‘Serena said he will be working through Christmas Day. He’s a workaholic at the best of times but he’s really behind on this book for some reason. I don’t know. I’ll be shoved into the maid’s room and he’ll send me pages, which I have to copy-edit, and then I’ll send them over to her to check my work and so she can look at the structure – which is the reverse of the way we usually do things. Then I have to send them to the proofer, who will send them to the typesetter. The turnaround is so tight I don’t even think it can be done, but Serena said there are two hundred people relying on me not to join the unemployment line.’
‘Then we will pause Christmas until after you’ve finished your work and you can come home.’
Eve could hear the disappointment in her mother’s voice but also her resilience. Donna Pilkins was the strongest woman she knew and her biggest cheerleader.
‘No, Mum, the boys would be devastated.’ Eve’s younger brothers, Gabe and Nick, were fifteen and gorgeous boys who defied the teenage clichés and were chatty, funny and engaged in everything in the family.
‘Dad is going to be furious,’ she said.
‘I’ll talk to him. We will work it out, pet; we always do,’ Donna said cheerfully and Eve knew she meant every word.
The last time Serena Whitelaw had pulled something similar was when she said Eve couldn’t have a day off to head to Leeds to see her grandmother before she died. Eve’s father, Sam, was ready to call in the transport workers’ union and go on strike from driving buses until Eve was allowed to return home.
Donna had talked him down but Sam never forgave Serena, especially when her grandmother died without seeing Eve.
‘It will be okay, Mum,’ said Eve, trying to take some of her mother’s strength.
‘Of course it will, Eve. It’s Christmas. Things are always okay at Christmas. Just wait and see.’
Eve hung up from the call and stared at her phone when she saw a text come through from Serena.
Where the hell are you? I need coffee and a tampon immediately. In that order.
Eve pretended to hit her forehead with her phone and she closed her eyes and thought a silent wish.
All I want for Christmas is a new job and to see my family. I promise I won’t kill Serena and I will stop drinking wine on weeknights and getting takeaways. And I will be a better person and stop smoking when I drink wine and I will take my makeup off every night.
She opened her eyes as a text message sounded.
Hello? Have you fallen in? I’m under-caffeinated and bleeding.
This is a dire combination.
Eve sighed. Christmas couldn’t come fast enough, especially if it delivered her wish.
*
Zara was waiting for Eve with a large glass of wine at the door of their shared flat.
Eve took the wine as she shrugged off her coat and dropped it onto the chair in the hallway and did a double take at the size of the glass and the measure of rosé.
‘Does it come with a goldfish?’ she asked and then took a gulp.
‘After your day, I figured you needed it,’ said Zara. ‘Everyone was talking about it around the office – Serena is truly the worst.’
Zara worked with Eve at Henshaw and Carlson, but Zara was in the publicity department and seemed to know everything before anyone else in the company. Zara had moved up from intern to junior publicity coordinator within a year and now was a publicity manager who looked after commercial books. Edward Priest’s next book would be on her list to promote, not that it would be hard to sell into the stores or to his avid reader base, but Eve had no doubt that Zara would push harder than anyone else on selling the book.
Eve kicked off her shoes and shoved her feet into her favourite Christmas slippers, which were stuffed reindeers complete with two light-up noses if she pressed a little button on the side of each slipper. She lifted her feet and switched on the nose lights. She needed all the cheer she could tonight.
‘Anita is getting us a curry and we can sit and bitch about Serena all night if you like.’
Eve smiled at her best friend. They had met at work but Zara was loyal and kind and always gave quality fashion advice. Anita, their other housemate, was Zara’s friend from school who was a junior architect at a large firm and who had just been put onto a huge project team for a new skyscraper.
It seemed everyone around Eve was on their way up and she was stuck being Serena’s slave.
Anita arrived with their dinner and they ate the fragrant food while sitting around the coffee table, sharing naan bread and the rest of the wine.
‘And what happens if you don’t go?’ asked Anita.
