Chapter Two #2
Zoe eyeballed me. Clearly, she was not to be fobbed off.
‘You forget that I know your default is to shut yourself away when something bad happens. And that’s fine, we’re all different.
But you can talk to me, you know. It’s not like I’ve never broken up with someone; I know exactly how awful it feels.
Maybe it would help to share stories of heartbreak.
Chat it through. Slag Charlie off, whatever you need? ’
Articulating actual feelings out loud was not what I did.
Which made it quite extraordinary that my job as a journalist was to interview other people; to get under their skin, to pull stories – and yes, emotions – out of them and write them down in a way that made the people reading my articles feel something too.
Funny that when it came to my own issues, I struggled to share them with anyone at all.
‘I’m fine, Zo,’ I reassured her. ‘It was a bit of a shock at first, but I honestly think it was for the best.’
‘Best how?’ asked Zoe.
Shit. Good point. I must be able to come up with something.
‘Because I wouldn’t want to waste another four years with someone who was having doubts about our relationship, would I? At least I’m still young enough to find someone else.’
There, that had sounded convincing. And there was at least some truth to it – imagine if it had happened years down the line when we had two kids and a massive mortgage to consider, which was kind of what I’d always imagined for us if I were to have been pressed for a five-year plan.
‘Break-ups are savage,’ said Zoe gently. ‘And you’re bound to miss Charlie. It’s okay if you’re struggling, Ava.’
‘Define “struggling”?’
I knew it wasn’t exactly looking good, what with the whole not-working-and-not-getting-dressed thing – in fact, I was full-on wallowing when nobody could see me, but fundamentally I was totally surviving.
I’d managed to send two work emails yesterday and had actually made myself something other than plain pasta with cheese for dinner the night before last.
‘Okay. Well, for example, have you been turning down jobs?’ asked Zoe.
‘No! Of course not. I just haven’t exactly been looking for any, either.’
I was usually extremely proactive – as a self-employed writer, you had to be if you wanted to eat – but I didn’t have it in me to put myself out there at the moment and the idea of encountering yet more rejection was simply too much to bear.
I had a few regular gigs and I was managing to get them done, even if it did feel like climbing Mount Everest every time I opened my laptop and attempted to string nice-sounding words together.
‘How are you going to pay your rent?’ asked Zoe.
This must be what they called ‘an intervention’.
‘I’ve got savings,’ I assured her calmly, because I had.
Savings for the flat in some nice, leafy part of London that Charlie and I were planning on buying once we’d cobbled together a big enough deposit.
No point in keeping hold of that now, was there?
I’d never be able to afford a property in London on my own.
‘What are they, then?’ asked Zoe, staring pointedly at the pile of brown envelopes on the coffee table. One of them rather unhelpfully had the words Overdue Payment plastered across the front of it in bright-red ink.
‘Oh, those . . .’ I said casually. For fuck’s sake. Why hadn’t I thrown them out with the crisp wrappers? ‘I need to change them from Charlie’s name into mine, that’s all. The whole admin thing’s a logistical nightmare.’
Taking his name off of every single household account was proving to be a mind-numbingly tedious task I could never be bothered to start, let alone finish.
Because not only had Charlie moved out overnight, he’d left me to disentangle myself from him in every possible way without so much as an offer of help.
The only nice thing he’d done was agree to pay half the rent until our contract was up in September, but I assumed he wasn’t planning to contribute to other bills and I hadn’t really had the headspace to consider whether any of this was sustainable.
It was only a tiny, one-bedroomed place, so it wasn’t even like I could sublet a room and get a flatmate, unless I did a Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare-type arrangement, although what’s the betting my lodger would be nothing like Leon?
‘Has Charlie given you any money towards all of this?’ asked Zoe, waving her hand in the direction of the incriminating envelopes.
‘Not exactly,’ I admitted.
‘Dickhead,’ she said.
Fair enough. I’d called him worse myself in my head.
‘Actually, I suppose your lack of financial security does bring me neatly on to the reason for my visit . . .’ said Zoe, ominously.
‘And there was me thinking you’d come to indulge my daytime TV addiction and assist me in polishing off a packet of Taste the Difference quadruple-chocolate cookies,’ I said, swiftly realising I’d eaten the entire packet for breakfast a couple of days ago.
‘You need more work now that your outgoings are bigger. Correct?’ said Zoe, going for the jugular. ‘And maybe writing your way through the pain will help. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’
‘Who’s “they”?’ I asked, genuinely wanting to know.
Zoe’s situation was far more stable than mine – she’d been freelance once, too, but six months ago she’d taken a permanent role on Luxe, a glossy monthly magazine that was one of the only print publications still selling shedloads and as a result attracted the crème de la crème of contributing editors, photographers, models and celebrity cover stars.
And I supposed that if I was contracted to turn up somewhere to do my job, I would have had to by now and perhaps I’d feel better for it.
I also wouldn’t need to worry so much about money, because although I’d started to build a solid portfolio of work, I was still having to scramble around for jobs and persuade people I was good enough.
‘I’m planning to get everything back on track,’ I said, sounding far more convincing than I felt.
‘When?’ asked Zoe.
‘Soon.’
‘How about right now?’ she asked.
I instinctively glanced at the TV. What, right now?
‘Amanda’s looking for someone to write a profile piece on that British tennis player, Marcus Taylor.’
‘Marcus who?’
‘Taylor,’ said Zoe. ‘You know the one? The press hates him. They’ve dubbed him “Racquet Man” because he’s always smashing them up on the court.’
‘Charming,’ I said, a vague memory of last year’s Wimbledon coverage filtering into my mind’s eye.
There had been some guy the media had gone to town on, calling him a brat and a bad loser and accusing him of bringing shame on British tennis.
Presumably that was him. ‘What’s any of this got to do with me, though? ’
‘I persuaded Amanda that you’d be the perfect person for the job,’ Zoe announced, looking at me triumphantly.
It took a second or two for me to compute what she was saying.
Amanda Eddington was the infamous and utterly terrifying editor-in-chief of Luxe.
She was constantly photographed at swanky industry parties, or on the front row of Fashion Weeks around the world.
As if Zoe would even have mentioned me to her!
‘You must have misunderstood her, Zo,’ I declared.
Amanda could have her pick of writers, there was no way she’d trust an article of that calibre to a relatively unknown journalist like me.
‘I haven’t. She definitely wants to hire you and she’s really excited about this one – apparently he won the Australian Open when he was twenty-three and played all this amazing tennis but since then he hasn’t really lived up to his potential.
She was having a nightmare finding the right person for the assignment and I immediately thought of you.
I sent her that piece you wrote for Refinery29 last year on why celebrities write memoirs, and she thought it was brilliant.
Plus, she trusts my judgement. She knows I wouldn’t recommend anyone other than an exceptional writer to her, best friend or no best friend. ’
I swallowed hard, touched by Zoe going out on a limb for me and bigging me up. But in my experience, jobs this good did not get handed to you on a plate.
‘What’s the catch?’ I asked her.
‘No catch,’ she insisted brightly.
‘The interview’s all agreed? Marcus Taylor and his people are all on board?’
‘Something like that,’ said Zoe breezily.
I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘Tell me . . .’
Zoe sighed. ‘Okay. Apparently, he’s difficult. Which is obvious, isn’t it, given how he behaves on the court?’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘And he may – may – have a rep for cancelling interviews at the last minute.’
‘So basically it’s a non-starter. He’ll half-heartedly agree to do it but then he’ll block the process at every turn so that it never happens. I’ve been on the receiving end of that before and it’s a complete waste of time.’
‘Amanda is hoping it’ll be different this time. And I told her that if anyone could get Marcus on side, you could.’
I laughed hollowly. ‘I appreciate you championing my journalistic capabilities, Zo, but I’m not a bloody miracle-worker. I bet Amanda’s only said yes to me because nobody else wants the job.’
Zoe hesitated a moment too long. I knew it!
‘It’s not just that, Ava, you’re a sensational writer.
And so what if her usual slew of contributors have said no?
This is a brilliant opportunity for you to put yourself well and truly on her radar.
Imagine how fantastic a profile of a famously elusive celebrity will look in your portfolio? This could be your big break!’