Chapter Twenty-Six London Friday 12 February 2010 #2
She didn’t answer straight away. While Olivia was passenger in Leo’s fast, shiny car of success, she occupied it as Professional Friend.
She had a role. If he accidentally touched her hand, or their fingers brushed by mistake, she could shrug off the spark of electricity professionally.
If he looked at her for a moment too long, softness in his eyes, she could efficiently ask if he needed her to fetch him something.
They were working; there was no place for any temptation.
There was every need for her to deny his continued effect on her.
But recently she hadn’t wanted that role so much.
She’d declined a few of his offers – was only here today with great reluctance, and because she worked at the library.
Her disappointment in her own lacklustre publishing journey had made her want to get out of the car.
‘I choose my battles,’ she said at last, and she didn’t know why she did, but before either of them could say anything else, there was a short cough from behind him. It was Tanya, in teal Vivienne Westwood, holding a clipboard.
‘Positions, please,’ she said. ‘We’re about to open the doors.’
‘How do I look?’ Leo asked his publicist, running a hand through his hair.
‘Fantastic, of course!’
Olivia motioned to Billy, and they stepped to the side of the room. Leo took his place at the whiteboard. Tanya tested the microphone. And the ticket holders started trooping in.
They were women, and some men – some young, and plenty not so young – all smiling, all excited, unbuttoning their coats, freeing scarves and hats and gloves from their person.
They beamed when they saw Leo, nudged each other, flashed him shy smiles.
He smiled back at them all: handsome, adorable, clever, clever Leo Greene.
‘So, how’s it going with you?’ Billy whispered to Olivia as Leo’s fans gradually took their seats, opened notebooks and fished pens out of bags. Eyed up the cupcakes. Eyed up Leo Greene. ‘The book? Leo told me about it. How’s it all going?’
Olivia smiled blandly at him. ‘How’s it all going?’ when something was going well was a welcome question. When something was not, it was the last thing an author with a book out in the world wanted to be asked. She wished Leo hadn’t told him. Why had he?
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s going OK, thanks.’
‘Good, good.’ Billy’s young face was earnest and eager. ‘How are sales?’
‘Erm . . . as well as to be expected,’ she replied. ‘I mean, there are some sales . . .’
This was not what she was supposed to say in answer to this question. She was supposed to say a suitably vague, ‘My editor is very pleased with how things are going’ – a line she had practised several times in front of the mirror, with a variety of sanguine facial expressions.
‘Well, some sales is something,’ said Billy, sympathetic.
‘Yes, of course.’
Two months after Leo signed his publishing deal, Olivia signed her own.
It had all happened astonishingly fast. She’d heard back from an agent, not the one she re-submitted to but a different one.
Alice Jones at the Frederick Cole Agency.
A week later, she signed with her and, three weeks after that, The Florist went out on submission, and – to Olivia’s huge surprise and delight – an editor at Dawkins Wright, a small press who specialised in romance novels, said they wanted to buy it, offering Olivia a modest advance.
She accepted their offer, despite Alice’s tempered caution that Dawkins Wright had a large roster of authors and an unquantified marketing budget.
‘Don’t expect huge things, but you never know.
Or maybe we can see what else comes along?
’ But Olivia was impatient in the wake of Leo’s success, and she accepted the offer.
Dawkins Wright had been lovely when her novel, now called The Florist on Fenton Street, was published – just a couple of weeks after Leo’s.
No, there had been no launch party, but her book had been sent out into the ether with heaps of best wishes and a bouquet of flowers, which arrived on the doorstep of the flat in Pimlico on publication day.
Stella and Annabel – escaped from the country for the night – had turned up in the evening with their own bunch of flowers and a big bottle of Prosecco, Stella declaring this the most exciting day in her life bar none, and Annabel had brought a crayon-drawn celebratory scribble by her toddler, Jessica, to stick on Olivia’s fridge.
‘You’ve done it!’ Stella had cried. ‘You’re a fully fledged and very clever author!’ Annabel had fallen asleep by eight o’clock, declaring both that Olivia was a ‘star’ and that children were ‘knackering and really bloody expensive’.
But sales had been disappointing. Olivia had only sold 220 books in six months and had recently attended a meeting with her editor and a marketing assistant, a meeting where there was croissants and fresh filter coffee and lots of encouraging noises, and pretty hopes that things would magically turn around somehow, but there had been no suggestion of Dawkins Wright signing her for a second book.
It had been a one-book deal; Olivia wasn’t sure there was ever going to be a publishable book two, although she was already well into writing one anyway, in a pique of stubbornness.
Olivia was disappointed, too. The advance had long been spent on bills, and low sales meant it was doubtful the book would ever earn out – cover the advance and then start earning her royalties.
She had wanted to give up the cleaning job, but she couldn’t afford to yet.
And, actually, she enjoyed it. And mostly because of Melodi.
On Olivia’s first ever shift, she’d been handed a tabard and a box of cleaning supplies and told to meet Melodi, a forty-year-old Albanian woman, fierce and funny, who had cleaned it all, apparently.
They started with the bins, then wiped the desks, then hoovered, then set to in the little kitchen.
Olivia would have quit on the second day if it hadn’t been for Melodi.
Not because the job was beneath her, but because it was so bloody hard.
Melodi was great fun. Melodi had a dry, caustic wit and a sense of mischief.
Melodi had a day job working at a bookie’s on the Old Kent Road, handing out betting slips and making polite conversation with drunks.
She also cut hair for free, providing a mobile service for her neighbours on their housing estate.
In some ways, Melodi reminded Olivia a lot of Charlie.
On Olivia’s second shift, she’d followed Melodi into the kitchen to start on the washing up, where Melodi had immediately grabbed a half-empty bottle of champagne from the draining board and taken an enormous swig from it.
‘Somebody’s damn birthday!’ she’d husked in her Eastern European accent. ‘Still got its fizz, though. Want some?’
They had done the rest of that evening’s cleaning moderately pissed and a friendship was born.
Sometimes they went out after their shift to Burger King, where they would stuff down flame grillers and drink Diet Pepsi.
Sometimes Melodi would tell Olivia about life back in Albania.
Olivia told Melodi about Charlie and her working-class roots.
About how she wanted to be a published author, and to write romance novels that sold well and readers loved.
Melodi was fascinated. Melodi said it was amazing to have a talent, and Olivia must use hers to climb ‘up on the ladder’.
Melodi declared she would be her number-one fan and that she would come to all of the book parties and drink the fizz.
‘Quite the turnout.’ Billy was looking around the Reading Room appreciatively.
A very pretty girl had just sat down with her mother.
The mother was giving the daughter a bottle of water and the daughter was giving Leo a big sweeping smile under sweeping eyelashes.
Then Olivia saw another pretty girl who was taking a seat at the back of the room.
Long, honey-brown hair. A preppy striped scarf.
A deep-plum velvet coat, and grey eyes the colour of huskies.
‘You know her?’ Billy must have caught her staring.
‘Leo does.’
‘Ex?’
‘No . . .’
‘Pretty,’ he acknowledged.
‘Yes.’ Cressie looked lovelier that ever.
Tanya tapped the mic and began to introduce Leo, the book and the brilliance – and the wisdom Leo was about to impart. There was a loud round of applause, and Leo launched into the presentation Olivia knew he’d been rehearsing all week.
‘Do you want to kill at writing crime?’ he asked, and there was a murmured assent, one whoop and a ‘Damn, yeah!’ from a man dressed in black at the back, and everybody laughed.
Leo was a rock star, and this was a captive audience of huge, devoted fans.
‘Here’s how I do it,’ he said, and Olivia saw he had clocked Cressie at the back of the room, for he paused for a second, gave her a tiny wave with the tips of his fingers and continued confidently into his presentation, while Olivia’s thoughts drifted on.
Something had happened at the cleaning job.
A man had asked Olivia out. She wanted to think about that now, as she watched Leo gaining Cressie’s full, doe-eyed attention.
It was a couple of weeks ago. The man had still been at his desk when she and Melodi had come into the office one evening, with the hoover and the cleaning supplies.
He was her age, about thirty, dark brown hair, tie off and over the back of his chair.
‘Sorry,’ he’d said, turning around, apologetic. ‘I’ll only be another ten minutes.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Olivia. Melodi vaguely scowled at him.
They emptied the bins. There was a wastepaper basket right under the man’s desk. He lifted it out for Olivia. ‘Here you are,’ he said. And then when she came back around to hoover, he theatrically lifted his shiny brown brogues.
‘Thank you,’ he’d mouthed to her.