Chapter 13
13
I arrive at my desk on Monday morning slightly later than usual (9:06 a.m. instead of 8:45 a.m.) to find a pile of contracts from Susie corresponding to the four emails she sent me at 5:30 a.m. and three neon Post-it notes from various marketing assistants with questions about today’s meetings. All expected and fairly standard for me to receive within the first six minutes of official office hours. What isn’t usual is a gleaming black coffee cup and a grease-spotted brown bag holding a flaky almond croissant. I bring the bag to my nose, sniff and sigh as though I’m a mole man and this is my first fresh air in months. Based on the Wilfred’s label splayed across the cup, I’m pretty sure who it’s from. Twisting the coffee around, my suspicion is confirmed by the note stuck to the back.
“For my Pyg.”
Suppressing a smile at him still remembering how I like my coffee after months of barely speaking, I take the note off and sip the deliciously hot liquid, letting it warm me from the inside out against the heavily contested office air-conditioning temperature.
My mind slips back to the end of the night, helping Bancroft bring his sister from the taxi up to his apartment. Iris, despite her state, immediately kicked off her heels and took out her dangling earrings, throwing them down into the bowl on the side table near the door as though she’d done it a million times before.
“Will you be OK from here?” I asked. I would’ve offered to come in but it felt more of an intimate family moment than one a colleague should be involved with.
“Yeah, I got it.” My body tingled as he stared at me a little bit longer than necessary—until he seemed to snap himself out of it, shaking his head and grabbing his phone from his pocket. “Let me get you a car.”
“It’s OK, focus on your sister. I’ll be fine.” I gave a tight, closed-mouth smile, which he briefly returned before jumping to help Iris untangle herself from her cross-body handbag strap.
Before I left, I stood in the doorway for a few moments and watched them transform into two kids looking out for each other because no one else will. A trust fund won’t help you get home safe and make sure you drink a glass of water before you go to sleep. I thought about them the whole way home, zoning out from the falsely marked URGENT emails I’d received from Susie over the evening. The only thing that broke my hazy post-adrenaline comedown was the reply from William.
I’ve just started a new job and bought a stunning three-bed out west x
My brow furrowed at the message; did I even ask how he was doing? Or did he just offer up this information with no prompt to show off how well things are going for him? I decided to do the same.
That’s great. I’ve been doing great too. I’m up for a big promotion.
To my surprise, this time William replied almost instantly.
Cool, still at the dating app? x
My curved lips faltered as I fought the urge to over-examine every word. The dating app . That’s what he used to call my career, as though acknowledging it properly would turn it from some abstract frivolous concept into something real. Something solid I could use to support myself instead of relying on him.
Yep! I replied, regretting the exclamation point as soon as the blue bubble popped onto the message thread.
Once again, the three “typing” dots appeared within seconds. My chest tightened; why did this rapid back and forth feel somehow more personal than the “wait a few days then reply” tepid exchange I had been assuming this conversation would be? The three dots disappeared and I let out a breath of relief, clicking my phone into darkness.
A few minutes later, my phone dinged again.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately... about how we ended things x
Fuck.
“What’s this?” asks Yemi, appearing over my shoulder and breaking me out of replaying the memory again and again. I choke on my coffee midthought and try to catch it with the back of my hand as the hot liquid drips down my chin. Her finger is pressed into the note as though she’s putting her entire body weight on the one digit.
In an attempt to act nonchalant, my shoulders shrug apathetically. “It’s from Bancroft, just a little inside joke thing,” I state, clearing my throat of the remaining latte.
Her eyebrows rise almost to the ceiling. “Oh, we’re doing inside jokes with him now, are we?” she asks in a high-pitched voice.
“Barely inside, more like a conservatory, a shed... like an indoor-outdoor dining situation.” I shift my palm back and forth in the air to emphasize my super-cool casualness.
“Right...” Yemi looks unconvinced but continues, “So it would have nothing to do with this?” She holds up her phone screen, an Instagram post from Societeur Magazine showing Iris slumped under her brother’s arm as he guides her barely conscious form into the back of the cab. The streaks of a flash bulb bounce off the car’s black paint. The back of my head is visible in the corner of the screen as I hold the car door open for them both.
“Shit.” I grab the phone from her hand and use two fingers to zoom in on Iris’s face. Her eyes are half-open and her head lolls to the side; my gut twists at Bancroft’s look of concern laced with anger. You can barely tell it’s me in the photo with them, the overexposure of the flash making my curly hair look strawberry blonde instead of my actual auburn shade, but the caption still mentions me:
FENDER ON A BENDER: It Girl rockstar nepo baby Iris Fender stumbles out of Matilda’s—after allegedly skipping out on her bar tab—with brother Eric Bancroft and his mystery redhead girlfriend!
My whole body goes cold, the taste of coffee turning metallic in my mouth as I scan the caption again and again.
Poor Iris, I hope she hasn’t seen this. Having your worst moments publicized for everyone to see must be awful. And is this what women who date Bancroft feel like? No wonder he’s practically famous for never being seen with the same person twice; if turning up in paparazzi shots isn’t the goal, who would want this? And if someone does want this kind of attention, do they even want him ? Dating is hard enough without every private moment becoming public.
“So how was the date?” Yemi leans on my desk with a pointed look.
“It was good, thanks, Mum.” Yemi rolls her eyes and gives me an exasperated laugh as I clarify, “And how many times do I have to say it wasn’t a date?”
“For the mum joke, I’m commandeering half of this.” She rips the croissant in two and bites down on her share. “For your date delusions, I’m giving you this.” She slaps down a folder of spreadsheets onto the only clear space on my desk.
“Ahhh, is this the ranking of Paul Mescal movies I asked for?” I hold the papers to my chest. “Thank you so much!”
“Paul Mescal?” Yemi says in disbelief.
I shrug in reply, a small smile on my lips silently admitting it is ridiculous but refusing to back down.
“It’s numbers, smart arse. Numbers that might actually help you with your not-a-date project.” She says the last part quietly through gritted teeth to stop nearby gossip hounds from picking up a scent.
“Pray tell, O wise one.” I lean in eagerly, sipping my coffee.
She looks at me with a coy smile. “You need pre-packaged date ideas, so I took the self-reported lifestyle data from the top one percent of our most active users and cross-referenced it with the basic three-point profile info to create a tight dataset for you to pull from.”
Scrunching my eyebrows, I ask, “In non-computer-genius language, please?”
Yemi scoffs a laugh and crosses her arms. “I made a list of serial-daters in the city and their favorite hobbies for you to use in your presentation.” She glances around, then she leans in and whispers, “I also got an intern at Ignite to send me their data too.”
“Oh my God!” I gush, wide-eyed, flicking through the pages. “This is amazing, thank you so much!” I push the remaining half of my croissant across the desk, shaking my head in awe. “You deserve the whole thing.”
Yemi let out another mouth-full laugh. “I do.”
“I’ve needed something to give me a leg-up against Bancroft’s Black Book of Bigwigs, and this is perfect. You, my friend, are spectacular and I owe you massively.”
“Keep regifting me your expensive ‘inside-joke’ pastries and we’ll call it even.”
“If I win this promotion, I will buy you Ladurée every day,” I promise, crossing a finger over my heart to seal the vow.
“ When you win this promotion, you will buy me Ladurée pastries and fancy coffee every day.” My cheeks turn pink at the idea as she saunters back to her side of the office.
I eagerly scan the information on the pages. This is perfect. There’s no way Bancroft would think to attain this sort of ammo. My smugness is briefly nicked at the edges by an aching chest. I want to beat the Bancroft that drives me insane at work, but do I want to destroy the Bancroft I saw on Saturday night? The funny, caring and protective Bancroft? No, I just need to get him off my mind completely. Even with this new data, I need every leg up I can get. Maybe the deal Bancroft suggested at the pottery class, about me getting real date experience, is the best way to get both versions of him out of my head. With a lump in my throat and the feeling of regret already gathering momentum in my mind, I download Ignite.
Making my profile is a lot quicker than my experience with Fate. Ignite asks very little about you, but is incredibly interested in getting you to upload as many photos as possible. I guess Ignite users like to know everything about their matches except what they are actually like.
I upload some recent photos, mostly of me at work events, hoping no one looks close enough to notice a rival dating app’s branding in the background to most of the images. The choice to add very little to my bio was partially made out of spite for the brand ethos, but mostly because I wanted to get in and out of this world as quickly as possible. If my world at Fate is fluffy cotton candy clouds in the sky, Ignite is an oil-slick puddle glinting in city streetlights. I hold my breath and click through to complete my profile.
Susie’s muffled voice leaks from behind the door: “I don’t care what the board wants, this is my company, Martin, not yours.” She sounds angry but leaning back in my chair I can see through the glass walls of her office that her eyes are red and prickling with unshed tears.
She purses her lips as she listens to the person on the other end of the line. “If you do that, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” She hangs up and flattens her hair behind her ears.
My head turns back to my desk as I hear her office door click open.
“I assume you received my emails, since your phone is permanently glued to your hand?”
I let out a nervous laugh, holding my immediate response of “It’s glued to my hand because you glued it there,” instead opting for “Yes, I was just about to reply to them. Sorry I had some... um... personal things come up.” I fiddle with my fingers, debating whether to ask: “Are—are you OK?”
She looks at me; her eyes flicker with some semblance of the Susie who pulled me from obscurity years ago. She blinks, wiping the slate clean of her old self. “Well, since you’re here now I presume they’ve been dealt with?” Her perfectly drawn eyebrows arch to her hairline.
“Mmm-hmm.” I nod, straightening my posture.
“Great.” She scrunches her nose and gives me a wide toothy smile. “I need everything on my desk by EOD.”
She’s one of those people who like to abbreviate when speaking even if the abbreviation takes the same amount of time as the actual words.
“Not a problem,” I declare through gritted teeth, turning my squeaky chair back toward my computer. Susie stands over my shoulder and glares at the screen for a few seconds, before pressing a long finger on a folder marked EVER AFTER 2.0.
“What is this doing on your work computer?” she asks pointedly.
“Oh, that?” I laugh nervously, clicking her email open to distract her.
“I told you to stop working on that project.” She crosses her arms tightly across her chest.
“Well, after you said it wasn’t the right fit for Fate I may have started developing the idea a bit more when I’ve had time. And maybe I could repitch to you at some point?” I close my eyes, immediately regretting my words.
She sighs again, holding the bridge of her nose as though this conversation is another ink blot on her day. “As I’ve said before, pitching new apps and high-concept ideas... it’s just a little bit out of your depth, don’t you think?”
My stomach drops three floors. “Well, I—”
“That’s more for someone in a senior position to be concerning themselves with, no?” She blinks. My skin crawls, trying to come up with an answer that isn’t throwing the lamp on my desk against the wall.
“I guess, it’s because...” I swallow. “... you once told me I should be working for the job I want, not the one I have. I thought bringing new ideas was part of that.” The repressed rage turns liquid behind my eyes. Do not cry.
“Yes, but only if the ideas are good.”
My stomach drops another flight, the coffee immediately souring as I wring my hands together under the desk.
“Right.” I mindlessly nod, eyes going in and out of focus like a broken camera lens.
“Please take it off your company computer, immediately. And don’t bring it up again.” Susie’s lips curve into a sweet smile. “How about you carry on with the things that you were actually hired to do, like doing that expansion report for me?”
“OK.”
She turns to leave as I start blinking furiously. “Darling, one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to stay to supervise the intern packing up the influencer gift boxes tonight—I don’t trust anyone else to do it correctly.” She scans me up and down again, sucking her teeth. “Do you think you’ll be able to manage that?”