Chapter 27
For a few long seconds, it was as though time had stopped as the slow dread of realization of what she’d done seeped up through her body, spreading like rising damp.
A clapping sound came from beside her, a round of applause from Margo.
“Bravo, sweetie. That was fabulous. Look at you, taking back your power like a goddess!” But Casey couldn’t speak; she had vomited out all her pent-up words and now she stood there hollow, looking at a sea of rectangles held above the heads of the crowd as the audience members quietly recorded the scene playing out before them.
The journalist with the big camera—because now that she looked properly there was no mistaking that he was a journalist—was tapping away on his own phone, and she had no doubt that he’d recorded the whole thing.
Oh god, she’d been so diligent in hiding and now she’d gone and outed her own self.
She knew she ought to get the hell out of here, but she was inexplicably rooted to the spot.
She suddenly understood why the victims in horror movies didn’t run; it was because fear could render a person inert.
She searched for Margo, but she’d done one of her disappearing acts.
Great! Just when she could do with a bit of magical intervention.
Looking on from the sidelines, ready to jump in should things get out of control, Dave remained his usual nonplussed self, but Kerry was gawking at Casey as though she didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.
She felt bad for, if not exactly lying to her coworkers, then certainly withholding information about herself.
Ajay emerged from the top of the customer staircase with a bemused look on his face.
He took in Sam, who was making love to the camera as he clung on to a discomposed Liz and followed the gazes of the stunned crowd, who had turned to stare at Casey.
His expression changed as understanding dawned.
He pushed through the mesmerized crush. “Are you okay?” he asked her quietly.
“Blimey, I only nipped to the loo and made a quick call to Jared, and I’ve walked back into the twilight zone. ”
Casey managed a weak smile. “I think I’ve blown my cover.”
“Ye-ah…” Ajay drew out the word. “I’d say so.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“Sure.” He glanced around the department at the many eyes trained on them. “You go first, and I’ll walk behind you to stop anyone following. Staff room?”
Casey nodded.
“All right. Let’s go.” Ajay motioned to Dave and Kerry that he was going to get Casey upstairs and got two thumbs-up in return.
As she wended her way through the throng toward the main staircase, she avoided catching anyone’s eye, but she felt the press of their stares. She held her head up high, looking straight ahead.
The journalist, seeing that his opportunity for a scoop was about to get away, left Sam and barged through the closely packed bodies to thrust his phone in Casey’s face.
“Did you know that Sam would be here?” he asked.
Casey ignored him, but he wasn’t to be denied.
“Why did you turn down his proposal? Are you jealous of his success? How did you know Liz?”
Ajay put his hand in front of the man’s phone. “Come on, mate, let her have some space, yeah?”
But the journalist only smiled like a fox and said, “She can’t expect a fair hearing if she doesn’t speak.”
“A fair hearing?” Casey whipped back, incredulous. “Nothing about this has been fair.” Tears filled her eyes.
The dread of losing control of her own life again felt like too much to bear.
She couldn’t stand to be judged and mocked and derided by strangers who knew absolutely nothing about her.
And now by her own hand—or rather her own big mouth—she would be thrust back into a world where clicks were currency, and she was a pawn in a game she had never agreed to play.
And then she was pushing through the door with the sign that read Staff Only and stumbling out into the cold stairwell.
As the heavy door slowly began to close behind her, she heard Sam shout, “Yeah, that’s right, run away, that’s what you’re best at!
” She glanced back and saw Sam begin arguing with Lauren while Liz, clutching her novel to her chest, looked directly at Casey with an unreadable expression on her face just as the door clicked shut.
They didn’t say much as they climbed up to the attic, Ajay perhaps thinking she might need a few moments of quiet to gather herself.
He was right. That and the brisk cold in the stairwell helped to clear the fuzz of panic in her head.
Margo hadn’t seen fit to join them and Casey guessed that this was one of those events through which the spirit would insist she must navigate for herself.
Ajay pulled out two mugs and filled the kettle, which whooshed as it came to a boil.
Casey sat with her back to the screens; she didn’t need to know what was happening down in the store.
Her phone began to ping alerts, one after another after another.
The top of the screen flashed as Instagram notifications poured in.
“It didn’t take people long to find me. Guess I wasn’t as incognito on my socials as I’d thought. ” She sighed and rubbed her forehead.
“Your accounts are private, though, yes?” Ajay asked as he filled the mugs with boiling water.
“Yeah,” she said. “But I have about a hundred new follow requests.”
“Just ignore them.”
His naivety was endearing. “They know who I am,” she said patiently. “They know where I work. I’ve been in this situation before, remember.”
A message came through from Vern. I don’t want to alarm you, darling, but you’re trending on TikTok. Nice speech though. Excellent burn!
Another came in behind it from Nigel. Shit! Call if you need anything. P.S. You sounded amazing, proud of you. Here if you need me. Let us know if you need picking up X
“I’ve made it to TikTok,” she said glibly as Ajay handed over her tea.
She reread the familiar words on her favorite mug: Obstinate, Headstrong Girl.
She was going to need Lizzy Bennet’s gumption to get her through this shit show.
As she sipped her tea, she watched Ajay’s eyes slide across to the camera screens, his brows lifting infinitesimally. “What is it?”
“Nothing, it’s just getting a bit rowdy. I ought to go down…”
“Of course you should, you’re on duty. I’ll be fine. I’ve got enough tea and biscuits to see me through to next week. Maybe I’ll just live here now.”
Ajay kissed her head. “Call if you need me.”
“Will do.”
She closed the door, then yelped as she turned back to see Margo sitting in Nigel’s chair, pavlovas of many colors at her feet.
“I fucked up,” she said quietly.
“Did you, though?” Margo asked, picking up Ajay’s abandoned mug and stirring in four sugars before taking a slurp. “What I heard was you giving Sam a succinct and well-deserved roasting. Are you going to tell me that it didn’t feel just a little bit fantastic?”
This made her smile. “Maybe a little. But I think I might be about to pay the price for it.”
Margo shrugged. “Every action carries a price tag, but with the benefit of hindsight most of them are worth the cost.”
“This one is going to take a lot of hindsight. Where did you disappear off to anyway?”
“I didn’t want to be tempted to interfere with your free will, so I thought I’d make myself scarce, do a bit of reconnaissance, know thine enemy and all that.
Here, have a meringue.” She handed Casey a mini pavlova topped with a raspberry.
“Sam really is a media slag, isn’t he? Ripe for an intervention.
If I decide not to have myself dissolved back into the universe, I’ll put in a request for his dossier. ”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. I hate to think of you dissolving.”
Margo shrugged. “We’ve all gotta go sometime, sugar tits. But don’t be disheartened, I’ll be dispersed throughout the cosmos; you might snort a piece of me up when smelling a rose, or wipe your arse on me with a piece of recycled toilet paper, isn’t that a comforting thought?”
Casey coughed, puffing out a cloud of meringue dust, and burst into tears.
“Oh dear,” said Margo. “I seem to have broken you.”
Casey took in a shuddering breath and began to speak in jerky sobbed-out sentences: “It’s just that things were finally looking up.
I met a man who is kind-hearted and thoughtful, and Nate’s getting help, and now the meme stuff’s going to blow up and you’re talking about being dissolved and I’ll probably have to leave the country and I really like Ajay because he’s so nice, like really super nice, and that might not seem terribly radical, but it’s honestly all I ever wanted. ”
“My darling, being a nice person has always been underrated, which is odd considering it’s the thing that could save humanity.
The world is in the grip of puritanical and tyrannical fervors so destructive that simple niceness is now a radical concept.
Trust me, if you find ‘nice’ you’re onto a winner. ”
This made Casey cry harder. Margo offered her a lace-edged handkerchief and she blew her nose. “Couldn’t you just erase the meme early?” she asked, sniffing.
“Absolutely not. Timing is everything. Speaking of which, it looks like ours might be up for the moment.” Margo disappeared and her pavlovas poofed out of existence, leaving the scent of powdered sugar in the air, just as Kerry entered the office wringing her hands.
“I’m sorry for going on and on about Sam all this time,” she said, looking at Casey from beneath her lashes. “I didn’t know that you and he…that you were the woman in the meme. I never imagined! I feel awful.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Casey tried to ease Kerry’s worries with a flap of her hand and a fortifying smile.
“If I’d have known that it was you…” She trailed off. “And then when you said what you said downstairs. I don’t know what it says about me that I just believed all his bullshit without considering that there was a woman somewhere out there with her own version of events.”
“You mean, you believe me?” Casey said, tears threatening to make a comeback.
“Of course I do! I don’t know Sam at all, but I know you and now I realize that everything he’s said about you is a load of old crap. Some feminist I am.”
“It’s not easy to make an informed decision about a person you don’t know anything about. I haven’t exactly done myself any favors.”
Kerry took the seat vacated by Margo. “Listen, I understand why you didn’t want anyone to know that you were the meme. But for the record, I wouldn’t have thought any less of you and neither would Dave. And you can count on us to keep our traps shut.”
Casey laughed weakly. “I think the cat’s rather out of the bag now anyway, but thank you. I appreciate it.” Her phone began to buzz, and she saw Nate’s name on the screen.
“I’d better get back down there,” said Kerry, standing. “Maybe just hang out up here until the show’s over and we’ve got rid of everyone?”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.”
Kerry squeezed her shoulder before she left and Casey answered her call with as cheery a “Hey, Nate” as she could muster.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just about. Did Nigel call you?”
“Actually, it was Penny. Her sister’s there tonight. She videoed the whole thing and sent it to Penny. Obviously, her sister had no idea who you were, but Penny recognized you from the school gates. But you’re all right?”
“I am. I mean, I’m not, but I am.”
“I get ya. Do you need me to come down there for moral support? I could ask Sylvie to babysit. Or I could just tell Sylvie what happened and send her down. I watched her wrestle a fourteen-pound free-range turkey off a bloke twice her size in the meat aisle yesterday with no shits given; she’ll make mincemeat out of Sam. ”
Casey laughed. “Thank you for the offer, but I think wrestling Sam is likely to exacerbate an already inflammatory situation.”
“Fair enough. I don’t think you need backup anyway. Penny sent me the video; you held your own like a badass, I’m proud of you, sis.”
She smiled down the phone. “Thanks. Maybe once I’ve stopped shaking, I’ll be proud of me too.”
“It took guts to stand up for yourself like that. I’m going to save this video so that when the kids are older, I can show them what brave looks like. And what an absolute potty mouth their aunty is!”
—
Later, when the store was empty once more, Casey wondered at how everything could seem, on the face of it, just as it had been every night since she’d started work at Coopers & Co.
, and yet everything was different. Her workplace had been sullied.
Her safe harbor had been breached, and her carefully curated life was about to be thrown into disarray.
As she folded jumpers and rearranged displays in the lamplight—Margo helping for once rather than hindering—she knew with a sinking certainty that this was the calm before the storm.
Just a little bit longer, she said to herself, and the meme will be erased, and all this will be like a bad dream.
She sighed. That day couldn’t come soon enough.