AUDREY
T HE ARTICLE COMES OUT ON A F RIDAY .
Marika and I are at the kitchen table, eating breakfast in companiable silence and scrolling through our phones when she suddenly goes completely still, her eyes darting up to meet mine. I know, then, and it’s no particular surprise. Demi sent me the finished piece a few days ago, as promised, and I okayed it without reading. Maybe someday I’ll want to hear the other stories – to see my own in immutable black-and-white typeface. But not today. Today, Marika shuts her screen off with a click and puts her phone face-down on the table, and we resume eating our toast.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t get the memo. My own phone starts to ring less than ten minutes later, and I show the screen to Marika before raising it to my ear – it’s the AVW office number, and Imogene’s assistant, Kady. To her credit, she sounds totally calm and pleasant, like there’s nothing strange about the fact that she’s calling instead of Imogene. She asks if I can come into the office today, the sooner the better, and after I say yes and hang up we wait to see if Marika also gets a call. She doesn’t, which confirms what I already suspected – the name change wasn’t enough.
So I set off for the AVW offices, breath billowing in front of me as I walk. Marika tried to come with me, of course, but I felt like this was something I needed to do by myself. It’s a cold, misty day, the tips of the skyscrapers lost in a layer of thick grey cloud. It might seem ominous ordinarily, but I feel eerily calm. Like everything that happens from this point onwards is already fixed in time. Inevitable.
When I finally arrive, the office is as quiet as I’ve ever heard it. People are talking in hushed voices, frowning at phones, frantically tapping at laptops. A few furtive glances are cast my way, which would have been enough to send me spiralling just days ago. But I don’t feel much of anything until I’m ushered into Imogene’s office and she turns to me with watery, red-rimmed eyes.
‘Hi, Audrey,’ she says, quickly fixing her features into an approximation of a smile. ‘Sit down.’
I sink into a comfortable chair opposite her desk. Imogene stays standing, rubbing a thumb against her collarbone. I’ve never seen her look so – so imperfect, I suppose. Her trousers are crumpled and her jumper is on inside-out, the tag only half-obscured by the ends of her haphazard ponytail.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask hesitantly, and she blinks at me with surprise, like it’s somehow not entirely obvious that she’s been crying her eyes out.
‘I’m fine,’ she says after a beat. ‘I just – I thought we could have a catch-up. I got Kady to buy doughnuts.’ She gestures vaguely to a box of them on her desk, pink-glazed and totally untouched.
‘Oh – thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m okay, though.’
‘Can I get you a coffee, then? Or water?’
‘I’m good. Thanks.’
She nods absently, perching on the edge of her desk. I can see that she’s working up to whatever she needs to say so I wait, and –
‘Someone sent me an article about Julian this morning,’ she says finally. ‘Several people, actually.’
And there it is. It’s not a shock hearing those words leave Imogene’s mouth, but it doesn’t make what I have to say next any less difficult.
‘I haven’t read it,’ I tell her. ‘But – I spoke to the journalist who wrote it.’
Imogene stares at me for a moment, eyes huge and glassy.
‘Oh,’ she replies. ‘You—’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say without thinking, and Imogene visibly flinches.
‘You – why would you ever say sorry? You have nothing to apologise for – it’s my fault, Audrey—’
‘You didn’t know,’ I say, realising in that exact moment that I’ve never doubted otherwise.
‘I didn’t,’ she echoes, her voice trembling. ‘I didn’t, but I should have. I …’
She abruptly shakes her head, falling silent. When she does start to speak again, her voice is barely above a whisper.
‘I – I think I told you that I used to model too,’ she begins. ‘And when I decided to become an agent, part of that was wanting to look out for girls in the way that I wish that someone had looked out for me. And – I didn’t – I didn’t do that for you. And I – I didn’t …’
Her voice breaks and she falls silent again, her lips pursed as she roughly wipes at her eyes with the heel of her palm. Her face is flushed and blotchy, and in that moment the cool, beautiful woman in front of me is a girl my age. Younger, maybe. And suddenly my chest is tight, stuffed full of so much pain and anger that I can barely breathe.
‘You did look out for me,’ I tell her, my own voice unsteady now. ‘You’re amazing, Imogene. I’ve been so lucky to have you, and it’s really important to me that you know that.’
She manages a watery smile, but then her phone buzzes on her desk and it abruptly disappears. I can see from the lit-up screen that there are dozens of unanswered messages.
‘You know – when I first saw the article, I thought it was a really bad joke,’ she says quietly. ‘Julian – I’m friends with his ex-girlfriend. But then I’m reading, and I see her name, and I didn’t – she never …’ She trails off and shakes her head again, looking dazed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Did – do you want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. Then – ‘Do you? I mean, your …’
‘No.’ She sniffs. ‘No, I think- I think maybe we should talk about what’s next, instead. Is that okay?’
‘Sure.’ I nod. ‘I know that this’ll change things …’
‘The campaign will be pulled,’ she says briskly, wiping her eyes again. ‘It doesn’t matter – there’ll be others.’
‘No, um – I just meant that if you recognised me in the article, other people might too. If I stop getting jobs …’
‘Why would that happen?’ Imogene asks, sounding genuinely appalled. I falter, wondering if I should tell her what really happened during my coffee with Miranda.
‘I don’t know,’ I say instead. Demi mentioned that there were other stories about Miranda – with everyone talking about Julian, it might not be long before one of them reaches Imogene’s ears. Today isn’t the day.
‘No. Don’t even think that,’ Imogene says firmly. ‘You’ve got an incredible career ahead of you, if you want it.’
And in spite of it all, I think I do. The world feels wider than it did two months ago. My life feels so much bigger, so loaded with possibilities, and Miranda and Julian can go and fuck themselves for trying to make me think that they could take that from me.
I have one last thing to tell Imogene, though.
‘I think I need to go home,’ I say. ‘Not forever, but – for a little while, at least.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, of course,’ she says softly, attempting another smile. ‘I can book your flight for Monday, if you want – you and Marika can leave for the airport together. Is that soon enough?’
Monday. Monday is two days from now, and it somehow feels too soon. Just like Marika, there’s a part of me that’s scared to go. Scared that the time I spent here will fade away into nothing – a story that I’ll be telling at parties ten years from now, always wondering what if, what if, what if—
‘Monday is good,’ I hear myself say. ‘Thank you.’