Chapter 2
JAKE
I have no interest in making polite conversation with Freya Cassidy. The woman’s a homewrecker. Well, her books are. And clearly her books are an extension of her.
This is a lesson in thinking before saying yes, however busy I might be in that moment.
When I was asked to do this interview, I should have spent ten seconds considering who my unnamed co-interviewee might be.
It does of course make complete sense to include a divorce lawyer and a romance writer on the same ‘let’s talk about everlasting love’ Valentine’s panel.
I could have foreseen that, or at least asked.
Ms Cassidy clears her throat and uncrosses her neatly crossed ankles and recrosses them the other way round. I hold an imaginary bingo card at the ready to see what banality she will come out with next. Weather? Travel? Whether I’ve been on TV before?
It’s surprising. You’d think an author who’d sold millions of books would have better conversation. Although, to be fair to her, I’m giving her absolutely nothing to work with.
‘Did you have far to travel this morning?’ she asks. Bingo.
‘Not really,’ I say repressively.
She raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow, just very slightly, implying, I think, that she believes me to have been unnecessarily rude.
I feel a flash of annoyance. I am not a rude person.
Ever. Except… yes, apparently I have just been rude.
I’m talking to Freya Cassidy though; and, while I haven’t met her before, I do know that I don’t like her.
Or, more specifically, that I don’t like her work.
I should really be mature enough to make polite conversation, however.
‘A half-hour journey,’ I elaborate. And then I add, ‘How was your journey?’
Her – objectively (and annoyingly) beautifully shaped – lips curve into a small smile.
I do not, of course, know her personally, but I would say that’s a victorious smile.
I’m guessing she was doing her best to goad me into actual conversation.
I find my own lips twitching in response, which annoys me.
‘Very good, thank you.’ She gives me a long, appraising look for a moment, before continuing, ‘I’m not an early riser. On the occasions that I am out and about at the crack of dawn, I do enjoy seeing London waking up.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree politely. ‘That is cool.’
She nods. I nod too. (I don’t know why.) And then we settle back into silence. I take my phone out and check my emails and mentally run down what I’ll be doing for the rest of today, until I’m dragged back to now by a young woman knocking on the door and coming into the room.
‘Hi, Soraya.’ Ms Cassidy greets her with a beam, as though they’re best friends. I presume they only met this morning, though.
Soraya returns her smile and says, ‘I hope you’ve had a lovely time getting to know each other. Just letting you know that you’ll be on in a couple of minutes.’
‘Great,’ we reply simultaneously, as Soraya disappears again.
‘Have you been on TV before?’ Ms Cassidy asks.
‘Yes, but not on this kind of show.’ I have some very high-profile clients so sometimes I have to read statements out to the media, but I see no reason to mention that now. ‘You?’ I’m genuinely interested, despite myself, in how much media exposure she’s had.
‘Yes, a few times, on local news programmes and a few other chat and magazine type shows like this. My publisher has a very good publicity department and they’re fantastic at getting authors slots like this.’
To maximise the number of people who will get sucked into reading her books and thus have their perception of reality warped.
‘Good for them,’ I say with great insincerity.
‘Yep.’ She stands up and smooths the skirt of her dress, which makes me wonder whether she’s a little anxious about the interview.
I’m not nervous, just keen to get the interview out of the way and then get on with the rest of my over-busy day; I’m here because no publicity is bad publicity, according to my fellow partners at work.
The more people have heard of us, the more they’ll send their business our way.
I already have enough business but thought how hard can it be, and said yes anyway, for the greater good of the firm, when everyone else decided I’d be the best person for the job. Mistake.
The door opens; Soraya’s back.
‘Let’s go,’ she says.
Ms Cassidy does the skirt-smoothing again and also gives both sides of the chest of her dress a little inwards tug.
It’s quite revealing on the top half; I’m guessing from the way she seems to be trying to rearrange the dress that she isn’t comfortable with that.
Presumably she was given it to wear by the wardrobe people.
‘You look beautiful, Freya,’ Soraya tells her, obviously having noticed that she doesn’t look entirely at ease.
She’s right. Objectively, she does look beautiful.
She has very thick, long hair, mainly down but with some bits up, which frames her heart-shaped face very attractively.
And whoever chose the dress and high heels she’s wearing did a good job; I can’t imagine anyone else wearing them better, frankly.
The dress has deep pink and red flowers, presumably in a nod to Valentine’s Day (I was told to either bring a pink tie of my own or borrow one from them; I brought one), and suits her dark blonde hair and creamy skin, and the heels are red and shiny, and combined with the swishy skirts of the dress reveal excellent legs.
Wow. I have no idea why I’m cataloguing what the woman is wearing. She’s been thanking Soraya, and they’ve been chatting about nail varnish while I’ve been lost in my own peculiar thoughts.
Make-up people swoop towards us. I tell them I am absolutely fine, thank you; Ms Cassidy submits to having something powdery brushed on her cheeks and forehead and black eye stuff touched up, while the woman wielding the brushes gives her some advice about how to hold herself on camera.
When the woman’s finished, I can’t see a difference if I’m honest. Ms Cassidy looked ridiculously beautiful before; she still does.
I have no idea why I can’t think of her as Freya. We aren’t in the nineteenth century. I’m just too irritated by her actual existence, though.
Right. We’re finally going on. As we walk down the corridor, Soraya calls, ‘Enjoy!’ after us.
I look at Ms Cassidy’s perfectly proportioned profile and feel yet another wave of real annoyance that she has this butter-wouldn’t-melt look while she’s regularly ruining people’s lives.
When she smiles at me, and says with an ironic little eye-roll, ‘Well, let’s have fun. Here’s to love and Valentine’s Day,’ all I can do is respond with an eye-roll of my own. At her, though, not with her.