David was standing by Anna’s desk. ‘Oh good, you two have met. That saves me a job. Anyone need a coffee?’
14
YES
Tuesday 5 June 2007
Anna was starting to think about leaving the office when Ellie appeared in front of her desk, looking flustered.
‘What’s up?’ Anna asked.
Anna liked Ellie. They got on well, had a similar sense of humour. She enjoyed having lunch with Ellie or chatting about books or films. But when it came to work, Anna found Ellie massively frustrating. She had a big blind spot when it came to organisation, and it grated on Anna because Ellie had been promoted twice while Anna had stayed in the same role they’d both started in.
‘I’ve fucked up,’ Ellie said.
Anna tilted her head, raised her eyebrows. ‘What? What’s happened?’
‘You know I’ve been organising a bookshop tour for that reality star, Nina?’
‘Yes…’
‘I’ve somehow messed up the dates. Shegave us a list of dates when she’s filming, and I thought it was the list of dates she was free, and I’ve booked all these slots in bookshops and sent her the schedule, and she’s furious. Says she can’t do any of them.’
Anna remembered the day Nina had come into the office. She was one of those celebrities who’d come from nothing but now believed she was owed everything. Anna had made her a cup of tea and she’d looked at it in disgust and said ‘too weak’, then stared until Anna had walked off and started again. When she’d left, Deborah had declared Nina was the worst star she’d ever had to work with, but she was hopefully going to make the company a lot of money. And now this.
‘So what are you going to do? Does Deborah know?’
Ellie looked close to tears. ‘I can’t tell her. I sent some proofs out to people who’d already had them last month and Deborah was furious about the waste. She can’t know about this.’
‘So how have you left it, with Nina?’
‘I said I’d sort it. I need to call the bookshops, see if we can shift things around. And I was hoping…’
Anna knew what Ellie was hoping. She was hoping that Anna would help her. And Anna would. And then later, she’d moan to Edward about how unfair it all was. About how she wouldn’t have made the error in the first place, let alone dragged anyone else into the fixing of it.
‘Let’s split the list,’ Anna said. ‘But listen, show me the dates she can do and the dates she can’t. I need to be really clear. We can’t have any more mistakes.’
Ellie nodded. ‘Thank you so much, Anna. I won’t forget this.’
Anna went over to Ellie’s desk and they sat together, heads close, checking and double-checking what Nina had said in her emails, which bookshops had been booked for when, and they came up with a plan.
Anna was on her fourth phone call when her mobile beeped and she saw a message from Edward.
‘I’m picking up the boys tonight. Meet us at Phaedra’s at seven.’
Anna read it a couple of times. Phaedra’s was their favourite Greek restaurant. But why would Edward have booked them in there on a weeknight? And why was he getting the boys? He never left work early enough to pick them up. She started to type a message to him asking various questions, and then she deleted it, typed ‘Okay…’ instead, and carried on with her work. It was coming up for six. She had time to make a few more calls.
When she reached the end of her list, Anna went back to Ellie’s desk. Ellie was just ending a call.
‘Done,’ Anna said. ‘She’ll have to double back on herself a bit at this point’ – Anna pointed to where she’d had to swap around the order – ‘but it’s all within the same county.’
Ellie put a hand to her chest. ‘I don’t know how to thank you, seriously. I thought I was going to lose my job.’
‘I need to go,’ Anna said. ‘Family dinner. See you tomorrow.’
Ellie stood up, came around her desk to the front. She was a little too close, and Anna wanted to step back.
‘Thank you, really,’ Ellie said, pulling Anna in for a hug. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’
