Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Victoria
Really sorry, Max not feeling well. Rain check?
No problem. Hope he’s better soon.
I’m already sitting at the coffee shop when Reese texts me.
I know she catches the train into the city and I know it takes at least forty minutes by train so why has she messaged me only five minutes before we’re due to meet?
Perhaps she only just got a message from the school. Yes, that makes sense.
I feel bad for her having to turn around and go back home when she was nearly here but that’s life with kids.
Standing up, I go to the counter to order myself a cup of coffee to take away.
While I’m waiting my phone is pinging with emails and messages but it’s not even 9 a.m. so I have little interest in reading them.
Blake gets to the office at 6 a.m., does some work, goes for a workout and comes back.
I do not have the luxury of a morning like that so I don’t answer his emails until I’m supposed to start work.
It’s fair to say that having him as my boss has not been good for my work ethic.
Coffee in hand, I walk to the office as my phone vibrates in my bag.
‘Vicky,’ I hear as soon as the elevator doors open onto the floor of the building where my office is. Blake is standing outside the elevator, waiting for me, actually waiting for me. He looms over me, smelling strongly of recently applied deodorant.
‘Morning, Blake. I will get to everything in a moment and don’t worry, I’ve come up with some great ideas for the organic soap account that I think the clients are going to love,’ I say breezily as I move around him and towards my cubicle.
I’m lying but I’m sure when I can stop thinking about the bizarre concept of Camilla contacting Reese and me out of the blue after sixteen years, I’ll come up with something.
‘Just stop right there,’ commands Blake and I’m so shocked that I do stop and look at him.
He is dressed, as usual, in chinos and a button-down shirt and he has light stubble over his face.
He shaves his head because he started going bald and hated waiting for the inevitable.
I’m sure he thinks he looks quite suave but when he scowls as he is doing now, he actually looks quite threatening.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say, noting that his cheeks are red.
‘You’ve been talking to Eagle,’ he says. Eagle is the name of an advertising agency we find ourselves competing with for business more often than not. They’re called Eagle because their slogan is that they make your product soar with their advertising and marketing strategies.
‘What?’
‘I got an anonymous message, an email that I wasn’t going to read but it had the word Treason in the subject line.
Someone emailed me to tell me that you’ve been slipping our ideas to Eagle.
We’ve lost three campaigns to them in a row and I…
’ He shakes his head to convey his utter disappointment in me.
‘Blake,’ I say, chucking my half-drunk cup of coffee in the nearest garbage bin.
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ I ask the question with a smile on my face because it’s so patently absurd.
We’re an advertising company selling crap people don’t need, not part of the government dealing in state secrets.
‘My question exactly,’ he says, folding his arms. He doesn’t seem to find it as funny as I do and I have to swallow down an irritated sigh at his stupidity.
‘It’s rubbish,’ I protest. ‘Someone’s pranking you. I haven’t spoken to anyone at Eagle. I wouldn’t even know who to contact over there.’
‘I know you’re pissed off that I’m your boss, Vicky,’ he sneers.
‘I knew you would do something like this.’ His cheeks glow a deeper red and I can see he’s working himself up into some kind of ridiculous tirade and yet I can’t quite conceal my smile.
He looks like Dylan when he’s about to lose it. Surely he can see this is a joke?
‘What’s so fucking funny?’ he fumes.
The accusation is one thing, but his tone and attitude are another thing entirely.
Blake has no idea what I’m dealing with at home, no idea that some little bitch I thought was out of my life forever has reappeared, no idea that I am exhausted and stressed and really not in the mood for bullshit. Irritation bubbles inside me.
‘So let me get this straight,’ I say, walking right up to him.
‘You read some email from who knows and decided to believe it? Are you really that stupid? You haven’t asked to see my computer to verify this nonsense or even asked me if it’s true, you’ve just believed it.
’ I can feel my own face getting hot and I clench my fists so I won’t shove him hard, which is what I really want to do.
Blake steps back, away from my ire, holds up his hands as though scared that I’m going to attack him. ‘Yeah, I think you need to take the day off until I can sort this out.’
And now I’m not just irritated, I’m angry.
‘I have a lot of work to do, Blake. I’m not taking the day off. Someone sent you a silly email and because you’re worried about turnover, you’ve decided to believe them.’
‘I have decided to act in the best interests of the company, Vicky,’ says Blake. ‘You need to go home until I can trace where this email is from. I don’t want you in any meetings today.’
My anger morphs into something hot and black and even though some part of me is prodding me to keep quiet, I don’t listen to that part.
My son Dylan gets his temper from me. I have spent a lot of my life learning how to control myself so that I don’t do or say something stupid.
It means I come across as aloof but in reality, it’s me keeping myself in check.
But sometimes control is impossible, simply impossible.
‘You are being absolutely ridiculous,’ I say, the words filled with venom. I really hate this man who should be my underling and not my boss. It’s impossible to be a woman today. I am doing absolutely everything and now I have to deal with this idiotic man.
‘Here’s the thing, Vicky,’ says Blake, pointing a finger at me and in my peripheral vision I can see that we now have the attention of the whole office, which makes me furious because Blake could have called me into his office to do this privately but he has done it out here, where everyone sits in their little cubicles, for maximum humiliation.
‘I’m your boss and you don’t have a choice. Go home until I tell you to come back.’
‘You shouldn’t be my boss,’ I yell. The anger is getting hotter and hotter and I almost can’t control what I say next. ‘And you know what, screw you, Blake. I quit.’
Blake’s mouth opens and closes and I hear a ripple of audible gasps around the office as I turn and walk towards my cubicle, grabbing the few things that mean anything to me like the mug the boys bought for me last Mother’s Day with the words Best Mum on the front.
I have to stuff everything in a plastic bag and the whole time I am shoving things in I am aware that everyone is watching me.
I wish briefly for a sinkhole to appear to swallow me up.
When I have everything, I go to the door that leads to the stairs. We are twelve flights up but I don’t care. Absolute rage carries me down those stairs at a quick pace. And it’s only when I get to the bottom, panting and sweating, that I realise I have probably made a terrible mistake.
The fury has worn off now, sweated out of my body as I stamped down twelve flights of stairs in my heavy winter coat, carrying my pathetic plastic bag. And now I just feel ridiculous. What have I done?
Ed is bringing in a very small amount of money from his part-time job in the music studio.
And now I’m unemployed and the way I’ve left things means that Blake will not be providing me with a reference.
I’ve really, really screwed up. I have no idea where I will find the energy to look for another job anyway.
I’m so tired. Between my worries over the kids and the house and money and now what Camilla means to do, I am running on virtually no sleep.
I should just go back up and apologise. That’s what I need to do but I can’t seem to make myself do that. He didn’t even ask me. He just accused me. Maybe he’s been waiting for a way to get rid of me? Maybe he made up all of the stuff about contacting Eagle?
Why did I react so quickly? I should have just asked to see the email and then I could have proved it was crap. In the stairwell, I sink down onto the last stair and drop my head in my hands for a moment. I’m such an idiot.
I should call Ed and tell him but I can’t face that now.
Instead, I text Reese.
Just screwed up at work, had a temper tantrum and quit.
I stare down at my phone for a minute, knowing that Reese will immediately respond. But she doesn’t. Maybe Max is really sick? I wait another few minutes but there’s nothing from her and I know that I can’t sit in the filthy stairwell any longer.
‘Shit,’ I mutter, as I stand and pull open the door that leads to the lobby and leave the building, grateful for the wind that blows the sweat on my body dry.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ I continue to mutter as I make my way to the train station, pulling open my coat so that I can get more air on my skin, the plastic bag in my hand.
On the train, I stare out of the window, unable to process what I’ve just done and how it’s going to affect my life. Ed is going to be furious but I’ve been furious with him for months. How dare he quit his job and put us in this precarious position.
Could really use a debrief. Okay if I come over?
I message Reese, even though she still hasn’t replied to my first message about quitting. I need to talk to someone about what I’ve just done. I stare at the screen and then look away when there’s no reply from her.
A ping of a message on my phone makes my heart lift a little because maybe it’s her or maybe it’s Blake texting to apologise for his ridiculous accusation. I’m the best copywriter at the agency even though the business is changing. You can’t AI creativity. Not yet, at least.
But it’s not Reese or Blake. Instead, it’s an Instagram message from Camilla.
Her last message told me to watch what happens.
Could she be behind the message to Blake?
Absolutely. I feel myself flush as I realise that all I had to do was explain to Blake that a nefarious acquaintance from my past is threatening me for some bizarre reason and he would have listened.
My fuse is so short these days. Ed’s fault. Camilla’s fault.
The truth about your life is that it’s built on a lie.
That’s what keeps running through my head. Is she right? And if she is right, do I deserve whatever she is going to do or has done?
I groan as I understand that tonight I will have to compose a grovelling email to Blake and tomorrow I will have to turn up with wine and chocolates and prostrate myself at his feet to get my job back.
What a shitty, shitty day. If Reese had met me for coffee, I would have been in a more Zen mood because we would have debriefed over the Camilla thing and worked out what to do.
Sighing, I open the message from Camilla, dreading what she’s going to say.
You left work early, didn’t you? And you’re so nicely dressed in that blue top. Did something happen? Be a shame if it did.
For the first time in my life, I understand the phrase to ‘feel my heart in my throat’ because my throat is suddenly clogged.
I look down to check that I am, in fact, wearing my blue silk top, even though I know I am, and then I leap up and look around.
Where is she? How long has she been watching me?
Is she following me? People on the train look up from their phones as I search the carriage but then the train stops at a station and everyone moves or they go back to their screens.
I stalk up and down the carriage, looking for her, but I don’t recognise anyone.
And then I see a woman in a cap at the back, long white-blonde hair over her shoulders and her head down as she stares at her phone.
I stamp up to her, ‘Listen,’ I say and she looks up.
‘Oh… oh, I’m so…’ I begin to apologise because the woman is actually a teenage girl who smiles at me uncertainly, braces on her teeth.
I don’t bother with the rest of my apology. Instead, I move to the next carriage and slide into an empty seat, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
This suddenly got very serious. She went after my job? What else will she go after? Do I need to go to the police? I can show them the messages. Will they try and trace the email?
Maybe, but they’re just as likely to dismiss me. My behaviour in the office today would make anyone think I was a bit nuts.
I’m going to report you to the police for stalking, I message her, my fingers trembling as I type the threatening words.
She responds with three laughing emojis.
And then I would love to tell the police what you did.