Chapter 1 #3
“I’ll be going home, yes. It will be chaos as usual.
You know how it is. Big noisy family gathering.
Tree too big for the room. Log fire. Uncle George singing out of tune.
I’ll be spending most of my time trying to stop the nieces and nephews squeezing the presents and making sure my mother isn’t burning the turkey.
” That was enough information to keep them happy, surely? “We really need that costing, Anya.”
“I’m on it. Oh and I forgot to tell you that Dorothy Rutherford called for you earlier. You were on the phone to that tech guy from the lighting company.”
Imogen felt her breathing quicken. “You forgot—Anya, this is important. Dorothy Rutherford is our biggest client. When she calls, I stop what I’m doing and take her call. If I’m on with another client, then I call her right back when I’m done.”
“She was fine about it. She loves you. We all know you’re the reason she gave us the business. She wanted to carry on working with you when you left your last place. You can do no wrong. Also, you’re the only one of us who genuinely loves her alcohol-free wine.”
“I don’t mind it,” Janie protested, “it’s a refreshing drink. But it’s not—you know—alcohol. It doesn’t give me the buzz I need on a Friday night. I know those bubbles aren’t going to give me the headache I need the morning after.”
“Just Friday?” Anya grinned. “What about the other nights of the week?”
“Those, too. It’s the first thing I do when I get home. My mum and I open a bottle and share it. That’s why I go to the gym every morning. I’d have more willpower if I lived on my own. You’re so lucky to be able to afford your own place, Imogen.”
Imogen waited for a break in the conversation. “What did Dorothy want?”
“She wanted to fix a time for you to present your ideas to the rest of the team. Sounds as if she wants to go ahead with everything you suggested. She was impressed. She asked for a bespoke and original concept and you gave her one. The outdoor festival, complete with a stage and tents and the works. Like a rock concert. She thinks it’s a perfect way to showcase their products to customers.
And she loved the idea of the drone display.
This will be a huge piece of business, Imogen.
Congratulations. You turned a virtually impossible brief into reality.
We should celebrate—” she grinned at Janie “fancy a glass of non-alcoholic wine?”
“No thanks. I’d rather have a double espresso. I’ll say this though, I love their packaging. Those bottles are classy. They look like champagne.”
“And their sales are rocketing so someone is loving it.”
Anya rested her chin on her palm. “I wonder if it’s because the marketing is so clever.
She has tapped into the whole healthy living trend.
Pictures of her estate in the Cotswolds with its vineyard, lots of cool people toasting each other with glasses of Spearcante.
I look at the ads and I want to be there, even if there is no alcohol on offer.
I wonder how she came up with that name? ”
“I think spearca is from an Old English word meaning spark,” Imogen said and they both stared at her.
“How do you know these things?”
“Dorothy is my client. It’s my job to know as much about her as possible.
She hasn’t always been in business. Originally, she read English Literature at Oxford.
And then she did Medieval studies, which included Old English and Old Norse.
I think she also studied Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry. I guess etymology was part of that.”
Anya frowned. “Isn’t that insects?”
Janie rolled her eyes. “That’s entomology.”
“Oh, right.”
“Etymology is the study of the origin of words,” Imogen said. “Anyway, she told me that’s how she came up with the name.”
Right now, she didn’t care about the origins of the name.
The only thing Imogen cared about was that Dorothy had been kept waiting.
Dorothy wasn’t only their biggest client, but she was Imogen’s favorite client.
She was smart, interesting and surprisingly easy to work with.
She embraced Imogen’s ideas and rarely reined her in.
She was in her early sixties and several decades earlier had switched careers to run her family’s vineyard in the Cotswolds.
After a few years she’d decided to experiment extracting the alcohol from the wine.
She’d been producing no-alcohol wine long before it had become something of a cultural movement, but lately the business had taken off.
Imogen had worked with her for several years and found her enthusiastic, encouraging and supportive. She never whined and complained, which was more than could be said for most of their clients.
“I’ll call her now.”
“No point. She said she’d be tied up for the next couple of hours and you could catch her this afternoon.”
Imogen managed to hide her frustration. She tried never to miss a client call, and if she did miss it she called them right back.
But if Dorothy was in a meeting, then it would have to be later and she would have to try not to stress about it.
And in the meantime…
“Anya, if you could get those costings now it would mean I could send this proposal on time—” she had a sudden brain wave “—and then I’ll be able to make the call about Midas.”
“Of course! Anything for Midas.”
“Great. Thanks.” As she’d hoped, the mention of Midas galvanized her colleague into action and ten minutes later Imogen had all the costings incorporated into the document.
Relieved, she sent it through to Rosalind for final approval and sat back in her chair.
Done. Finally. Maybe she should try using Midas as a motivator more often.
Not that she wanted to be a killjoy. She wanted her colleagues to like her. She wanted to be one of them, and if that required a little personal sacrifice on her part then fine.
Soon the Christmas tree would arrive in the foyer and she’d admire it along with everyone else.
Mistletoe would be hung in strategic places, even though office romance was banned (and, as Janie had once pointed out after several glasses of wine that most definitely had retained all its alcohol content, the number of kissable people in their office was depressingly limited).
And there would be the “bring your dog to work” day.
Midas.
She sighed and glanced at the photo on her desk. The photographer had captured the exact moment his tail had been suspended in mid wag.
He really was a gorgeous dog.
It was just a pity he wasn’t hers.
Also a pity that her Christmas wasn’t going to be a big, noisy family affair.
She loved the family photo she’d placed on her desk, but they weren’t her family.
There was no big house in the country. There would be no oversize tree or a log fire.
Uncle George wouldn’t be singing out of tune because she didn’t have an uncle called George, or any other uncle.
She wasn’t going to have to stop her nieces and nephews squeezing the presents, because she didn’t have nieces or nephews.
There would be no games of charades, and no burnt turkey because her mother had never cooked a turkey in her life.
But right now that wasn’t her biggest problem. Her biggest problem was “bring your dog to work” day.
Everyone was expecting to meet Midas, but there was no Midas.
Imogen didn’t have a dog. Imogen didn’t have a loving family.
Imogen had no one.
The personal life she’d created for herself was entirely fake.