Chapter 9
Alyssa used her sleeve to mask her nose and mouth as the stench of Lennie’s basement flat assaulted her.
They hadn’t even stepped over the threshold yet, and she could already see mould patches creeping up the walls and suspicious stains on the threadbare carpets.
Perhaps she’d been naive to think she could deal with this pitiful downgrade.
‘Get in and make yourself at home,’ said Lennie, giving her an unwelcome shove from behind.
‘Oi!’ Alyssa spun around and glared at him, trying to keep the shoebox steady under her arm. ‘Less of the manhandling.’
Lennie huffed. ‘Sorry, miss, but I’ve got a busy morning. You’ve already told me you have no more money. Isn’t manhandling … well, part of the deal?’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘If you’re going to be a snob about it …’
So that’s what he’d meant by a ‘special arrangement’. Gah. She had wondered but had generously given him the benefit of the doubt.
‘No, it is not part of the bloody deal, and I’m not a snob. I’m just a human being. With standards.’ They did not include living somewhere that should probably be reported or condemned as unfit.
Lennie shrugged. ‘Got any other options?’
‘Plenty,’ she lied. ‘And being fondled by a gropey landlord will never be one of them.’ That much was true.
Then she swiftly barged past Lennie, waved goodbye to her deposit – because legal action would risk revelations that she’d lived in this dive of a building – and pulled her wheelie suitcase out of there.
When she hit the street, dark grey clouds were rolling in and she could smell the metallic threat of rain. The air was heavy.
‘Nowhere to go. Well, this is becoming a thing,’ she muttered, before squaring her shoulders and dragging her belongings away from the tower block of doom.
At least this time she wasn’t completely alone. As well as her pocketful of social media followers, she now had a mouse. She ought to do right by him, so that was something to focus on, wasn’t it?
Suddenly tired with the weight of everything, Alyssa plonked down onto a bench, letting her suitcase clatter to the ground. She set Pikachu’s shoebox down next to her.
‘Rufus!’ she said to herself, remembering his missed call from earlier.
Checking her phone, she saw there were now several more, so she called him back.
‘Where have you been?’ he barked. ‘Have you seen the stuff on social media this morning?’
‘No, I’ve been … busy.’ She wasn’t in the mood to explain.
‘Still slobbing around in Hackney?’ He made a noise that sounded doubtful. ‘Well, it looks like that waitress from the café – plastic tiara and the Princess something-or-other name badge – has been telling tales.’
Alyssa wound her brain back to The Pitts Café, with its chipped Formica tables and dreadful coffee. ‘Princess … Trudy? What tales?’
‘You’re not going to like it.’
Alyssa blew out a long stream of air, her breath making fog. There wasn’t much she liked about this day so far. ‘Try me.’
Rufus cleared his throat and read. ‘Alyssa Heart, that love coach with the pink hair and stingy agent, says love is a load of clichés and bullshit.’
‘Arghhhhhh.’ Alyssa clapped a hand over her forehead, screwing her eyes shut and wishing that when she opened them this whole crappy year would turn out to be a bad dream.
Though in truth, she had spat out something scathing like that. And as somebody who’d built their whole occupation on supporting people’s love lives, that kind of truth bomb was like career self-annihilation. Her insides clenched.
She was usually so measured. So professional.
She knew not to say stupid things where people might overhear them, or let her feelings spill out.
She was a coach, for Christ’s sake. Alyssa heard her own sob before she felt it.
It reverberated through the backstreet, hitting her ears and bringing her back to the spinning present.
Were there actual tears snaking down her cheeks? She swiped them away.
‘You crying?’ Rufus asked. ‘I mean it’s shit that she called me stingy, but I’ll get over it.’
‘Great for you.’ Alyssa sniffed. ‘Anyway, why has it taken two days for this to come out?’
‘Looks like she posted it on Instagram straight away, but the kid’s only got forty-three followers.
It took a while for anyone to notice. But now they have …
’ He sucked in his breath like a mechanic who was about to tell you your car’s knackered.
‘Various news sites are all over it. It’s being shared far and wide, and it’s turning into a right old scandal.
People are calling you jaded and out of touch.
They’re saying you’ve spent your career faking it and ripping people off. ’
‘What the hell?’ Just because she secretly believed relationships were about strategy more than swooning, it didn’t take away from her positive results and the fact she made a difference. And she would never rip people off.
‘Is Miss Heart no more than a heartless con woman?’ Rufus read.
Alyssa’s jaw tightened. ‘How dare they.’ She felt anger bubbling up inside her.
Anger at being talked about, metaphorically pushed around, and even physically manhandled by a stumpy landlord called Lennie.
Fury at spending a whole week doing her level best to find work yet being forced to choose between a basement with rising damp or a backstreet bench.
And rage at feeling so ridiculously out of control with everything.
Well, she was going to make a stand.
Maybe she had started this potential career suicide with her wayward words.
But if she was going to stay current and claw her way back to being a successful coach and an expert who people listened to, she knew how to end it.
She had a point to prove. Because yes, she was damned well good at her job, when she had the chance to be.
‘Is the offer from ’Appy Together still on the table? And what do we need to do?’