Chapter 5
A s I left the bathroom, I saw David coming out of the meeting room with Morris Jackson, the area manager for the north. They both flashed a smile at me, and I smiled back. I was in a good mood, as every time I entered the ladies’ room, I was reminded that my life was back on track.
The news I wasn’t pregnant had spread faster than the news of my fake pregnancy. I didn’t have to be concerned anymore that the gossip about me expecting a child would get to the wrong ears and delay my upcoming promotion. Because why would the company appoint a woman who was likely to disappear on maternity leave in a few months and, thanks to the generous maternity package, wouldn’t be expected back anytime soon? Of course they’d cite a different reason for not giving me the long-awaited title change and significant pay rise I deserved.
To eliminate the possibility of future baby rumours, I’d taken a hard look at my diet, meaning the contents of my fridge. I added more vegetables and removed most of the spicy processed food. I’d consumed too many ready-made curries and coffee in the first three weeks of the new year, and it seemed the two weren’t a good pairing.
‘Evie, it’s so nice to see you again,’ Morris said with a twinkle in his baby-blue eyes. His booming mellow voice, which could melt any female heart, filled the lobby. He was the only person I’d met who made a nickname sound like a compliment rather than an insult. ‘It must have been what? Four or five years? Girl, you haven’t changed a bit.’
The fifty-something area manager looked exactly how I pictured an ageing James Bond. Not that I’d watched any of the movies, but as a teen, I’d read Casino Royale , and the physical description of the 007 agent had stuck with me.
Morris threw his arms wide in a dramatic fashion, waiting for me to step closer. I obliged, and he held me tight against his enormous chest. Unlike David, Morris always kept his suit jacket unbuttoned. I suspected it was the fair few extra pounds accumulating around his stomach that prevented him from doing it up.
‘More like six, and you haven’t changed either,’ I said and patted the soft flesh on his back lightly, trying to end the hug. His skin smelled of a strong aftershave. It was a classic, masculine scent, and I recognised it as Old Spice – my grandfather had used the same.
As I looked behind him, my eyes met with David’s disapproving look.
Once Morris let go of the embrace at last, I excused myself and went upstairs, leaving the two men alone in the lobby.
*
‘How was your meeting?’ I asked when David returned to our small office.
‘Fine,’ he replied without looking at me as he sat behind his computer.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Never better.’
‘What was your meeting about?’
‘Morris is temporarily taking over the south region,’ he said. ‘Gareth Matthews is retiring.’
‘I see. Well, Morris is good at delegating, and the clients tend to like him. I worked with him on my first contract for a few months. Of course I was only a junior surveyor back then, and he was a contracts manager,’ I rambled on like a silly teenager and scolded myself for being so obvious and nosy.
‘You clearly made a lasting impression on him.’
I detected sarcasm in David’s tone, and his unprecedented moodiness made me smile inside. Perhaps he was closer to making that first step towards a change in our relationship than I’d thought. A part of me couldn’t wait for him to ask me out. Another part of me wanted him not to make a move at all.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ I asked casually.
He declined but, a minute later, joined me in the kitchen.
‘Actually, a coffee would be nice,’ he said, rubbing his beard cheerfully. ‘So what contract were you working on with Morris?’
His jealousy seemed to have dissolved. He must have realised how childish he’d been acting. Or he may have just envied the middle-aged area manager, who could get away with getting so close to women without any consequences. (No one took Morris’s advances seriously. He was just a big, flirty teddy bear who knew which women were receptive to his behaviour and which ones to avoid.) Perhaps when seeing us embrace, David had desperately longed to swap places with Morris. I quite liked that theory.
‘I worked with him up near Sheffield before my transfer. It was a similar project to this one but not as complex. We only did groundworks and landscaping. Of course I wasn’t the commercial lead there; that was Phillip Russell. Do you know him?’
David shook his head, so I went on. ‘Then Morris got promoted, and I thought it was time for me to move on too. I needed a change of scenery, and London has a lot more developmental opportunities and a much more varied workload to gain experience in. Moving up the career ladder here can be much faster… but you must know this.’ I made a conscious effort not to add ‘for a woman’. Unfortunately, it was still true: no place in England could beat London when it came to equality. ‘Did you already work as a contracts manager before coming over to Brooks O’Grady?’ He’d joined the company four years ago, but I knew nothing else of his background.
‘No,’ he said with a child’s smile. ‘I’d been a site manager only, like Adam.’
I wasn’t sure why David had mentioned Adam. He could have named any of the other three site managers or not used an example at all. There had to be a reason .
‘I’d worked for a subcontractor,’ he continued. ‘This was a massive jump for me. To be honest, I never thought I’d get this job because I didn’t have the experience they were looking for.’
‘Well, they obviously made the right decision when hiring you,’ I said kindly. Then I reminded myself to stop flattering him. Again, I was acting like a silly teenage girl.
Our drinks were ready, and the conversation ended when Dean entered the kitchen.
Dean was lanky and somewhat goofy-looking. He was the same age as David but mentality-wise light years behind.
‘Hey, do you know if Ardas is around?’ he asked.
Ardas was the opposite of Dean: short, stocky, greying, and with a large square face. Whenever I saw them together, they reminded me of Laurel and Hardy; even now, just thinking about the stark contrast between the two lightened my mood.
‘No, he’s out on site with the client,’ replied David.
Pleased with that answer, Dean took out a large box of teabags from the kitchen cupboard and left for upstairs.
‘What was that about?’
‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ said David, and I realised perhaps it was something best not to dwell on. ‘Anyway, shall we head to the meeting room?’
I nodded, looking at my watch; our client meeting was scheduled to start in exactly three minutes.
*
‘Who did it? Who was it?’ shouted Ardas.
His thunderous voice carried through into the stairwell, and as I stepped into the open-plan office, his red cheeks immediately drew my attention. His wide nostrils were flaring, making him look like a dragon about to blow fire.
David had popped out to get some late lunch after our meeting, so he wasn’t here to watch the scene. But apart from some eye-rolling and professional pleading with Ardas to keep his voice down – which the site manager would have likely ignored – I wasn’t sure whether he would have contributed much to taming the situation.
The only person who was never interested in what was going on in the office was Diane. Through her internal window, I could see her working away without raising an eyebrow. She had a similar private room to the one I shared with David but on the other end of the floor, and she barely left it.
‘What happened?’ I mouthed to Adam as I reached his desk – he sat nearest to my cosy cave. There was no point in addressing Ardas; his reply would be a never-ending story, and the others would have mistaken my unusual interest for nosiness only. However, as the only senior manager present, I felt it was my duty to get involved in some way.
‘Someone put teabags in Ardas’s laptop case,’ he whispered back.
I shuddered, picturing the inside of that laptop case covered in dark powder leaking from the teabags. This wasn’t the first time a prank had occurred in our offices; nevertheless, I deeply condemned such childish acts. I could only hope the laptop itself hadn’t been damaged, as any repair costs would have to be deducted from our site profits.
‘How immature,’ I commented in a similarly low voice, glancing at Dean, who was laughing his head off in the corner, his arms crossed, balancing on the back two legs of his chair.
‘Calm down, Ardas – it was just a joke,’ Adam told him.
I was grateful he’d intervened before I had to. Men tended to listen to me, but Ardas wasn’t one I liked to handle. The arrogant forty-something site manager usually did what I asked but always with a grimace that pissed me off. In a way, Dean’s mischief seemed justified. Still, due to my position, it would have been inappropriate to take sides.
‘Was it you?’ asked Ardas.
Everyone moved their eyes to Adam, listening intently to what he would say, though I suspected a fair few of them must have witnessed the crime being committed and thus knew who the culprit was .
‘No, it wasn’t me.’
When the chuckling in the back finally caught Ardas’s attention, he looked at Dean and narrowed his eyes. ‘It was you ! Don’t worry – you’ll get it back.’
‘Oh, come on, old boy,’ pleaded Dean; he’d stopped laughing and had swung the chair back onto all four legs.
Ardas emptied the teabags into the nearest bin and brushed his laptop. He then packed it away, put on his hi-vis jacket, and stormed out.
‘I think I’d better go and do my end-of-day checks too,’ said Adam quickly, rising from his seat.
Three o’clock seemed early for that activity, so I suspected he planned to have another word with Ardas about the incident.
Once he left too, work or the pretence of work resumed in the office, and I finally entered my cave.