chair, his eyes wild. “Would she climb the tallest mountain and rappel down it?”
I blinked at him. Rappelling? All this for a lousy email marketing job?
Roger took a step closer so that he was standing over me. “Would she?” He stared at me in expectation, his face only about a foot from mine. I could see the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, the whites of his eyes bright and shining. I could smell his breath, a mixture of coffee and oatmeal.
I clutched onto the armrests of the chair, fighting my instinct to arch away from him and his enthusiasm. “Yes . . . ?” I held my breath. Was that the right answer? Should I be joining the Oompa Loompas in a posse to the top of Mount Everest? In that moment, I just did not know.
Roger let out a puff of air and stood up straight. “I thought you’d say that.” His tone was solemn. He nodded at the photographs on the wall. “Do you sail?”
Was this part of the interview? If I gave him the truthful response that no, I don’t, would I fail? In fact, the complete truth was that I was terrified of being out there on the ocean, with all those fish and sharks and who-knows-what-else out there, lurking around, waiting for stray humans to land in their wake. I gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.
Should I lie to try to get the job? Looking at all the photographs of yachts on the wall, it was clear to me Roger was a bit of a sailor. Half of Auckland sailed—it wasn’t called the “City of Sails” because we all loved to rock climb, after all. On a beautiful day, the harbor was dotted with a multitude of yachts. The fact I’d managed to live here all my life and get away with only even having sailed once when I was about seven years old was quite miraculous, really.
In the end, I plumped for the truth. “No.”
His eyes bulged. “No?”
I chewed the inside of my lip. Was that the wrong thing to say? Should I be gushing about my (fake) yachting experiences, garnering Roger’s approval? “Well, I did once, but . . . I didn’t really like it.”
What ? Was I trying to sabotage myself here?
Roger looked at me in shock. “You didn’t like it?”
I had to do some quick thinking. Even though I really had no clearer idea about this job than when I had walked through Nettco’s front door, I needed to at least try . “Well, I . . . err . . . what I mean is, I’m not sure I gave it a good enough shot to like it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You know what, Paigey? I admire you for that. You live in a place where every man, his dog, and his dog’s friend’s sister’s teacher sails. But what do you do? You say no.” He nodded at me, crossing his arms across his chest. “Oh yes. I like the cut of your jib.”
“I’m pleased you do, Roger.” What else could I say?
He tapped his chin, looking me straight in the eye. “Yes, yes. My daughter got it right.”
I raised my eyebrows. What did his daughter have to do with my “jib,” or anything else, for that matter? “Who’s your daughter, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Roger threw his plump head back and roared with laughter. I smiled, trying to laugh along with him, secretly scoping the room for an escape route. I calculated we were on the ground floor, so if I could unlatch the window I could probably get out successfully, ninja roll over the grass, and make my escape.
Roger interrupted my plans. “Madi. She’s my girl. Didn’t you know that?”
He turned a framed photo on his desk around, and I peered at it. It was of him and Madi, with Santa hats on their heads, dressed in matching Christmas sweaters—although hers was about ten sizes smaller than his—grinning at the camera as they both gave enthusiastic thumbs-up. Naturally.
Nepotism was alive and kicking in Auckland, it would appear, and it wore cheesy, matching holiday clothes.
“Oh. I had no idea Madi was your daughter. Her last name is O’Donnell, isn’t it?”
“Of course, you didn’t know. She’s like me: serious and professional at work. Out of work? Well, that’s another story. We’re a couple of mad hatters, I can tell you.”
Mad hatters: yes. Serious and professional? Ah, that would be a “no.” More like a couple of friendly lunatics, but maybe that was just me? Despite my concerns, I smiled at him, not exactly sure what to think right now. “I bet.”
“And she’s married and changed her name, you see. Are you married?”
I shook my head. “No.” Madi was married? Wow, she looked so young; she would have had to have been in high school when that happened.
“Well, Paigey.” He sucked his lips, making a weird smacking sound at the end. “I think I’ve seen everything I need to see.”
He had?
“Okay,” I replied uncertainly. “Look, I’m sorry about the yachting thing.”
“Why?”
“Because I said I don’t like it, although I might if I gave it a decent try.” Which was a lie.
“Oh, I know that.” He nodded at me sagely, as though anyone who tried yachting would instantly succumb to its charms. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“Well, maybe some things about the job? Like, what my responsibilities would be if I got it, where I’d be working, who I’d be working with? Those sorts of things.” Not whether he would choose the red or blue pill, or any other bizarre question he may have wanted to throw at me. I was still reeling from the Oompa Loompa ordeal.
Roger launched into a spiel about how the company was an electricity retailer who sold electricity over a fixed line network to residential and business customers, and how they needed someone to replace someone called Wolf (really?) in their marketing team, helping to run their email campaigns.
I tried not to let my eyes glaze over as he took me through the stats from their most recent campaign. Their results were good, but I knew AGD did better. I told him as much, hopefully without offending him.
“So, with those few tweaks you were able to increase response rate by over nine percent?”
I nodded. “Yes. It was really so easy to do as well.”
He shook his head. “Paigey, do you know what?”
Having no clue what to expect from this loose cannon of a man, I replied, “No.”
“Just as well I do,” he replied before laughing at his own joke. “I’m going to offer you the job. Right here, right now. I do not care to see anyone else. You are it for me. You’ve got it. What do you have to say about that, hmm?”
I looked at him, my jaw slack. “You’re offering me the job?”
He beamed at me. “Yes, I am. What do you say?”
You know how people say to go with your gut when you’re forced to make a quick decision? That without giving it any real thought, you will instinctively know what the right thing to do is? Well, my gut had a tantrum right there and then in Roger Rabbit’s office. It gave me it’s message loud and clear.
I stood up and faced him. Roger may be on the wrong end of the loop-de-loop spectrum, but he was a picnic in comparison with Portia de Havilland. “I say, yes, Roger. Thank you.”
He pumped the air with two fists, his belly bobbing up and down. “Awesomesauce!”
Up until that moment, I didn’t think I had heard anyone over the age of about eleven use that expression, but somehow it suited Mr. Possibly-A-Little-Crazy-But-Certainly-Very-Happy Roger Barnett.
We shook hands, and he escorted me out of his office and back out to reception, where Janet was once again talking like Uhura into her earpiece with her charmingly nasal voice, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here. It was funny, Roger and Janet were just about as polar opposite as any two people could get, in looks as well as in personality. Maybe if you put them together, you’d have a normal, balanced human being?
“So, I’ll let Madi know, and we’ll see you on the Pacific Princess next week.”
Confused, I asked, “The Pacific what?”
Roger laughed. Again. “You must have been thinking of The Love Boat . Ha!”
Ah, no, I wasn’t.
“It’s not that Pacific Princess . There’s no Gopher or Captain Stubing or Julie McCoy, although she was a cutie in her day.” He chuckled some more. “You are so funny, Paigey. You’re going to fit in well. We’re all a little mad, here, you know.”
You don’t say.
He made his eyes cross to show me just how mad they all were. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need any convincing.
“Okay. Great. So, this Pacific Princess , not the one on The Love Boat .”
“Right?” He pointed at me. “You’re onto it.”
“Thank you. Um, what is it, exactly?” Please don’t be a yacht, please don’t be a yacht .
“My yacht, of course.” My heart sank. “You can meet the team and come for a sail. You’ll love it!”
My eyes bulged as I tried to swallow a rising lump in my throat. “Great. Yachting. How . . . wonderful.”