Chapter Six #2
“Well, you look very odd. Now. Sit down.” He shuts the door, sits down at his desk, and opens a form marked “Staff Appraisal Review.” “I’m sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday. But what with Jack Harper’s arrival, everything got buggered up.”
“That’s OK.”
I try to smile, but my mouth is suddenly dry.
I can’t believe how nervous I feel. This is worse than a school report.
I watch Paul as he leafs through his notes.
It occurs to me that objectively he’s quite good-looking, despite his receding hairline.
He’s tall and slim and has an infectious laugh.
If you met him at a party, you’d probably enjoy chatting with him.
But I’ve never met him at a party. I’ve only ever seen him here. My scary boss.
“OK. So…Emma Corrigan.” He looks at the form and starts ticking boxes. “Generally, you’re doing fine. You’re not generally late…. You understand the tasks given to you…. You’re fairly efficient…. You work OK with your colleagues…blah, blah…blah…Any problems?” he says, looking up.
“Er, no.”
“Do you feel racially harassed?”
“Er, no.”
“Good.” He ticks another box and starts writing in a panel at the bottom of the sheet. “Well, I think that’s it. Well done. Can you send Nick in to see me?”
What? Has he forgotten? “Um, what about my promotion?” I say, trying not to sound too anxious.
“Promotion?” He pauses in his writing. “What promotion?”
“To marketing executive.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It said in the ad for my job….” I pull the crumpled ad out of my jeans pocket, where it’s been since yesterday. “ ‘Possible promotion after a year.’ It says it right there.” I push it across the desk, and he looks at it with a frown.
“Emma, that was only for exceptional candidates. You’re not ready for a promotion. You’ll have to prove yourself first.” He hands the ad back.
“But…I’m doing everything as well as I can! If you just give me a chance—”
“You had the chance at Glen Oil.” Paul raises his eyebrows at me, and I feel a twinge of humiliation. “Emma, bottom line is, I don’t think you’re ready for a higher position. In a year we’ll see.”
A year?
“OK? Now, hop to it.”
My mind is whirling. I have to accept this in a calm, dignified way. I have to say something like “I respect your decision, Paul,” shake his hand, and leave the room. This is what I have to do.
The only trouble is, I can’t seem to get up out of my chair.
After a few moments Paul looks at me, puzzled. “That’s it, Emma.”
I can’t move. Once I leave this room, it’s over.
“Emma?”
“I’ve done everything I can!” The words spill out before I can stop them. “I’ve been writing copy for leaflets, I’ve been making contacts, I sorted out that whole mess with the ice-skating promotion…. Plus, I’ve been doing all the typing and stuff…. I mean, it’s more like two jobs I’ve been doing!”
“I see.” Paul looks grave. “Well, if you’re finding it too much—”
“No! It’s not that….” I crumple the ad in frustration. “I just want to be doing more interesting things! I’ve had loads of ideas…. Like, it was me who came up with the idea of giving away Panther Gum with health club towels. Remember?”
Paul puts down his pen and sighs. “Emma, I’m not saying you haven’t done well—”
“Please promote me! It’s the only thing I want in the whole world, and I’ll work so hard—I promise. I’ll come in at weekends, and I’ll…I’ll wear smart suits….”
“What?” Paul is staring at me as though I’ve turned into a goldfish.
OK, I have to calm down here. Take a deep breath. Nice and steady. “I feel I deserve a promotion.”
There are my cards. Right on the table.
“And I feel you’re not yet up to it,” replies Paul without hesitation.
The trouble is, I’ve never been any good at cards. “Right.” I bite my lip. “So, when—”
“Emma, moving up to marketing executive is a big step. If you want to get ahead, you have to create your own chances. You have to carve out your own opportunities. Now, seriously. Could you please fuck off out of my office and get Nick for me?”
As I leave, I can see him raising his eyes to heaven and scribbling something else on my form.
—
I walk, dejected, back to my desk, and Artemis looks up with a beady expression.
“Oh, Emma,” she says, “your cousin Kerry just called for you.”
“Really?” I say in surprise. Kerry never phones me at work. In fact she never phones me at all. “Did she leave a message?”
“Yes, she did. She wanted to know, have you heard about your promotion yet?”
This is now official. I hate Kerry. “Right,” I say, trying to sound as though this is some boring, everyday inquiry. “Thanks.”
“Are you being promoted, Emma? I didn’t know that!” Her voice is high and piercing, and I see several people raise their heads in interest. “So, are you going to become a marketing executive?”
“No,” I mutter, my face hot with humiliation. “I’m not.”
“Oh!” Artemis pulls a puzzled face. “So, why did she—”
“Shut up, Artemis,” says Caroline. I give her a grateful look and slump into my chair.
Another whole year. Another whole year of being the crappy marketing assistant, and everyone thinking I’m useless.
Another year of being in debt to Dad, and Kerry and Nev laughing at me, and feeling like a complete failure.
I switch on my computer and summon up the copy for a new Panther Lite brochure. But suddenly all my energy’s gone.
“I think I’ll get a coffee,” I say. “Does anyone want one?”
“You can’t get a coffee,” says Artemis, giving me an odd look. “Haven’t you seen?”
“What?”
“They’ve taken the coffee machine away,” says Nick. “While you were in with Paul.”
“Taken it away? But…why?”
“Dunno,” he says, walking off toward Paul’s office. “They just came and carted it away.”
“We’re getting a new machine!” says Caroline, walking past with a bundle of proofs. “That’s what they were saying downstairs. A really nice one, with proper coffee. Ordered by Jack Harper, apparently.”
Jack Harper ordered a new coffee machine?
“Emma!” Artemis is snapping. “Did you hear that? I want you to find the leaflet we did for the Tesco promotion two years ago. Sorry, Mummy?” she says into the phone. “Just telling my assistant something.”
Her assistant. God, it pisses me off when she says that.
But to be honest, I’m feeling a bit too dazed to get annoyed.
It’s nothing to do with me, I tell myself firmly as I root around at the bottom of the filing cabinet. He was probably planning to order new coffee anyway. He was probably—
I stand up with a pile of files in my arms and nearly drop them all on the floor.
There he is.
Standing right in front of me, wearing jeans and a slate-gray jumper.
“Hello again.” His dark eyes crinkle in a smile. “How are you doing?”
“Er…good, thanks.” I swallow hard. “I just heard about the coffee machine. Um, thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Now, everyone!” Paul comes striding up behind him. “Mr. Harper is going to be sitting in on the department this morning.”
“Please.” Jack Harper smiles. “Call me Jack.”
“Right you are. Jack is going to be sitting in this morning. He’s going to observe what you do, find out how we operate as a team. Just behave normally; don’t do anything special….” Paul’s eyes alight on me and he gives me an ingratiating smile. “Hi there, Emma! How are you doing? Everything OK?”
“Er, yes, thanks, Paul,” I mutter. “Everything’s great.”
“Good! A happy staff, that’s what we like. And while I’ve got your attention”—he coughs, a little self-conscious—“let me just remind you that our corporate family day is coming up, a week on Saturday. A chance for us all to let our hair down, enjoy meeting each other’s families, and have some fun!”
A couple of people exchange looks. Until this moment, Paul has always referred to this as the corporate fuckwit day and said he’d rather have his balls torn off than bring any member of his family to it.
“Anyway, back to work, everyone! Jack, let me get you a chair.”
“Just ignore me,” says Jack Harper as he sits down. “Behave normally.”
—
Behave normally. Right. Of course.
So that would be sit down, take my shoes off, check my e-mails, put some hand cream on, eat a few Smarties, read my horoscope on iVillage, read Connor’s horoscope, send an e-mail to Connor, wait a few minutes to see if he replies, take a swig of mineral water, and then finally get around to finding the Tesco leaflet for Artemis.
I don’t think so.
As I sit back down at my desk, my mind is working quickly. Create your own chances. Carve out your own opportunities. That’s what Paul said.
And what is this if not an opportunity?
Jack Harper himself is sitting here, watching me work. The great Jack Harper. Boss of the entire corporation. Surely I can impress him somehow?
OK, perhaps I haven’t gotten off to the most brilliant start with him.
But maybe this is my chance to redeem myself! If I can just somehow show that I’m really bright and motivated…
As I sit, leafing through the file of promotional literature, I’m aware that I’m holding my head slightly higher than usual, as though I’m in a posture class.
And as I glance around the office, everyone else seems to be in a posture class, too.
Before Jack Harper arrived, Artemis was on the phone to her mum, but now she’s put on her horn-rimmed glasses and is typing briskly, occasionally pausing to smile at what she’s written in a what-an-intelligent-person-I-am way.
Nick was reading the sports section of the Telegraph, but now he stands up and comes over to Fergus’s desk.
“Did you have any more thoughts on the artwork for the Panther Gum promotion?” he says, in a loud, too casual voice. “Because I really think it needs to rock. We need to get to these kids, yeah?”
“Er, yeah,” says Fergus, looking bewildered.
“So this is the giveaway.” Nick picks up a small, multicolored plastic toy. “Yeah. Well, you know, maybe we can use this in some way. Take the concept…turn it inside out, and play with it. Have some fun.”
Oh, God. He’s totally showing off. This is so embarrassing.