Chapter 8
‘Do you think Beryl’s salad will go with Rahul’s chicken noodle thing?’
I was crouched by the communal work fridge, performing the delicate task of skimming off my unsuspecting colleagues’ Tupperware just enough so I didn’t starve but not so much that it would arouse suspicion.
It was a fine art that I had sadly perfected in the days leading up to payday these past few months.
‘That’s called karma, my friend,’ Jacob told me, looking pleased and not at all concerned by my aggressive coughing fit.
‘Some would argue what you’re doing is the definition of insanity.
Maybe Alice is right, maybe you are crazy.
’ He nudged me jovially with his elbow just to make sure I knew he was joking. I rolled my eyes.
‘She’s already texted me seven times today – three to confirm the appointment I told her I’m not going to, and the other four with suggestions on how to stop hallucinations.
’ My phone lit up with an incoming WhatsApp as I nibbled a piece of cold, congealed chicken.
‘Make that eight,’ I corrected, pushing my phone across the table so that Jacob could read the latest message.
‘No alcohol,’ he read, before snorting with laughter. ‘As if! Now she’s the crazy one.’ We both ate in silence for a while, Jacob’s eyes roaming randomly about the break room as though searching for something. I gave a small smile.
‘He’s not here, Jacob.’
‘I know,’ he said quickly, although he sounded a little disappointed.
‘I just – does he ever ask about me?’ His voice caught a little and it made me look up.
He was staring at me across the table, eyes big and wide and full of hope.
My heart ached and I was reminded that I wasn’t the only one who lost someone that day. That I wasn’t the only one missing Joe.
‘All the time,’ I lied.
His face lit up. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, it’s kind of annoying, actually.’
‘Well, I always was his favourite,’ he teased, mock-tossing his imaginary waist-length hair over one shoulder.
We both looked up as Rahul, the long-suffering copyeditor at the Brighton Tribune who looked exactly the same as he did ten years ago (Velcro Reeboks and all), shuffled into the break room.
Again, the break room was not a room as such.
As with everywhere at the Brighton Tribune, it was just another corner of the same open plan office where someone had shoved an impossibly small table that could only seat two people but which had four mismatched chairs crammed around it.
Rahul clicked the sides of his lunchbox and inspected the contents with a sigh.
‘The wife’s got me on some bloody diet again,’ Rahul tutted, miserably watching his half-full Tupperware rotating round and round in the microwave. ‘Keeps giving me smaller and smaller portions, thinking I won’t notice. Honestly, the woman’s trying to starve me!’
Jacob almost choked on a California roll, eyes streaming with water as he tried to contain his laughter.
I smiled tightly at Rahul, waiting until the microwave pinged and he turned around before I shovelled what was left of his missing lunch into my mouth.
If there’s no evidence, there’s no crime, right?
He trudged back out of the room again with his steaming container, muttering under his breath.
‘Poor Rahul’s wife is going to get it in the ear tonight,’ Jacob sniggered, throwing me a judgemental look. I ignored him, reaching for my phone as it let out a series of aggressive buzzes, one after the other, inching closer to the edge of the table.
‘More doctor’s orders?’ Jacob guessed.
‘Worse. Alyssa’s hen do group chat,’ I groaned.
As if the bride, groom, clinking champagne glasses, wedding ring, chapel and love heart emojis in the group title weren’t bad enough, the maid of honour calling everyone ‘girlies’ definitely was.
With Matt and Alyssa not wanting to wait, and deciding on a summer wedding in just three short months, the self-confessed bride squad had wasted no time planning the hen.
I’d never wanted to remove myself from a group more in my life, and would have if it weren’t for the fact I knew WhatsApp would publicly shame me with its Jenny has left the group statement.
‘Ooh, fun!’
My face suggested it was the opposite of fun. ‘I have zero desire to spend a night surrounded by a gaggle of screaming women I don’t know, drinking out of penis straws and pretending to have a good time.’
‘Speak for yourself. I can’t remember the last time I had a penis in my mouth.’ Jacob’s face was deadpan as he stared wistfully into space. I smacked him playfully on the arm.
‘Still no luck on the dating front, then?’
‘ Nada . Had a date the other night – if you can call it that when it lasted less than an hour. The guy actually ordered me a skinny margarita!’
I sucked my breath audibly between my teeth. ‘He didn’t?’
‘Yep. Honestly, I don’t know what I did in a past life to deserve the shitshow that is my dating life. I must have been a mass-murdering psychopath.’
‘Or a spin instructor,’ I countered with a wry smile.
‘Or someone who wore those trousers that zip off at the knee.’ Jacob visibly shuddered, before his eyes bulged at something over my left shoulder. ‘Incoming,’ he warned, but it was too late.
‘Ah, Jenny, just the person I was looking for!’
I shrunk further down in my chair in the hope of becoming invisible.
‘It was supposed to be in my inbox on Monday and what day is it today, Jenny?’ Derek chided, his faux-leather belt squeaking slightly in protest as he thrust his pelvic region forward, hands clasped behind his back. Christ, did he actually expect me to answer?
‘ Tuesday! ’ Derek trilled when I failed to respond. ‘Today is Tuesday , Jenny. Ergo, after Monday.’
‘Right.’ I nodded dumbly, as if this was the first time that fact had been brought to my attention.
‘Looks like someone is out of the running for Employee of the Month. Again .’
I stuck my bottom lip out in fake disappointment, trying to pretend I gave a crap about the makeshift A4 certificate that Derek printed out every month, while he crouched down, his sizeable rear end skimming the back of my chair as he rooted around in the fridge.
He squinted at the instructions written in looping, feminine script on the Post-it note attached to the lid of his Tupperware before popping it in the microwave and turning to face me with a sigh.
‘Look, Jenny, it’s been almost six months.
’ He paused, clearly expecting me to meet his gaze or nod my head, some acknowledgement that I knew what he was talking about.
But every muscle in my body was too busy tensing in response to him somehow turning Joe into this big, awkward elephant sat in the middle of the room.
‘You barely say a word in staff meetings, I can’t remember the last time you turned in a piece of work on time, and even when you are here, you’re not really here.
There’s only so long I can keep making allowances for you, Jenny. ’
I shifted in my seat, fingernails digging into the soft, fleshy palm of my hands.
When? When had he made allowances for me?
When he called me the morning of Joe’s funeral to assure me there was absolutely no rush, but when did I think I’d be back to work?
Or when he assigned me that cycling accident my first week back? Or Mr Hatfield last week?
Derek sighed again. Like he had the weight of the fucking world on his shoulders when, in actual fact, his biggest dilemma today was whether he should eat his KitKat Chunky now, or save it for his three-time tea-time, as he liked to call it.
‘We’re short-staffed as it is, Jenny, I need you firing on all cylinders or else—’
I could feel moisture starting to gather on my top lip, my palms clammy against the fabric of my jeans as I thought of possible endings to that sentence.
Of not just being a single 30-year-old living with her mum, but a single, unemployed 30-year-old living with her mum.
Of falling yet another rung lower than I already was on the ladder that is life.
A pathetic image of me in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a wooden ladder floated into my head. Rock bloody bottom.
‘Sorry, Derek, I’ll get it to you by end of day. I promise it won’t happen again,’ I said firmly, cringing at the desperation in my voice. How had it come to this? Begging for a job that I hated. But I couldn’t lose anything else right now. Even if it was this shitty excuse for a job.
‘Jenny’s just been so busy working on this pitch, Derek,’ Jacob interjected, coming to my rescue. I desperately latched on to the lifeline he’d thrown me.
‘Yes, exactly! Major story, hard-hitting stuff.’ I was babbling now, words falling out all over the place.
Jacob rolled his eyes at me. Too far? ‘Hard-hitting’ was Derek’s new buzzword. Last week it had been synergy. God knows what delight awaited us next week.
‘Oh yes, what is this story, then?’ he probed, jabbing a straw through a carton of chocolate milk and taking a loud slurp.
‘Oh, it’s, umm—’
I wracked my brains, trying to think of something, anything .?.?.
‘It’s, err—’
‘The community centre,’ Jacob finished for me.
Derek frowned. ‘I thought you already did a piece on that last week?’
‘Mhmm, I did.’ I nodded slowly, shooting Jacob a warning look over the table. The last thing I needed right now was to spend more time in the presence of Luca Patel.
‘It was the most popular article on the website last week,’ Derek mused quietly to himself, stroking his non-existent jawline with his finger and thumb in a way that made my stomach heave with nausea.
‘And they’ve had their funding cut, haven’t they?
Must be in serious danger of closing?’ His eyes shone with the delight of a child being given a 99 on a hot summer’s day, no thought or care to the repercussions if the community centre did actually close.
I bit my tongue, swallowing the words that would 100% get me fired.