10
Imogen
I mogen braced herself and pushed through the revolving glass door that led into the foyer of the office building where she worked. Her head throbbed after a night without sleep and she felt nauseous as she contemplated what lay ahead. She half expected to be apprehended by security, or to discover that her pass had stopped working, but she made it through the barriers without incident. No one gave her a second glance as she headed to the elevator. To an outsider it probably looked like a normal day.
It wasn’t a normal day for Imogen. It was going to be her last day.
Today was the day she was going to be fired. And there was no one to blame but herself. She’d dropped the ball. Let everyone down. She’d loved this job more than anything and she’d blown it. The one good thing in her life, and she’d destroyed it.
If she’d been the one sitting in Rosalind’s chair, she would have fired herself, which was why her letter of resignation was typed and ready in her bag. She was here not to try and persuade them to change their minds, but because she always owned her mistakes. She didn’t make excuses. When she was in the wrong, she said so. She was honest about that, even though she hadn’t been exactly honest about anything else in her life. But what was she going to say? I wanted to fit in. I wanted to seem normal so that you’d all like me, so I made up a few things about my life and then it got complicated.
Complicated was an understatement.
Maybe leaving would be a good thing. The way she felt right now she didn’t have the energy for work. The fire and enthusiasm that had driven her this far had gone. She felt exposed and vulnerable. Too much like her real self, and nothing like the persona she’d invented. She wasn’t Imogen the events management genius. She was Imogen the unloved. Imogen the fake.
She wanted to crawl under her bed and stay there until she could work out what to do next. She didn’t want to be here.
Coming into the office was the toughest thing she’d ever had to do.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped onto the floor that was taken up by RPQ.
A few people gave her a sympathetic glance, but most just kept their heads down, studiously avoiding eye contact, which told her everything she needed to know.
There was no sign of Sophie, and she felt a pang of guilt and concern as she looked at the empty desk. The knowledge that she’d let down a colleague hurt more than anything. Sophie was probably off sick. And then a worse thought flashed into her head. What if they’d fired Sophie?
“Imogen?” Rosalind’s voice came from her office. “I’m taking a call from Evelyn Barker and then I want to see you.”
Of course she did.
Rosalind wanted an explanation and Imogen didn’t have one.
But in the meantime she might as well clear her desk. Once her conversation with Rosalind was done, she’d want to be out of here as fast as possible. She was going to have to find another job. But who would employ her? Rosalind would give her a terrible reference.
Angus Fitzgerald had virtually offered her a job so she could potentially contact him, but he probably wouldn’t want her either once he found out the reason she was job hunting.
She reached her desk and saw a large box of chocolates with a note attached.
She picked up the note.
We’re here for you, Imogen. Anya and Janie. xx
The tears she’d been holding back threatened to spill over. Oh God, they were such great people and she’d been telling them nothing but lies. They deserved better.
Anya was on the phone, but she gave Imogen a smile and a thumbs-up as Imogen sat down.
That was when she noticed the stack of leaflets on her desk.
Each bore a large photo of Midas copied from the one on her desk, and above it in bold lettering STOLEN—HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?
What the—?
Confused, she turned to look at Janie. “What is this?”
“We’re going to find him for you, Imogen. Whatever it takes.” Janie’s eyes glistened with tears of sympathy. “We’ve put them everywhere. All over social media. Stuck them on lampposts, handed them in at office buildings and hotels. The whole team helped.”
Wait. What?
“The whole team has been out looking for my dog?”
“Yes.”
All over social media?
Could this get any worse?
“Janie—”
“Don’t say a thing. I know you’d do the same for one of us. We’re a team, aren’t we? And this has basically gone viral since we posted it, so I’m confident someone is going to recognize Midas and call me. I put my number on the flyer so that you’re not upset by time wasters. I’ll let you know if someone genuine calls. Now, just get your head down and clear your emails or whatever. We are totally on your side, Imogen. You were going through hell yesterday. How you could focus on work when your dog was missing, I have no idea. You were looking awful when I saw you. I should have done something then. I blame myself.”
“Janie—”
“I told Rosalind this morning that Midas had been stolen. She didn’t know. She was sympathetic. She even shared it on her own social media. If we can get enough people to share Midas’s picture, no one can sell your baby on it.”
This was a nightmare. She’d thought her life couldn’t get worse, but this was worse. And it was all her fault. She was choked that her colleagues had done this for her. That they cared this much. And she felt such a fraud, because the person they thought she was didn’t exist. She wasn’t Imogen dog girl. She was Imogen the fraud. Imogen the big fat liar.
The only consolation was that no one was likely to call about Midas because he wasn’t real. You couldn’t find a dog that didn’t exist.
Maybe it was a good thing she was about to be fired because there was no way she was going to be able to talk her way out of this.
“Imogen!” Rosalind bellowed her name across the office, and Imogen slowly rose to her feet, ready to tell more lies. At this point she was struggling to separate the lies from the truth.
“Tell her the truth about Midas,” Janie hissed. “Your dog was missing. Anyone would have screwed up in those circumstances.”
Imogen didn’t even have the energy to respond. She couldn’t stop thinking about poor Sophie.
She walked into Rosalind’s office and Rosalind gestured to her to close the door.
Rosalind never closed the door. And she never closed the blinds on her glass-fronted office, but today the blinds were closed. No doubt so that there were no witnesses to the verbal mauling Imogen was about to receive.
Imogen dutifully closed the door. “Before you say anything, could you tell me where Sophie is? Is she okay? I’ve been worrying about her.”
Rosalind looked up from the stack of paperwork on her desk. “Sit down, Imogen.”
“But Sophie—”
“She’s fine. She has a migraine, which after yesterday is hardly surprising. We agreed that she’d have a day in bed, and I’m expecting her back at her desk tomorrow, raring to go.”
Sophie hadn’t been fired. Imogen was flooded with relief.
But having reassured herself about that, there was no more avoiding the moment.
Deciding that she might as well get it over with, Imogen reached into her bag and put the letter on Rosalind’s desk. Hopefully that would speed up the inevitable.
Her boss frowned at it. “What’s this?”
“My resignation. And please don’t blame Sophie for anything that happened yesterday, because she wasn’t responsible. In fact, she was brilliant. It was all my fault. All of it.”
Rosalind didn’t open the letter. “Sit down, Imogen.”
So this wasn’t going to be speedy then.
Imogen perched on the edge of the seat, her back straight. “I’m sorry for everything, Rosalind.”
“I’m the one doing the talking.”
“Yes, Rosalind.”
She’d learned early on that if Rosalind talked, you listened. No one messed with the boss, not even the clients.
Rosalind sat back. “I had a call from The Work Nook this morning. Alan Marsh himself, which wasn’t the best start to my day. They’re not at all happy that you didn’t show up last night. They are no longer a client of ours.”
It was what she’d expected, but that didn’t stop her from feeling mortified and sick. She did some mental calculations and felt even sicker because she knew what the loss would do to the bottom line. The Work Nook wasn’t their biggest client, but still their contribution was substantial. Word would get around. RPQ’s reputation would be damaged and so would Imogen’s. She’d be lucky to ever get another job in event management.
But that was her future, and her immediate problem was the present.
“I apologize.”
“You already did that. What I haven’t heard yet is an explanation for the fact that you suddenly disappeared and were uncontactable in the middle of a working day.”
“There are no excuses.”
“I wasn’t asking for excuses. I was asking for an explanation. I assume there has to be one, because people like you don’t just suddenly decide to stop doing your job for no reason.” Rosalind paused. “I understand that Midas is missing—”
“That’s not the reason.”
“Then what is?” Rosalind removed her glasses and rubbed her fingers across the bridge of her nose. “I can’t force you to give me that reason of course, but I believe I deserve to hear it.”
Imogen stared at her miserably. She did deserve to hear it.
She’d worked hard to keep strict divisions between her work and homelife, but now they’d been well and truly breached. And she was out of a job anyway, so there was no longer any reason not to tell Rosalind the truth except that it revealed her for the total fraud she was.
But she still couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.
She thought of her colleagues, out there now doing everything they could to find her dog. Her fake dog. Having her back when she made a mistake. Leaving chocolates on her desk. Her eyes filled. She couldn’t bear to see their faces when they found out that everything she’d told them about her homelife was a lie. Their support comforted her, even though it was based on a lie.
She blinked hard. She wasn’t going to cry. No way.
“Imogen?”
Imogen flinched. Rosalind was waiting for an explanation.
And she needed to give her something so that this could all be over. She’d tell a part truth, and maybe Rosalind wouldn’t ask too many questions.
“I was on my way to the Work Nook event when I had a call from the emergency department at the hospital.”
Rosalind frowned. “The hospital? Someone had an accident?”
She licked her lips. “My mother.”
“I thought your mother lived in Dorset.”
“She was in London.” Imogen improvised, although this time she did it with caution because her overenthusiastic spontaneity with Midas hadn’t worked out so well. “Christmas shopping. She fell.”
Rosalind stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that. No wonder you were concerned. I know what a close family you are. So why didn’t you just call and explain you needed time off?”
“Because I didn’t think I needed time off. I’d had several conversations with Sophie, and I’d promised to go across early to try and calm the client down. I was in the cab when I got the call from the hospital and I thought I could see my mother and still make it to the event on time.”
“But that didn’t happen. Clearly, you were delayed. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t call someone and let them know that you had a family emergency. We would have covered for you. Was no one else in your family able to help?”
Imogen fixed her gaze on the photographs on Rosalind’s desk. It was of Rosalind and her two daughters when they were young. Rosalind had parents, siblings, a whole network of people connected to her. She had a stack of Christmas cards on her desk ready to send. A list of gifts to buy.
Imogen didn’t send Christmas cards. She didn’t have any gifts to buy apart from the single Secret Santa for work.
Rosalind wouldn’t be able to begin to understand Imogen’s life.
“It turned out to be—more complicated than I was anticipating. I was upset.”
Rosalind’s expression softened. “Having a relative in hospital is always upsetting, naturally.”
Not “naturally.” Nothing about her relationship with her mother was natural.
“If you were upset,” Rosalind said, “then that was all the more reason why you should have phoned for support. We are a team, Imogen. We support one another.”
“I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t thinking.”
Rosalind paused. “Your mother is lucky to have such a loving and caring daughter.”
Yes, she was. It was just a shame she didn’t appreciate it.
I don’t want to be your mum.
You ruined my life.
Her mother’s words had hammered down the defenses she’d built over the years, and now, on top of the emotional hurt, she was going to lose her job. So her reward for family loyalty was to be punished. She shouldn’t have gone to the hospital. When the doctor had asked her to come, she should have refused.
Imogen felt a rush of frustration and outrage at how unfair this all was and then felt angry with herself. She knew life was unfair. She’d known that for a long time. Bad things happened to good people, and people didn’t get what they deserved. She couldn’t do anything about that, but she could choose not to let her mother continue to do this to her. What had her mother said? Go and live out your happy family fantasy somewhere else.
Well, no more fantasy. From now on she was facing reality, no matter how ugly it looked.
Rosalind sat back in her chair. “How is your mother now?”
Imogen chose her words carefully. “She’s more herself.”
Which basically meant she was as frustrating and imperfect as ever.
Rosalind nodded. “Good. You’re probably looking forward to Christmas so that you can spend proper time together.”
After last night, Imogen doubted she’d ever be seeing her mother again. And that was fine. The only thing worse than spending Christmas all alone, would be spending it with her mother.
But that wasn’t the response Rosalind was expecting, so Imogen managed a smile.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m looking forward to Christmas.”
Rosalind was watching her closely. “I can understand that concern for your mother drove all other thoughts from your head, but we both know there’s more going on here.”
Imogen stiffened. She couldn’t possibly know, could she?
“There’s nothing more, Rosalind.”
“There is. And if you won’t admit it, then I’m going to spell it out.” Rosalind leaned forward. “You are close to burnout, Imogen.”
“Excuse me? I am—What?”
“Burnout. I’m concerned you’re on the edge of it, and my job is to catch you before you topple over the edge. It’s been worrying me for a while. You’re a phenomenal worker with huge talent, but everyone has their limits and these last few weeks you’ve gone way past yours. The hours you’re putting in, and the workload you’re handling, is inhuman. And of course I’m responsible for that workload—” a flicker of a smile touched Rosalind’s mouth “—but so are you. It’s important to know your limits.”
Burnout.
Imogen stared at her. She was most definitely not on the edge of burnout. Not with work, anyway. Her mother, yes. When it came to her mother she was so burned-out she was charred to a cinder.
She opened her mouth to deny it and then realized that if Rosalind thought she had burnout, then she would stop looking for other reasons for Imogen’s massive screwup. She could use this, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t stressed out of her mind. It wasn’t a lie exactly.
“That might be true.” She said it with reluctance. “I have taken on a lot lately. Maybe too much.”
Rosalind gave a nod of agreement. “You give everything to your work, and these extra challenges in your personal life have been the final straw.”
Well, that was true. “You’re right, they have.”
“Everyone has tough moments in their lives, Imogen, and what you should have done was reach out and share that with me so that we could find a solution together, but I realize that concern for your mother drove all that from your head and on top of worrying about Midas it was all too much. Which presumably is why you dropped the ball.”
Imogen wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that, so she simply nodded.
Rosalind studied her, always a slightly unsettling experience.
“How long have you worked here, Imogen?”
“Almost exactly a year.” If only all questions were that easy to answer.
Rosalind’s mouth twitched. “And in that year, how many times would you say that you’ve dropped the ball?”
Imogen stared at her. Was that a trick question? “I—I think this is the first time, Rosalind.”
“It is the first time.” Rosalind sat forward. “So why aren’t you fighting to save your job? Instead of marching in here reminding me what an asset you are, you come in clutching your resignation. Why?”
“I assumed you were going to fire me.”
“Why would you assume that?”
Because her mother had stripped away her self-esteem.
When Imogen didn’t answer, Rosalind frowned.
“I don’t get it, Imogen. I don’t understand what’s happening here. I’ve seen you fight for your clients. I’ve seen you handle obstacles and objections that would floor most people. You are a champion problem solver. Why aren’t you fighting for yourself?”
Imogen swallowed. “I lost a client.”
“Even if that were the case, why aren’t you sitting there telling me how many clients you’ve won for us this year alone? Why aren’t you slapping numbers on my desk and forcing me to acknowledge that you’ve won far more than you’ve just lost? Because that’s what you should be doing. And normally that’s what you would be doing.”
Imogen stared at her. That would have been a good tactic if she’d thought of it. And maybe she would have thought of it if her recent encounter with her mother hadn’t left her feeling so worthless. She hadn’t gone about this the right way at all. She hadn’t tried to save herself because she hadn’t felt she was worth saving. But Rosalind seemed to be doing it for her. Rosalind was giving her the tools she should have reached for herself.
Her mouth felt dry. “I won four major accounts in the first half of this year.”
“You did, indeed.” Rosalind’s expression relaxed slightly. “And all those accounts are showing excellent growth.”
“I won another two in September.”
“Yes. You’re an asset, Imogen. Which is why you won’t be losing your job, and why—” Rosalind reached for the envelope Imogen had placed on her desk and tore it in two “—I won’t be accepting this.”
Imogen felt dizzy with relief. She wasn’t losing her job. She felt a rush of emotion and had to stop from flinging herself across the desk to hug Rosalind.
“But what about The Work Nook? They fired us.”
“They didn’t fire us.”
“You said we no longer have the account.”
“We don’t. But that’s not because they fired us,” Rosalind said. “I was given a detailed account of what happened by Sophie, including the degree to which they were hounding her all of yesterday, which in turn led her to hound you. And your advice, even from a distance, was excellent by the way. The speaker arrived on time and the event went off without a hitch. Sophie stepped up.”
Imogen felt relief flood through her. At least no one could say the event had been a failure.
“So why have we lost the account?”
“Because I told them we could no longer work together.” Rosalind’s tone was clipped. “No matter what the stress, I won’t have any member of my team spoken to the way they spoke to Sophie. There is no excuse for it, and that’s what I told Alan Marsh when he rang to complain. We’re an extension of the client’s team, not a punching bag. I expect civility and respect. If they can’t behave professionally, then we won’t deal with them.”
Imogen felt her jaw drop. Rosalind had resigned the account? That was either brave or stupid. Brave, she decided, remembering Sophie’s voice as she’d told Imogen what the client had been saying to her. But most bosses would have swallowed the insults for the sake of the business.
Not Rosalind.
Imogen’s respect for her boss grew still further. “That’s—surprising.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me as well as you should. I don’t tolerate abusive relationships in my private life or my business life. What sort of a team would we be if we didn’t defend and take care of one another? Our business works because of excellent teamwork. My job is to nurture that. And anyway, his team need so much hand-holding it’s hardly a cost-effective account for us. I’m sure you’ll come up with some ideas for how we might plug the gap left by their departure.”
Imogen’s head was reeling. “I will. I definitely will. I’ll get onto that right away, Rosalind.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I won’t?”
“No, because you won’t be working for the next month. At all. On anything. You won’t be looking at emails and you won’t be taking calls.”
Her sense of relief evaporated. “But—I thought I wasn’t fired.”
Rosalind sighed. “You’re not fired. But although we agree that you’re an asset, there is still the problem that you are overloaded, and I’m not convinced that you’re actually capable of slowing down the way things are at the moment. If we carry on like this, something is going to give, and I don’t want that to be you. So I’m going to do you a favor, although I’ll probably curse myself for it. You’re taking a month off.”
“A month?” She must have misheard that, surely. Rosalind couldn’t possibly have meant a month.
“Yes. You’ve accrued holiday. I’m insisting that you take it.”
“But we’re not allowed to take more than two weeks in one go.” She knew for a fact that Rosalind had refused to give Janie a month off to go to New Zealand in the summer. No one ever took more than two weeks at a time. “Those are the rules.”
Rosalind tapped her pen on the desk. “I make the rules, Imogen. It’s one of the advantages of being the boss. And I’m giving you special permission to take all the leave owing to you.”
“Oh, but it’s fine, Rosalind, and I don’t want—”
“A month, Imogen. I checked with HR. You have taken two days so far this year. It’s not healthy. You’ll take the rest of the holiday now. It will give you time to focus on yourself and family, have a good rest and return refreshed in the new year. Have a wonderful Christmas with that family of yours. Breathe fresh air, go for long walks, bake cookies, do whatever it is you like to do to relax—” she waved a hand vaguely, clearly unsure as to what people did do to relax “—and return to work refreshed. We’ll see you back here in the second week of January and at that point we will sit down and work out how to make your workload more manageable.”
Imogen was appalled. “The second week of January?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to see a single email from you in my inbox before that date.”
This was a nightmare. Christmas was always a difficult time of year for her, and she normally only had to survive a few days. But a month? A whole month of watching other people getting excited, decorating their houses, Christmas shopping, getting ready for the big day. A whole month to sit alone in her tiny apartment, staring at the same walls she stared at all year, dwelling on what had happened with her mother.
“It’s kind of you to offer, but I’d rather work, Rosalind.”
“This is not a negotiation. It’s an order and it’s not open for discussion.” Rosalind stood up, indicating that the meeting was over. “I believe you have lunch with Dorothy today. You’ll keep that meeting as the two of you have such a good relationship, and then you’ll go home afterward. Explain to Dorothy that you are taking leave that is owed to you. If any work issues arise, she can contact me.”
She didn’t want leave. She didn’t want to focus on herself, and she definitely didn’t want to focus on the family she didn’t have. It was going to kill her. This was almost worse than being fired. At least if she’d been fired, she could have filled the time looking for another job. Kept busy. Had a purpose.
The small child in her wanted to blame her mother, but the adult knew that would achieve nothing. Rosalind clearly wasn’t going to budge, so all she could do now was accept it and find a way to fill the next month.
Could life get any worse?
There was a tap on the door, and Imogen glanced up as the door opened and Janie tentatively poked her head round.
Something about her expression made Imogen think that her life was about to get worse.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I have some sort of good news about Midas. As you know, we’ve all been working to track him down.”
Imogen relaxed slightly. She wasn’t worried. You couldn’t track down a dog that didn’t exist.
“And we’ve found him.”
Rosalind raised her eyebrows. “You’ve found Midas? Janie, that’s wonderful news.”
Imogen froze. It wasn’t wonderful news. In fact, it wasn’t possible. She had no idea what was coming next, but it couldn’t be good.
“Yes.” Janie gave a helpless shrug. “But it’s all a bit weird and awkward. A woman phoned. She lives somewhere in Suffolk. How Midas got himself all the way out there I have no idea, although you did always say he was an intelligent dog, Imogen, so maybe he snuck onto a train or something—anyway, this woman says she has Midas.”
“Good work, Janie,” Rosalind said, “although I don’t see why that’s weird or awkward.”
Janie sneaked a look at Imogen. “It’s awkward because she’s claiming that Midas is hers, except that his name isn’t Midas. She calls him Hunter. She recognized the photo we posted and said we stole it from her Facebook page. Which is obviously total nonsense. I told her, it’s the photo Imogen has on her desk, but she insists that Midas-Hunter is her dog. It’s disgusting the lengths some people will go to. Anyway, I took her number and said Imogen would call her back. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. Or maybe you should call the police and let them handle it.”
Imogen couldn’t formulate a response. She’d taken the photo from social media, not thinking for a moment that the decision would come back to bite her. What were the chances? She shouldn’t have told people he’d escaped. She should have just had him put down. But then she would have been a dog murderer.
Rosalind spoke first. “I’m sure there is a simple explanation.”
There was a simple explanation. She was a fake. Her entire life had been cracked wide-open and eviscerated. Her lies exposed. The irony was that she’d only told the lies in the first place so that she’d be accepted by her colleagues. And now those same lies were going to ensure they never accepted her again.
But that was a problem for the future. Right now she had to figure out how to handle this latest crisis.
“If you give me the number, I’ll call her. Thanks, Janie.” She took the piece of paper Janie proffered. The number swam in front of her eyes. What was she going to say to the woman?
“Take the meeting with Dorothy and then make the call about Midas. And after that take the month off,” Rosalind said gently. “You need it.”
They thought she was losing it, and maybe she was.
This time Imogen didn’t bother arguing with her boss.
She was going to need a month off to figure out how to unravel the mess she’d made.