Chapter 9 #2
Talking like that with Nina was one thing, but Olivia needs to pull herself together.
How can she go back to something more akin to her normal style, where she’s a little less …
forthcoming? It’s all well and good having an epiphany, but does she need to share the results of it with everyone before she’s worked out what to do with them?
So far, she hasn’t got herself into too much trouble, but she knows that if she doesn’t rein herself in, her head is going to be on the block by lunchtime.
She surveys her bare face in the mirror.
A couple of days ago, turning up to work without make-up on would have felt a bit like going into the office naked, but today she feels completely ambivalent towards her reflection.
It’s just a face, no more, no less, and given none of the blokes around her feel they have to pretty themselves up with an eyeshadow palette and some tubing mascara, why the hell should she?
Olivia splashes some water on her skin and pulls up her jumper to dry it.
Then she removes the jumper, shoving it in her tote bag, straightens the old blue T-shirt she threw on without thinking – the one bearing the slogan SORRY I’M LATE, I DIDN’T WANT TO COME – and shrugs as she makes for the exit.
‘There she is,’ says Stephen, who is hovering in the corridor, rubbing his hands together in glee.
‘Here I am,’ replies Olivia. ‘Not at all freaked out by the fact that you’re hanging around outside the ladies’ loos waiting for me with a sort of shit-eating grin on your face.’
Olivia winces at the words that have just fallen out of her mouth, wonders how long she will remain employed. Fifteen seconds? Twenty? A minute, tops?
‘Liv, you are on fire today!’ claps Stephen, putting his arm around her as he walks her back towards the main office.
‘Thanks, Ste,’ she says, shrugging it off.
‘It’s Stephen.’ He suddenly looks very serious, like a shiny balloon that has just been popped.
‘I know it’s Stephen, Stephen.’ Olivia rolls her eyes, very visibly, as opposed to only inwardly, as she normally does.
A new theory enters her head: what if aliens abducted her on Friday night and took control of her body, implanting fake memories of a Gen Z-er in a pink suit doling out drugs named after Manchester City players?
It really says something that right now, this seems an entirely rational explanation for what is happening to her.
‘I was calling you by a cutesy nickname you didn’t ask for, just as you do with me.
My name’s Olivia, not Liv.’ She has put on her most patronizing tone, the kind she would usually reserve for Jack or Saskia when they were being really gobby (or her father Peter, for that matter).
‘I was trying to make a point, but obviously it’s been lost on you. ’
Stephen laughs in a hollow way that suggests he does not find this in the least bit funny. ‘Liv, are you writing a feature where you try out some new Hollywood craze that involves only saying what you think?’
‘Yes!’ exclaims Olivia, grateful for the excuse.
‘There’s this new, erm, self-help book out in the States that Oprah has been touting.
It’s about standing in your power and, um, owning your boundaries, and rejecting people pleasing.
Apparently, women are going wild for it, Ste.
WILD.’ She makes a roar and turns her hands into claws.
‘It’s called …’ She clears her throat as she tries to think on her feet, which are following Stephen towards the glass-box meeting room, the one where conference takes place. ‘People Displeaser!’
She realizes that she says this in a schlocky American accent, very loudly, so that half the office turns round to look at her – the half that hasn’t already turned and stared in horror when she attempted to be a lion a moment ago.
She closes her eyes in mortification, her mouth moving around like a fish in the hope that this might stop the cascade of words that seem to be coming out unbidden.
Instead, it just makes her look like she’s having some sort of episode, very possibly a stroke.
Which, to be fair, is another potential explanation for her sudden verbosity.
Perhaps it will turn out that she’s quite unwell, that this is all the result of a major neurological event and she will end up being signed off for a couple of months, protected by the law, which now she comes to think about it is the dream of most working people over the age of thirty-five.
‘Bonza,’ she says, as she imagines being sedated for a prolonged period of time.
‘Are you OK?’ asks Stephen. They are by the very water cooler where, just a few days ago, he completely changed her job description without once thinking to enquire about her thoughts on the matter, which, it occurs to her now, is almost certainly illegal and worth taking up with HR.
‘Am I OK?’ she parrots back. ‘Nice of you to finally ask after, what?’ She starts counting her fingers. ‘Twenty-odd years of working together?’
‘Sorry?’ Stephen is now pretending that he hasn’t heard her, a tactic she sort of respects, having long used it herself as a way to avoid difficult conversations with people.
‘Nothing, I’m fine.’ If she just focuses on keeping her answers short and simple, she will be able to limit the number of offensive comments she makes.
‘You’re speaking your truth, I like it,’ nods Stephen. ‘We need more women like you saying what they really think.’
‘Speaking of women who say what they really think,’ smiles Olivia, folding her arms over the slogan on her T-shirt, ‘I wondered if you could point me in the direction of this new executive assistant, Rose.’
‘Who?’ Stephen looks annoyed.
‘Rose, the new executive assistant in the pink suit, from the pub on Friday?’
‘Don’t know her. I just wanted to talk to you about the party if you’ve got a spare five minutes, which I know you do have because I’m your boss.’ He motions towards his office, and nods for her to go first.
‘And I just want to talk to you about Rose.’ Olivia is now annoyed.
She walks into his office and sits down on his sofa without asking.
He stands over her, his brow furrowed in confusion.
‘Rose, Rose, Rose. Maybe Rosemary. Possibly Rosie. Ros? About five foot six, pink suit, smokes roll-ups. Though of course she probably didn’t do that in her interview for the job here.
Quite precocious, which is good. I mean, I need that kind of energy in my life right now.
’ She sees that his face is as blank as her memory of Friday night.
‘Not ringing any bells?’ She has stretched out on the leather sofa, her Nike-clad feet hanging over one end of it.
‘The woman I was smoking with outside when you walked in with Nina?’
‘I’ve never seen you smoke, Olivia. I think I saw you for about ten seconds on Friday night, leaving alone.’
Olivia sits up straight. She feels her tummy lurch.
‘So you haven’t recently hired an assistant called Rose?’
He shakes his head.
‘There’s no Rose?’ whispers Olivia.
‘There’s no Rose,’ nods Stephen, like he’s talking to an idiot non-savant. ‘Do you need me to refer you to one of the mental health first-aiders?’
‘Ahahaha!’ Olivia stands up and makes her way to the door. ‘That’s a good one. Mental health first-aiders indeed. Most of us in here need time on a psychiatric ward.’
As if to prove her point, she blows a raspberry with her tongue. It’s not a nervous tic she’s ever gone for before, but in this moment, when absolutely everything she thought she knew seems to have been turned upside down, it makes a strange kind of sense.
If Stephen has never heard of Rose and she doesn’t exist anywhere on the system, then who the hell is she?