Chapter Three
After googling the weather in Monte Carlo (better than in London, unsurprisingly; sun likely, some light rain expected), I pulled clothes that might be in some way suitable out of my wardrobe and flung them into my suitcase.
The only good thing about Charlie moving out was that I now had every single inch of the flat’s limited storage space to myself.
Also, if he had still been here, he would probably have put a dampener on my upcoming trip by ranting about how disgusting it was that millionaires chose to live in Monte Carlo to avoid paying taxes in their home country, the subject of which was guaranteed to make him turn beetroot with indignation (and, no doubt, envy).
My phone pinged and I paused the packing to read an email from Ruby, Amanda Eddington’s very on-the-ball assistant over at Luxe.
She’d done a great job of organising my travel at short notice after I’d had a Zoom call with Amanda and she’d hired me on the spot, chirpily informing me I’d need to leave for Monaco three days later.
I was having to go from barely leaving the house to navigating travel to one of the most glamorous places in the world, not to mention somehow pulling off the biggest interview of my life.
At least it had forced me to get dressed and make a serious dent in my laundry.
I skimmed through my itinerary for the next few days, which was an exhausting-sounding list of activities including drinks meetings with LA talent agents, observing practice sessions at the Monte-Carlo Country Club and watching Marcus play live at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters tournament.
I sighed to myself, only about twenty per cent sure I was ready for any of this, but also aware that I essentially didn’t have a choice since this career-changing opportunity to write for the UK’s bestselling glossy magazine had presented itself to me out of nowhere.
Sort of, anyway, because obviously it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t shared a flat with Zoe in university halls and she wasn’t now my closest friend and biggest champion.
I wasn’t a fan of nepotism, but I was going to have to put my principles momentarily on hold because there was absolutely no way I could turn down the chance to see my byline on Luxe’s smooth, shiny pages.
I could already see myself flicking through the magazine’s November issue (Amanda wanted me to interview Marcus between April and July and follow him to four different tournaments) and landing on the piece I’d written – it was a dream come true.
I’d already decided that I’d be arranging the magazine conspicuously on my coffee table, permanently opened at my article so that I could look at it every single day.
It wasn’t about other people seeing it, or needing to be congratulated for it or anything like that; it would just be for me.
A reminder of how far I’d come. When I was growing up, being good at writing wasn’t considered a skill to be celebrated (nor were most things that involved my achievements), but I’d learned over the years to find small ways to be proud of myself.
And, as an added bonus, Luxe were paying well, and those gas and electricity bills were not going to pay themselves.
I did a quick sweep of my dressing table, zipped up my suitcase, checked all my electrics were switched off, watered my plants and gave myself a pep talk in the hallway mirror.
I can do this, I told myself, like a boxer about to enter the ring.
My confidence may have been knocked by the break-up, but somewhere deep inside me was a light burning bright with all the things I still wanted to achieve.
I am a great writer when I put my mind to it, I told myself, and I could be great again.
I stared my own reflection out: Marcus Taylor is not going to know what’s hit him!
A complete stranger (who’d better be seconds from missing his flight, because there could be no other acceptable explanation) rolled his size-of-a-house suitcase straight over my foot at speed, jolting me painfully out of the cocoon of isolation I’d been living in and leaving me fantasising about being back on my battered old sofa.
After my self-imposed solitary confinement, it felt all kinds of wrong to suddenly be surrounded by about three thousand other people barging around me with giant backpacks and tired kids as they tried to work out which queue to join to check in for their flight.
And the noise was deafening! I pushed my headphones into my ears as far as they would go and pressed play on my meditation app in an attempt to drown out the chaos.
How did I interact with people, again? And why was everyone so loud and talky, I wondered?
I sincerely hoped I wasn’t going to be stuck next to somebody chatty on the plane, because if so, I was going to have to pretend to be asleep for the entirety of the flight.
When my turn came, I dragged my suitcase up to the desk, handing over my ticket.
‘Good morning, madam,’ said the chirpy British Airways staff member behind the counter of the bag drop.
He punched some numbers into his computer, glanced up at me, smiled smugly to himself and returned his attention to his screen.
This was worrying – I hadn’t checked my passport before I left.
It wasn’t out of date or something, was it?
There was some new rule about having at least six months left on it, which I was sure I had.
‘Everything okay?’ I asked nervously.
‘Oh, it’s more than okay,’ he said mysteriously, handing something to me. ‘Your new ticket, madam. You’ll be sitting in business class for your flight with us today.’
‘Sorry?’ I asked, not quite understanding.
The man lowered his voice and looked at me conspiratorially. ‘We’ve upgraded you,’ he said, looking exceptionally pleased with himself.
I instinctively glanced down at my outfit – perhaps it was the Sézane skinny jeans and black polo-neck combo that had done it. Clearly, this screamed ‘money’. Either that or they were oversubscribed in economy, and I was the best of a bad bunch.
I motored through security, boycotting my planned trip to Boots and heading straight for the Galleries First Lounge because I doubted I’d be doing the whole business-class thing ever again and did not want to miss a second of the luxury I hoped was about to ensue.
I paused and took a moment just inside the doorway; it was everything I’d imagined and more, from the delicious-looking food being whisked past on silver trays to the horseshoe-shaped bar that wouldn’t look out of place in a five-star hotel.
It was a definite step up from the plastic seating area by Starbucks I usually frequented at Heathrow Terminal 5.
I casually checked to see if there were any celebrities around – discovering what famous people got up to when they were off-duty was my number one guilty pleasure, although the fact that they mostly managed to look stunning even when emerging from the gym with zero make-up on and sweat-soaked hair had been getting to me of late.
It seemed to be mostly men in suits in here, anyway.
The type of guys who made unnecessarily loud phone calls while pacing up and down the middle of the room to make sure that everyone knew exactly how important they were.
I made a beeline for the bar. If the alcohol was free, I was going in, early hours of the morning or not.
I needed something to calm my nerves, because this job felt huge and I had a sneaking suspicion that Marcus Taylor was going to make it very difficult for me.
I ordered myself a glass of champagne and, as I watched it being poured, I considered whether karma might have been at play here; whether somebody somewhere had known I could do with a bit of a boost and had answered my prayers in the form of an upgrade, just when I needed it most.
I stayed seated on a stool at the bar because it gave me an excellent vantage point over the entire lounge and it was easy to order more drinks if I wanted them.
The first person I wanted to tell about this stroke of luck was Charlie, a thought I’d had often since he’d left.
When stuff happened – when I read something funny, or learned something interesting, or I had good news, or bad news, Charlie was the first person I wanted to call, even if towards the end even he had been a bit funny whenever I had something positive to report.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, except that I knew he was having a hard time at work – his school had had a bad Ofsted report and all the parents were up in arms. Maybe it was stress that had killed our relationship in the end, then, which felt easier to accept than it having anything to do with me as a person.
Like, maybe I wasn’t enough for him, or something.
Or that in the end he’d got sick of my struggling writer routine and my volatile family dynamics.
It was sad, really, that after so long together we hadn’t even had a proper conversation about why things had ended.
I fired off a quick message to Mum – I supposed I ought to let her know I was going to be out of the country for a few days.
Instead of texting back, she rang me immediately. Why, why, why? If I’d wanted to talk to her, I would have called, wouldn’t I?!
‘What do you mean, you’re going away with work. What work?’ she said, sounding offish.
‘A writing assignment, Mum,’ I said. ‘For Luxe magazine. You know, where Zoe works?’
She made a strange gurgling sound. ‘Explain!’
I sighed. I purposely hadn’t told her about the job in case something went wrong, like I found I couldn’t write anymore and was unceremoniously fired by a vengeful Amanda Eddington.